Tyrannius Rufinus

Rufinus or Rufinus of Aquileia Tyrannius ( * ca 345 in Concordia at Aquileia; † 411/412 in Messina, Sicily ) was a monk, historian, and theologian. He became famous for his Latin translations of Christian writings from the Greek, especially the works of Origen.

Life

Rufinus was born in 344 or 345 AD in Concordia at Aquileia. After studying in Rome, where he met Jerome, he returned to Aquileia and joined a monastery. To 372 he traveled to the Middle East, where he studied for some time at Didymus the Blind in Alexandria. From there he moved to Jerusalem and founded his own monastery. From 397 he lived in Italy again and finally died in late 411 or early 412, Messina in Sicily.

Work

Author

Around 400 Rufinus wrote documented a comment to the Apostles' Creed ( Creed Commentarius in apostolorum ), the use and interpretation of this confession in late antique Italy. His other works are mostly defenses against Jerome.

Translators from Greek

Rufinus translated the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea, and wrote a continuation of the historical work for the period of the reign of Constantine I. to the death of Theodosius I. (395 ), which in turn by the Greeks, Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen for their continuations of Eusebius ' work was recycled.

The Romans commentary by Origen has survived only thanks to an abridged translation by Rufinus, as Origen's theological masterpiece De principiis. After the former friends Rufinus and Jerome himself had divided, Jerome wrote at least three works against Rufinus, in which he fought his views and ensured the quality of his translations in question. This Zinner made even its own (now lost ) translation of De principiis against that of Rufinus, which he held for free too.

From Rufinus ' hand is also the translation of the pseudoclementinischen Recognitionen. Again, his version differs considerably from the Greek homilies.

The works of Flavius ​​Josephus were mostly also translated into Latin by Rufinus.