RUFINUSTykannius (Turkanius, Toranus), the well-known contemporary of Jerome, was born at or near Aquileia about the year 345. In early life he studied rhetoric, and while still comparatively young he entered the cloister as a catechumen, receiving baptism about 370. About the same time a casual visit of Jerome to Aquileia led to the formation of a close and intimate friendship between the two students, and shortly after Jerome’s departure for the East Rufinus also was drawn thither (in 372 or 373) by his interest in its theology and monasticism. He first settled in Egypt, hearing the lectures of Didymus, the Origenistic teacher at Alexandria, and also cultivating friendly relations with Macarius and other ascetics in the desert. In Egypt, if not even before leaving Italy, he had become intimately acquainted with Melania, a wealthy and devout Roman matron, who since the death of her husband had devoted all her means to religious and charitable works; and when she removed to Palestine, taking with her a number of clergy and monks on whom the persecutions of Valens had borne heavily, Rufinus ultimately (about 378) followed her. While his patroness lived in a convent of her own in Jerusalem, Rufinus, in close cooperation with her and at her expense, gathered together a number of monks in a monastery on the Mount of Olives, devoting himself at the same time with much ardour to the study of Greek theology. When Jerome came to reside at Bethlehem in 386 the friendship formed at AquiIeia was renewed. Another of the intimates of Rufinus was John, bishop of Jerusalem, and formerly a Nitrian monk, by whom he was ordained to the priesthood in 390. In 394, in consequence of the attack upon the doctrines of Origen made by Epiphanius of Salamis during a visit to Jerusalem, a fierce ...quarrel broke out, which found Rufinus and Jerome ranged on different sides; and, though three years afterwards a formal reconciliation was brought about between Jerome and John through the intervention of third parties, the breach between Jerome and Rufinus remained unhealed.
In the autumn of 397 Rufinus embarked for Rome, where, finding that the theological controversies of the East were exciting much interest and curiosity, he published a Latin translation of the Apology of Pamphilus for Origen, and also (398-399) a somewhat free rendering of the 7rept αρχών of that author himself. In the preface to the latter work he had referred to Jerome as an admirer of Origen, and as having already translated some of his works; this allusion proved very annoying to the subject of it, who was now exceedingly sensitive as to his reputation for orthodoxy, and the consequence was a bitter pamphlet war, very wonderful to the modern onlooker, who finds it difficult to see anything discreditable in the accusation against a Biblical scholar that he had once thought well of Origen, or in the countercharge against a translator that he had avowedly exercised editorial functions as well. Some time during the pontificate of Anastasius (398-402) Rufinus was summoned from Aquileia to Rome to vindicate his orthodoxy, but he excused himself from personal attendance in a written Apologia pro fide sua ; the pope in his reply expressly condemned Origen, but leniently left the question of Rufinus’s orthodoxy to his own conscience. In 408 we find Rufinus at the monastery of Pinetum (in the Campagna?); thence he was driven by the arrival of Alaric to Sicily, being accompanied by Melania in his flight. In Sicily he was engaged in translating the Homilies of Origen when he died in 410.
The original works of Rufinus are—(1) De Adulterations Librorum Origenis— an appendix to his' translation of the Apology of Pamphilus, and intended to show that many of the features iu Origens teaching which were then held to be objectionable arise from interpolations and falsifications of the genuine text; (2) De Benedietionibus XII Patriarcharum Libri II,— an exposition of Gen. xlix.; (3) Apologia s. Inveetivarum in Hieronymum Libri II ; (4) Apologia pro Fide Sua ad Anastasium Pontifieem ; (5) HistOria Eremitiea- consisting of the lives of thirty-three monks of the Nitrian desert; (6) Expositio Symbolk The Historise Eeclesiasticx Libri XI of Rufinus consist partly of a free translation of Eusebius (10 books in 9) and partly of a continuation (bks. x. and xi. ) down to the time of Theodosius the Great. The other translations of Rufinus are—(1) the Instituta Monaehorum and some of the Homilies of Basil; (2) the Apology of Pamphilus, referred to above; (3) Origen’s Principia ; (4) Origen’s Hornilies (Gen.-Kings, also Cant, and Rom.); (5) Opusnda of Gregory of Nazianzus; (6) the Sententiae of Sixtus, an unknown Greek philosopher; (7) the Sententiae of Evagrius; (8) the Clementine Recognitions (the only form in which that work is now extant); (9) the Canon Pasehalis of Anatolius Alexandrinus.
Vallarsfs uncompleted edition of Ruflnus (vol. i., fol., Verona, 1745) contains the De Benedictionibus, the Apologies, the Expositio Syrnboli, the Historia Erernitiea, and the two original books of the Hist. Eeel. Sec also Migne, Patrol. (vol. xxi. of the Latin series). For the translations, see the various editions of Origen, Eusebius, &c.
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