Rufinus of Aquileia: History of the Church by trans by Philip R. Amidon, SJ (review)

Philip Amidon has already translated Epiphanius's massive Panarion. (from Greek) and Cyril of Alexandria's Festal Letters. (from Greek). He had previously published a translation from Latin of the additional two books that Rufinus of Aquileia added to his Latin translation of Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History. Amidon's former translation is incorporated in a revised and updated form in this new English translation of the entirety of Rufinus's Latin translation of Eusebius.

In the Introduction Amidon summarizes the career of Rufinus of Aquileia (345–411) and narrates the Origenist controversies with great skill and brevity. The request to translate Eusebius's Church History. was made by St. Chromatius of Aquileia (on whom Pope Benedict XVI gave a Wednesday audience). Amidon has saved students work by noting and discussing Rufinus's alterations of Eusebius. Amidon does not do this exhaustively (unfortunately), but the work overall will aid students in understanding how Rufinus interprets for his Latin audience the meaning of Eusebius's Greek formulations. One essential point is that Rufinus clearly views Eusebius as a proto-Nicene and not a proto-Arian (as the later Jerome viewed Eusebius). Rufinus translates Greek language that could easily be read in a subordinationist sense as equivalent with Nicene orthodoxy (for example, see p. 27, n. 23; p. 34, n. 38). Amidon summarizes the tendency as follows:

For him [Rufinus] the one faith of Christianity is that declared by the Council of Nicaea of 325, whose creed and canons are the final documents he cites in his history. Their crowning place at the beginning of his continuation suggest their sufficiency as the constitution of the church. All passages of even the mildest subordinationist flavor in the original version of Eusebius's history are overwritten with a broad pro-Nicene nib

(pp. 8–9).

Rufinus conceals any evidence of change in doctrine or discipline in the Christian faith (see p. 53, n. 91). Whereas Eusebius does speak of a church united in doctrine and practice throughout its generations, Rufinus tries to accentuate the unity by muffling any hint of alteration in faith and order throughout the Christian centuries among those in communion with reputable bishops. Amidon notes additionally that Rufinus tends to accentuate the divine punishment of the Jews (p. 98, n. 1). He downplays the status of women in comparison with the original (p. 193, n. 12). He copies out Tertullian's original Latin directly instead of back-translating Eusebius's Greek renderings (p. 94, n. 84). When rendering Eusebius's discussion of canonical and disputed books of Scripture, Rufinus is not strictly faithful to Eusebius's wording but sometimes modifies it (pp. 250, n. 38; 263, n. 74).

Probably the most important modifications are found in Bk 6 and pertain to Origen's biography. I discussed these alterations in some detail in my Erasmus's Life of Origen. Amidon sheds much light too. I wish his translation would have appeared ten years ago! Examples are found on pages 235, n. 2, and 243, nn. 20 and 23. Sometimes Rufinus clarifies material that was left unclear in Eusebius, for instance, pertaining to the arrangement of the Hexapla. (p. 253, n. 43). Sometimes Rufinus adds accurate historical information from Origen's letters to supplement Eusebius's texts (p. 258, n. 54). Rufinus fills in Eusebius's report of persecution with language taken from Pliny (p. 132, n. 92).

The importance of Amidon's translation should be obvious. It was Rufinus's Latin translation of Eusebius that was known in the West during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Erasmus for instance used it when composing his biography of Origen (1536). The modifications to the original were not really discovered or publicized until the modern era when John E. L. Oulton rendered Eusebius into English in the Loeb series. Now, thanks to...