HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
Translated by
PHILIP R. AMIDON, SJ
Creighton University
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS
Washington, D.C.
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS
All rights reserved
Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia, Books 10 and 11 Translated with notes by Philip R. Amidon, S.J. (1997) extracts (c.27,000w) from pp. vii–xii & 3–112 By Permission of Oxford University Press
© 1997 by Philip Amidon
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Eusebius, of Caesarea, Bishop of Caesarea, approximately 260–approximately 340, author. | Rufinus, of Aquileia, 345–410. | Amidon, Philip R., writer of added commentary, translator.
Title: History of the church / Rufinus of Aquileia ; translated by Philip R.Amidon, SJ, Creighton University.
Other titles: Ecclesiastical history. English Description: Washington, D.C. : The Catholic University of America Press, [2016] | Series: The Fathers of the church, a new translation ; volume 133 | Translated into English from Rufinus’s Latin translation; originally written in Greek. | Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Identifiers: lccn 2016022644 | isbn 9780813229027 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: lcsh: Church history—Primitive and early church, ca. 30–600.
Classification: lcc br160.e5 e5 2016 | ddc 270.1—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022644
THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH
A NEW TRANSLATION
VOLUME 134
EDITORIAL BOARD
David G. Hunter
University of Kentucky, Editorial Director
Andrew Cain
University of Colorado
Brian Daley, S.J.
University of Notre Dame
Mark DelCogliano
University of St. Thomas
Susan Ashbrook Harvey
Brown University
Robert A. Kitchen
Sankt Ignatios Theological Academy
William E. Klingshirn
The Catholic University of America
Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.
Fordham University
Rebecca Lyman
Church Divinity School of the Pacific
Wendy Mayer
Australian Catholic University
Trevor Lipscombe
Director, The Catholic University of America Press
FORMER EDITORIAL DIRECTORS
Ludwig Schopp, Roy J. Deferrari, Bernard M. Peebles,
Hermigild Dressler, O.F.M., Thomas P. Halton
Carole Monica C. Burnett
Staff Editor
Preface of Rufinus to the Continuation
AAAd Antichità altoadriatiche
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt.
Antiq. Josephus, Antiquitates Iudaicae
Athan., Dokument Athanasius Werke 3.1: Dokumente zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites, ed. Christoph Brennecke, Uta Heil, et al. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007
Baldini A. Baldini, “Problemi della tradizione sulla ‘distruzione’ del Serapeo di Alessandria,” Rivista storica dell’antichità 15 (1985): 97–152
Barnes T. D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius. ...
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About History of the ChurchRufinus of Aquileia’s History of the Church, published in 402 or 403, is a translation and continuation of that of Eusebius of Caesarea. Eusebius’s history tells the story of Christianity from its beginning down to the year 325; Rufinus carries the story forward to 395, the year of the death of Theodosius I. Rufinus demonstrates both a superb understanding of Eusebius’s text and a tendency to translate it freely or even to misrepresent it when he judges that it does not do justice to the unity of faith and order which he is convinced is an essential element of the church’s constitution. He excises and rewrites passages liberally, but he retains in his translation Eusebius’s revolutionary citation of sources, a historiographical method which would eventually prove so fruitful in the literature of the Latin church. Despite the changes he felt he had to make in his translation, he was deeply influenced by Eusebius’s original when he composed his continuation. Just as Eusebius begins with a statement of Christian faith and a demonstration of its existence beyond the bounds of the Roman empire, continues with the story of its mission, persecution, divisions, and salvation despite its deprivation and suffering, and concludes with its secure establishment by the devout emperor Constantine, so Rufinus continues the story with the statement of faith of the Council of Nicaea, the account of its spread outside the Roman empire, the divisions and persecutions it suffered in his own time, and finally the victory over paganism of the orthodox emperor Theodosius. Rufinus’s history was an immediate success. It was the first Latin Christian history, and as such it exerted great influence over his own generation and for a thousand years thereafter when the general ignorance of Greek in the Latin church made Eusebius’s original practically unavailable to it. |
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