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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
Rufinus of Aquileia (c. 345-411 A.D.) is one of the most important Latin translators of Greek texts in Late Antiquity. In the summer of 397 A.D. he returned to the west, after some 25 years spent in Alexandria and Jerusalem. He brought with him a considerable library of Greek manuscripts. The first task he undertook—very shortly after his arrival—was to translate Basil of Caesarea's Asketikon, which became known in its Latin dress as the Regula Basili. This paper is dedicated to examining the translation techniques used by Rufinus in the Regula Basili.
1 Primary texts to which this study refers, with related terms and abbreviations are as follows:
Great Asketikon = Basil's revised and enlarged Asketikon, in Garnier's edition of the so-called ‘Vulgate’ recension, PGeà. Migne, J.P., vol. 31 (Paris: 1857), 889–1309Google Scholar.
LR = Longer Rules and SR = Shorter Rules, the two divisions of the Great Asketikon. Small Asketikon = the lost Greek text of the first edition of Basil's Asketikon. translated by Rufinus as the Regula Basili.
RBas = Regula Basili, in the edition of Zelzer, K., Basili Regula—A Rufino Latine Versa, CSEL 86, Vienna 1986Google Scholar.
RB = Regula Benedict! in the edition of RB 1980: The Rule of St Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, ed. Fry, T., Collegeville, 1980Google Scholar.
Secondary literature has the following abbreviations:
Gribomont = Gribomont, Jean, Histoire du Texte des Ascétiques de Saint Basile (Louvain: Muséon, 1953)Google Scholar.
Brooks = Brooks, E.C., ‘The Translation Techniques of Rufinus of Aquileia (343-411)’, Studia Patristica 18, 1982, 357–64Google Scholar.
Mitchell = Mitchell, S., ‘The Life and Lives of Gregory Thaumaturgus’, in Drijvers, J.M. and Watt, J.W. (eds.) Portraits of Spiritual Authority: Religious Power in Early Christianity, Byzantium and the Christian Orient, Leiden, 1999, 99–138Google Scholar.
Oulton = Oulton, J.E.L., ‘Rufinus's Translation of the Church History of Eusebius’, JThS, 30, 1929, 150–74Google Scholar.
Rist = Rist, J.M., ‘The Greek and Latin Texts of the Discussion on Free Will in De Principiis, Book III’, Origeniana ed. Crouzel, Henriet al., Bari, 1975, 97–111Google Scholar.
2 On the life and chronology of Rufinus see Murphy, F.X., Rufinus of Aquileia (345-411), His Life and Works, Washington D.C., 1945Google Scholar, and Fedalto, G., ‘Rufino di Concordia. Elementi di una biografia,’ Antichità Altoadriatiche 39, 1992, 19–44Google Scholar. On 91 Murphy presents the older view that the Regula Basili was a drastic abbreviation of the Great Asketikon. Contemporary scholars were already discarding such an approach: Laun, F., ‘Die beiden Reglen des Basilius, ihre Echtheit und Enstehung’, ZKG 44, 1924, 1–61Google Scholar, Dönie, H., Symeon von Mesopotamien, Leipzig, 1941, 452–453Google Scholar, and Clercq, Charles de, ‘Les Règles de saint Basile et leur traduction par Rufin’, Proche-Orient 1, 1951, 48–58Google Scholar.
3 See my article, ‘Edessa to Cassino: Rufinus as a Mediator of Basil's Asketikon to the West’, VChr 56 (2002) 247–59Google Scholar. I trace the ‘geographic thread’ linking the Greek text of Basil's Small Asketikon current in east Syria in the 370s with the Latin text used by St Benedict in Campania in the 540s. Rufinus describes the circumstances of his Latin translation in his Preface to the Regula Basili. The scenario seems to be that on his return from the east, he disembarked on the Tyrrhenian coast, perhaps at Puteoli, and began making his way by land to Rome intending to take the Via Appia. On reaching Terracina, where the Via Appia reaches the coast, he discovered a monastery of brothers at a place called Pinetum and was glad to break his journey with them. On sharing his enthusiasm for Basil and his Asketikon with the superior, Ursacius, the latter begged him to translate the work for the monks of the west. So Rufinus stayed at Pinetum and carried out the work. He then entrusted it to Ursacius to have it copied and disseminated. Rufinus resumed his journey to Rome, where in the Spring of the following year, 398, he translated Origen's 
On the location of Pinetum near Terracina, see Murphy, 90.
4 For useful summary studies, see Brooks, and Wagner, M., Rufinus the Translator, Washington DC, CUA, 1945, especially ch. 3, ‘Adaptation Procedures’, 29–64Google Scholar.
5 Oulton (n.1) 150, deplores Rufinus' approach: ‘But even when no temptation lay upon him, Rufinus transgressed the bounds of freedom which every translator must be expected to observe. It is not merely that he eschews the bald literalism of Aquila or the Latin translator of Irenaeus: he is continually taking unjustifiable liberties with his original. He omits, abbreviates, transposes, expands according to taste: and perhaps his favourite method is to produce a kind of paraphrase which gives the general sense.’
6 Translation is from the Latin given in Mitchell (n.l) 132. In this article Mitchell demonstrates that the translator of the anonymous Latin Life of Gregory was very likely Rufinus.
7 Much to Jerome's annoyance! Cf. his Preface to the 
(NPNF, ser. 2, voi 3, 427-8) and his Apologia against Jerome, , PL 21, cols 541-624, NPNF series 2, vol 3: Book 1, Ch 14,441Google Scholar; Ch 16,442, Ch 19,445; Book 2, Ch 8, 463 and especially Ch 27a, 472 where he commented on Jerome's Letter 57, insisting that he was only following the task set by Jerome himself and imitating his mode of translation—the same Jerome who had previously expressed contempt of verbatim translation and had added phrases to clarify relevant points.
8 ‘The aim of this paper … would be to identify and distinguish the worlds of thought in which Origen and Rufinus lived and to isolate substantial divergences between them’, Rist (n.1) 99.
9 Rist(n.1) 111.
10 Oulton (n.1) 152.
11 Oulton (n.1) has many examples, such as Rufinus' additions to the account of the martyrs in the Thebais and in Alexandria, deriving from an independent source (170). On 162 Oulton points out that Rufinus gives what is perhaps the most accurate description of the graphic layout of Origen's Hexapla in Late Antiquity, far superior to that of Eusebius' account—because he has evidently examined a copy himself. Mitchell also shows that additional material on Gregory Thaumaturgus inserted into the Latin translation of Eusebius' Church History derives from Rufinus' familiarity with Gregory of Nyssa's Panegyric and that Rufinus himself is very probably the translator of the anonymous Latin Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus.
12 E.g. the observations of Oulton (n.l) 162, on Rufinus' additions to the Church History on Origen's Hexapla: ‘Those most critically disposed toward Rufinus will hardly find fault with the clear and accurate account of the graphic layout of the Hexapla that Rufinus gives instead of translating Eusebius's vague sentence …. Here we have an independent description of the Hexapla, by one who had evidently seen it, which is corroborated by a fragment which is extant. It is superior to the account of Epiphanius and perhaps even to Jerome's: yet scholars do not seem to have given it the attention it deserves.’
13 ‘[Basil's] work is more moral in nature, fit for guiding souls toward the good life and for relieving them in their labour. In this also it possesses greater virtue in that the reading of it will be found most fitting for religious-minded women, and particularly for the admiring study of your lady wife, our daughter, for it is not burdened with questions of a dogmatic nature, but rather goes along as a most limpid stream, flowing softly and with sufficient calm’, Rufinus lo Apronianus, prefaced to eight of Basil's homilies translated for Avita, Apronianus's wife, PG 31, 1723BGoogle Scholar.
14 Rufinus' preface, however, shows how a Church Father was now being considered a source of authoritative teaching in his own right, an approved ‘way in’ to the Scriptures.
15 ‘Intelligent et fidèle, la version latine de Rufin se présente comme le meilleur témoin du texte bref, Gribomont (n.1) 237.
16 ‘Rufinus of Aquileia’ by Gribomont, J., in Quasten, J. (ed.), Patrology vol. IV: The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, tr. Solari, P., Allen, Texas, 1996, originally published Utrecht/Antwerp, 1963, 247-54 at 252Google Scholar. He adds, ‘it may be questioned whether this text enjoyed a certain authority with the monks in the monastery on the Mount of Olives’, a judgment I wholly endorse.
17 See n.18 below.
18 Even in Basil's lifetime there were at least two concurrent recensions of his Asketikon, one in Pontus, and one in Caesarea. This is made clear in the Scholia of the Vulgate recension. The Greek text is edited in Gribomont, 151-164 at 152-156. Scholien 5 is particularly illustrative:
‘The book from Caesarea has here and there its own text arranged differently from the manuscript coming from Pontus, as is the case here. This, 1 think, is the reason, that the great teacher was questioned now by monks at one time, now by others at another time and these were living in different places; so he, taking up his own manuscript and correcting it as he thought tit, gave it in this form to each to be transcribed for those who were questioning him’.
19 This text was borrowed in RB 32:10Google Scholar and became known as a classically ‘Benedictine’ idea.
20 Marti, H., ‘Rufinus's Translation of St. Basil's Sermon on Fasting’, in Studia Patristica 16, 1985, 418–22Google Scholar says ‘A second stylistic phenomenon is what I am tempted to call a mania of Rufinus for repeating translated terms’ (422).
21 According to Brooks, 360, Donatus at Rome had held that single words should be expanded, Ars Grammatica IV, ed. Keil, H, Leipzig, 1864, 395Google Scholar. For an authoritative Statement on amplificatio orationis, see Kühner, R. & Stegmann, C., Ausführliche Grammatik der Lateinischen Sprache, 3rd ed., vol. 2.2, Leverkusen, 1955, #10, 577–8Google Scholar. On Cicero's refusal of literal precision in translating Greek see also Poncelet, R., Cicerón traducteur de Platon, Paris, 1957, 46Google Scholar. Cf. also Quintilian, , Institutio Oratoria,> Butler, H.E. (tr.), 4 vols. London, 1953Google Scholar, amplificatio 4.3.15Google Scholar, congeries (= accumulano) 84.26–27Google Scholar, repetido 9.1.33–38, 2.4Google Scholar.
22 The English word derived from the Latin: ‘vice’ is somewhat inadequate as a translation.
23 ‘Many expressions are really a misuse of language …’, Clarke, W.K.L. LowtherThe Ascetic Works of St Basil, London, 1925, 249Google Scholar.
24 Multa dicuntur improprie , Latin translation by Gamier, , PG 31, 1119AGoogle Scholar.
25 The Septuagint text reads: 
26 See Rist (n.1) 105.
27 (LR 20.2Google Scholar). See Frank, Karl S. on Basil's monolropos bios in ‘Monastische Reform in Altertum: Eustathius von Sebaste und Basilius von Caesarea’, in Reformatio Ecclesiae ed. Bäumer, R., Paderborn/München, 1980), 35–49Google Scholar, especially at 43-7, ‘Die Einheit der Nachfolge Jesu’.
28 On four occasions he includes the actual original Greek word in his text: 
RBas 14:2Google Scholar (SR 157), 
RBas 41 :Q (SR 24:Q) and 
RBas 170:Q, 170:1 (SR 149). Twice he transliterates: mnas RBas 114:3 (SR 203) and eulogiam RBas 133.Q (SR 122), apart from other Greek words already imported into Latin such as zona (belt), in RBas 11 (SR 148).
29 The Greek text shows a doublet not present in the Latin text. Since Rufinus was unlikely to refuse a doublet freely offered, a later editorial insertion in the Greek text is strongly indicated.
30 E.g. Oulton (n.1) 156: ‘At any rate, in his translation of the History we can see how careful Rufinus was towards the end of his life—himself suspect of unorthodoxy and singed with fires of controversy—to avoid language to which exception might be taken.’
31 359.
32 Gribomont (n.1) 237.
33 Gribomont (n.1) 237.
34 On Rufinus' pastoral dispositions, see the citation at n. 13.
