literary.
1. TYRANNIUS or TURRANIUS, or TORANUS, as the name is variously written, must have been born about the middle of the fourth century, but neither the precise date nor the place of his nativity can be determined with certainty, although some of his biographers have confidently fixed upon A. D. 345, for the former, and Concordia, near the head of the Adriatic, as the latter. After he had attained to manhood he became an inmate of the monastery at Aquileia, where, upon acquiring a knowledge of the principles and rites of Christianity, he received the sacrament of baptism, in 371 or 372, from the hands of the presbyter Chromatius. At this epoch also he formed that close intimacy with Hieronymus which was long maintained with great mutual warmth, but eventually most rudely dissolved. Having conceived an eager desire to visit Palestine, Rufinus set out, almost immediately after his admission into the Church, for Syria, in the train of Melania, a noble, wealthy, and devout Roman matron, and remained in the East for about twenty-six years, passing a portion of his time at Alexandria, where he enjoyed the instructions of Didymus and other learned fathers; and the rest at Jerusalem, where he took up his abode with the monks on the Mount of Olives, making frequent excursions, however, in different directions, in company with Melania, to whom he seems to have acted as spiritual adviser and almoner. During the earlier part of the above period he maintained a most affectionate correspondence with Jerome, who had retired to the desert between Antioch and the Euphrates, and although they met once only (in 385), their friendship continued uninterrupted up to 393, when bitter strife arose. Both had been warm admirers of Origen, and this admiration had been expressed in the most emphatic terms by Jerome, in the preface to his translation of the Homilies upon the Song of Solomon. But when the doubtful tendency of many of the theories involved in the imaginative orientalisms of Origen began by degrees to be more clearly discerned, and when the cry of heresy, first raised by Theophilus, became loud and strong, Jerome, eager to escape all suspicion of adherence to such errors, vehemently supported Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, in his attack upon John of Jerusalem, by whom Rufinus had been ordained a presbyter, and to whom he was warmly attached. The seeds of enmity planted by this controversy were cherished into vigour by the characteristic heat of Jerome, whose denunciations of his fonner companion became, by quick degrees, more and more fierce and unsparing; but before the quarrel had ripened into inextinguishable hatred, its progress was checked by the interposition and explanations of honest friends, and a solemn reconciliation took place at Jersalem, on Easter day, A. D. 397.
In the autumn of the same year Rufinus embarked for Italy, along with Melania, and having been hospitably entertained by Paulinus [PAULINUS], at Nola, betook himself from thence, without visiting the metropolis, to the monastery of Pinetum. Hither multitudes flocked for the purpose of making inquiries with regard to the ceremonies and liturgies of the sister Churches of the East, the rules of the most celebrated coenobitical fraternities, the Greek ecclesiastical writers, and various other points upon which one who had been so long resident in Asia and Egypt would be capable of imparting information. The intelligence thus obtained proved so interesting, that the learned traveller was earnestly solicited to gratify curiosity still further, by translating into Latin some of those productions to which he had been in the habit of referring most frequently. With this request, not foreseeing the storm he was about to excite, he willingly complied, and accordingly published translations of the Apology for Origen by Pamphilus. and of the books of Origen Περὶ ἀρχῶν, together with an original tract De Adulteratione Librorum Origenis, while in the preface to the De Principiis, either from a wish to avoid any misconception of his own views, or from some feeling of lurking malice, he quoted the panegyric pronounced by Jerome upon Origen, of which we have made mention above. The appearance of these works produced a violent ferment. Pammachius and Oceanus represented the transaction in the most unfavorable light to Jerome, whose wrath blazed forth more hotly than ever; all attempts to bring about a better understanding served only, from the bad faith of the negotiators, to feed the flame; a bitter correspondence followed, which was crowned by the Apologia of the one ad versus Hieronymam, and the Apologia of the other ad versus Rufinum.
Soon after the commencement of the dispute Rufinus retired to Aquileia, and during the life of Siricius, was steadily supported by the pontifical court. But, upon the elevation of Anastasius, he was summoned by the new pope to repair to Rome, for the purpose of answering the charges preferred against his orthodoxy : this mandate, however, he evaded, and, instead of appearing in person, transmitted an Apologia, in which he explains his real views, and altogether disavows any participation in the dangerous doctrines imputed to him by his enemies. Anastasius replied by an epistle, in which he condemned, most unequivocally,the tenets of Origen, and censured indirectly the rashness of his translator, without, however, seeking further to disturb him in his retreat. After the death of Anastasius in 402, the flames which had raged furiously for upwards of three years, gradually became more faint, and at length expired altogether, Rufinus