Rufinus’ Historia monachorum in Aegypto and the Promulgation of Evagrian Ascetic Teaching
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Around 403 Rufinus composed his Historia monachorum in Aegypto, a Latin translation of Ἡ κατ’ Αἴγυπτον τῶν µοναχῶν ἱστορία (“Inquiry about the Monks of Egypt”). This Greek work, authored anonymously years earlier by one of the monks in his monastery on the Mount of Olives, chronicles the author’s months-long travels throughout Egypt, where he met notable monastic personalities and recorded for posterity their deeds and teachings. In rendering the Greek original into Latin Rufinus made certain amendments which point to possible reasons why he undertook this ambitious translation project. In this article I draw attention to amendments he made pertaining to the figure and teachings of Evagrius of Pontus and I argue that one of his principal authorial objectives was to promulgate and popularize the core principles of Evagrius’ ascetic mysticism among a western readership.
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3
So C.P. Hammond, “The Last Ten Years of Rufinus’ Life and the Date of his Move South from Aquileia,” JThS n.s. 28 (1977): 372-429 (394-395); A. de Vogüé, Histoire littéraire du mouvement monastique dans l’antiquité, 3: Jérôme, Augustin et Rufin au tournant du siècle(391-405) (Paris: Cerf, 1996), 317-320.
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9
See P.R. Amidon (trans.), The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia, Books 10 and 11 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 3-4. Cf. H. Crouzel, “I prologhi di Rufino alle sue traduzioni di Origene,” in A. Scottà (ed.), Storia ed esegesi in Rufino di Concordia (Udine: Antichità Altoadriatiche, 1992), 121-124.
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13
C. Moreschini, “Rufino traduttore di Gregorio Nazianzeno,” AAAd 31 (1987): 227-285.
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15
E.C. Brooks, “The Translation Techniques of Rufinus of Aquileia (343-411),” StudPatr 17 (1982): 357-364; H. Hoppe, “Rufin als Übersetzer,” in A. Gemelli (ed.), Studi dedicati alla memoria di Paolo Ubaldi (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1937), 133-150; C. Lo Cicero, “Φρόνηµα σαρκός: Tertulliano e Rufino,” in M.S. Celentano (ed.), Ricordo di Maria Laetitia Coletti (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2002), 295-311; M.M. Wagner, Rufinus the Translator. A Study of his Theory and his Practice as illustrated in his Version of the Apologetica of St. Gregory Nazianzen (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1945); F. Winkelmann, “Einige Bemerkungen zu den Aussagen des Rufinus von Aquileia und des Hieronymus über ihre Übersetzungstheorie und –methode,” in P. Granfield and J. Jungmann (eds.), Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten (Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1970), 532-547.
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37
See P.W. van der Horst, Woestijn, begeerte en geloof. De Historia monachorum in Aegypto (ca. 400 na Chr.) (Kampen: Kok, 1995), 85 n. 143: “Kennelijk wil de auteur van ons verhaal laten zien dat zijn held Helle wél kon wat volgens de bijbelschrijver niet kon.”
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47
D. Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1979), 172-177.
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48
C. Kurzewitz, Weisheit und Tod. Die Ätiologie des Todes in der Sapientia Salomonis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 40.
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56
R.A.B. Mynors (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis Opera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 103.
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66
See e.g. Isidore, orig. 1.36.10: Epizeuxis in uno sensu congeminatio verbi, ut “sic sic iuvat ire per umbras” (Virgil, Aen. 4.660); cf. H. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik (Munich: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1960), § 617.
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Cain, The Greek Historia monachorum, 245-59. For scholarly discussions of Evagrius’ ascetic theory, see e.g. K. Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory: Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009); R.E. Sinkewicz (trans.), Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), xxi-xl. The finer points of Evagrian theology have recently been analyzed by A. Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); see also E.A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 43-84.
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See Guillaumont, Un philosophe, 242-253; C. Stewart, “Evagrius Ponticus and the Eight Generic Logismoi,” in R. Newhauser (ed.), In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2005), 3-34.
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91
See A. Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 30-42, 144-167; R.J. Goodrich, Contextualizing Cassian: Aristocrats, Asceticism, and Reformation in Fifth-Century Gaul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 32-116. On ascetic experience as a form of practical wisdom, see Athanasius, v. Ant. 39.1; Gregory of Nazianzus, orat. 16.20.
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92
See G. Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 26-87; A. Louf, “Spiritual Fatherhood in the Literature of the Desert,” in J.R. Sommerfeldt (ed.), Abba: Guides to Wholeness and Holiness East and West (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1982), 37-63.
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101
Evagrius, Chapters on Prayer 4. On God as “mind” or “thought” in Evagrius, see J. Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), 53-54.
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105
E. Amélineau, De Historia Lausiaca quaenam sit huius ad monachorum Aegyptiorum historiam scribendam utilitas (Paris: Leroux, 1887), 115; cf. Socrates, hist. eccl. 4.23.
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113
J.E. Bamberger (trans.), Evagrius Ponticus: The Praktikos, Chapters on Prayer (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1981), 51; Guillaumont, Un philosophe, 128; Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus, 184.
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114
See O. Zöckler, Evagrius Pontikus: seine Stellung in der altchristlichen Literatur- und Dogmengeschichte (Munich: Beck, 1893), 25-26 n. 37.
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122
F.X. Murphy, Rufinus of Aquileia (345-410): His Life and Works (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1945), 227.
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132
Jerome, epist. 133.3; cf. S. Driver, John Cassian and the Reading of Egyptian Monastic Culture (London: Routledge, 2002), 53-58; A. Guillaumont, Les ‘Képhalaia Gnostica’ d’Évagre le Pontique et l’histoire de l’origénisme chez les Grecs et chez les Syriens (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1962), 79-80; B. Jeanjean, Saint Jérôme et l’hérésie (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1999), 395-396.
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133
B. Ramsey (trans.), John Cassian: The Conferences (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), 19. On Cassian’s understanding of this concept, see further A. Casiday, “Apatheia and Sexuality in the Thought of Augustine and Cassian,” svtq 45 (2001): 359-394.
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136
H. Delehaye, Les légendes hagiographiques (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1905), 2; A.G. Elliot, Roads to Paradise: Reading the Lives of the Early Saints (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1987), 3.
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138
See D. Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); J. Roldanus, Le Christ et l’homme dans la théologie d’Athanase d’Alexandre: Étude de la conjonction de sa conception de l’homme avec sa christologie (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 277-348; Roldanus, “Die Vita Antonii als Spiegel der Theologie des Athanasius und ihr Weiterwirken bis ins 5. Jahrhundert,” Th&Ph 58 (1983): 194-216.
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139
J.A. McGuckin, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 373.
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141
See Cain, Letters of Jerome, 68-98; Cain, “Rethinking Jerome’s Portraits of Holy Women,” in A. Cain and J. Lössl (eds.), Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings, and Legacy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), 47-57; Cain, Jerome’s Epitaph on Paula, 23.
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Rufinus’ Historia monachorum in Aegypto and the Promulgation of Evagrian Ascetic Teaching
In: Vigiliae ChristianaeSearch for other papers by Andrew Cain in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Around 403 Rufinus composed his Historia monachorum in Aegypto, a Latin translation of Ἡ κατ’ Αἴγυπτον τῶν µοναχῶν ἱστορία (“Inquiry about the Monks of Egypt”). This Greek work, authored anonymously years earlier by one of the monks in his monastery on the Mount of Olives, chronicles the author’s months-long travels throughout Egypt, where he met notable monastic personalities and recorded for posterity their deeds and teachings. In rendering the Greek original into Latin Rufinus made certain amendments which point to possible reasons why he undertook this ambitious translation project. In this article I draw attention to amendments he made pertaining to the figure and teachings of Evagrius of Pontus and I argue that one of his principal authorial objectives was to promulgate and popularize the core principles of Evagrius’ ascetic mysticism among a western readership.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 698 | 54 | 2 |
| Full Text Views | 377 | 2 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 334 | 10 | 5 |
