by Rufinus of Aquileia
translated by Phillip R. Amidon
Catholic University of America Press, 2017
Cloth: 978-0-8132-2902-7 | eISBN: 978-0-8132-2903-4
Library of Congress Classification BR160.E5E5 2016
Dewey Decimal Classification 270.1

ABOUT THIS BOOK | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Rufinus 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.