191 



RUFINUS, LICINIUS. 



RUFUS. 



192 



Ruffo was a man of ability and accomplishments. He was worldly 

 and, lax in principles, by no means fanatical or cruel; and the atrocities 

 which disgraced his otherwise romantic expedition of 1799 cannot be 

 justly attributed to him, although he may be blamed for not reckoning 

 on them before he put himself at the head of the insurrectionary 

 movement. 



Contemporary with this Ruffo, there was another Cardinal Ruffo, 

 of another branch of the same family, who was long Archbishop of 

 Naples. 



(Petromasi, Storia delta Spcdizione del Cardinal Ruffo ; Colletto, 

 Storia del Rcame di Napoli; Coppi, Annali d' Italia; Sketches of 

 popular Tumults.) 



RUFI'NUS, LICINIUS, a Roman jurist, who lived under Antoninus 

 Caracalla (A.D. 211-217), whom he mentions once ('Dig.' 24, tit i. s. 41). 

 He was also consulted by Paulus ('Dig.' 40, tit. 13, s. 4). There are 

 seventeen excerpts in the Digest from a work of Rufinus entitled 

 Regularia. The Florentine Index mentions only twelve books of this 

 work, and the superscription ' Lib. xiii.' in a passage of the Digest 

 (42, tit. 1, s. 34) may be a mistake. (Zimmern, Geschichte des Rom. 

 Privatrechts, i. 382.) 



RUFI'NUS, also called TORANUS, a priest of Aquileia, and accord- 

 ing to some writers a native of that place, was born about the middle 

 of the 4th century. He embraced a monastic life, and lived at first in 

 a monastery at Aquileia, where he devoted himself to the study of the 

 Scriptures and of the Greek and Roman fathers. During this time he 

 became acquainted with St. Jerome, who was for a long time most 

 sincerely attached to him. Rufinus subsequently visited Egypt, where 

 he formed the friendship of St. Melania, who was celebrated in the 

 church for her works of charity and love. He afterwards went to 

 Palestine, where he encountered the opposition of the Arians, who 

 banished him to the most desolate part of the country. He was ran- 

 aomed however by Melauia, and returned with her to Jerusalem, where 

 he built a monastery on Mount Olivet, and lived for many years. 

 During his stay at Jerusalem he translated some of Origen's works, by 

 which he offended his former friend Jerome, who attacked him in his 

 ' Apology.' To this work Rufinus wrote a reply, in which he main- 

 tained his own orthodoxy and defended himself by appealing to the 

 example of Jerome, who had formerly praised and also translated 

 some of Origeu's works. This controversy excited a great stir at the 

 time, as both writers were of high reputation and had many partisans. 

 The Western Church however was generally opposed to Rufinus, and 

 on his return to Aquileia he was cited by Anastasius, the bishop of 

 Rome, to appear before him ; and on his not doing so, his writings 

 were condemned, and he was deprived of his rank as presbyter at 

 Aquileia. He subsequently retired to Sicily, where he died about the 

 year 410. 



Rufinus translated into Latin the works of Josephus ; the ' Eccle- 

 siastical History ' of Eusebius, to which he added two books continuing 

 the history to the death of Theodosius ; the books of Recognitions 

 attributed to Clement ; several of Origen's works, with the first book 

 of Pamphilus's ' Apology ' for Origen ; the ' Orations ' of St. Gregory 

 Nazianzen ; the ascetical rules of St. Basil ; and a few other smaller 

 treatises of the Greek fathers. The translations of Rufinus are rather 

 paraphrases than strict aud literal versions. Besides these translations 

 Rufinus wrote two books in reply to St. Jerome, which have been 

 already mentioned ; an ' Apology ' to Anastasius, bishop of Rome ; an 

 ' Explanation of Jacob's Blessing ; ' a ' Commentary upon Hosea, Joel, 

 and Amos ; ' and an ' Explanation of the Apostles' Creed,' a work 

 which is considered by modern theologians of considerable importance, 

 as it contains a complete catalogue of the books of the Old and New 

 Testament. 



The opinion of Du Pin upon the literary and theological merits of 

 Rufinus is just and impartial : "It must be acknowledged thatltufinus, 

 though very ill used by St. Jerome, was one of the ablest men of his 

 time. Perhaps he had not so much learning as St. Jerome, but his 

 temper was better and less violent. He doth not write such good 

 Latin, but his style is more even. It cannot be denied that the Latin 

 church is indebted to him for the knowledge of the most considerable 

 among the Greek authors, and particularly of church history. Though 

 he was accused of divers errors, yet he was convicted of none, and he 

 justifies himself sufficiently from the reproachful objections made 

 against him." 



The works of Rufinus were published by Sonnius in 1 vol. folio, 

 Paris, 1580. 



(Du Pin, A New History of Ecclesiastical Writers, vol. ii., pp. 107- 

 111, transl. ; Lardner, Credibility of the Gospel History, vol. iv., p. 482, 

 London, 1831, and the references there given.) 



RUFUS, or RUPHUS (Pottyos), commonly called Rufus Ephesius, 

 from the place of his birth, is said by Abu-1-fara (' Hist. Dynast.,' p. 

 59) to have lived in the time of Plato, about four hundred years 

 before Christ ; John TzetzeT calls him the physician to Cleopatra, who 

 died B.C. 30 ('Chil.,' vi. ; 'Hist.,' 44, v. 300, p. 104); but Sprengel 

 ('Hist, de la Mod.') and most modern authors follow Suidas in 

 placing him in the reign of Trajan, about the beginning of the 2nd 

 century after Christ. He is sometimes confounded with Menius 

 Rufus, the inventor of several compound medicines, who however 

 must have lived long before the reign of Trajan, as he is quoted by 

 Andromachus (Galen, ' De Compos. Medicam. sec. Loca/ lib. vii., torn. 



xiii., cap. v., p. 92), who was archiater to the emperor Nero. Nothing 

 is known of the events of his life, except that he wrote several works, 

 of which the titles are preserved by Galen and Suidas, and three are 

 still extant. 



The first consists of four books (the second book however is merely 

 another version of the first) entitled Tlepl Oi/ofiatrias TUV rov AvOptairov 

 Moptuv, ' De Appellationibus Partium Corporis Humani,' which are 

 chiefly valuable for the information they impart concerning the state 

 of anatomical science before the time of Galen. His principal object 

 in this work was to give a general idea of anatomy, and particularly 

 to prevent the medical students of his time from making mistakes in 

 reading the ancient authors, who do not always call the same parts 

 of the body by the same name. From what Rufus says in this book 

 (p. 33), we find that all the anatomical demonstrations were made 

 upon beasts. (Compare Theophilus, ' De Corp. Hum. Fabr.,' lib. v., 

 cap. ii., who says, " choose an ape for dissection, if you have one ; if 

 not, take a bear ; and if you have not a bear, take any animal you can 

 get.") He considered the spleen to be absolutely useless (p. 59). We 

 find also in the same book, that the nerves now called recurrent were 

 then quite recently discovered. " The ancients," said Rufus (p. 42), 

 called the arteries of the neck /copam'Ses or KapwrtKoi, because they 

 believed that when pressed hard, the animal became sleepy and lost 

 its voice ; but in our age it has been discovered that this accident does 

 not proceed from pressing upon these arteries, but upon the nerves 

 contiguous to them." He shows that the nerves proceed from the 

 brain, and he divides them into two classes, those of sensibility and 

 those of motion (p. 36), though, like Cclsus ('De Medic.,' lib. vii., 

 cap. 18, p. 413, ed. Argent.), he reckons (p. 41; compare p. 43) 

 among them the cremaster muscle. (Julius Pollux, himself a con- 

 temporary of Galen, gives also the name of vevpa. to the ligaments 

 which unite the bones : ' Onomast.,' lib. ii., cap. 5, segno. 234, p. 2G5.) 

 According to Sprengel (' Hist, de la Med.'), he was the first to describe, 

 though very imperfectly, the commissure of the optic nerves at the 

 height of th'e infundibulum, and the fibres which they receive from 

 the brain, (p. 54.) He clearly describes the capsule of the crystalline 

 lens by the term v/j.rjv tpanaetSris, ' lenticular membrane.' (p. 37.) He 

 considered the heart to be the seat of life, and noticed that the left 

 ventricle is smaller and thicker than the right, (p. 37.) This work 

 was first published in a Latin translation, by J. P. , Crassus, with 

 Aretreus, Venet., 4to, 1552. 



The next work of his that remains is a valuable little treatise, Tlepl 

 rwv ev Nfcppois Kal Kva-rfi UaBuv, ' De Renurn et Vesica Morbis,' in 

 which however there is nothing that requires particular notice here. 

 The third is a fragment, Tlepl T&V ^apjj.a.Kdiv KadapriKui/, 'De Medica- 

 mentis Purgantibus.' 



These three works were first published in Greek, by J. Goupyl, 

 Paris, 8vo, 1554. There is an edition by Clinch, Greek and Latin, 

 4to, Lond., 1726, which is not of much value. The most complete is 

 that by Matthsei, 8vo, Mosq., 1806, Graece, in which he has supplied, 

 from a manuscript at Moscow, several fragments that had never before 

 been published. A Latin translation of Rufus is inserted in the 

 ' Medicoc Artis Principes,' by H. Stephens, fol., Paris, 1567. Some 

 Greek fragments are to be found in the fourth volume (pp. 198-200) 

 of the collection of ' Classic! Auctores e Vaticanis Codicibus editi,' 

 published by Angelo Mai, 8vo, Romse, 1831. C. G. Kiihn published 

 Lips., 1831, ' Rufi Ephesii de Medicam. Purgant. Fragm. e Cod. Paris, 

 descript. ; ' and F. Osann wrote a dissertation, ' De Loco Rufi Ephes. 

 Med. ap. Oribasium servato, sive de Peste Lib.,' Giss., 1833. There 

 are also several fragments preserved by Oribasius and Aetius and 

 among the rest the formula for the composition of a celebrated medi- 

 cine called 'Hiera' (Oribas., 'Synops.,' lib. iii., pp. 121, 122), which 

 appears to have been a common name among the ancients, for what 

 may be called patent medicines, as Aetius has inserted in his compila- 

 tion (Tetrab. i., serai. 3, cap. 114) the formula of one called, after 

 the celebrated Archigenes, ' Hiera Archigenis.' A Latin version of a 

 treatise on the Gout attributed to Rufus was published by Littrd in 

 the 'Revue de Philologie,' vol. i., 1845; and, with less apparent 

 reason, a treatise on the Pulse in Greek, with a translation in French 

 by C. Daremberg, 8vo, Paris, 1846. 



Haller is inclined to attribute to Rufus (' Biblioth. Botan.,' torn, i., 

 p. 108) an anonymous fragment of one hundred and ninety Greek 

 hexameter verses, Ilepj Poravuv, ' De Viribus Herbarum,' which was 

 first published in the Aldiue edition of Dioscorides, 4to, Venet., 1518, 

 p. 231, &c., and which is inserted by Fabricius, with Greek scholia 

 and a Latin translation and notes, by J. Rentorf, in his ' Bibliotheca 

 Grseca,' torn, ii., pp. 629-61 (old edit.) Fabricius and others have also 

 been of the same opinion. Hermann, on metrical grounds ('Orphica,' 

 8vo, Lips., 1805, pp. 717, 750, 761, &c.), determines the writer to have 

 lived some time between Manetho, the author of the a.iroTf\rfj.a.TtKd > 

 and Nonnus, the author of the ' Dionysiaca ; ' but this date is suffi- 

 ciently vague. Rufus certainly composed a poem in Greek hexameters, 

 Hepl Po-ravuv, in four books, which is mentioned by Galen (' De 

 Facult. Simplic. Medic.,' lib. vi., Pnefat., torn, xi., p. 796, ed Kiihu), and 

 of which he quotes a few lines (' De Compos. Medic, sec. Loca,' lib. i., 

 cap. 1, torn. xiL, p. 425) ; but this is supposed by Choulant (' Haud- 

 buch der Biicherkiinde fiir die Aeltere Mediciu,' 8vo, Leipzig, 1828) 

 to have been quite a different work from the fragment now spoken of, 

 chiefly on the ground that so scientific and sensible a physician as 



