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RUET, ru-6t', FRANCISCO DR PAULA: Spanish Protestant; b. at Barcelona Oct. 28, 1826; d. at Madrid Nov. 18, 1878. After a meager education he became a strolling player, and about 1841 abandoned Roman Catholicism for Waldensian teachings at Turin, where he prepared himself for the ministry. The revolution in 1855 rendered it possible for Ruet to reenter Spain, and he preached for a month at Barcelona. He was imprisoned, first by the governor, and again by the captain general, and the political reaction a few weeks later rendered it possible for the bishop of Barcelona to cite him before the spiritual court, which, after he had been in prison seven months, sentenced him to the stake for heresy. As such a sentence could no longer be executed in Spain, it was changed, Sept. 18, 1856, to perpetual banishment. Forming a small Protestant community among the Spaniards at Gibraltar, where Ruet was ordained by a Waldensian committee, he made it a center for the dissemination of Protestantism in Spain. Intercepted by the rigid watch on the Spanish border, Ruet left, and first preached to his countrymen during the London exposition, and later went under the auspices of a French committee to Algiers, working among the thousands of Spaniards there, as well as in Blidah and Oran. At the liberation of Spain in 1868-69, he returned and founded the Protestant church at Madrid. The French committee being no longer able to assist him after 1870, Ruet entered the service of the German missionary society and labored zealously in a chapel purchased for him in 1874 by German friends. (FiuTZ FLIEDrrERt.)

RUFINUS, ru-fai'nus, TYRANNHIUS: Latin ecclesiastical writer; b. near Aquileia, in Venetia, at the head of the Adriatic, about 345; d. in Sicily about 410. He seems to have obtained his education at Rome, and in 370 or 371 received baptism in a monastery at his native place; at this time he was a friend of Jerome. He left Aquileia probably in 373 for Egypt bent on the practise of asceticism, and, some think, in company with a certain Melania, a rich Roman lady, who, enamored of the ascetic life, devoted her property to the service of the saints of Christ. He visited the celebrated hermits of the Scetic and Nitrian deserts and was there during the time of persecution under Lucius, the Arian bishop, opponent of the Alexandrian Patriarch Peter, meanwhile studying under Didymus the Blind of Alexandria (q.v.). Possibly in 379 he went to Palestine and settled on the Mount of Olives and devoted himself to ministrations to the pilgrims to the place. Not long before 394 he was made presbyter by Bishop John of Jerusalem. In the dissension between John of Jerusalem and Epiphanius of Salamis, Rufinus took the side of John, an action which interrupted his friendship with Jerome, though this was once more cemented. When he returned home again, it is not impossible that Melania was again in his company, though the expression in a letter of Paulinus of Nola (in CSEL, xxix. 246, 1), in which Ru&nus is called " attendant on the spiritual journey of Melania," is susceptible of another interpretation. Rufinus appears next at the cloister of Finetum near Terracina, where at

the wish of the Abbot Ursacius he adapted the rules of Basil in Latin for the monks. A certain Macarius desired him to translate the works of Origen. He translated the first book of the Apology (for Origen) by Pamphilus, and followed this with a translation of Origen's Peri arch6n, the first draft of which he completed in 398 or 399. Rufinus saw that this engagement with the works of Origen might bring him into disrepute, especially at a time when Origen was not in favor; yet at the urgency of Macarius, he carried the work through. The unfinished manuscript, according to the report of Rufinus, was purloined and sent to Jerome by some friends of the latter, who at once set to work on a translation which should show the inadequacy of that of Rufinus, accompanying the transmission of this with a long letter (no. lxxxiv., Eng. transl. in NPNP, 2 ser., vi. 175-181); Jerome also wrote a letter to Rufinus (no. lxxi., Eng. transl., ut sup., p. 170), which was suppressed by the false friend, who took advantage of the absence of Rufinus; meanwhile Rufinus was under deep suspicion on account of his supposed leaning toward Origenism. Rufinus learned of Jerome's letter and wrote to a friend at Rome, Apronianus, not for publication, however, in sharp terms against Jerome; Pammachius and Marcella, the friends of Jerome, learned enough of it to send a report of the writing to Jerome. The latter then wrote the first two books of his " Apology " answered by a letter to Jerome, who then wrote the third book of the " Apology." Rufinus spent most of the remaining years of his life in Aquileia, and added new friends to the old who still stood by him, to some of whom he dedicated further labors in translation and original work. With old age he desired to visit again the holy places, but got no farther than Sicily when he died.

The dispute with Jerome brought a shadow upon Rufinus' life in the Church. Pope Gelasius held that while Rufinus' books contained much good, Jerome's estimate must stand (MPL, lix. 75); but Gennadius praised him (De vir. ill., xvii.) and his Latin. Of independent works may be named, besides the two books against Origen's " Apology," the continuation of Eusebius' " Church History," covering the period 324-395, which is valuable in spite of its defects; Commentarius in symbolum apmtolorum, the earliest treatment of assured date in Latin dealing with exposition of the symbol, but dependent upon Cyril of Jerusalem; De benediotionibus patriarcharum, in which the mystical interpretation rules, written at the request of a Paulinus, probably not Paulinus of Nola. Concerning the translations made by Rufmus it is to be remembered that he never strove to give an exact rendering. He translated numerous exegetical works of Origen (Homilies on Gen.-Num., Josh., Judges, Psalms, and the Song, and the commentary on Romans); he saved for us the Peri arch6n; the " Apology " of Pamphilus he called De adulteratione librorum Origenis, really the title of the preface, screening himself with the suspicion that the heretics had interpolated or changed Origen's statements. In the translation of the Dialogus de recta fide he is adjudged more faithful to his text than in the other works of Origen. Greater congeniality