Tyrannius Rufinus, also called Rufinus of Aquileia, was a monk, philosopher, historian, and theologian who worked to translate Greek patristic material, especially the work of Origen, into Latin.
Rufinus Aquileiensis
Origen of Alexandria, also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential and controversial figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism. He has been described as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".
Representation of Origen writing, from a manuscript of In numeros homilia XXVII, c. 1160
portrait by Guillaume Chaudière (1584)
While in Jericho, Origen bought an ancient manuscript of the Hebrew Bible which had been discovered "in a jar", a discovery which prefigures the later discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the twentieth century. Shown here: a section of the Isaiah scroll from Qumran.
Dutch illustration by Jan Luyken (1700), showing Origen teaching his students
