Section 17 (Page clxiii)
S. IHENJEUS.
clxiii mentioned, and the author of the Qu. et Resp. ad Orthoapplied e"°T' doxos, as also the later statement of Gregory of Tours, and certain Martyrologies.
The fact that Tertullian, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Ephrem Syrus, Augustin, Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria, as well as these early Syriac fragments, and the existing Latin MSS., excepting the Cod.
Voss., all withhold from Irenaeus the title of Martyr, will be con sidered by many to be a convincing proof that it does not correctly belong to him ; a conclusion in which they cer tainly will not be shaken by the reasoning of the Benedic tine editor.
The active part that Irena;us took in the Paschal question in the closing years of the second cen
tury, justifies the supposition that he may have lived through the first five or six years of the third; when he would have attained, according to the supposition above, to an age of between seventy and eighty years.
It has already been shewn that the work of Irenaeus, c. Hcereses, must have been written between a.d. 182 and
; i. e. between the fifty-fourth and sixtieth years of life ; and the vigour, judgment, and experience that it displays, well agrees with this supposition.
It was written in Greek; the Latin version, and the Syriac fragments, con tain abundant internal evidence of a Greek origin.
This language was adopted possibly, a3 Massuet says, because the friend at whose request it was undertaken was a Greek, but more probably because the Greek language was at that time more 1cecumenic than the Latin ; also, the Valentinian and Marcionite heresies that it meets, were far more destructively spread in the East and at Alexandria than in the West.
There can be little doubt but that its title was that assigned to it by Eusebius, it. 'eXeyxov ku\ dvarpoTrtji t^s ^evSwvvfxov yvwaews.
Andreas of Cresarea, John of Damascus, Photius, CEcumenius, and the Syrian 1 Thus
HrPFOLYTUB,
though Bishop of the Port of Romp, also chose the Greek language as his medium.
clxiv WHITINGS OF Latin Fragments, all quote the work under the same title, ^er81onand the author himself indicates it in several passages as the work proceeds.
The ancient MSS. of the Latin Version designate it either as, Redargutio et Eversio falso cognominatoz Agnitionis, or as, Exprobratio et Eversio falsce Agnitionis.
The short title, Contra Hcereses, is that by which it is now more usually known.
Of the Latin Version it is sufficient to say, that the Celt who made it was in every way inferior to the work that he undertook ; independently of the barbarisms and solecisms with which his style abounds, he frequently is totally unable to catch his author's meaning.
The servile fidelity that he evi
dently aimed at, as the translator's highest perfection, is in some degree compensative, and a literal transfusion into Greek often proves the most satisfactory guide for the solution of obscure passages.
The translator's blunders in the Latin, as well as his frequent misappreciation of the Greek, induce the suspicion that neither of these classical languages was vernacularly known to him, but that the words of his original were truly descriptive of himself, as both born and bred ev fiapfiaptp &a\e/cT<j>.
The antiquity of this version makes it invaluable ; internal evidence per suades the judgment that Tertullian wrote his Treatise c. Valentinurn, after a.d. 199, with this version before his eyes ; Massuet's comparison of the two texts in his second Dissertation is very convincing ; when the translator trips, Tertullian also stumbles; and too many minute peculiari ties of nomenclature and style are found to agree in both, to be the result of accident.
'Cyprian possibly, and *Augustin certainly, copied this version.
The recovery of the Syrian fragments that are found at the close of the work, gives colour to the supposition advanced by the Benedictine 3editor, that a Syriac version 1 Ep. ad Pompeium (tie Cerdone).
8 Sunt qui putant, nee improbaliliter, * C. Julian. Pelag. I.
3, 7. prceter Latinam quirit/ut Iremei lihrorum
S. IRENiEUS.
may formerly have been in existence.
The general simiSvriae larity of extracts occurring in duplicate and triplicate m™fs. copies, points to one single original; and the high antiquity of many of the codices in which they occur, is not con sistent with the suspicion that they may have been copied and recopied from isolated quotations.
The extracts how ever are before the public, and we may be content to leave the question to be settled by the discoveries of a future generation.
These Syriac fragments also indicate a subdivision of the Books, that gives a general confirma tion to the Latin headings of the Arundel MS., as shewn in the present edition.
The 'Syriac subdivision very pro
bably agreed with that indicated by Procopius, who quotes the passage that refers to Adam's tunica pellicea, III. xxxv.
(Tom. ii. p. 128), as being found in the 59th section of the third Book.
The names of a few other treatises by Irenseus, and some scattered fragments, have come down to us.
His Epistle to Florinus, also known by the title ir. t>}s /xovapX'a?> 4 t« too firj eivat tov Qeov ttoiijti^v kclkwv, has perished, with the exception of the small portion preserved by Eusebius, and found among the fragments in the second volume.
Florinus appears to have so insisted upon the unity of the Deity, as to have made him the author of evil, a position never yet assumed by any heresy.
The treatise caused Florinus to change his ground, and he took refuge in the Valentinian hypothesis; upon this, Irenseus, who appears to have had a degree of regard for the offender from ancient recollection, wrote the 2work it. ti/s oySodSos, against the Valentinian Ogdoad.
The solemn adjuration interpretationem, alteram, Syriacam ex-
Compare Syr.
Fragm.
V. XV. stititx.
Nam Ephrem Diac.
Edeesenus Vol. n. pp. 435, 443. qui Grave netciebat, integrum ex Lib. I.
1 h <? koI iiriaTinalveTai rty Ttparif/ (p. 67, v. Syr. Fragm.) locum extcriptit, twv djroeriXwv KaTeCKri<t>b/a.i lavrhv 5iointeruitque cap. vm.
Tr. de Virtute. iox/p'.
Eus. H. E. V. 20.
Mass. Diss. cm.
clxvi WHITINGS OF Opuacula. to successive scribes at the end, has alone been preserved from it by Eusebius.
An extract from an Epistle from Irenseus to Victor, upon the lapse of Florinus, who was one of the presbytery of the Roman Church, is found among the Syriac fragments.
The Paschal controversy caused the production of the treatise ir. tou a-^iaixaro^, addressed to Blastus, 'an Alex andrian apparently, who was a friend and co-presbyter with Florinus, but sided with the Asiatics as regards the Paschal controversy ; as the Libellus added to the Prcescriptio of Tertullian asserts: Blastus latenter Judaiemum vult introducere; Pascha enim dicebat non aliter custodiendum
esse, nisi secundum legem Moysi, xiv. mensis.
Theodoret says that he lapsed into Valentinianism with Florinus, but he misunderstood the words of Eusebius, who simply says *that they fell simultaneously, each subsiding into his own peculiar form of error.
The third of Pfaff's fragments seems to have been taken from this 'treatise.
Another treatise, ir. tj/s eirioTrifxris, is also mentioned by 4Eusebius, and named in one of the Syriac fragments, which specifies also that it was directed against the Valentinian heresy.
This indicates plainly the omission of aXXos re in 4Eusebius; and SS. Jerome confirms the emen dation ; for the Syriac gives some notion of the nature of the treatise ir. eirio-Tq/jiris, and shews that it was no refuta tion of pagan, but of Gnostic, and more especially of Valentinian, error.
6The first of the Pfaffian fragments may be referred to this treatise.
The same two writers 1 See Syriac Fragm. XXVII.
* rpbt "EWijuai \6yos ovrropwraTos * £y rryeiTo QXaplvos, Trpefffturepiou xal ra /idXtora avayKOiSraros, (dXXos iKK\n<rlas airoirfo'wi'.
BXairrAs re <ri>»» re) irepi 'EttwttJ/hjs eriyeypappiyos. tovtu irapairXrialip irrii/tart Kare<rxv Kai dXXos 6v afariOeucey &&c\<p<jl p-tvor ot kb.1 rXeiovs rfft ixxXrijlas repiMapKiaiHp roivopa, els diroSeifu' tou Akoctcs ivl to atp&v uwTjyov ^ovXrfpa' awoffroXiKOv Krip&yparos.
H. E. V. 26.
Odrepos ISlws Ttpl rty i\v$eiav vcorrc5 Contra Gentet volumen breve, et de pifew reipwpevos.
Eus. H. E. V.
15.
Disciplina aliud.
Hiebon. Catal.
Scr.
* Gr. Fragm. XXXVII.
» See Gr. Fragm. XXXV.
IRENiEUS.
clxvii also have recorded, that Irenseus dedicated a treatise Opuscula. to Marcianus, most probably on the principal articles of the Creed, it being upon the Apostolical Preaching, a term frequently applied to the early symbol of faith ; such a relic would have been of rare value if it had descended to us.
Two of the 'fragments published by Feuardent, and the *second and fourth of Pfaff, may have been taken from this work.
Eusebius again speaks of certain 'miscellaneous dissertations, in which the author makes mention of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and of the Book of Wisdom.
It was in all probability a collection of sermons and exposi tions of various texts and passages of Scripture; and under
this head we may rank the various Greek fragments that indicate a commentary upon portions of the historical books of Scripture ; the Syriac fragment from an exposi tion of the Song of Songs ; the Armenian homily upon the sons of Zebedee, which may represent a genuine produc tion of Irenseus ; also the fragments edited by Cramer and Miinter ; and the last, from the Vienna collection.
It may be added, that the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Wisdom are mentioned, not as forming the main subject of these &aXe£W, but because the latter was universally classed with ecclesiastical, i. e. apocryphal works, and the * former was not received universally as canonical.
The 1 Greek Fr. V. VI.
Calh.
I. 476, as did S. Athanasiub, ib.
» Ibid. XXXVI. XXXVIII.
46s, and Roffinus, ib.
580.
But S.
* jSi/3Xfor ri SioXcf lav btaipbpuv, iv JEROME gays in his Epistle to Paulimis, <f rijt Tpbs 'Efipalovs IrurroKrp koL rrp Paulas Apostolus ad septem EccUsias \eyop4rns 2o^io5 2o\cyu2>Tos pant/toscribil, (octava enim ad Jlebraos a pievcfei. Ib. — KuFFlNUSrenderedJiaXef^w risque extra numerum ponUur).
Find, as Dialogue; Jerome, as Tractatus, but Cath.
486.
Auqdstin confines Sia\tyta0ai is to preach; Eus. H. E. these doubts to the Latin Churches, Ad VI. 19 ; and the Homilies of Origen are Hebraos quoque Epistola quamquam nontermed SiaX^fcts, ib.
36 ; a name given nullis incerta sit. ... nec movet auctoritas to them apparently by their author.
Ecclesiarum Orientalium, qua Jianc etiam See S. Basil, de Sp. § 73.
Vimd. Cath. in canonicis habent.
De Pecc. Mer. et 1. 438.
Rem. 50, ib. u. 36.
The variance may 4 The Council of Laodicea reckoned be traced to the absence of the Apostle's it among the Pauline Epistles, Vind. name, and certain expressions that were
clxviii WRITINGS OF Opuscula. main work of Irenseus contains no clear quotation from this epistle, that may certainly be referred to it; and for this reason perhaps, Eusebius, as fully believing its canoni cal authority, adduces Irenaeus, an unexceptionable witness upon a subject that had not passed unquestioned in Western Christendom.
Eusebius mentions no other works of Ire naeus, but 'his words seem intended to convey the notion, that other writings may have been extant in the West, that had not yet become known to him in Palestine ; accordingly his expression cannot justify the exclusion from our list, of works represented by fragments that have come down to us.
Such for example is the quota
tion from a treatise de Resurrectione Dominica, found in a n p. 460.468. Syriac, and, in an interpolated form, in an Armenian ver sion ; the high antiquity of the Syriac MS. in which this passage is found, and it was written a.d. 562, is to a cer tain extent a voucher for the genuineness of its original ; internal evidence shews that the longer extract in the Armenian contains a considerable interpolation, and that the Syriac is the most faithful to the lost Greek text.
Maximus quotes two detached sentences from a work to *Demetrius, de Fide, which is passed over in silence both by Eusebius and Jerome ; the Latin translation also of the fragment received by Feuardent from Faber, who obtained it from some collection now unknown, is from a Sermon ad Demetrium.
It is by no means unlikely that the treatise inscribed to Demetrius should both have been unknown to Eusebius when he wrote his history, and have become so rare in the time of S. Jerome as to have escaped his notice : its inscription to a deacon of Vienne, marks that it was of a purely elementary character, it was a supposed to favour the severe Donatist unknown in the Greek and Oriental view of the irremissible character of sin Churches. after baptism; a schismatical notion
fcai tA pin els Tifieripay iX06trra that was very troublesome in the West yvwaai twv Elpqralov roaavra. v.
16. and in Africa, but was comparatively 8 Gr. Fr. VI. VIL
S. IRENiEUS.
clxix guide-book perhaps for the catechetical instruction of the Opuscuia. young.
The silence therefore of these two writers is no conclusive evidence against these fragments, taken as they are from a work ir. ir'tareus, the very name whereby writ ings upon the elementary doctrines of the Christian faith were generally designated; I am inclined therefore to refer these fragments to some writing of minor import ance, that had chiefly a local application.
Irenaeus, on more than one occasion, declares his in tention to write a work 'against the Marcionite heresy, which was developing strength, while the other forms of Gnosticism were on the decline, in the last years of the
venerable Father's life.
Other matters, however, and none more probable than the duty of a more complete evangelization of Gaul, interposed, and we may safely say that the intention was never carried into effect
; for such a work would have had an unusual interest for Eusebius, and if published must have become known to him ; but he speaks of the promise as having led to no result : e-n-tjyyeXrai tie clutos ck twv Wapniwvos avyypaixfxarrwv dvTiXe}--
tSup crirovSasruaTi.
For the same reason the if eiv avrw notion entertained by many, that the account of the mar tyrs of Lyons and Vienne, transmitted to the Churches of Asia, was a production of the pen of Irenseus, hardly is worthy of credit.
It impossible to imagine that Euse is bius should have been ignorant of the authorship of so celebrated a document, or that he should have omitted to declare it, in transcribing the entire epistle in his History.
Reasons have already been assigned for supposing that Irenseus was at Rome during the heat of this persecution, and the epistle was evidently written by an eyewitness.
The same consideration may be urged against Massuet's surmise, that the fragment preserved by CEcumenius from Greek Fragment XIII.
Irenatxu, Marcion.
See Index •
clxx WRITINGS OF Pfaffian Irenseus, with reference to the answer of 1 Blandina to the heathen persecutor, was from this same epistle.
It was much more probably taken from the treatise npos 'EWnvas, setting forth the cruelties that the Gallican Church had suffered in times of persecution ; the moral argument for the truth of the Christian religion afforded by the con stancy of its martyrs ; the true idea also to be attached to Sacramental Communion, which Justin Martyr did not shrink from revealing in a similar way to the heathen.
The term 'EXXr/i/es would bear the wider meaning of hea then, both in the title of the Ireneean treatise, and in the fragment now under consideration.
Of the interpretation of the Apocalypse mentioned by S. Jerome, it is sufficient
to say, that he refers in all probability to the statements of the fifth book c. Hear, upon this portion of Scripture.
Photius moreover gives the title of a work De Universo, or de Substantia Mundi, ascribed by some to our author.
The fragment numbered XXXII. may with some proba bility be referred to this work.
A certain degree of mystery attaches to the three fragments edited from the Turin collection by Pfaff ; not at all however in consequence of any doubt that can affect the editor's account of how, when, and where he obtained them ; but by reason of the entire disappearance of the Codices from whence they were taken.
The fragments in question were published at the Hague a.d. 1715; in 1749 the 'catalogue of the Turin collection was printed, and its editors, after diligent search through various
Catena, could find no trace of them.
Without charging Pfaff with dis honesty of any kind, they ask the very natural question why he gave no reference to the class-mark of the Codex, 1 The martyrdom of Blandina gives airrris, k.t.\.
Ens. ff. E. v. i.
1 Catalogi MSS.
Bibl.
Reg. Taurian instance of wild beasts refusing to nensis Athensei.
Recensuerunt Jos.
Pasinus, 4c.
Taurin, 1749. injure female purity and helplessness;
S. IREN^US.
clxxi or the portion of Scripture to which the Catenae referred.
Fragmen t-3* They add that no Codex was missing from the list of the collection.
But the MSS. had passed through the binder's hands in the intervening years, and they suggest the pos sibility that some leaves might have been lost.
In 1752 Pfaff gave an account of his discovery in the N. Acta Eruditorum, published at Leipsic.
He found the MSS., as he says, neither classed nor marked, much less catalogued, but lying in great confusion, and very much as they had been seen shortly before by 'Mabillon; except that the printed books were now separate from the MSS.
But so little store was set by them, that a serious intention
was expressed by the Curator of getting rid of the entire collection, with the exception of a Tabula Isiaca, and the volumes of Pyrrhus Liyorius!
Pfaff then continues to tell his readers, that access was at first allowed, and permission given to make whatever extracts he pleased from these MSS. omnis generis, queis litem maxime sacrm augeri possint, but afterwards these facilities were restricted, (non amjilitis tarn liber ut antea fuit,) both as regards his own visits and those of Scip. Maffei.
It is perfectly incredible either that he should have forged these fragments, which, as he truly says, tarn amice cum impressis S. Irenad consentiunt, sua radiant authentica luce, or that he should have removed those MSS. from the collection, whose existence he was about to indicate by publishing portions of them.
Then, a comparison of his own notes of the collection with the printed catalogue shewed a considerable loss to the Library.
One lost work that he instances is Origen's Philosophumena, varia: lectiones from which he had for warded to 2 Wolf ; but it contained no more than the first 1 In Itin.
Ital.
§ 13.
Bibliotheea ctndium, quod multoa libroa corrupU. palatii innltia rtferta eat codicibua vari1 See Lemovnk, and Millkb's Pref. arum linguarum, aed qui in acervum to the Philoaoph. p. x. cum editia congcati aunt oh nuperum in-
clxxii WRITINGS OF Pfaffian book, now known under the well ventilated name of Hipmenfs. polytus; and the var. led. in question are noted in Miller's edition of the Philosophumena.
It is unnecessary to enter further into this curious his tory of the Fragmenta Anecdota, than to state that Maffei, who had a subsequent opportunity of visiting and inspect ing the collection, 'disagreed with Pfaff with respect to the genuineness of these fragments, but never denied their existence; they disappeared therefore after his second visit.
PfafF answered this critique from Tubingen, and with the exception of a second paper of Maffei, 1716, for many years he heard no more upon the subject of the Turin
MSS., until the Benedictine edition of Irenseus was reprint ed at Venice in 1734.
He was attacked in it upon other points; but his good faith as regards the existence of these Anecdota remained unimpeached.
The Fragments therefore are offered to the reader, as possessing *good external authority, and far more convincing internal proof of genuineness, than can always be expected in such brief extracts.
It may be added that the reader is indebted to the Spicilegium Solesmense of M. Pitra, for the Armenian extracts, the last that demand our notice.
I Qiornale de' Letterati di Italia.
Venet. XVI. Art. IV. p. 216. d.
Ditserlalio Apologetica, by two pupils of Pfaff; in vindication of the II Those who wish to know more genuineness of these Fragments, 1728. e.
The first epistle of F. M. Leoni, concerning the views entertained re from the VenetoBenedictine edition of Iren.«us, 1734. spectively by writers of the Roman Communion and Lutherans with re /. The second, from the same edi tion. spect to the important statements con tained in these Fragments, will find the g. The third, ibid. following original documents in the second volume of Stieren's edition, at None of these denj' the existence of the Fragments. p. 381, &c. : a. The first letter of Maffei, pubh.
Extract from the Editor's Pre face.
Catalog. MSS. BUI. Reg. Taurin.
.lished in the Giornale de' Letterati, 17 16. b. The answer of Pfaff, 17 16. i. Answer by Chb. M. Pfaff, 175 i. c. Maffei's second letter, 17 16.
S. IRENiEUS.
clxxiii Upon the doctrine of Irenaeus it is not necessary to Statements say many words.
With few exceptions, and those not at Eucharist, all dependent upon doctrinal discrepancies, the Articles _ of the Church of England might be illustrated singly from the statement of Irenseus.
The Index will enable each reader to do this for himself.
The subject of the Holy Eucharist . alone has given rise to expressions that need a few words of explanation.
First, I presume that a comparison of the several passages in the work c. Hceresea, that have reference to this subject, with the Fragment xxxvi., can throw no doubt whatever upon the genuineness of that Fragment;
they present the same Catholic object of Faith to us in two different phases.
In the work c. Hcer. the subject of the Eucharist is advanced in opposition to the views respectively, of the 'Marcionite, who denied that the (i) creation and the good gifts of God stored up in it, are the work of the Supreme Deity, or of the Divine Word and ; (11) of the Valentinian, who affirmed that they were a product of ignorance and abortion.
In either case there was great disparagement of the Creator's works and the ; author introduces the mention of the Eucharist in course of his argument, not that he may explain the nature of that Sacrament, but that he may illustrate his reasoning from the known Catholic teaching of the Church, that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.
How, therefore, should heresy declare that the Bread which Christ himself consecrated as His Body, and the Cup which He blessed as His Blood, are the creatures not of the Word, nor of God the Father, but of some sub ordinate Demiurge, half malignant and wholly ignorant?
No one, think, will read the statements noted below I See n. 104.
clxxiv WRITINGS OF statements 'without allowing, that this is the bearing that the author's mention of the Eucharist has upon his argument.
And further, both Marcionite and Valentinian agreed in saying that the Saviour's Body was phantasmal, that it was of a heavenly formation indeed, but that it received nothing from the Blessed Virgin beyond mere transmission.
But we know that our own bodies are substantial flesh and blood; we know, too, that the Bread and Wine, that by consecration become to us the very Body and Blood of Christ, nourish and strengthen us, to the increase of that bodily substance, that is so real in our own case ; how, therefore, can the notion that the Body of Christ is
phantasmal consist with the original terms of consecration, whereby it is said of the Bread and of the Cup, this is my
Body and this is my Blood?
It is quite necessary to bear in mind that the author is combating a purely Docetic view, by means of the traditional faith of the Church, that emanated confessedly from Christ himself, when we read his statement, that the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, nourishes, not merely the spiritual, but the bodily substance also of the believer.
The heavenly and the earthly are made one, we know not how, in that Divine Mystery, but each still continues to discharge its own proper and natural function.
That which is of the body is assimilated by the body, and in a purely natural way; that which is of the spirit goes to the nourishing and to the increase of the spirit.
On the whole, the view of the Eucharist put forth by Irenajus agrees with the twentyninth article of our Church, scarcely perhaps with the latter portion of the twenty-eighth.
In any case it should not be forgotten that an illustration may be very apt as helping the refutation of any particular heresy, and yet be far from edifying as an element of instruction.
The 1 n. 504— 208; 757; 318—320.
S. IRENiEUS.
clxxv teaching of the Church to her children is excellently set on the Kucharis forth in the few words of Fragment xxxvi., which it has already been conjectured may have been taken from a catechetical treatise de Prcedicatione Apostolica ; it exhi bits that other phase of a Catholic verity of which men tion was made above.