Section 1
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.
■■f In preparing for the Syndics of the Cambridge Uni versity Press this edition of the Works of S. Irenaeus, it has been deemed advisable to collate afresh the two
most ancient representatives of the Latin translation; the Clermont and the Arundel MSS., both of which are in England.
The former is one of the gems of the rich collection of Sir Thomas PhiUipps at Middlehill; the second, as the property of the nation, is in the British Museum.
The result of these collations has shewn that Grabe and Massuet performed their work with fidelity; not many readings of importance having es caped their observation.
The Clermont MS. upon which principally Massuet formed his text, is fairly written in an Italian hand of the 'tenth century; pos it, sibly however two transcribers were employed upon imagined, from a second hand being observable, as is it fol.
189 to 274.
The entire MS. in good preserva is defective at the end, and exhibits is tion, though it
occasional omissions from careless copying, with more a Those who are conversant with The Clermont MS. an early produc-
is tion of the transitional period, early European MSS. will agree that it It ends abruptly near the comdifficult to judge of the period in * is which writing was executed, before the mencement of V. xxvi. tenth century, but easy after the twelfth.
iv THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.
1hiatus, in the Fifth Book.
The editor lengthened gladly takes this opportunity of returning his most grateful thanks to Sir Thomas and Lady Phillipps, for the kindly hospitality that relieved the tedious work of collation of much of its irksome character.
The Arundel MS. is in a bold Flemish hand, and is of later date than the Clermont MS. by perhaps two centuries.
Its readings, however, are very valuable as marking a different family of codices, from that repre sented by the Clermont copy.
This MS. also is imper fect towards the end, the defect being caused, not by
its own original loss, but by mutilation of some antece dent copy; thus the last column is left partly blank.
Grabe's text represents the readings principally of the Arundel MS. A 2lithographed fac-simile has been pre pared of an entire page from each of these MSS.
A third MS. is still in existence and accessible; the Voss MS. of the Leyden collection; it has been recently collated by Stieren for his edition, and he frequently notes inaccuracies in Grabe's report of vaHcp, lectiones obtained from this copy.
But it should be borne in mind that Grabe read it with other eyes; and that he depended upon the friendly offices of Dodwell for his report upon the readings of this MS.
The Voss copy is later again than the Arundel, and does not date earlier than the fourteenth century.
Still it is the only perfect copy; or rather, it contains as much as any other MS. that has been known since the discovery of 1 See n. 359. simile is the first in order, after page a The work of Messrs Standidge xii. A specimen page of the Voss MS. and Co.
London.
The Clkemont facis found in Stibben's edition.
THE EDITOR'S
PREFACE. v printing.
It being no longer necessary to report in the present edition every difference of reading, the text has been formed upon a comparison of these three MSS. with previous editions; the more remarkable variations being expressed in the notes.
The principal object of the notes has been to explain more clearly the mind of the author by reference to contemporaneous authority, such as the Excerpta from Theodotus, or the Didascalia Orientalis, subjoined to the Hypotyposes of Cle ment of Alexandria; Hippolytus in his Philosophu-
mena, and Tertullian in his Treatise c.
Vcdentinum.
The notions against which the great work of Irenseus was directed, have so many points of contact with Greek philosophy, that occasional illustrations from this source have been found necessary.
A point of some interest will be found of frequent recurrence in the notes; which the repeated instances that Scrip tural quotations afford, of having being made by one is, who was as familiar with some Syriac version of the New Testament, as with the Greek originals.
Strange varies lectiones occur, which can only be explained by referring to the 'Syriac version.
It will not be forgot ten that S.
Irenseus resided in early life at Smyrna; by no means improbable that he may have and is it been of Syrian extraction, and instructed from his earliest infancy in some Syriac version of Scripture.
It hoped also that the Hebrew attainments of *Ireis neeus will no longer be denied.
The Syriac fragments, at the end of the second lb. Irenaut —knowledge of Hebrew.
See General Index, Syriac Analogies.
vi THE EDITOR'S PBEFACE.
Volume, are of considerable interest, having now for the first time been placed by the side of the Latin version.
Their marvellous agreement with this trans lation, is another very satisfactory test of its close fidelity to the original ; it is also particularly fortunate that these Syriac fragments represent, not any one or two of the books, but the entire work throughout its whole course; while 'one of the rubrics shews that the work as translated in the East, was apparently as bulky as that operated upon in the West.
The peculiar interest of the portion of an 2 epistle to Victor concern
ing Florinus may be noted ; and generally, these frag ments throw some light upon the subordinate writings and treatises of Irenseus.
They have been obtained prceter spem, and were the Editor's reward for searching through this noble 3 collection of Syriac MSS. of high 4antiquity.
Several additions have been made to the Greek text from 5Hippolytus ; and the transcription of passages of some extent in the Philosophumena, from this work of Irenseus, adds strength to the general argument, that they were made by a pupil of Irenseus, and more probably by "Hippolytus than by any other.
These 1 Syr. Fr. v. n. I.
Any future editor of the works of Cyril of Alexandria will find that it teems with passages and treatises, bearing the s Syr. Fr. xxviii.
3 The Nitrian collection cannot fail of becoming better known.
The ex name of the master spirit of the Ephetracts made for this edition are as the sine period.
4 A lithographed facsimile of three of ohos TrpoSpofios of a promising vintage.
A valuable fasciculus of Ante-Nicene the more ancient Codices that have fur nished extracts will be found after p. xii.
Theology is to be obtained from this * See General Index, Hippolytus.
6 Uttfhfrty 5i Elprjvalov o'ItttAXutoj.
Phot. mi. Cod. nt. source ; and descending to a later period it is particularly rich in subjects con nected with the Nestorian controversy.
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. vii quotations indeed will not justify the conjecture that Hippolytus was the friend, at whose instance the work was written, for the chronology of the two writers makes the supposition wholly untenable; Hippolytus must have been as young, when the work was written c. Hcereses, as Irenaeus was when he heard Polycarp.
If this work were written before a.d.
190, we know that Hippolytus was in his 'vigour a.d. 250, when "he wrote against Noetus.
He may have received instruc tion therefore from Iremeus; but he can scarcely have
suggested to him the need of such a work as that now before us.
These are questions however that belong rather to the Life of Irenreus in a subsequent page.
The appearance of the invaluable work of Hippoly tus rendered it necessary that many of our ideas upon the Gnosticising heresies of the first two centuries should be readjusted; and that some systematic ac count should be given of the origin and phenomena of this remarkable progression of the human intellect; 3Dr Burton in England, and *Neander, "Beausobre, 6Matter, and 'Baurupon the continent, have all written at great disadvantage, from want of the light thrown in upon primitive obscurity by the Phihsophumena.
The necessarily limited space that could be devoted 1 EpiPHASIIJS writing A.D. 375, says ptxPt Noijrou Kal TSorp-iavOv Sta\a/i^avithat Noetos became heretical about fievov, 130 years before ; oi rpi trOn> irXet- ' Bampton Lecture. bviM, dXX' cis irpo xpfoou tuv Toinwv 4 Genelitche Entwichdung del Gnost. ixariv rpidKovra, ir\elu fj i\atrow. Har.
Sysl.
LYII.
1. s Histoire de Manickfe.
2 t\i> Si t6 aivrayixa nari. alpiaewv 6 Uittoire Critique de Gnotticisme.
\f$' dpxhv Troiot/xevov AofftBcavoiH, Kal 7 Chrixtlieche Gnosis.
viii THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. to the subject in the preface to the present volume, has been occupied, not so much in matters of detail, as in an attempt to chart out the ground that any future his torian of the subject might be expected to traverse; and to bring under a stronger light the main principles that animated the Gnostic movement.
In any case definite ideas upon these two points of investigation seem absolutely necessary, for the due appreciation of the Author's general argument.
The text then of the present Edition represents the readings of those three MSS. that are alone extant
and available.
Generally speaking the Codex Voss. agrees with the Clermont copy, the most ancient and valuable of all.
The Arundel variations mark that it belongs to a distinct family of MSS. ; the divergence from one common stock having taken place apparently at a very remote antiquity.
Other copies formerly existed that have since disappeared.
Nothing further is known of the three Codices used by Erasmus, than that they represent MSS. of a later age.
The Codex Vetus of Feuardent possesses a shadowy existence in the variations reported by him; they more usually agree with the Clermont and Voss text, than with the Arundel.
This copy has now disappeared from the Vatican.
Massuet cites various readings from a paper MS. of the thirteenth century in the collection of Cardinal Othobon at Rome.
This too has perished; but it agreed pretty closely with the readings of the two Mercer MSS. so frequently quoted by Grabe.
The marginal notes of Passeratius, made upon his
THE EDITOR'S
PREFACE. ix copy of the Erasmian edition, throughout the first Book and the opening chapters of the second, have been presumed to express his collation of some ancient MS.; but this is far from certain.
Some of the cor rections are manifest conjectures.
In any case the original source of them was never known.
The same degree of doubt scarcely applies to the readings marked by Grabe as Merc. i. and n.
They are noted in the Erasmian Edition belonging to the Leyden Library, and were used by Stieren.
The readings marked I.
specify the testimony of one of two copies; while n. implies that the same word was read in both.
It does not appear that one copy was marked i. and the other H.
Erasmus put forth three editions of Irenseus in the years 1526, 1528, 1534; and after his death, Stieren enumerates as many as seven reprints of the original edition between
and. 1570, when the edition of Gallasius appeared at Geneva, and contained the first portions of the original Greek text from Epiphanius.
It was a great step in advance.
In the following year Grynaeus put forth an edition of a very different charac ter, having nothing to recommend it.
In 1575 Feuardent's edition appeared, the first of a series of six that preceded Grabe in 1702.
In Grabe's Oxford Edition considerable additions were made both to the Greek original, and fragments; and the text was greatly improved by a collation of the Arundel MS. with addi tions from the Cod. Voss.
Ten years later the Bene dictine edition appeared, similarly enriched with the B
X editor's preface. readings of the Clermont copy, and with a few more original fragments.
Massuet's three Dissertations also are a great acquisition.
This edition was reprinted at Venice a.d. 1724; the only remarkable addition being the Pfaffian fragments, inserted only to be condemned upon the narrowest theological grounds.
In every respect the Venetian is far inferior to the original edition of Massuet.
The edition of Stieren, 1853, is a reprint of the Benedictine text, its principal original value consisting in a more careful collation of the Voss
MS. than had been executed for Grabe by Dodwell.
It contains the notes of Feuardent, Grabe, and Massuet, as well as the three Dissertations of the Benedictine.
A few more portions of Irensean text are added from Anecdota edited by Mvinter, and Dr Cramer.
Finally, the present edition, with its Hippolytan awfyneva, and Nitrian1 relics, its merits and defects, is now in the reader's hands.
1 The Syriao Fragment, VII., came translation, Lib. III. c. xvii.
16.
It exto hand too late for the emendation of emplifiea the high critical value of these the corresponding passage in the Latin Syriac MSS.
It having been fonnd necessary Oriental MSS. of the British Museum, a like acknowledgment is due, for the to set up the Armenian passages, pp. kindness with which, as being upon the 448, 462, in London, the Editor returns his sincere thanks to Mr Watts, Temple Bar, London, for the use of the type and skilled work of his compositor. spot, he undertook the first rough revise of the passages in question, previously to the removal of the type to Cam To Dr Rien also, Curator of the bridge.
Buceland Rectory, Hebts.
Oct.
5, 1857.
EXEMPLAKIA
CODICUM L
CLAROMONTANI.
ARUNDELIANI.
HI.
SYRIACORUM.
PRELIMINARY
MATTER.
L SOURCES AND
PHENOMENA
GNOSTICISM.
H. LIFE
AND WRITINGS
S. IREN^EUS.