Preface

In preparing for the Syndics of the Cambridge University 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 Phillipps 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 escaped their observation. The Clermont MS. upon which principally Massuet formed his text, is fairly written is an Italian hand of the tenth[1] century; possibly however two transcribers were employed upon it, a second hand being observable, as it is imagined, from fol. 189 to 274. The entire MS. is in good preservation, though it is defective[2] at the end, and exhibits occasional omissions from careless copying, with a more lengthened hiatus, in the Fifth Book. The editor 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 represented by the Clermont copy. This MS. also is imperfect towards the end, the defect being caused, not by its own original loss, but by mutilation of some antecedent copy; thus the last column is left partly blank. Grabe�s text represents the readings principally of the Arundel MS. A lithographed[3] facsimile has been prepared 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 variae 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 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 Didascolia Orientalis, subjoined to the Hypotyposes of Clement of Alexandra; Hippolytus in his Philosophumena, and Tertullian in his Treatise c. Valentinum. The notions against which the great work of Irenaeus 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 is, the repeated instances that Scriptural quotations afford, of having being made by one who was as familiar with some Syriac version of the New Testament, as with the Greek originals. Strange variae lectiones occur, which can only be explained by referring to the Syriac version. It will not be forgotten that S. Irenaeus resided in early life at Smyrna; and it is by no means improbable that he may have been of Syrian extraction, and instructed from his earliest infancy in some Syriac version of Scripture. It is hoped also that the Hebrew attainments of Irenaeus[4] will no longer be denied.

The Syriac fragments, at the end of the second 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 translation, 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[5] 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 epistle[6] to Victor concerning Florinus may be noted; and generally, these fragments throw some light upon the subordinate writings and treatises of Irenaeus. They have been obtained praeter spem, and were the Editor�s reward for searching through this noble collection[7] of Syriac MSS. of high antiquity[8].

Several additions have been made to the Greek text from Hippolytus; and the transcription of passages of some extent in the Philosophumena, from this work of Irenaeus, adds strength to the general argument, that they were made by a pupil of Irenaeus, and more probably by Hippolytus[9] than by any other. These 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. Haereses, as Irenaeus was when he heard Polycarp. If this work were written before A.D. 190, we know that Hippolytus was in his vigour[10] A.D. 250, when he[11] wrote against Noetus. He may have received instruction therefore from Irenaeus; 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 Irenaeus in a subsequent page.

The appearance of the invaluable work of Hippolytus rendered it necessary that many of our ideas upon the Gnosticising heresies of the first two centuries should be readjusted; and that some systematic acconnt should he given of the origin and phenomena of this remarkable progression of the human intellect... The necessarily limited space that could be devoted 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 historian 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 tie 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 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 tie corrections 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 ii. 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 ii. implies that the same word was read in both. It does not appear that one copy was marked i. and the other ii.

Erasmus put forth three editions of Irenaeus in the years 1526, 1528, 1534; and after his death, Stieren enumerates as many as seven reprints of the original edition between 1545 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 character, 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 additions from the Cod. Voss. Ten years later the Benedictine edition appeared, similarly enriched with the 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 ad 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 Irenaean text are added from Anecdota edited by Münter, and Dr Cramer. Finally, the present edition, with its Hippolytan σωζομενα, and Nitrian[12] relics, its merits and defects, is now in the reader�s hands.

[1] Those who are conversant with early European MSS will agree that it is difficult to judge of the period in which writing was executed, before the tenth century, but easy after the twelfth. The Clermont MS., is an early production of the transitional period.

[2] It ends abruptly near the commencement of V. xxvi.

[3] The work of Messrs Standidge and Co. London. The Clermont facsimile is the first in order, after page xii. A specimen page of the Voss MS. is found in Stieren�s edition.

[4] Ib. Irenaeus � knowledge of Hebrew.

[5] Syr. Fr. v. n. i.

[6] Syr. Fr. xxviii.

[7] The Nitrian collection cannot fail of becoming better known. The extracte made for this edition are as the οινος προδρομος of a promising vintage. A valuable fasciculus of Ante-Nicene Theology is to be obtained from this source; and descending to a later period it is particularly rich in subjects connected with the Nestorian controversy. Any future editor of the works of Cyril of Alexandria will find that it teems with passages and treatises, bearing the name of the master spirit of the Ephesine period.

[8] A lithographed facsimile of three of the more ancient Codices that have furnished extracts will be found after p. xii.

[9] Μαθητης δε Ειρηναιου ο Ιππολυτος. Phot. Bibl. Cod. 121.

[10] Epiphanius writing A.D. 375, says that Noetus became heretical about 130 years before; ου προ ετων πλειονων, αλλ� ως προ χρονου των τουτων εκατον τριακοντα, πλειω η ελασσω. Haer. LVII. i.

[11] ην δε το συνταγμα κατα αιρεσεων λβ� απχην ποιουμενον Δοσιθεανους, και μεχρι Νοητου και Νοητιανων διαλαμβανομενον.

[12] The Syriac Fragment, VII., came to hand too late for the emendation of the corresponding passage in the Latin translation, Lib. III. c. xvii. 16. It exemplifies the high critical value of these Syriac MSS.