The Greek Text of Against Heresies Survived Until the 16th Century

[Secret Alias]

https://www.tertullian.org/articles/zah ... us_eng.htm

[Leucius Charinus]

That is just wishful thinking.

Irenaeus was supposed to be the bishop of Lyons and a Greek author writing c.200 CE. He is supposedly cited by Eusebius and those following. The earliest extant manuscript for Irenaeus is Codex Claremontanus from 10th/11th century and this is a Latin manuscript. Five centuries later the writings of Irenaeus were prepared in the 16th century for the printing press.

In 1526 Erasmus creates a Latin edition for Irenaeus and uses sources not found in the three main extant Latin manuscripts. Heaven forbid but Erasmus thinks that Irenaeus was a Latin author.

No Greek manuscripts appear to be brought forward until 1713 when Pfaff publishes the Turin manuscript in Greek. Harnack declared this manuscript to be a forgery. There are no Greek manuscripts.

The manuscripts of Irenaeus are Latin all the way down -- late products of the Latin church in a 4th century context in which the Christian empire was dealing with the heretics and the proliferation of heretical gospels and other manuscripts. Such as those in the NHL.

[StephenGoranson]

As mentioned before, there are fragmentary Greek texts. Sources Chrétiennes editions.

[Leucius Charinus]

I reserve the right to be skeptical in the absence of primary evidence. There is little or no guarantee that the fragmentary Greek texts of Eusebius, and other Greek "Fathers of the Nicene church" that claim to have preserved bits and pieces of the Greek Irenaeus, are genuine.

Consider how the 9th century Pseudo Isidore Latin forgery was (in part) done

Isidore was too clever to invent these documents in toto out of his own head. For the most part he plagiarized them in substance, and often in form. For the background he made use of certain data such as the "Liber Pontificalis", a chronicle of the popes from St. Peter onward, which was begun at Rome during the first twenty years of the sixth century.

For instance, in the "Liber" it is recorded that such a pope issued such a decree that had been lost or mislaid, or perhaps had never existed at all. Isidore seized the opportunity to supply a pontifical letter suitable for the occasion, attributing it to the pope whose name was mentioned in the "Liber". Thus his work had a shadow of historical sanction to back it up.

--- Extracted from http://pseudoisidore.blogspot.com.au/
Eric Knibbs, Assistant Professor of History at Williams College in Williamstown, MA

Likewise it is entirely conceivable that the Latin forgers of Irenaeus simply took the (forged) extracts of Irenaeus which they found in Eusebius and the "Fathers" and made sure that Latin translations of these appeared in the relevant (Latin) books of Irenaeus which they fabricated for the glory of the later 4th century ascendancy of the orthodox over the heretics.

[StephenGoranson]

LC, just above you mentioned your opinion that there is an "absence of primary evidence" for (genuine) Irenaeus text in Greek.

But, in the same post you wrote:
"Likewise it is entirely conceivable that the Latin forgers of Irenaeus simply took the (forged) extracts of Irenaeus which they found in Eusebius and the "Fathers" and made sure that Latin translations of these appeared in the relevant (Latin) books of Irenaeus which they fabricated for the glory of the later 4th century ascendancy of the orthodox over the heretics."

Do you think your proposal that Irenaeus was "fabricated" in the 4th century has "primary evidence"?
If yes, what is it?
If no, why did you switch your levels of required evidence?

[Leucius Charinus]

I haven't switched any levels of required evidence. It remains a fact that all we have for the Greek literary source labelled Irenaeus are Latin manuscripts and no Greek manuscripts. As a result I remain entirely skeptical that any such 2nd century Greek source ever existed. If this is the case then ...

How the forgery was undertaken?

In regard to the Irenaeus quotes in Eusebius and others I then provided an example of one of the modus operandi employed by the 9th century Latin church forgery mill known as "Pseudo-Isidore". Namely that they seized upon the mention of a letter by some author in their archives in order to fabricate the letter in full and thus providing a shadow of historical sanction to the forged letter. In relation to the case of Irenaeus the same type of operation may have been performed. Namely the Greek Irenaeus quotes now found in Eusebius and others were in the first instance interpolated into Eusebius and others. In the second instance the Latin church then fabricated - in Latin - the full books attributed to Irenaeus making sure that the Greek quotes found in Eusebius and Co. appeared in the relevant book.

Earliest epoch of forgery

The epoch for this fabrication coincides with the 381 CE date attributed by mainstream scholarship for the "official" translation of the Greek Irenaeus into Latin. In this year also the Christian emperor Theodosius I decreed: "We authorise followers of this law to assume the title of orthodox Christians; but as for the others since, in our judgement, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious names of heretics." The heretics were being hunted down. The key heretics IMO were those who had authored and those who were preserving the "Other Jesus Story Books" - the non canonical manuscripts; the NT apocryphal texts.


What else were the elite later 4th century Christian bishops doing?

Also at the same time the elite Christian bishops of the empire were inventing the cult of the saints and martyrs and fabricating the holy relic trade which was to represent the outward facing operations of the Nicene church for more than the next thousand years.


Provisional Conclusion

If the Christian elite of the later 4th century were capable of fabricating cults and holy relics they were quite capable of fabricating heresiological accounts such as those of Irenaeus. Their motivation IMO was to retroject into earlier centuries the sudden avalanche of utterly controversial post Nicene heresies involving the appearance of "Other Jesus Story Books", such as the Gospel of Judas and the Apocryphon of John. Jesus Story Codices which competed in popularity with the Official Jesus Story Book was "frowned upon" by the Christian emperors and their orthodox minions.

[StephenGoranson]

In other words, LC, you have no evidence of Irenaeus being invented.
Amongst other things.

[Leucius Charinus]

Of course I have no sure and certain evidence that Irenaeus was invented and I have never claimed that I do have such evidence. In the same breath I have however pointed out that there is no sure and certain evidence from antiquity that Irenaeus existed since we have no Greek manuscripts and only Latin manuscripts which are very late. None of us has the luxury of dealing with certainties. We may only deal in hypotheticals. Such is the current state of the available evidence.

And as far as I am concerned the investigation of the hypothesis that the extant Latin works of Irenaeus were fabricated by the later 4th century Latin church (and probably revised well into the middle ages) is a worthy study. I have provided the means, motive and opportunity for such a fabrication by the Latin church. I have also provided a case study of the 9th century Latin church forgery mill known as "Pseudo-Isidore" in which the modus operandi of the way the forgery was undertaken is provided.

For further comments see: All christianity is “fundamentalism”
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10984

Most of now know that the NT is not a true history. Likewise IMO we need to come to terms with the very real possibility that the received "History of the Early Church" is not a true history.

[StephenGoranson]

The historian Arnaldo Momigliano--on whom "L.C." claimed to rely--wrote of Irenaeus and his writing (as well as Origen and others) as real, historical.

added later:
Anthony Grafton, historian and expert on forgery, also accepts as historical Irenaeus (and Origen).

[Leucius Charinus]

"LC" asserted, more than once, that there is no early evidence for Irenaeus, Against Heresies.

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 405 (= III 405) of Irenaeus, Against Heresies, in Greek, circa 200.

Brent Nongbri once commented that "Some NT scholars make some fairly inflated claims about p.Oxy 405". And I agree.

There are zero Greek exemplars for Irenaeus so the scholars that put this claim forward were forced to back-translate the existing 11th century (or later) Latin Irenaeus manuscript into Greek and compare this with P. Oxy 405. The power of belief is strong with some NT scholars. If you read back through this thread SG you'd have noticed I reject P .Oxy 405 as a fragment of Irenaeus.


This power of belief is a form a fundamentalist thinking which has jumped ship from the NT scholarship to the "Fathers" in thinking that there has just got to be some historical truth in the late middle age manuscripts for the "Fathers". Carefully preserved and curated by the utterly corrupt business model of the Christian church of the late middle ages. What could possibly go wrong?