Dating Ireneus Book III Greek copy

[jamescarvin]

I have been attempting to determine the sources of the earliest copy found of Against Heresies. Naturally, I'm most interested in possible discrepancies in the third book. It seem the first book is dated early in Greek through Hippolytus but I'm not sure where the bit from the third book comes from found here ... http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/main/ir ... n_01.shtml

I see that the first two paragraphs are missing from the Greek. I'm wondering whether this Greek copy came from someone who translated from Latin to Greek at a very late date, one in which the successorships in Rome would have been accepted uncritically by the Greeks, but not the strong statement of authority belonging to Rome in the second paragraph, which I do not find in the Greek. Otherwise, it appears that the entire section, including the third paragraph of book three may be an interpolation into this third book. If that is the case, then the earliest reference we have to the tradition that Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome comes from Gaius, who merely mentions their trophies, not anything specific about their individual martyrdoms - (oh yes, and that as a fragment through Eusebius).

[DCHindley]

I have been attempting to determine the sources of the earliest copy found of Against Heresies. Naturally, I'm most interested in possible discrepancies in the third book. It seem the first book is dated early in Greek through Hippolytus but I'm not sure where the bit from the third book comes from found here ... http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/main/ir ... n_01.shtml

I see that the first two paragraphs are missing from the Greek. I'm wondering whether this Greek copy came from someone who translated from Latin to Greek at a very late date, one in which the successorships in Rome would have been accepted uncritically by the Greeks, but not the strong statement of authority belonging to Rome in the second paragraph, which I do not find in the Greek. Otherwise, it appears that the entire section, including the third paragraph of book three may be an interpolation into this third book. If that is the case, then the earliest reference we have to the tradition that Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome comes from Gaius, who merely mentions their trophies, not anything specific about their individual martyrdoms - (oh yes, and that as a fragment through Eusebius).

The Greek text only exists in fragments quoted by later authors. This fragment was quoted by Eusebius, Church History, book v, chapter 6, according to the critical edition of W. Wigan Harvey, vol 2, page 10. It is also quoted pretty much this same way by Nicephorus bk 4, chapter 15. Eusebius selected paragraphs to quote solely because they supported something he had asserted earlier in his own text. The "big three" sources for fragments of Irenaeus Against Heresies are Epiphanius, Hippolytus and Eusebius.

DCH

PS: Thanks for finding that internet source, as I had been looking for the Latin text of Irenaeus Against Heresies for a long while. I OCR scanned Harvey's Latin text but due to the use of ligatures by the British printer the scanned text contained a lot of errors. Unfortunately, it contains parallel texts of only a few chapters of book 3. I scanned all five books.

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi jamescarvin,

Good catch. So the dating of clear gospel references to 180 CE in book 3 of Irenaeus' Against Heresies is not so clear.

Regarding "(oh yes, and that as a fragment through Eusebius)"

That's my boy! Everything gets filtered through him.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

I have been attempting to determine the sources of the earliest copy found of Against Heresies. Naturally, I'm most interested in possible discrepancies in the third book. It seem the first book is dated early in Greek through Hippolytus but I'm not sure where the bit from the third book comes from found here ... http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/main/ir ... n_01.shtml

I see that the first two paragraphs are missing from the Greek. I'm wondering whether this Greek copy came from someone who translated from Latin to Greek at a very late date, one in which the successorships in Rome would have been accepted uncritically by the Greeks, but not the strong statement of authority belonging to Rome in the second paragraph, which I do not find in the Greek. Otherwise, it appears that the entire section, including the third paragraph of book three may be an interpolation into this third book. If that is the case, then the earliest reference we have to the tradition that Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome comes from Gaius, who merely mentions their trophies, not anything specific about their individual martyrdoms - (oh yes, and that as a fragment through Eusebius).

[jamescarvin]

DCH, sounds like a lot of scanning. Did you upload it anywhere I might access it? Jay, yes, we've got to rely on Eusebius for an awful lot. Trying to put the pieces of the historical puzzle together, it looks to me like he wanted Constantine and all the Romans to feel comfortable with Rome as an epicenter of Christianity, rather than some foreign entity that couldn't be controlled or that might be perceived as an enemy, so he invented episcopal lineages for Rome that were otherwise absent or at least accepted something without provable basis, as I'm sure he would quote sources if he had them. This explains why Ignatius failed to mention Peter and Paul or other bishops in his Epistle to the Romans as did Justin, who in his martyrdom account stated rather plainly that there was no bishop in Rome. Ireneus describes Polycarp's visit to Anecetus, which is as far back as Hegesippus was able to verify even through Eusebius. Everyone wrote in Greek and we have some Greek versions of Eusebius that may be more reliable for Hegesippus fragments but the whole history of these texts is all handed to us in Latin by the Latins with the exception of some Greek texts like this - hence my desire to know their origin. Having Primarily Latin that dates in the second millennium ... we're supposed to believe that they have the authority they claim even though the Orthodox Churches all rejected that claim prior to these dates?

[DCHindley]

DCH, sounds like a lot of scanning. Did you upload it anywhere I might access it?

Not quite yet. However, I could use help proofreading it to check the spelling. I do not read Latin, but do have grammars and lexicons. Harvey's original volumes are image only PDf files and the OCR scan is only the old Latin translation. The Greek parts I cannot scan because OCR software sucks when you are dealing with fully accented and inflected Greek. Luckily digitized files with the Greek fragments exist online.

The only other problem is that the Chapter divisions of the critical text and fragments are different than those used by the most popular English translation in the Ante Nicene Fathers series volume 1, so it is difficult to match them up for comparison.

Send me a private mail message with your e-mail address and I'll send you what I have.

DCH

[bcedaifu]

I had been looking for the Latin text of Irenaeus Against Heresies for a long while.

Yes, thanks for that link James. Much appreciated. Here's the link I have used:

https://archive.org/details/sanctiirenaeiep00harvgoog

Unfortunately, from my perspective, this edition by William Wiggin Harvey, published in late 19th century, leaves unanswered the question of the provenance of the manuscripts he employed to create this Latin and Greek text.

What were his sources? Did he rely on Migne's Patrologie? Sure looks like it, with Greek and Latin text interwoven.
If so, then, where did Migne procure his copies?

So the dating of clear gospel references to 180 CE in book 3 of Irenaeus' Against Heresies is not so clear.

I think it is crystal clear that we have not the slightest inkling of a notion of a whisper of a thought about the origin of these texts from Josephus, Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr. Yes, the one copy from the Italian monastery in the 16th century, blah, blah, but from WHERE DID that sole surviving copy originate? Ditto for Tacitus Annals. For that matter, where does the original Latin text of Tertullian derive, that we can dare to claim Marcion wrote xyz?

Epiphanius, Hippolytus???

Wow. The list goes on. Where is the definitive description of the history of these ancient texts themselves, from which our current version has been "copied"? For all we know, 100% of this stuff comes from the pen of Eusebius.

Origen? Do we have any extant document from the third century attributed to him? What is our oldest extant version of his writing? Clement of Alexandria? We have lots of books with their texts, but, where is the book that defines the veracity and authenticity of these texts? Polycarp? Clement of Rome? the list is enormous.....

[jamescarvin]

Great questions there, bcedaifu. I wish I could answer any one of them. I am determined to find out though. Then I can at least say, here is the edge of the lacunae. Take in on faith from here. At the moment, I see most people failing to ask these essential questions and making loud assertions based on unproven assumptions of early copy. This is not to say they can't be right. It just means other possibilities exist.

[Stephan Huller]

Unfortunately, from my perspective, this edition by William Wiggin Harvey, published in late 19th century, leaves unanswered the question of the provenance of the manuscripts he employed to create this Latin and Greek text.

If the answer dropped on your head you would ignore it.

[DCHindley]

Here's the link I have used [for Harvey]:

https://archive.org/details/sanctiirenaeiep00harvgoog

Unfortunately, from my perspective, this edition by William Wiggin Harvey, published in late 19th century, leaves unanswered the question of the provenance of the manuscripts he employed to create this Latin and Greek text.

What were his sources? Did he rely on Migne's Patrologie? Sure looks like it, with Greek and Latin text interwoven.
If so, then, where did Migne procure his copies?

You sure have a hard-on for poor "Wiggy" (as I used to call him in our playful séance automatic writing sessions together)!

There are principly three good Latin manuscripts:

The Clermont MS, 10th century, is in good preservation, though it is defective at the end [it ends abruptly near the commencement of V. xxvi], and exhibits occasional omissions from careless copying, with a more [iv] lengthened hiatus, in the Fifth Book [See vol II. 359]

Arundel MS., ca. 12th century, is also 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. Its readings, however, are very valuable as marking a different family of codices, from that represented by the Clermont copy.

Voss MS., 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 [v] printing. Generally speaking the Codex Voss, agrees with the Clermont copy, the most ancient and valuable of all.

Fragments of the original Greek text were preserved by Epiphanius, Hippolytus of Rome, and other church fathers. Manuscripts of these writers are fairly common and not subject to serious questions about their origin and genuine antiquity. From what I understand, they compare remarkably closely to the Latin in a way that suggests that the Latin is a rather literal translation of the Greek.

Why does it bother you so that someone might want to compare the relatively complete manuscripts of the Latin translations with quotations and paraphrases by Greek writers, especially as it was well known that Irenaeus originally wrote in Greek. We can't help it if no near complete Greek manuscript has survived to present. These factoids may enrage you, but all I can say is "boo hoo."

DCH

The critical editions mentioned by Harvey are:

Erasmus published three editions of Irenaeus in the years 1526, 1528, 1534; and after Erasmus' death, as many as seven reprints of the original edition were published between 1545 and 1570. Erasmus used three codices now lost that represent MSS. of a later age than the Clermont, Arundel and Voss MSS.

In 1570, 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 (to 1596) that preceded Grabe in 1702. Dependent upon a Codex Vetus from the Vatican library, which possesses a shadowy existence in the variations reported by him, as they more usually agree with the Clermont and Voss text, than with the Arundel. This copy has now disappeared from the Vatican.

In Grabe’s 1702 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. Grabe’s text represents the readings principally of the Arundel MS. Grabe depended upon his friend Dodwell for his report upon the readings of the Voss MS. Grabe also frequently quoted two otherwise unknown MSS supplied by his friend Mercer.

Ten years later (1710) the Benedictine edition of R. Massuet appeared, similarly enriched with the [x] readings of the Clermont copy, and with a few more original fragments. Massuet’s three Dissertations also are a great acquisition. Massuet cites various readings from a paper MS. of the thirteenth century in the collection of Cardinal Othobon at Home. This too has perished; but it agreed pretty closely with the readings of two unknown MSS by Mercer.

The Benedectine edition was reprinted at Venice A.D. 1724; the only remarkable addition being the Pfaffan 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, 1848-1853, 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, Harvey's edition (1857), with Hippolytan σωζομενα, and [8th century and later] Nitrian relics [with exception of Syriac Fragment, VII., which came to hand too late for the emendation of the corresponding passage in the Latin translation], its merits and defects, is now in the reader’s hands.

All Migne did was republish critical texts compiled by others. Migne reprinted the critical text of Massuet.

[theomise]

What's the oldest known manuscript that either:

a) contains text uniquely (traditionally) attributed to Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, etc.), or...
b) contains the name 'Irenaeus' in reference to a second century Christian theologian...

?