(Hitchcock, Francis Ryan Montgomery) Irenaeus of Lugdunum - A Study of His Teaching (1914)
This stuff sometimes comes off a lot like following a drunk driver who swerves this way ands then that.With regard to the classification of the Latin documents, Dr Loofs' pamphlet (Friedrich Loofs, Irenaeus-Handschriften, 1888, 1890) is to be consulted. [Loofs, who thought Irenaeus was, if anything, a bad theologian, and perhaps not even a theologian at all, later published a book, Theophilus von Antiochien Adversus Marcionem und die anderen theologischen Quellen bei Itenaeus (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1930)]
As Stieren pointed out in his edition, there are two principal families of the Latin translation, the one represented by the Clermont and Voss MSS. and the other by the Arundel MS.
Some years ago Cardinal Pitra, librarian of the Vatican, discovered four Roman MSS, two parchment codices, Vat. 188, and Ottobon. 752, and two [47] paper MSS., Vat.. 187 and Ottobon. 1154. But these MSS. are shown by Professor Loofs to be junior members of the Arundel family.
It is to be remembered that Erasmus used three copies of the text, one sent to him by John Faber, and the other two lent from a monastery.
Latinus Latinius, 1513 1593, worked upon another manuscript which is now called the Vatican.
Feuardent speaks of another which the Parisian, Jean de Saint Andre, lent him, and from which he copied the concluding five chapters of the treatise.
Grabe employed the Arundel MS., a list of the readings from the excellent manuscripts of Isaac Voss, and a copy of variant readings made by Mercer from two unknown manuscripts.
[...]
Massuet used three manuscripts, one belonging to the College of Clermont, another copied by the hand of Passeratius, and a third in the possession of Cardinal Ottobon.
Stieren preferred the Vossian,
but Harvey thought more of the Arundel.
[[Professor Loofs had the Codex Vossianus before him.]] After a comparison of the MSS., as regards writing, readings, use of abbreviations, and Greek capitals, division of chapters, and omission or insertion of arguments, Professor Loofs compiled a genealogical table ascribing the Clermont to the ninth century, the Arundel to the thirteenth, and the Vossian to the fourteenth.
He also points out that the oldest Roman MSS., the Vatican and the Ottobon, were in all probability written in the South of France, being brought from that country by Thomas Parentucelli (circ. 1435), afterwards Nicholas V.
Professor Loofs does not hold it impossible that the arguments of the five books were from the pen of Irenaeus. In V (p. 80), he points out, there are Greek capitals for numbers instead of Roman in [48] the second book, and the arguments appear to be a translation from the Greek (pg. 61).
He throws light on the interest England has always taken in Irenaeus, by identifying the old manuscript employed by Feuardent with the Voss, which was called after Isaac Voss, a learned Canon of Windsor, in whose possession it was after Feuardent procured it from Jean de Saint André.
He would also identify the Clermont MS. with an Irenaeus [ms.] which Delisle found in the catalogue of the famous library of the monastery of Corbie, and which probably then passed into the hands of the Jesuits of Clermont, and is now in the possession of Mr John Fenwick, son-in-law of Sir John Phillips, who purchased it from the Jesuits.
The Arundel manuscript, the principal member of the second family of these MSS., was purchased (most probably from the library of Willibald Pirkheimer) by Thomas Earl of Arundel (1636), became the property of the Duke of Norfolk, his grandson, [and] was presented by him to the Royal Society (1681), and since 1831 is in the British Museum.
The dawn of the Reformation witnessed a great revival of studies in the work of Irenaeus, who was regarded by Reformers as the great patristic authority on the Eucharist. The interpretations of the treatise are, accordingly, as conflicting as they are numerous, Franciscans, Jesuits, Calvinists and Lutherans claiming an advocate for their special views in the author. And the controversy grew so warm between the Romans and the Lutherans that it is alleged and as it appears proved that Pfaff (1715) made use of certain unauthentic fragments to support his case.
The principal editions were brought out by Erasmus (1526), Feuardent, Gallasius of [49] Geneva (with Greek text from Epiphanius), Grabe (with fragments published at Oxford, 1702), Massuet (1710, reprinted by Migne, 1857), Stieren (1853), and Harvey of Cambridge (1857).
Harvey collated for his edition the Clermont and Arundel MSS. of the Latin text, and gives interesting facsimiles of the two manuscripts, the former of which is written in a bold Italian hand and the latter in a heavy Flemish style. He points out that the former ends abruptly at V. 26, and that the readings of the Arundel represent a different family of codices.
Harvey, who held that Syriac was the native tongue of Irenaeus, also made use of a Syriac translation.
He shows that Grabe and Massuet did their work faithfully.
There are also fragments of an Armenian interpolated version first published by Cardinal Pitra in his Spicilegium Solesmense (tome 1).
DCH
. I wished I could find online copy of a linguistic analysis showing the reasoning behind determining that the Latin is a copy of the extant Greek rather than the other way around, however, given this body of manuscript supply the only text that really matters is from Book III in this case since it is just a scrap disconnected from the Book I source. Plus there's the bottom line. Everyone has a right to know the strength of the basis for RC assertions. The other portions from the first book are important only to those standing up for gnosticism. The argument that Against Heresies had insufficient copy to be considered catholic misses the point. The same anti-gnostic themes are found in Justin, Tatian, Hippolytus, Eusebius and others, making it catholic either way. What we don't find early on and universally is the extreme of episcopal authority found in paragraph two and if the Greek of paragraph three is merely a scrap from Eusebius (Ecc Hist. V:6) then this whole issue does hinge on one man we know to have reasons to grant his friend the Emperor assurance his kingdom's interests would not be subverted by the church and as it turns out, a lot of money was sent from all the churches to Rome in subsequent years. Sweet. So the motive for Eusebius to interpolate passages such as these, showing both a lineage to Peter and "pre-eminent authority" belonging to the bishop of Rome, is certainly present, but did he do that? And are these first two paragraphs Latin copy only? We may never know. Perhaps Eusebius took some local legend seriously. Tertullian's mocking comment shows Rome was claiming the power of the keys as early as the beginning of the third century so it is not as though there is no substance to it, perhaps even substance that a scrap creator like Eusebius may have wished to use as a historical revisionist very deliberately, thinking that it was better for the Kingdom of heaven if there was a Roman alliance, even if he had to fabricate it. My position on all this is to offer up the apparent room for doubt as a means to interdenominational unity rather than side for or against the RCs. It is a matter of faith and does take a step, if not a leap of faith to take one side or another. As much as we like to defend our faith I think it is better, after all, if we agree to disagree and focus on the matters of faith and reason that build us up rather than divide us.