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Irenæus
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Introductory Note to Irenæus Against Heresies
[2649] Eusebius, book v. to the twenty-seventh chapter, should be read as an introduction to this author.
[2650] Milman, Hist. Latin Christianity, b. i. pp. 27, 28, and the notes.
[2653] On the authority of St. Jerome. See Guettée, De l’église de France, vol. 1. p. 27.
[2654] The first two books of Irenæus Against Heresies have been translated by Dr. Roberts. The groundwork of the translation of the third book, and that portion of the fourth book which is continued in this volume, has been furnished by the Rev. W. H. Rambaut. An attempt has been made, in rendering this important author into English, to adhere as closely as possible to the original. It would have been far easier to give a loose and flowing translation of the obscure and involved sentences of Irenæus; but the object has been studiously kept in view, to place the English reader, as much as possible, in the position of one who has immediate access to the Greek or Latin text.
[2655] The Greek original of the work of Irenæus is from time to time recovered through the numerous quotations made from it by subsequent writers, especially by the author’s pupil Hippolytus, and by Epiphanius. The latter preserves (Hær. xxxi. secs. 9–32) the preface of Irenæus, and most of the first book. An important difference of reading occurs between the Latin and Greek in the very first word. The translator manifestly read ἐπεί, quatenus, while in Epiphanius we find ἐπί, against. The former is probably correct, and has been followed in our version. We have also supplied a clause, in order to avoid the extreme length of the sentence in the original, which runs on without any apodosis to the words ἀναγκαῖον ἡγησάμην, “I have judged it necessary.”
[2656] 1 Tim. i. 4. The Latin has here genealogias infinitas, “endless genealogies,” as in textus receptus of New Testament.
[2657] As will be seen by and by, this fancied being was, in the Valentinian system, the creator of the material universe, but far inferior to the supreme ruler Bythus.
[2658] There are frequent references to Irenæus to some venerable men who had preceded him in the Church. It is supposed that Pothinus, whom he succeeded at Lyons, is generally meant; but the reference may sometimes be to Polycarp, with whom in early life he had been acquainted. [On this matter of quotations from anonymous authors of the apostolic times, not infrequently made by Irenæus, consult the important tractate of Dr. Routh, in his Reliquiæ Sacræ, vol. i. 45–68.]
[2659] Comp.Matt. vii. 15.
[2660] The original is ἐγκέφαλον ἐξεπτύκασιν, which the Latin translator renders simply, “have not sufficient brains.” He probably followed a somewhat different reading. Various emendations have been proposed, but the author may be understood by the ordinary text to be referring ironically to the boasted subtlety and sublimity of the Gnostics.
[2662] As Cæsar informs us (Comm., i. 1), Gaul was divided into three parts, one of which was called Celtic Gaul, lying between the Seine and the Garonne. Of this division Lyons is the principal city.
[2663] [The reader will find a logical and easy introduction to the crabbed details which follow, by turning to chap. xxiii., and reading through succeeding chapters down to chap. xxix.]
[2664] This term Æon (Αἰών) seems to have been formed from the words ἀεὶ ὤν, ever-existing. “We may take αἰών, therefore,” says Harvey (Irenæus, cxix.), “in the Valentinian acceptation of the word, to mean an emanation from the divine substance, subsisting co-ordinately and co-eternally with the Deity, the Pleroma still remaining one.”
[2665] Sige, however, was no true consort of Bythus, who included in himself the idea of male and female, and was the one cause of all things: comp. Hippolytus, Philosop., vi. 29. There seems to have been considerable disagreement among these heretics as to the completion of the mystical number thirty. Valentinus himself appears to have considered Bythus as a monad, and Sige as a mere nonentity. The two latest Æons, Christ and the Holy Spirit, would then complete the number thirty. But other Gnostic teachers included both Bythus and Sige in that mystical number.
[2666] It may be well to give here the English equivalents of the names of these Æons and their authors. They are as follows: Bythus, Profundity; Proarche, First-Beginning; Propator, First-Father; Ennœa, Idea; Charis, Grace; Sige, Silence; Nous, Intelligence; Aletheia, Truth; Logos, Word; Zoe, Life; Anthropos, Man; Ecclesia, Church; Bythius, Deep; Mixis, Mingling; Ageratos, Undecaying; Henosis, Union; Autophyes, Self-existent; Hedone, Pleasure; Acinetos, Immoveable; Syncrasis, Blending; Monogenes, Only-Begotten; Macaria, Happiness; Paracletus, Advocate; Pistis, Faith; Patricos, Ancestral; Elpis, Hope; Metricos, Metrical; Agape, Love; Ainos, Praise; Synesis, Understanding; Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastical; Macariotes, Felicity; Theletos, Desiderated; Sophia, Wisdom.
[2669] Some omit ἐν πλήθει, while others render the words “a definite number,” thus: “And if there is anything else in Scripture which is referred to by a definite number.”
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