which later brought his personal and divine majesty into question. But I would not easily concede to them what they charge; since immediately, in the second chapter of the first book, Irenaeus writes that the Catholic Church received from the Apostles that faith which is in one God, the Father Almighty, to be sure; and in one Jesus Christ His Son; and in the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets; A regarding the Spirit, as well as the Father and the Son, he comprehends, calls, and professes in the name of God. Then, attributing all of God’s works to the same, as we have said, and especially the most divine mystery of the incarnation of the Word, he recognizes and preaches Him quite clearly and constantly as God.
Then, as a point of accusation against Irenaeus, they set forth: He uses the word *Verbum*, or *τοῦ λόγου* (the Word), so obscurely and perplexingly that he appears not to distinguish clearly between the substantial Word and the vocal or oral word. It seems so to you, whom malice has blinded and the madness of slandering has driven to the precipice. But to pure minds, on the contrary, he appears specifically to refute the Gnostics, because they attributed *τοῦ λόγου*—that is, the internal conception of human speech and word, which he calls suffocation, and its successive utterance, evanescence, and other very many imperfections—to the Word of God; whereas He, being God, is simple, incomposite, and devoid of all accidents; He is entirely mind, entirely Word, thinking the same thing that He speaks, and speaking what He thinks. He concludes, however: "You who divine the generation (of the divine Word) and transfer the utterance of human words made by the tongue to the Word of God are justly convicted, because you know neither human nor divine things." And a little later, to those who ask: "How was the Son brought forth from the Father?" he wisely answers: "No one knows His ineffable generation, not Valentinus, not Marcion, not angels, not archangels, except only the Father who begat and the Son who was born." Has he not with these things sufficiently, clearly, and distinctly distinguished the Word, who is God and subsists substantially of Himself, from the word of human mouth, which immediately vanishes into the air? It is added that he frequently professes that the Word who is God was not created or made, but has always coexisted with God the Father, and created all things with Him: by which he sufficiently separates the substantial, divine, and permanent Word from our fleeting and perishable word.
Now, approaching their own parent, that is, the spirit of blasphemy, they say: Irenaeus thinks that the devil only began to fall when he seduced man. For so he seems to think in book IV, ch. 78. But indeed, from the very words of Irenaeus it is clear that you are truly *διαβόλους*, that is, calumniators and wicked informers. For he does not say that he only began to fall when he seduced man, as you falsely assert; but that he became an apostate and enemy from the time he envied the handiwork of God. Furthermore, he envied and begrudged the happiness of man, who was fashioned and created by God, before he attacked him and cast him down by his persuasions. Therefore, in the opinion of Irenaeus, the devil had fallen away from God and was a wicked and condemned spirit before he invaded man and seduced him through the woman.
But he thought, they add, that this was also the first time he was cursed and cast down, namely when, after the fall of man, God said: "The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head." Item: "Cursed shalt thou be, etc." For so he seems to think in book IV, ch. 78. Nor did Irenaeus hold or teach these things at any time, as you concoct; but he intended only that the deceits, crimes, counsels, and consequently the curse and condemnation of the devil were then for the first time manifested to us by the Word of God, when it is related that he was cursed and proscribed by God. For nothing of these had been revealed or related by Moses before the fall of man. Which is so true and certain that even the heresiarchs themselves, and others elsewhere in their common places, voluntarily admit it.
B They immediately add: It is something of this kind that the same Irenaeus, in book V, from the tradition of Justin (which Eusebius also indicates in book V, ch. 18), feels: that the devil, before the coming of Christ, had not dared to blaspheme God because he did not yet know his own condemnation. Not only Justin and Irenaeus, two most valiant martyrs, but also Clement, Origen, and Epiphany, and many other most illustrious and ancient ecclesiastical writers, have felt and taught this, as we have recorded in book V, ch. 26: and since the Catholic Church has not yet condemned their opinion (that I remember), neither ought we to condemn it. For many divine judgments were hidden from the demons, and they always dreaded the eternal punishments destined for them in the places of the underworld more than can be expressed, as their cries indicate: "Why have you come before the time to torment us? If you cast us out, send us into the swine." They begged Him not to command them to go into the abyss. And Peter openly says that the demons are reserved for punishment. Who has perfectly penetrated such hidden judgments? Finally, very many things are still being inquired into and variously disputed among learned men concerning the sins, fall, knowledge, ignorance, and punishments of the demons: which, since they do not pertain to the already defined heads of the Catholic faith, those who may have thought otherwise before should not be condemned.
They pursue their accusations thus: Irenaeus said, not without error, in book IV, ch. 73, that man was not created perfect by God. And later: He seems to think of man as if he were not created perfect by God. Irenaeus constantly preaches that man possessed from the beginning all essential perfection, which consists in the union of body and rational soul, from God; but he truly denies that accidental perfection was so given that it would be impious to think or say otherwise. For he proves by open Scriptures, examples, and reasons, that not only man, but every creature, since it is infinitely distant from the Creator, is from the beginning surrounded and implicated in many and very great imperfections. And to speak of man alone, he was fashioned from the vilest clay of the earth, capable of being tempted, overcome, sinning, dying, being damned: which are undoubtedly the greatest imperfections. Nor do these things clash (as you pretend) with these words of creation: "God saw all things that He had made, and they were very good": since these were said of the natural and gratuitous goods with which man abounded, created in justice, innocence, and the knowledge of all things: they do not remove the imperfections of his animal life, or the freedom of the mind toward good and evil and the flexible state in which he was established. Therefore, the blessed Irenaeus does not err when he thinks this, but you, through a wicked madness of slandering, dwell in dark errors when you gnaw at these and similar things in the holy Fathers of the Church in your consistories, when you tear them in pamphlets and carp at them everywhere, so that you alone may appear to be wise.
They say again: Irenaeus thought that man was not created in the image of God. This is a great and impudent lie, seeing that he writes: "Adam did not escape the hands of God, to whom the Father, speaking, says: 'Let us make man in our image and likeness.'" And again: "And for this reason, in the end, not by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by the good pleasure of the Father, His hands fashioned the living man, so that Adam might become according to the image and likeness of God." And a little later: "Christ restored to His handiwork what was said: 'In the beginning man was made according to the image and likeness of God.'"
'" A Thus our Irenaeus teaches elsewhere that the image of God was defiled and deformed by sin, but reformed by the grace of Christ; which dogma is clearly apostolic.
They continue to rave and slander, saying: Irenaeus speaks quite dangerously of the image of God, when he affirms in Book V that that saying: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness," pertained to Christ, who at a certain time was to become man, and to represent that image. And as if it were not enough to have accused him once, they say again: He seems to think regarding man, that the judgment about making him to the image of God signified Christ. Who among Christians does not know that the most powerful and beautiful reason for the image of God shines forth in the man Christ? And for that reason he is called by Paul, through antonomasia, the image of the invisible God. Likewise, the radiance of his glory and the character or express image of His substance? Likewise, that Christ is the image, and man is the image of Christ? The apostolic man wishes, therefore, that this perfect image of God and of His Son Christ, should have become, through the benefits of the advent of Christ, far more splendid and illustrious in us: indeed, that it will be most illustrious when we shall be like Him in glory: when also, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, we shall be transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. These very words of his about Christ manifest this same thing: He conforms us, and adapts us to life, and is present to His handiwork, and perfects it according to the image and likeness of God, etc.
B And proceeding to worse things, they add: He publishes something fanatical, in that he asserts in Book IV, c. 30, that Enoch, a man pleasing to God, was sent by God on an embassy to the angels. Indeed, O you blind and raving men, who do not attend to the fact that he followed the Septuagint, which called the sons of Seth angels, to whom Enoch was sent, and held discourses about the future judgment, and the punishments of the reprobate; so that he might recall them from the company, perfidy, and wicked deeds of the Cainites, to which they were gradually becoming accustomed and were being depraved, to the fear and worship of God. The blessed apostle Jude inserted the most illustrious and grave part of his discourses into his epistle: which we have explained in our commentaries, and have shown that the Shepherd, Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and other ancients thought the same way.
They proceed further, saying: The same point is aimed at by what he affirms in Book IV, c. 70, that men in the times of Noah could not bring forth fruit to God, because the transgressor angels had been mixed with them. But what is more certain and true than this? For is it not said in Genesis with multiple and most grave emphasis about those times, and it is repeatedly referred to, that there was much wickedness of men upon the earth; that every imagination of the human heart was intent upon evil; that all flesh had corrupted its way; that the earth had been filled with iniquity? Who can doubt that so many and such great crimes had been committed through the temptations and persuasions of the transgressor angels? But, they say, the devil is the perpetual enemy of men, always lurking, and going about as a roaring lion, and devising ambushes for the human race. Furthermore, who denies that? Truly not Irenaeus, who just as constantly proclaims that our first parents were deceived by his guile; and describes him as being present with all his might against the Catholic Church at the end of the world with the Antichrist and his ministers and satellites.
C They attack him because in his judgment he does not distinctly reason about the power of human faculties: but twists that opinion of many prophets, of Christ, and of Paul, as can be seen in the whole of c. 72, Book IV. Not only there, but also in c. 9, 29, 71, and elsewhere throughout, he proves with firmest testimonies of the Scriptures that man is endowed with free will, and is so exempt from all coercion 12 that he does not believe, does not hope, does not love God or his neighbor unless he wills it; that he does not blaspheme, does not fall from the faith, does not kill, does not commit adultery, does not steal, unless he wills it; and he most holily maintains this against the Simonians and Marcionites, later in the Manichaeans and Priscillianists, and finally in you, the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Libertines who are being reborn in this age. To this, he asserts that the protection and help of divine grace is as necessary to this human free will, against the future Pelagians, as the heat of the sun and the rain of heaven are for the earth to bring forth its fruits: since without it we can do nothing good, nor indeed effectively think or will. We are co-workers of God. Is this not a sufficient and well-distributed argument?
D They bear it with a very wicked mind that he says that the choice of free and self-powered will is preserved to man by the Lord, not only in works, but also in faith. But he proves this very thing from these words of the Son of God to the apostles: Do you also wish to go away? clearly when, with the incredulous Capernaites and certain apostates falling away from Him, he openly shows that to believe or not to believe is most free. Then, he confirms it with these words of the same to others: Let it be done to you according to your faith: Your faith has made you whole: Great is your faith; by which we are taught that faith is our own, on account of the free consent of the will; and nevertheless is a splendid gift of God, who offers, bestows, and confirms it to our minds through His Spirit. I add these things now only from Augustine: Any one can enter the church unwilling; he can approach the altar unwilling; he can receive the sacraments unwilling: he cannot believe, unless he wills it. We have observed the rest in the marked chapters.
They are also very indignant that he says: Prophets and apostles exhorted men to do justice, and also to do good, because this is placed within us. It is clearly placed there, with divine grace preceding and cooperating, just as Paul asserts of himself: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. I have labored more than all. Not I, indeed alone, but the grace of God with me. And elsewhere enumerating his good works, he says: I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith, etc. But to others he says: While we have time, let us work good to all. Doing good, let us not fail, etc. For surely the prophets erred, saying: Learn to do good, help the oppressed, deliver the widow, etc., and the angels erred in saying: Good is prayer with almsgiving. Bless God of heaven, etc., Christ also erred, commanding: Take heed, that you do not do your justice before men, etc., finally God blessed for ever erred, with such authority and gravity commanding: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, etc. Honor your father and your mother, etc., if Irenaeus fell into error by writing that the prophets and apostles exhorted [men] to justice and good works, because that is placed within us. They are again fastidiously annoyed, because he says, they say, in bk. iv, c. 30: That the fathers before the law was promulgated were just by the law of nature. First, they slander the most holy Father egregiously. For he does not say that they
were just by the law of nature; but just by the virtue of the Decalogue, having the law written in their hearts, loving God who made them, and abstaining A from injustice toward their neighbor. By these [words] he teaches that they, instructed by faith and divine grace, kept the commandments of God, and through this obedience were made more and more just, according to those oracles of the Spirit: "Let the just be justified still, and let the holy be made holy still." "Cease not to be justified for ever." "He will increase the fruits of your justice," "To him that hath shall be given, and he shall abound," etc. Secondly, let us grant to the Centuriators that Irenaeus said the fathers were sanctified by the law of nature. What inconvenience or absurdity will follow from that? Does he not in that place prove by the authority of the divine word that Enoch, before the Mosaic law, pleased God? That Noah was a just and perfect man? That Abraham was called the friend of God? That Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Job were servants most dear to the living God? That the justice of Abel is also commended by the Gospel? But they would have been just by faith alone, these wicked and troublesome men will reply, not by the observance of the law of nature. Yet they will never be able to prove the justice of faith alone by any express word of God; whereas we prove that faith alone, without works, is dead and ineffective for justice. Furthermore, we prove by the testimonies of the ancients that the doctrine of faith alone was the grossest error of Simon Magus, the Valentinians, the Eunomians, and indeed of the pseudo-apostles as well, which was deliberately condemned by Peter, John, and James in their epistles. Finally, both Irenaeus and all the theologians who followed him hold that the grace of Almighty God always accompanies, precedes, cooperates with, and crowns the observance of the law of nature and good works; and thus these morose men have nothing about which they can justly complain.
But, lest they seem to be always lying, they subjoin at length something true, though not entirely without manifest imposture: he says that Christ was indeed baptized in his thirtieth year, taught in his fortieth, and suffered in his fiftieth. For they designate lib. ii, cap. 34, in which absolutely nothing of the sort is to be found. Moreover, in cap. 39 of the same book, Irenaeus does indeed say that Christ, having reached the age of a master, that is, the fortieth year, taught; and he attempts to establish this there and in the following chapter with certain conjectures. But this slipped from the most holy Father in the heat of a dispute in which he was refuting the Gnostics, who granted only one year of preaching to Christ, and he was swept too far into the opposite opinion: a thing which, as the sentiments of Augustine and Chrysostom also show, happens not infrequently even to very learned and prudent men. For I omit the opinion of him who thinks that this was added to the books of Irenaeus, since all the manuscripts agree; and the character of the diction, along with the added proofs that follow, shows clearly that he held this opinion as it stands.
Furthermore, they rage and are carried out of themselves because he speaks so specifically and clearly of the offering of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, as if he had then to contend against their heresies. Concerning the offering, they say, Irenaeus, lib. iv, cap. 32 (if indeed that place is free from fraud and error), seems to speak quite awkwardly when he says: "He taught the new oblation of the New Testament, which the Church, receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout the whole world." But Irenaeus declares himself abundantly in the following chapters, and especially in cap. 34, that he by no means intends the offering of consecrated bread, but of that which is still to be consecrated for the use of the Lord’s supper, and otherwise for the use of the priests and the poor. Such are their arguments: in which they first of all, through extreme fraud and malice, pretend that the passage is corrupted, so that they may raise the weight of so great an authority and render it suspect. But in truth, all the manuscripts, as well as those B printed and recognized with great diligence even by heretics at Lausanne and Basel, contain the text thus: therefore there is no fraud in this place, no lie; but it is the genuine and sincere context of the blessed Irenaeus. Attend also to another of their mockeries and calumnies. "He does not understand," they say, "the offering of consecrated bread, but of that to be consecrated for use, etc." And whence do you prove this? For there is nothing of the kind in Irenaeus: but it is craftily and impiously fabricated by you. Furthermore, if he understands it of that to be consecrated for the use of the supper of the priests and the poor, you are truly injurious and insulting to the most blessed martyr, saying that he speaks awkwardly regarding this oblation. Again, if he speaks of bread offered for the use of priests and the poor, how could he call that the new oblation of the New Testament, which had preceded in the Old Testament as something so common and vulgar? How could he also say that it is offered to God, if it were distributed to the poor? Thus, iniquity lies to itself from every side, and its deceits and frauds are turned back upon the necks of their authors.
But Irenaeus in that place speaks truly of the unbloody sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, which, as he shows therein by many testimonies of the prophets, properly succeeded all Jewish oblations, and was commended by Christ, the author of the New Testament, to the apostles, and by them preached, offered, and delivered throughout the whole world, as we observe and prove more copiously therein. That he speaks of bread already consecrated, and not yet to be consecrated, these words of his make certain: "Christ took that which is by nature bread, and gave thanks, saying: This is my body. And likewise the cup, which is of that creature which is among us, he confessed to be his blood, and taught the new oblation of the New Testament, which the Church, receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout the whole world," etc. Behold the oblation made to God, not to the poor; special to the New Testament, not common to both; offered by the Church, that is, by the priests and pastors of the Churches, not by all indiscriminately, as alms are distributed; and an oblation of the body and blood of Christ, not bloody, such as was made on the cross: therefore unbloody, and under the species of bread and wine already consecrated by the words of Christ the omnipotent God: all of which solidly refute and condemn the trifles and putrid cavils of the heretics.
But because they endeavor to deceive the unlearned, saying that Irenaeus explains himself copiously in the following parts, and especially in cap. 34, we also relegate this malicious deceit. At the very beginning of chapter 34 he writes: "Therefore the oblation of the Church, which the C Lord taught to be offered in the whole world, has been reputed as a pure sacrifice before God, and is acceptable to him," etc. Does this not openly confirm the sacrifice of the Eucharist and refute its enemies? He adds immediately: "The Lord, wishing us to offer in all simplicity and innocence, preached, saying: When you offer your gift at the altar, etc." What about this, the sacrilegious and plainly Turkish demolition of holy altars, carried out everywhere by the Calvinists, Anabaptists, Lutherans, and new Arians? But to return to Irenaeus: "It behooves us," he says in the same place, "to make an oblation to God, and in all things to be found grateful to God the Creator." This oblation the Church alone offers pure to the Creator, offering it to him with thanksgiving from his creature. Finally, he concludes: "He wishes us also, as the Word, to offer the gift frequently at the altar without intermission." This is truly an excellent and clear interpretation of Irenaeus, which openly strengthens, and does not weaken, the Catholic doctrine concerning the unbloody sacrifice; but it entirely confutes and reproves the heresies contrary to it. Let the reader see the rest in their proper places. The same Centuriators rage no less against D
A Irenaeus, saying that he asserted the Virgin Mary to have been made an advocate for the Virgin Eve. But if she is in very truth made the Mother of God—than which nothing more preeminent or excellent can be imagined among created things—why should she not be a patroness for sinners before Him, which is a far lesser thing? Was she not heard immediately in the miracle brought forth at her intercession when she interceded for the scarcity of the guests at the wedding? If Christ promised the authority of judges of the world to the Apostles and suchlike despisers of the world, did He not grant the patronage of an advocate to His own mother? But if the preeminent titles of mediators, saviors, brothers, and friends—and these neither vain nor ineffectual—have been communicated by God to certain saints, as is plain from the Holy Scriptures, it is surely impious to believe that He did not leave the name and reality of an advocate to His own mother. We have treated this more copiously in the annotations on that passage of Irenaeus.
They also reproach him because, in Book II, c. 64, he writes that every nation receives a worthy habitation before the judgment. Now, if souls migrating hence before the judgment are received neither into the heavens nor into the netherworld, or if there is in truth a third and middle place into which they are admitted (from which, however, you greatly abhor), or if they are certainly nowhere in the meantime, and thus do not even exist, this clearly smacks of atheism. It remains, therefore, that Irenaeus spoke truly and piously [to say] that spirits migrating hence before the judgment are received into suitable habitations; which he also manifests and solidly proves from the spirits of Lazarus and the rich man, of whom one is placed in a place of consolation with Abraham, the other is in the netherworld with torments. When, again, Christ promised the thief: "Today you will be with me in paradise"; when He commended His own spirit into the hands of the Father as He was dying; when, finally, He opened the heavens to the soul of Stephen departing from the body—there is no doubt that the souls of the pious receive a worthy habitation before the judgment. But on the contrary, since it is certain that Dathan, Core, and Abiron descended into the netherworld, and that similar wicked persons do not possess the kingdom of God, no one can doubt that they are snatched away into Gehenna, etc.
They are furious, again, to hear that the Roman B Church is preferred to all others in dignity and authority as a mother. To some it might seem that this savors of novelty, they say, because in the copies of Irenaeus, such as we have now, there exists Book III, c. 5: "To this Church, on account of a more powerful preeminence, it is necessary that every Church should come together, that is, those who are on every side faithful: in which, by those who are on every side, that tradition which is from the Apostles has always been preserved." But this opinion speaks only of the consensus in the doctrine taught by the Apostles, as is manifest from the context of Irenaeus. You hear of new fraud and malice, by which they attempt to bring all the copies of holy men into suspicion and contempt; as if the Marcionites, Manichaeans, and other ancient heretics did not say and circulate similar things about the books of both Testaments, in order to deprive them of all faith. But if Irenaeus speaks only of the consensus in the C doctrine taught by the Apostles, why do you call it a novelty? Why do you strive to elevate the authority of copies on that account? Why, finally, do you depart from this consensus of his doctrine? Or, if you are departing from it, do you not acknowledge that you are not of the number of the faithful? But those words, on account of its more powerful preeminence, most manifestly demonstrate that Irenaeus is not speaking merely of a consensus of doctrine, but also of a certain preeminent authority and jurisdiction which it has received over the other Churches of the whole universe, as we have proved there at length. Regarding the thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, concerning which opinion he followed Papias and Justin Martyr, we have spoken sufficiently at length at the end of the fifth book.
JOANNES ERNESTUS GRABE
PROLEGOMENA
Concerning the life and writings of Irenaeus, and their various editions, and the method and design of this latest one.SECTION I. Concerning the time of the birth and death of Irenaeus, and also the manner of his death.
§ 1. Everything that pertains to the life and writings of Irenaeus has been set forth so learnedly and at length by the most illustrious Lord Henry Dodwell, in his Dissertations III, IV, V, and VI on Irenaeus, that there is hardly anything that can be added. And yet, since the use of those Dissertations is at hand for all the learned, especially here in England, there would have been little need of words on this matter, were it not that my mind harbored doubts concerning some things and a different opinion regarding others. Therefore, with the peace and indulgence of that most learned man—and of my friend and patron, who must be named in his own place, for the aids benevolently provided by him for this very edition of Irenaeus—I shall propose both my doubts and my own or others' different opinions; so that the studious reader of Irenaeus may be able to weigh them in an equal balance. That Irenaeus was born while Trajan was emperor, the illustrious man in Dissertation III, § 3, collected very well from the very words of the Holy Father, by which he wrote that what happened at the end of Domitian's time happened almost within his own age (γενεά), page 449, line 21, of this edition (which is to be cited by me always henceforth, now Book V, c. 30, num. 3, end). But in order that it might be perceived more distinctly whether Irenaeus was born during the beginnings, or about the middle, or at the end of Trajan's reign, he took up for consideration other words of his, in which he remembered having seen and heard Polycarp, who was already advanced in age D and living in splendid state in the lower Asia, with Florinus at the royal court, Book II Adversus haereses, c. 3, and in the Epistle to Florinus. Since therefore Irenaeus, in Book II, c. 39, designating the different ages of man, names infants, little ones, children, youths, and seniors, and sets the beginning of the youthful age at the thirtieth year; the most illustrious man conjectures in § 6 that the childish age is therefore extended from the twentieth year to the thirtieth, and soon in § 8 demonstrates that the "primary age" (πρώτην ἡλικίαν) also falls in the twenty-first, or rather the twenty-fifth year. Irenaeus therefore seems to have passed through this when he looked upon Polycarp and Florinus in lower Asia with his own eyes. Now, intending to search out the year of Christ corresponding to him, he posits in § 10 that by the "royal court" (αὐλὴν βασιλικήν), in which Florinus then lived in splendor, is to be understood not a royal, but an imperial court. It would not be beside the point to add here for the confirmation of this hypothesis a parallel passage from Book IV Adversus haereses, c. 49: "But what of those who are faithful in the royal court, do they not have belongings from those things which are Caesar's?" But he proves clearly in the same place that Irenaeus's words to Florinus are to be taken as referring to no other than the Emperor Hadrian, and indeed when he was coming into Asia for the second time, and that it could not have happened that he came into Asia for the second time before the year of Christ 122. Comparing this, therefore, with the twenty-fifth year of Irenaeus's age, he determines this to be the year...
A of Christ 97, or the following year under Trajan.
§ 2. To one considering this reasoning, the words of Irenaeus himself in Book II, chap. 42, might indeed be brought as an objection: *The race of men passes through five ages; first infancy, then childhood, then the boyish age, and after that youth, and so then the elder age.* Where, since the boy (puer) is placed before the little child (parvulus), the boyish age might seem to be intended to be placed within the tenth and twentieth year. But the words there were transposed by a scribe, and the former order seems altogether to be preferred, by which the little child precedes the boy; especially since the age (ἡλικία) which does not begin before the twentieth year corresponds more to the latter. Leaving aside, therefore, this objection, I shall propose other things which persuade me that Irenaeus was born somewhat later, namely, in the common year of Christ 108 (or indeed 106). This is certainly established, that the Emperor Hadrian did not come into Asia for the second time before the year of Christ 122; yet it is not necessary to assume that this happened precisely in that year. But rather, the year 129 (127), correctly ascribed by Baronius for Hadrian's second arrival in Asia, is admitted by Pagius himself in very many arguments against him, and the coins brought up from him to the years 127, 128, and 129 sufficiently prove this. The same is also confirmed by the words of Irenaeus to Florinus concerning Polycarp, brought forward by the lord Dodwell himself in § 12: *And in the sight of God I can swear, that if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such thing, he would indeed have exclaimed, and, stopping his ears, would have said, according to his custom: O good God, to what times hast thou preserved me, that I should endure these things!* Having cited these, he very well adds: B Clearly here Irenaeus hints at that rising of the more recent heretics under Hadrian, by which Polycarp was so aroused to such indignation; that rising, I say, which fell into the advanced age of Polycarp. For he who asks to be preserved until those times was thereby hinting that he had already passed the ordinary limits of old age. And because he says that this was habitual (σύνηθες) for Polycarp, he is therefore not to be understood as referring only to one heresiarch. Irenaeus means, therefore, that when he was a disciple of Polycarp, many heresiarchs arose time and again; and as often as new ones arose, that exclamation of Polycarp was repeated. Indeed, there proceeded from the school of Menander, first under Hadrian, Basilides and Saturninus; followed later, though at a short interval, it seems, by Valentinus and Cerdon. Finally, after Cerdon came Marcion, more recent than those slightly above mentioned. I would therefore believe that, except for Marcion, those oft-repeated exclamations of Polycarp should be understood regarding all of them. Yet Irenaeus himself, Book I, chap. 28, and Book III, chap. 4, teaches that both Valentinus and Cerdon began to sow their heretical poison when they came to Rome under Hyginus. Now Hyginus, according to the calculations of Pearson, was created bishop of Rome in the year of Christ 122, after the 9th of August, or according to the judgment of the lord Dodwell himself, in the year 123. A little while after, therefore, when the sect of Valentinus and Cerdon had already arisen, it is necessary that Polycarp began to exclaim thus; and consequently, that fits this C exclamation of the martyr well in the year 127. His age was also then more advanced, namely 66 years, if according to Pearson's calculations approved by Lord Dodwell, he ended his martyrdom in the year of Christ 147; whereas, on the contrary, in the year 121, he would have been in his sixty-first year, at which time he could scarcely be said to have exceeded the ordinary limits of old age.
§ 3. But the history of Irenaeus itself persuades us, that we should write his age (ἡλικία) as in the year of Christ 127, rather than 142, and from that conclude he was born later than the year 97. For it is agreed that he was sent to Rome by the Church of Lyons with letters to Pope Eleutherus after the persecution of Marcus Aurelius had begun. Irenaeus would therefore have been an octogenarian then, if said persecution fell in the year of Christ 177, according to the calculation of Eusebius in his *Ecclesiastical History*; or at least a septuagenarian, if it fell in the year 167, according to the judgment of the lord Dodwell himself. D that he made such a troublesome journey, I can scarcely believe. And what is to be said of his books? That he wrote those five *Against Heresies* at at least the age of eighty, and many others, such as *On the Ogdoad*, *Against Florinus*, *Blastus*, and also those which pertained to the paschal controversy, partly around and partly after his ninetieth year, is necessary if he had been born in the year of Christ 97. But who could easily persuade himself that, at such a great age, he applied his hand to writing, and already decrepit, elaborated so many and such great books? And these things also cause me to understand *that first age* (πρώτην ἡλικίαν), in which Irenaeus says he saw Polycarp, as referring to the twenty-first year rather than the fifth: for that it can also be understood of the former is manifest from what the most illustrious man said in § 8. Finally, there is also this, that our author could have boasted with better right of the memory of the sayings, form, and manner, etc., of Polycarp, if he had seen him when he was a little younger, namely in his twenty-first year. If this falls in the year of Christ 129 (127), according to the above, Irenaeus would have been born in the year of Christ 108 (106).
§ 4. After this, Dodwell begins to investigate the time and manner of his death. Indeed, it had been handed down by the generality of chronologists and historians until now, that he suffered martyrdom in that most famous persecution of the Emperor Severus, which began in his tenth year, or according to others, his fifth, when he conquered Albinus, a battle having been fought near Lyons, and from then on, having taken the city, he behaved most savagely toward the citizens, especially the Christians. But I see so many arguments in the place cited opposed to the martyrdom of Irenaeus, that I would not wish to affirm this as certain. Nor, however, would I dare to persist in denial, as it is inserted in the testimonies of the ancients, both by Jerome in ch. 64 of Isaiah and by Justin; the former of whom wrote these things two hundred years after Irenaeus, but the latter not more than three hundred. I cannot rely on a suspicion until the authority of some manuscript codex supports it; for there are arguments against the place of Jerome that can be safely relied upon. But this is certain, and was even asserted by the same most illustrious man in § 20, that Irenaeus, still surviving in the year of Christ 189, in the tenth year of the Emperor Commodus, presided over the synod held in Gaul regarding the paschal controversy, and therefore, as he himself wrote of Polycarp, he had died at a very advanced age (πάνυ γηραλέος).
SECTIO II. Concerning the five books of Irenaeus against all heresies, and the version of these, and other lost writings of the same.
§ 1. That Irenaeus first of all wrote the five books *Against Heresies*, and that the most illustrious Dodwell ingeniously gathered this from their proem after Feuardentius, in *Dissert. iv, § 1*. He admits, however, that those words which seem to indicate this, *neither [hath he] the power of composition (οὔτε δύναμιν συγγραφῆς), which we have not exercised*, and therefore also the preceding, *nor accustomed to write (μήτε συγγράφειν ἠθισμένοι)*, can be taken as referring to the simplicity of his style. And that I should so take it, and believe that if not many, at least one tract had been previously elaborated by Irenaeus, I am led by the words of his Book III, chap. 7: *If anyone, according to the custom of Paul, reads him using hyperbaton, as we have shown in many places and elsewhere*, etc. But he has not even a word in the preceding about this frequent use of hyperbata: it is necessary, therefore, that he treated this subject in another previously written tract.
§ 2. That the said five books were not published in one surge, but the two former were sent separately to a friend, the most illustrious man rightly teaches in §§ 4 and 6 from the proem of Book III. Indeed, the prefaces of the fourth and fifth books hint that the following three also appeared singly. Yet that Irenaeus had already in his mind the arguments of these later ones, derived from the words of the apostles and Christ, when he wrote the earlier ones, he himself testifies in Book II, chap. 3, with these words: *Already, indeed, we have shown...*
that he teaches that this One (the Creator) is the Father, who is in heaven, and not another, as we shall show in the proceeding discourse.* Conf. p. 131, 1, 19 and 2, 14, 175, 1, 19 (Book II, cap. 41, n. 1, 2), and the last chapter of this second book, where he expressly lists the resulting books. And indeed, without these, the A *Refutation of Knowledge Falsely So-Called*, which he promised in the very title of this work, would have been entirely imperfect.
Moreover, it is very difficult to determine the time at which these books were written. About the year of Christ 177, at the age of eighty of Irenaeus, the ninth or tenth of his episcopate, is the time established with citations in Dissertation IV, § 2, and at the end of the same. However, there is no lack of arguments which seem to prove that the volume *Against Heresies* was compiled partly after and partly before that time. Mentions of Theodotion’s version in Book I, chap. 24, militate for the former part, which Epiphanius assigned to the times of Commodus, and the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, following him, attributed to the sixth year of that emperor. To these Mr. Dodwell in a separate Dissertation *On the Succession of the Roman Pontiffs*, chap. 14, § 17, countered that those words concerning Theodotion were perhaps absent from the earlier copy of Irenaeus and were inserted by him later. Another answer, which pleases me more, was given in Dissertation IV on Irenaeus, § 39 sq., where he contends against the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle that Theodotion’s version had already appeared under Marcus. And indeed, the authority of neither him nor Epiphanius, whom he cites, ought to be so great in chronological matters that we should allow ourselves to be troubled by their era, when a more certain criterion is available to us from elsewhere.
With this scruple removed, another argument for the other side occurred to me, by which I am almost persuaded that Irenaeus published the complete refutation of the heretics while still a presbyter, before the year 177. This is deduced from the rise of the Cataphrygian sect, which troubled the Churches of Phrygia and Asia; Eusebius in the Chronicle assigned this to the 17th year of Marcus, 174 of Christ; Mr. Dodwell, however, makes it earlier. But whenever the time may have fallen, I conclude that the two former books of Irenaeus preceded it, because in them he makes no mention of this sect, but only of the heresy of Tatian as the newest; he would not have omitted the former if it had already begun to trouble Asia, into which he was sending these books. Against books III and IV, p. 223, col. 1, line 25 (Book I, c. 2, n. 8) and p. 349, 1, 10 (Book IV, cap. 33, n. 6), he lightly touches upon those false prophets; whence it is necessary that he wrote of them shortly after the disturbances stirred up by them; for no long interval did elapse between the earlier and later books. From this it is also gathered that Irenaeus published this work not as a very old man, nor yet as a bishop, but as a presbyter; before, that is, he was sent by the martyrs of Lyons to Rome to Eleutherius regarding the curbing of that sect, together with letters of commendation, in which he is praised as a presbyter of the Church, *and a zealot of the covenant of Christ* (ὁ ζηλωτὴς τῆς διαθήκης τοῦ Χριστοῦ), according to Eusebius, Lib. V, cap. 4. Deservedly so, if he had already struggled so strenuously for the cause of God and Christ against the heretics in so many written books.
Yet the words with which the preface to book I begins: *You indeed, beloved, had commanded us, etc.*, as well as those which exist in the preface to book V: *As you have requested of us, obeying your command; since we have been placed in the administration of the word*, are appropriate to the rank of presbyter, but not to episcopal dignity. For no one would have dared to command Irenaeus, already a bishop, to sharpen his pen against the heretics: hardly would Irenaeus have professed himself obedient to a command; and, moreover, he would have said that he was placed in the *oversight* (προστασίᾳ) of the Church rather than in the administration of the word, if he had already been the supreme priest of the Church of Lyons. Therefore, the books *Against Heresies* seem to have been compiled by Irenaeus while still a presbyter, between the year of Christ 170 and 174, if that time interval were B further distinguished even if another era of the persecution of Marcus, which Eusebius fixed in his *Ecclesiastical History*, should stand firm. But if we follow the arguments of Mr. Dodwell, who refers the persecution to the year 167, it would be necessary to establish that Irenaeus's books were earlier: which, however, the mention of the heresy of Tatian and other things do not permit.
C § 3. That this volume *Against Heresies* was written in the Greek language, the most learned man has proved with so many and such great arguments in Dissertation V, § 1 to 6, that it is not necessary to add more. However, that he thinks in § 6 that their Latin version is later than Tertullian, and finally made at the end of the fourth century, compels me to dissent, due to some periods in Tertullian’s book *Against the Valentinians*, chap. 10, in which he seems to have clearly imitated the Latin interpreter of Irenaeus. For he says concerning Sophia the mother, that she was first indeed sorrowful on account of the *inconsummation* of generation; and finally feared that an end might also ensue. These statements agree exactly with the Latin version; but they differ somewhat from the Greek text. For in Book I, cap. 1, § 3, p. 2 (cap. 2, n. 3), the interpreter says in the same words: *being saddened on account of the inconsummation of generation: then afterwards that she feared lest this very thing should have an end.* The Greek, however, in the same place is: *First to be saddened because of the incompleteness (τὸ ἀτελὲς) of the generation, then to fear, lest it itself should not have perfect existence.* Here note that *inconsummation of generation* is translated by both as the equivalent of *τὸ ἀτελὲς τῆς γενέσεως*; and that Tertullian in the latter clause, having left the Greek Irenaeus, follows the footsteps of the interpreter.
Tertullian continues in the cited place, reporting that Sophia was confirmed and restored to her spouse: and that she herself indeed remained in the census of the Pleroma; but that her *Enthymesis*, and that appendage, the passion, were cast out by Horos, and crucified, and made outside the aeon (for "ex Irenaei versione repone eum" [from Irenaeus version replace it], etc.). If you compare these again with the Latin interpretation on page 12 near the end (num. 4), sounding the same: *Sophia confirmed, and restored to her spouse; for with the intention (ἐνθυμήσει) separated from her, with the appendage, the passion, she herself indeed persevered within (intra) the Pleroma; but her concupiscence (ἐνθυμήσιον) with the passion was separated by Horos, and crucified, and made outside of it*; you will hardly doubt that these were before Tertullian’s eyes while he was writing those things. For even to say nothing of the agreement of the rest, he says *remained in the census of the Pleroma*, just as the interpreter says *persevered*, although the Greek reading is *εἶναι* not *μεῖναι*; and both rendered *τὸ ἐπιγινόμενον πάθος* as *appendage, the passion*: which could not have happened unless one had received it from the other.
I have also noted below on page 103, no. 5, that St. Cyprian, in the letter 74 to Pompeius which he wrote concerning the heretic Cerdon, drew from the end of Book I, chap. 28, and the beginning of chap. 29 of Irenaeus. But truly the holy martyr nowhere in his epistles or treatises, as far as I remember, displayed any skill in the Greek language: whence he seems to have used the Latin version of Irenaeus, just as his master Tertullian did. Therefore, at the end of the second century, while Irenaeus was still alive or recently deceased, I would believe that these books of his were translated into the Latin and indeed barbaric tongue; and indeed by some minister of the Church of Lyons, or another in Gaul, because certain words occur in that version that are D hardly used by any but Gallican writers. See below page 168 (152), note 5, (in these words *sinistra manus... levamen*) and elsewhere passim. But those who make Irenaeus himself his own interpreter, indeed must assert that he alone was ignorant of the meanings of his own mind, or expressed them incorrectly. For that the Latin version is repeatedly different from the sense of the Greek text is evident from very many examples, each noted in its own place.
§ 4. The title prefixed to this work was *Refutation and Overthrow of Knowledge Falsely So-Called* (Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως), just as it has been handed down to memory by Eusebius.
A *Hist. eccl.* bk. 5, ch. 7, supported by Andreas Caesariensis in *Apocalypsim* serm. 6, ch. 18; by Damascenus in *Parallelis* mss. passim; by Photius; by Oecumenius in *1 Epist. Petri* ch. 1, p. 543, and in *Epist. Judae* p. 628. Indeed, Irenaeus himself is witness to this fact in the preface of book 2, where he says: "Wherefore, because it is a detection and overthrow of their position, we have entitled the composition of this work thus"; and in the preface of book 5, which begins: "Transmitting to you, most beloved, this fourth book of the work which is on the detection and overthrow of false knowledge." Similarly, at the end of this book, he calls the work one of reprobation and overthrow of falsely-named knowledge; and in the preface of book 5, a work on the exposure and overthrow of falsely-named knowledge. And indeed, *Elenchos*—detection or exposure—refers to the first book, in which he reviewed the errors of the heretics; but *anatropi*—overthrow—refers to the following four, in which he refuted them both by arguments and by the sayings of Holy Scripture. And from this, not only by Eusebius in very many places for the purpose of brevity are they called *Books against Heresies*, and by Cyril of Jerusalem *Catech.* 16, *Institutions against Heresies*; but they are also thus inscribed in ancient manuscripts of the Latin version: in the old Feuardentius codex, *Five Books against All Heresies*; and in Vossius’ ms. copy, *Five Books in Number against All Heretics* (al. *Heresies*). This inscription is supported by those words with which Irenaeus closes book 4: "And training both ourselves and you in five books for the contradiction of all heretics." Furthermore, concerning the titles of individual chapters, and the division both of these and of the books themselves, which Lord Dodwell discussed in *Dissertat.* 5, § 42, I add nothing to those remarks out of a desire for brevity, except that the Greek text of Irenaeus had also long since been divided into chapters, and specifically into smaller ones than those found in the Latin version; as I gather from Procopius of Gaza’s *Commentary on Genesis* ch. 2, p. 76, where he cites those things which our author teaches in book 2, ch. 37, concerning the garment of skin of Adam, as though they were stated in ch. 59 and 65 of the same book.
§ 5. Furthermore, some things remain to be said concerning the codices of the five aforementioned books that we use. We have no Greek manuscript codex in the entire world, not even a mutilated one, says the most famous Dodwell in *Dissertat.* 5, § 11. B To be sure, Feuardentius in the *Commonitio* to readers prefixed to his edition reports that there were some who testified that they had read a Greek copy in the Venetian library, and others who said they had seen one in the Vatican; he adds, however, that they were sought there in vain. Nor is a Greek Irenaeus now to be found in the Vatican library, as its most worthy prefect, Dn. Laurentius Alexander Zacagnius, has informed me by letter; as for the Venetian one, the opportunity to inquire exactly was lacking to me. But by a "mutilated Greek codex of Irenaeus," the man lauded above undoubtedly meant the greater part of book 1, preserved in Greek in Epiphanius’ *Panarion* against heresies, as well as many other fragments excerpted by Eusebius, Theodoret, etc., especially by John Damascenus in the books of the *Parallela*, which he entitled [as his own], or by their interpolator. For I doubt whether those Irenaean sayings that exist in the Claromontanus parchments were inserted by John Damascenus himself, since they are found neither in the Latin version of these *Parallela* published by Billius, nor in the Vatican Greek manuscript codex, if you except certain brief sentences. Added to this is the fact that in the pericope concerning the name of the Antichrist in book 5, ch. 30, in place of the last appellation *Teitan*, which all copies of Irenaeus have, and which the entire context confirms, *Lateinos* is read in the Claromontanus codex. Now, this was the name of a Jewish Alexandrian, whom Aristo of Pella represented as disputing with the Christian Jason (concerning whom see *Spicilegium Patrum* of the 2nd century, p. 127 seq.), and therefore it is sufficiently apt for the Antichrist—who, according to the unanimous opinion of the Fathers, is likewise to be a Jew and a most bitter enemy of the Christians. However, I have been C unable to find a reason why this name rather than the other, *Titan* being rejected, should be accepted, and with the other, *Lateinos*—unless perhaps some more recent Greek, imagining the Roman pontiff to be the Antichrist, either already existing or future, deemed that the diminutive of the name "pope," *Lateinos*, should be adapted to him. These conjectures of mine concerning the interpolation of the Claromontanus codex of the *Parallela* I wished to propose in this place, because in my notes I have always—as far as I remember—ascribed the collection of these Greek fragments of Irenaeus to Damascenus himself. But by whosever hand they may have been produced, we certainly owe them many thanks; for he has preserved for us about a fifth part of book 5 of Irenaeus in Greek; not to mention the fragments of books 1 and 4.
§ 6. Finally, if you look to the codices, that one which is preserved among the mss. books of Isaac Vossius, and which is said to be the same as the old Feuardentius codex—although I, on account of certain variant readings, judge it to be different—the most learned man, in the place cited a little earlier, holds it to be perfect and mutilated in no part. And regarding the first four books, this is surely true, except for one lone place perhaps, p. 219, col. 2, line 26 (p. 109, col. 2, line 5). But its preface and the conclusion of book 5 do not allow me to doubt that book 5 is in large part mutilated at the end. For it sounds thus: "Having made plain (in book 4) many things which were said and done by the Lord through parables, in this fifth book... from the remaining teachings of the Lord, and from the apostolic Epistles, we shall endeavor to make demonstrations." These [things] are confirmed by the following words: "The remaining discourses of the Lord, therefore, which He taught not by parables, but simply in the very expressions regarding the Father, and the exposition of the Epistles of the blessed apostle Paul, arranging them in another book, we shall provide you with the work entire." Namely, he wished to oppose these discourses of the Lord to the heretics, who announce one and the same Father as the maker of this world, as he writes a little earlier. D Similarly, by the Epistles of S. Paul he proposed to demonstrate that He taught one God the Father, He who spoke to Abraham, who made the legislation, who sent the prophets, who sent His Son, granting salvation to His own workmanship, which is the substance of the flesh. And Irenaeus explains at length, from ch. 2 of book 5 to ch. 15, the salvation of the flesh—that is, the resurrection and eternal life—by various arguments and by the very sayings of the apostle Paul, and he explains at length the thought objected in contradiction by the heretics from 1 Cor. 15: "Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God," and in this he proves from the Holy Scriptures that the Demiurge is the author of the resurrection and incorruptibility of the flesh; so that, having changed his plan, I know not why, he performed in the first part [of book 5] what he had proposed to treat at the end of book 5. But the demonstration promised from the words of Christ, spoken without the veil of parables, concerning one God, the creator of the world, and the same one as the Father of our Savior, he addresses at last in ch. 21 and derives the first argument from the allegation of Mosaic law against the temptations of the devil, which is also the last: for from the words of the most wicked spirit, "All these I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me," etc., he took the occasion to digress at greater length, first discussing the devil’s lies and the effort by which he acts so that he might be worshipped in the place of God; then, from ch. 25 to the end of our text, he discourses at length on the doctrine concerning the Antichrist and the millennial kingdom of Christ which was to follow his destruction. The remaining demonstrations, therefore, sought from the words of Christ and the writings of the apostle Paul concerning one and the same God in the Old and New Testaments have perished, because librarians in a later age did not want to describe further the doctrine of the millennial kingdom, which was hateful to them, and therefore broke the thread.
§ 7. Regarding the other works of our author, he is discussed at length in *Dissertatio* 6 on Irenaeus. It will not be irrelevant, however, to observe one or two things concerning those whose fragments are subjoined below. The clause from the book *De Ogdoade* leads the procession there, which I do not think was written by Florinus in the manner of an epistle; nonetheless
because it was snatched away by that error of Valentinus, or because it was elaborated by Irenæus for his refutation, I believe it was delivered just as it is clearly recorded by Eusebius in *Hist. eccl.* book v, chapter 20. For the rest, as to the fact that in Jerome's *Catalogus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum* it is read as A *spoudasma*, as Eusebius calls it, inscribed *De Ogdoade*, it does not seem to have been a mistake by Jerome himself, but rather by more recent librarians or editors who followed Sophronius, the Greek translator. For in the handwritten codices of the Bodleian Library, and also in that copy which Freculphus used in the ninth century, it is written *De octava*. Therefore, I think Jerome translated the title *Peri Ogdoados* [On the Ogdoad] into Latin; and yet not accurately, since he ought to have rendered it rather as *Octonatio* [an octonary work] with Irenæus' ancient translator, or, in better Latin, *De octonario Eonum numero* [On the number of the Eons as an octad]. Then there follows in the aforementioned place a fragment of the epistle to Florinus, *Peri monarchias, e peri tou me einai ton Theon poieten kakon*, *De monarchia, sive quod Deus non sit conditor malorum* [On the Monarchy, or that God is not the creator of evils], just as the title or summary of this writing was expressed by Eusebius in the cited book v, chapter 20. From which Valesius, in his Notes, incorrectly inferred that Florinus had introduced two principles, and had adhered to the dogmas of Marcion and Cerdo: and that he affirmed one to be the author of good things, the other the author of evil. For the words of Irenæus himself stand in the way, as he reproaches Florinus: "These dogmas not even the heretics outside the Church have ever dared to put forward." Therefore, the dogma of Florinus was different from the error of Marcion or any other heretic, and more impious; and he seems to have asserted the monarchy of the Creator of the world, as the supreme God, in such a way against the Marcionites and other heretics, that he made him the same creator and cause of evils: which certainly not even the heretics of that age had dared to do until then. B Irenæus, therefore, a strenuous defender of the goodness of the supreme God, demonstrated to Florinus that His monarchy was to be maintained, having rejected the other god, the principle of evils, in such a way, however, that he himself would not be established as the creator of evils, or the author of crimes which are committed by men; than which nothing more impious can be said. Read the most illustrious Dodwell § 2. Furthermore, the most learned man § 21 holds the epistle of Irenæus to Victor, two fragments of which I have subjoined in their place, and the *logos* regarding Pascha, which I have likewise noted as having been brought forward by Justin, to be one and the same writing. But since I recall no writer who designated the epistle by the term *logos*, I translate *logon peri Pascha* rather as a homily on the Pascha itself, delivered at this feast, and I think this was one of the *diaphoron dialexeon* [diverse discourses], of which Eusebius makes mention in book v, chapter 26, and Jerome in *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, who calls them various treatises, that is, sermons delivered to the people in the church; in which way Sophronius also understood it, rendering it as *biblion poikilon homilion* [a book of various homilies]. And from there I also think the thought on the meditation of death, page 468, was taken, described from Damascene's *Parallela*, where it is cited thus: "Of the holy Irenæus from the *d' lexeon*." C For I have no doubt that it should be read as *dialexeon*: which conjecture did not occur to me when I was writing annotation 4, page 468. Thus day teaches day, and perhaps it will teach more later concerning these and other writings of Irenæus.
SECTION III. On the various editions of Irenæus' five books *Adversus hæreses*, and the method and plan of this most recent one.
§ 1. Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam was the first to edit in folio the very ancient Latin version of the five books of Irenæus *Adversus hæreses*, with this inscription: The most erudite work of the divine Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, digested into five books, in which he wondrously refutes and confutes the impious and monstrous opinions of the ancient heresies; amended from a collation of the most ancient codices, as much as was possible, through the work of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, and now first brought to light through the work of Joannes Frobenius. An index of matters worthy of knowledge was added. He dedicated this work to Bernard, the bishop of Trent at that time, to whom the dedicatory epistle can be read not only at the beginning of this volume, but also in the collection of the epistles of Erasmus, 17 printed in London in 1642, book xxviii, no. 5. The dedicatory epistle is followed by the adjuration of the divine Irenæus to the scribes: "I adjure thee, etc.," not indeed annexed to these books *Adversus hæreses*, but to another treatise *De Ogdoade* by him. The text of Irenæus follows immediately, with certain D various readings, and of the Greek terms which the interpreter retained, and the interpretations of the less common Latin words added in the margin. He prefixed ancient titles of the individual chapters to the first four books, and to the four later ones their own prefaces or arguments, as he calls them. § 2. Two years later, that is, in the year 1528, another edition was brought forth from the Froben workshop in Basel, in folio, reprinted soon in 1534, in whose title after the words, "amended through the work of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam," there follows "and now again recognized through the work of the same, with those things corrected which had previously escaped notice; so that Erasmus himself may seem to have removed certain errors with a second effort." However, nothing new was added to that edition, except that the preface to book v is fuller. For after those words "De purgatorio nulla mentio," it continues: "Quin potius videtur," etc. In the same year 1534, Dupin mentions in his *Bibliotheca nova ecclesiasticorum auctorum* that Irenæus was brought to light at Paris; but it did not fall to my lot to see that edition. I have indeed seen another Parisian edition, not named by him, from 1545, in octavo format, whose title indeed professes that the books of Irenæus have been brought to light much more corrected than before. But I attribute this to the fraud of the bookseller, because I detect no corrections there. Moreover, I confess that the Basel editions 1545, 1548, 1554, which Dupin reviews, are unknown to me; nor do I take it ill, because a more recent Basel edition of 1560 in folio was at hand for me; yet it is in no way better than the preceding ones, except that in place of the nude adjuration of Irenæus, by which he adjured the scribes, it has the entire words of Jerome from his *Catalogus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum* concerning Irenæus, which I have inserted in their place among the testimonies of the ancients, and because the index of matters is richer, as is evident even from the first letter A. And the Parisian editions in 8° of 1563 and 1567 do not differ at all from that Basel edition.
A observation illustrated and revised, just as the title of the book implies. How much more clearly the following words declare this, which have a place in the dedicatory epistle to Bernard Brand, the primary tribune of the people of the Basel republic: "It came to pass through the singular benefit of God and by the zeal of good and certain learned men, after Erasmus began to live among those above, that the excellent work of Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus, against eighty heresies should come to light, in which, since many things stood described word for word from the books of Irenaeus, it was permitted to us to restore the greatest part of the book from Epiphanius, and to use the much better version of Janus Cornarius. Then, since most inept and for the most part *oudèn pros epos* (irrelevant) summaries stood before the books and chapters, being indicators of errors rather than of the scope, those having been for the most part removed, I added brief summaries of the chapters, so that I might inform the readers of the intent of Irenaeus and his disputations. Finally, the whole work, having been revised and vindicated from not a few errors, I compared with other copies; I noted the variant reading in the margin, and I strove to render more clear the monstrous *dogmatian* concerning the thirty aeons, which was wrapped in *schmatism*." And the fact that he completely rejected the old version and the ancient summaries is a thing badly done by him; moreover, the last point of which he boasts, I consider utterly undone: for I find no various readings in the margin.
§ 4. Finally, Franciscus Feuardentius, a Parisian doctor of theology, took care to have the five books of Irenaeus *Against Heresies*, corrected in many places from an old manuscript codex of the Lord Joannes San-Andreanus, a canon of the Parisian Church, and increased by five chapters at the end of the fifth book, published at Paris by Nivellius in the year 1575 and 1576, as can be learned from the new *Bibliotheca* of ecclesiastical authors of the illustrious Dupinius: for I myself could not find this edition in our Oxford libraries, nor in London. That, however, matters little, since the later edition printed at Cologne in the year 1596, and therein the year 1625, and also reprinted at Paris in 1639, is better than the former, as Dupinius himself notes, because it has the Greek passages of Irenaeus inserted from various writers. But let us hear Feuardentius himself, prefacing his remarks as much about this as about other additions to his later edition:
"We have taken care to publish in print, with the Greek in their proper places just as they were first transcribed from Irenaeus and then praised by these Fathers, the first eighteen chapters of the first book, once transcribed word for word from Irenaeus by Epiphanius, then twenty-two fragments from Eusebius, fourteen (read: sixteen) from Theodoret, two from Basil, as many from Melissa, one from Anastasius Nicenus. Then, at the end of the work, we have added six other fragments from various works of the same Irenaeus, collected from the author of the *Questions and Answers to the Orthodox* among Justin Martyr, Eusebius, and Demetrius the Deacon, in Greek: and we have arranged both those and these in as decent an order as could be done, translated into Latin for the most part by the most praised man Jacobus Billius, and the rest by the most learned interpreters Joannes Christophorsonus, Hervetus, Erasmus, and Faber. The same Billius [added] the Greek [text] for the eighteen preceding chapters of the first book, with scholia, and then the R.P. Fronto Ducæus, a theologian as pious as he is learned, compared them with the Greek exemplars of Epiphanius, and amended and illustrated them with his own notes. We ourselves have added not only to those, but to every chapter of the books and the newly added fragments, most rich annotations, by which we render the reasons for the emendations, and explain many more obscure and ambiguous passages, and many Greek phrases less common in Latin, etc. Furthermore, to the latest edition of Feuardentius, there are added at the end the Greek passages of Irenaeus which Halloixius had published in Chapter 15 of his *Life of Irenaeus*, taken chiefly from the Claromontane codex of the *Parallels* of Damascenus."
B C § 5. As concerns this our edition (the prime author for the undertaking of which was for me the same person who was my chief patron in England, the reverend Lord D. Henricus Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church, to be held by me in highest esteem), it exhibits the most ancient Latin version, reprinted according to the exemplar of Feuardentius, but corrected in almost two hundred places by the aid of four MS codices, and sometimes also of Erasmus and Gallasius, and of the Greek exemplars, using the conjectures of ourselves and of others not rarely, and distinguished more correctly than had been done hitherto by commas, colons, parentheses, periods, and chapters. It presents nearly half of the Greek text (if you set aside the cited passages of Scripture), and collected fragments—as much from Feuardentius and Halloixius as from Combefisius gathered on all sides, and finally from myself out of edited and manuscript *Catenæ*, as they are called, of the Fathers and other codices indicated in their own place—and having inserted them in their own places; with the addition, moreover, of several not-to-be-despised particles and sentiments of the lost treatises of Irenaeus, gathered as if from a shipwreck. It contains the more select notes of Gallasius, Feuardentius, Billius, Fronto Ducæus, Leopardus, Scaliger, Petavius, Halloixius, Valesius, Isaac Vossius, Cotelerius, Dodwell, and others, and furthermore my own annotations subjoined to the text, and not to mention the various readings of the stated exemplars subnotated below. Furthermore, it seemed necessary to construct two most rich indices: one of the passages of Holy Scripture, and another of matters occurring in the text of Irenaeus. These are followed by a triple glossary: Latin-Greek, which lists in order the Greek words of Irenaeus which correspond to the words of the ancient Latin interpreter; Greek-Latin, which exhibits Greek words and phrases of rarer usage; and finally Latin, by which the unusual and more obscure words of the Latin interpreter are explained by usage of clearer ones. Finally, so that nothing would seem to be missing for the illustration of our Irenaeus, the *Specimen of Conjectures* D and observations of Joannes Croius on Irenaeus, Epiphanius, etc., reprinted because of the rarity of the copies, has been added in place of a supplement.
§ 6. But before I make an end of prefacing, I offer public thanks to the friends who have deserved well of me and my Irenaeus. The first of these is the before-lauded most illustrious Mr. Dodwell, who, having long since meditated upon a new edition of the works of Irenaeus, most accurately compared the best manuscript codex of Isaac Vossius with the exemplar of Feuardentius for this purpose, and most willingly communicated all the various readings collected thence for the sake of the singular affection he bears toward me and all students of ecclesiastical antiquity, as also the transcript of variant readings which the same Vossius had once given to the same Mr. Dodwell to be described, having been unearthed by Josua Mercerus from two MS codices, I know not which. The Arundelian codex, now preserved in the Royal Library of the Society of London, which I judge to be four hundred years old, I myself compared diligently with the edition of Feuardentius three years ago; since the very kind Mr. Woodward, doctor of medicine and a fellow of said society, had most benignly procured the use of it for me. Nevertheless, since the reverend D. Battely, canon of Canterbury, later sent me of his own accord his own exemplar of Irenaeus, in which he had noted a great part of the variant readings of the said codex, I did not wish to pass over this benevolence of his, especially since I had made use of one or two observations of his inscribed upon the margin. A fragment from a codex of the Viennese library, the Reverend Dn. Edmundus Gibson, of the household and library of the most reverend Archbishop of Canterbury, sent me for the final page of this edition out of his singular kindness: although I had previously described that from the papers of the very learned Mr. Ab. Seller at London. Indeed, I owe many thanks to the man of such extraordinary candor and no less erudition, to me most beloved Mr. Joannes Potterus, col-
- lege of Lincoln, who, at my request, was not loath to compile the Greek glossary, nearly entire, when the narrow constraints of a set time were pressing me to write the prolegomena. Furthermore, throughout this whole work, whenever I stuck fast in doubt, especially concerning certain passages of Scripture cited by Irenaeus a little differently than we read them, I consulted my most honorable patron, Mr. Joannes Millius, a most learned professor of theology, to whose annotations I gratefully acknowledge myself to owe no small debt. Among those abroad, I must name the one and only R. P. Michael Lequien, theologian of the Order of Preachers at Paris; to whose unusual alacrity in aiding me and every literary matter, I owe everything that I have presented as described or corrected from Gallican codices. Therefore, kind reader, make use of these, and pray to God for my salvation.
VARIOUS NOTES ON THE BOOKS OF ST. IRENAEUS AGAINST HERESIES. ON THE FIRST BOOK.
(The numerical notes of the pages indicate to the reader the numbers which we have inserted into the text in bolder type.)*From the annotations of Nicolaus Gallasius on the proem of book 1.*
Page 1. *Quatenus*. The translator must have had a faulty codex, who read *tel* for *è*. Whence also a long hyperbaton and anacoluthon followed. Now that one little letter has been removed, the sense is rendered clearer to you. For although the discourse is *skolios*, yet it separates individual points distinctly and causes the latter to respond aptly to the former. From this you may easily conjecture that Irenaeus did not himself translate his book: for he could not have been mistaken in a little word, whatever exemplars were placed before him. There is no reason, therefore, for you to wonder why so many things are found obscure, tangled, and confused in the whole book. For besides the fact that it is openly evident that the interpreter used a faulty exemplar, he was certainly Greek, nor did he sufficiently maintain the propriety and purity of the Latin language, and this you will easily perceive from the single verb *parapempesthai*. For he took that to mean "to reject" or "to avert," for which he usurped the word "to refute"; which however cannot properly be taken in that signification. But the translator understood that there were some who oppose the truth and reject it, as we are accustomed to say in common French of that which is not admitted, *renvoyer*. But this expression ought properly to be taken of those who have been sent into the truth itself under a false pretext. Nor does he simply say *pempomenous*, because false teachers have no legitimate mission or calling, but *parapempomenous*, because they had been sent by Satan and his assistants without reason or order: just as the same author here says that they *paradidaskein*, because they announce false and feigned things beyond the word of God: just as *parapresbeia* is called by Demosthenes a false and feigned embassy. And these things indeed I wished to admonish from the very beginning, so that readers might diligently weigh the rest, which, if I had to enumerate and annotate each one, I would be both lengthier and would seem to distrust too much the judgment of those who will not be entirely drowsy and supine. Therefore, I will only annotate those things which are more worthy of note. Page 2. *Suadenter illi quidem*. There is an elegant antithesis here, which the old interpreter did not express: *peithanos*, *apeithanos*. It is the same as if he were to say: They can seem to rely on a plausible reason while B they incite the ignorant and the not-at-all evil to inquire. For who would forbid one to inquire about things that we ought to know? Especially when Christ says: Seek, and you shall find [*]. But they can excuse themselves by no plausible reasoning, because, exceeding the mode of inquiry, they destroy those whom they impel toward impiety and horrendous blasphemies. Page 3. *Quia non omnes cerebrum habent*. It is read in the Greek, *epei me pantes ton enkephalon exeptykasin*, that is, not all have vomited up their brain: *ton enkephalon exeptukenai* is said of those whose brain is not hindered by thick humors, so that they might dig out and lay bare the hidden, tangled, and involved matter. Finally, those who need neither hellebore nor apophlegmatisms to purge their brain, they can be said to have vomited up their brain, that is, to have purged and cleansed it. It seems to be derived from physicians, who are accustomed to purge heads burdened with humors by means of *errhines* and other remedies that draw out phlegm and spittle. Therefore, Irenaeus says that these profound mysteries of the Valentinians cannot be understood by all, because not all are endowed with cleverness and perspicacity. It could also be taken in the opposite direction for those who purge themselves too exquisitely, so that they not only vomit up and eject superfluous humors but the brain itself. Thus the sense would be that the delirious ravings and prodigies of those men are not admitted by everyone, because, although most seem rude, yet they do not lack a brain. And the proverb fits, *enkephalon ouk echei*. And certainly it is better to have one a little thicker than to be so clever in pernicious matters, and in this manner *aerobatein*, so that you touch neither heaven nor earth. But I prefer to follow the former exposition, because it seems better to agree with the proposition of Irenaeus.
*Scholia of Billius on the proem of Irenaeus.* Page 1. *Quoniam nonnulli*. The fault of the Greek exemplar, not noted by Gallasius, casts dense clouds upon it. For it must be read *epei*, not *enti*, as anyone who pays closer attention to the mind will easily perceive. This period is very long, inasmuch as Irenaeus has crammed many things into it. For he could have said briefly thus: Since some bring in false doctrines, I have thought it necessary to indicate them to you, so that you may make them clear to those who dwell with you, and…
that their loud clamor may not only not turn you away, but also not win you over.
*False words.* Billius rightly advises that *falsos* should be added after *sermones*, a word which, however, because of the fault of his translator, or the printer, or his scribe, was omitted in his translation, in which you can write thus: *they introduce false words and empty genealogies*. Even though the ancient interpreter does not seem to have read *μaταίας* (empty), but *ἀπεράντους* (infinite), as he translates *infinitas*, as in Ambrose A 1 ad Timoth. 1, 4; the Latin Vulgate says *genealogiis interminatis*; Tertullian, *De praescript.*, when he names *genealogias indeterminatas*, Valentinus is recognized. Cornarius also seems to have read the word *ψεύδεις*, for he writes: *sermones falsos, et genealogias vanas*.
*Page 2. Vitreum for his disgrace.* In Greek *ΰαλος*, glass, as in Jerome, epist. 8, in Proverbs, which seems to have arisen from this custom of adulterating pearls: *How much, it is said, is glass worth, as much as a pearl?* But in Tertullian, *Ad martyres*, cap. 4, we read: *As much as glass, as much as a true pearl?* Lest this word be thought to be used only in a plural number, see Pliny and Petronius, *vitrea fracta*.
*Page 3. Being unlearned.* The interpreter seems to have read *ἀπείροις*, not *ἀκεραίως*; *being simple*, not *uncorruptly, sincerely*, as it is a little before, *φαίνεται τοῖς ἀπείροις*, so that it deceives the more unlearned.
*Which is blasphemy against God.* The Greek book has, *εἰς Χριστὸν βλασφημίας*; the ancient [interpreter] seems to have read, *εἰς Θεόν*. A little before, for *ἐπεὶ μὴ πάντες τὸν ἐγκέφαλον ἐξεπτύκασιν*, he rendered, *because not all have a brain*, which confirms the former exposition of Billius, as if "to have spit out the brain" is the same as "to be endowed with keenness of wit"; or, as Gallasius advises, this type of speech may be taken from physicians, who, when heads are burdened with humors, are accustomed to purge them, both by sneezes and by other remedies that draw out phlegm and sputum; or from those who by nature do not have a brain hindered by such humors. It convinces these, therefore, because not all can discover them by their own strength; for when he adds: *So that you also, recognizing them, may make them manifest to all*; truly he seems to mean that these portents are to be known precisely so that, their absurdity having been perceived, they may be avoided and condemned. As when one knows that what is offered as a gem is glass, he rejects and despises it immediately. Irenaeus, lib. 1, cap. 35: *Against them, victory is the manifestation of their opinions.* Jerome, *ad Ctesiphontem*: *To have exposed your opinions is to have overcome them.*
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius.*
*Page 1. D. Irenaei.* This common inscription of the books of D. Irenaeus had initially made me suspicious, not only because of an ancient manuscript codex which has it a little differently, as we have marked in the margin; but also because of Eusebius D, who names these, *Ἐλέγχου καὶ ἀνατροπῆς τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως βιβλία πέντε*, *Five books of the refutation and overturning of knowledge falsely so named*. Andreas of Caesarea and Arethas subscribe to this in cap. xvi of the Apocalypse; Oecumenius also, Joan. Mentenius being the interpreter, calls them the same, *Books against the wisdom falsely so named*; likewise: *A confutation of knowledge falsely so named*. But the same Irenaeus had moved me more, who, alluding to this title in the preface to the second book, says that he is refuting knowledge of a false name. And a little after he confirms the same: *That it is the detection and overturning of their (the heretics') opinion, we have thus titled the writing of this work.* And again, in the preface to the fourth book, he says the same: *Sending to you this fourth book of the work, which is about the detection and overturning of false knowledge.* And again, at the end of the fourth book, he writes: *We shall provide to you the entire work of the refutation and overturning of knowledge falsely so named, God granting.*
A And with this inscription: *To Simon the Holy God.* The emperor Nero, in whose favor he had Peter the apostle put to death, was a witness. The impurities of the Nicolaitans, the idol-manias of the Ophites, the filth of Carpocrates, the impieties of the Cainites, and the blasphemies of Marcion far outstripped the Jewish fables. What utility did the couplings of Aeons, of Depth, of Silence, of Pleroma, of Syncrasis, of the Propator, of Ogdoads, Decads, and Duodecads of Basilides and Valentinus confer, being windings more inextricable than all labyrinths? These things, therefore, and other monsters of this kind, we are rightly taught to avoid.
Page 2. *Exercises.* So the ancient codex: but we have removed *forces*. He desires, however, the art of persuasion, by which the Gnostics dragged many into their snare, cunningly prepared and constructed by them for no other purpose than fraud.
*The words of the Lord.* We have removed *the word*, by the authority of the ancient codex, with which the Greek reading in Epiphanius agrees, which has *the sayings*.
*Malignant interpreters.* He shows that errors are drawn not from the fountain of the sacred Scriptures, but from the pools of perverse interpretations: concerning which matter Vigilius the martyr, in Book II *Contra Eutychen*, complains in these words: *The origin of all impieties is this, that the power of heavenly sayings, tarnished by the vice of bad understanding, is not weighed according to the quality of its own sense, but is derived into other things at the will of the reader, otherwise than the reason of truth demands.* And after a few words: *It is most to be lamented that a man becomes impious from the same source whence another becomes pious: and that from thence they incur the miserable hardships of captivity, from whence liberty is acquired.* Never, therefore, let those of the earth be terrified, nor let them flatter themselves, says Jerome, if they seem to affirm what they say through the chapters of the Scriptures: *since even the devil spoke some things from Scripture, and the Scriptures consist not in reading, but in understanding.*
*Through the art of words.* We have expunged *through the custom of good men*, or *death*, which Erasmus had substituted, who, if he had consulted Epiphanius, he would have learned that it should be read *by the art of words*: the ancient codex agrees with Epiphanius. Furthermore, the best interpreter of this place will be Tertullian, writing *that those wanderers had importunately inculcated that saying: Seek and you shall find; by which they might stir up the minds of Catholics with anxious curiosity, having spurned the doctrine of the Church, to investigate another God, unknown in past ages, and thus drag them into their nets.* But to us, he says, *there is no need of curiosity after Christ Jesus, nor of investigation after the Gospel. But if we must seek, when is the limit of seeking? Where is the station of believing? Where the expunction of finding? Among Marcion? But Valentinus also proposes: Seek and you shall find. Among Valentinus? But Apelles also struck me with this pronouncement, and Ebion, and Simon, and all in order, having nothing else by which they might insinuate themselves into me, and lead me to themselves,* etc. It should be observed that the heretics, breathing the breath of that winding serpent B by the machines of various questions, have perpetually struck the minds of the simple. Wherefore, they incessantly echoed the *Where* and *How*, Judaic vocabularies: which, as things far to be removed from matters of faith, Justin Martyr taught in his book *De Trinitate*, many centuries before Theophylact and Cyril of Alexandria.
*In that which is blasphemous.* We have restored these twenty-three words by the authority of the old codex and the wonderful consensus of the Greeks: we have removed *unjust*, and they do not show the impious opinion of those men to have been done.
*As [we have received] from our better [source].* Eusebius, in Book V *Hist.*, observed long ago that Irenaeus frequently mentions the sayings of a certain apostolic man, whose name he suppresses: which is clear from chapter 2 of this book, 19 and 35 of the third, and 45 of the fourth. C Who is... D
he is, when the very keen judgment of Eusebius has failed, do not expect from me. This much, however, I dare affirm: that nowhere can those things which he recites be found in their published books, which preceded his own age. You perceive, meanwhile, B that this martyr brings against the heresies not only writings, but also those traditions from the Fathers.
Moreover, not only Irenaeus, but also Tertullian openly notes that the Valentinians did not openly or candidly preach what they proposed; but obscured it with many tricks and ambiguities. "They care for nothing more," he says, "than to conceal what they preach, if indeed they are preaching, those who conceal." Then, comparing those things with the Eleusinian mysteries of the Gentiles, which were hidden because of their foulness, he adds that these men had configured their own most vain and shameful fictions with the holy names and titles and arguments of the true religion, etc.
Page 3. *Lest by chance also with our crime.* He seems to admonish the pastors of the churches concerning that divine threatening, by which the blood of those who perish shall be required from their hands: the terror of which elicited these querulous and tear-stained words from Augustine, when he was called to the fellowship of the episcopate by Valerius: "Nothing is more miserable, sadder, and more damnable in the sight of God than the office of a bishop, presbyter, or deacon, if the task be performed perfunctorily." The holy Ignatius writes that a bishop is not so much his own as he is others'. Hence Ambrose, being chosen, contemplates flight; Ammonius likewise amputated his own ear; Synesius prefers many deaths to this ministry; Basil the Great hides himself; Chrysostom, as much as he can, declines the burden; and a certain person, according to blessed Jerome, fears that he would be in the number of the damned if he had been a bishop. That thunderbolt, now thought by many to be an empty phantom, was once such.
*Ovilis pellis.* Unless you read *ovillæ*, that is, "of the sheep" (for both are in common use), it is a solecism: yet the ancient codex has *ovilis*.
Moreover, I think that Cyril of Jerusalem excellently emulated and interpreted this passage of Irenaeus in his fourth Catechesis, in these words (which will also illustrate the following note): "Wickedness imitates virtue, and the tares strive to appear as wheat: which indeed is assimilated to wheat in a certain appearance, but is easily discerned by those who taste it. And the devil also is transformed into an angel of light, so that he may ensnare men in the darkness of blindness and the pestilence of unbelief. Many wolves walk about in the skins of sheep, and obtain the garments of sheep, but not their claws or teeth. And although clothed in a gentle hide, they deceive with an appearance of probity: yet they emit pernicious poison from their teeth. There is need, therefore, of divine grace, and a sober mind, and watchful eyes, lest we, eating of the tares instead of the wheat, perish imprudently; or lest, thinking the wolf to be a sheep, we be captured; or lest, thinking our destroyer, the devil, to be a good angel, we be swallowed up." To this also pertains what the martyr Cyprian mentions: that the heretical Novatians, in the manner of wolves, desired a dark gloom, by which they could easily tear to pieces in their dark caves the sheep snatched from their shepherds by their beastly cruelty. And concerning these and such like, the Lord foretold: that many ravenous wolves would come in sheeps' clothing. And elsewhere he writes that such betrayers of souls lie that they may deceive, flatter that they may harm, promise good things that they may bestow evil, and offer life that they may destroy; Epistola ad plebem, concerning the five schismatic presbyters. Let also Chrysostom be read, in the first volume, the homily on the fasts and the reading of Genesis.
*Speaking indeed similar things to us.* C And they uncover other frauds of the Gnostics, in which they seemed at first glance to act with the orthodox; but in reality, they merely dazzled the eyes of the simpler folk, like tricksters, while holding views that were far different. We must always, therefore, be on our guard against heretics, lest they impose upon the incautious, for when they begin to be pressed, or have to write, says Jerome, you may see wondrous tricks: they so temper their words, they so turn the order, and they so arrange all ambiguous things, that they may hold the confession both of us and of our adversaries, so that a heretic hears one thing, and a Catholic hears another. The same man holds the Pelagians so guilty of this fraud: "They hear one thing in the secrets of the bedchamber, another in the public crowds," etc. How strenuously the sacramentarians among the sects of the later Gnostics perform this same thing, no one is ignorant. In words, indeed, they pretend to believe with us that God is omnipotent; that the substance of the true flesh of Christ is offered to us; that Christ descended into the underworld; and very many other things: but with the conflicting and plainly blasphemous interpretations added, they show themselves to be most vain and most pernicious deceivers. But the pure faith, writes the same Jerome, does not seek tricks: what is believed simply, must be confessed simply. And Tertullian *Contra Valentinianos*: "Truth blushes at nothing, except being hidden."
86 *When I have read their commentaries.* Not only, therefore, did the heresiarch Valentinus publish certain things in writing, such as an *Evangelium*, *Psalms*, and *Sophia*, as is in Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Epiphanius, but he also had disciples who were prolific writers, whose commentaries Tertullian confesses to have read after Irenaeus in the book *De carne Christi*, chapters 15, 16, 17, and 20. But whether the reading of heretical books should be permitted to everyone, we shall discuss later.
*Who are beyond Ptolemaeus.* Concerning this, the same Irenaeus relates more at the end of the first chapter of the first book: likewise in the second book, chapter 44, Tertullian toward the end of his book prescribes that he thought in all things with Valentinus, with only eight new Aeons added to the thirty, and by denying that the thirtieth Aeon had proceeded from the Pleroma. He mentions the same again in the book *Adversus Valentinianos*, chapters 4, 8, and 12. Nicetas Choniates in the fourth book of his *Thesaurus orthodoxiæ*, chapter 5, testifies that this Bythus, whom he called God, had attached two consorts to himself, Ennoia or Thought, and Thelema or Will. Furthermore, in an epistle to Flora (which Epiphanius transcribed), he states that only the Decalogue, as being given to men by God, is to be accepted against the Law of Moses. His errors, however, after Irenaeus, are solidly refuted by Epiphanius, Euthymius, Nicetas, and Theodorus Scutariotes.
*We shall show.* Because the Greek word ἀπαγγελοῦμεν is of the future tense, and the old codex reads it so, we show that in place of *rejicimus* (we reject).
*And we shall give opportunities for other things.* He desires all others who excelled in the art of writing and speaking to contend against the heretics by his example, and in no way to connive at their great crimes. Jerome boasts that he never spared heretics, but acted with every effort that the enemies of the Church might also be his own, in the preface to his *Dialogus contra Pelagianos*. He urges the same upon Augustine, in an epistle sent to him, to count it as a sign of the greatest glory that all heretics detested him, and pursued him with equal hatred, so that whom they could not destroy with swords, they might at least destroy with wishes.
*And not accustomed to write.* Perhaps one might not ineptly divine from this that these five books are the first fruits of Irenaeus, which, about the hundred and eightieth year of Christ, but during the pontificate of Eleutherius
A they may have spewed forth, yet most retain a whole and sound mind.
*Regarding the Celts.* Pliny, in book four, chapter seventeen, writes that a third part of Gaul Comata is called Celtic and Lugdunensis; namely, that which is between the Seine and the Garonne. See on these matters below in book one, chapter three, note 5, and in Tertullian, *On the Soul*, chapter 57, as well as Strabo, Pomponius, Caesar, etc.
*Amateurishly.* That is, in the vulgar manner, or perhaps more correctly, "privately," so that it refers to the pronoun "to you."
*And in the breadth of your understanding.* More clearly: And according to the fruitfulness of your genius, you will make more abundant what has been said by us in few words.
*To give provision.* In Greek, ἐφόδια δοῦναι; we elegantly say "to provide a viaticum." Here it signifies the same as ἀφορμήν, support, aid, or subsidy.
*From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on the preface of book 1.*
Page 2. *Something higher.* Tertullian in his book *Against the Valentinians*, chapter 1: "With a fixed countenance, with brow held high, it is deep, they say."
*Having to show.* This form of speaking (which is purely Greek) will often occur in this book, using "to have" for "to be able." It will be enough, therefore, to have admonished this at the beginning. — GALLAS.
*Implausibly.* There is here an elegant antithesis between πιθανῶς and ἀπιθάνως, which the old interpreter did not express, while he rendered the latter word poorly by taking it in a general sense. But it is the same as if he said: They may indeed seem to rest upon a plausible reason while they incite unlearned and not at all evil men to inquire; for who would forbid inquiring into those things which it behooves us to know? Especially when Christ says: Seek and you shall find. But they can excuse themselves by no plausible reason, because, exceeding the mode of inquiry, they destroy those whom they drive into impiety and horrible blasphemies.
Page 3. *Those who speak like things*, etc. So also Tertullian, *Against the Valentinians*, chapter 1: "If you test subtly," he says concerning them, "through double-tongued ambiguities they affirm the common faith." And a little before: "Fashioning C very holy and very base figments with holy names, and titles, and arguments of true religion."
*Do not all have their brains vomited forth.* The interpreter poorly rendered ἐξεπτύκασιν. Moreover, this phrase can be expounded in two ways: either concerning those who, by having their brains purged of evil humors through spittle, have a brain so clean that they can perceive the most obscure things; or concerning those who are purged too much, so that they spit out even their superfluous humors and their brain itself, to whom the proverb applies: "he has no brain," he lacks sense. In the former way Gallasius holds that it was said ironically by Irenaeus, that not everyone is endowed with such perspicacity that they can penetrate into the deep mysteries of the Valentinians. Which exposition Billius also confesses to approve, although he actually follows the latter, which seems to me entirely genuine. For Irenaeus seriously says that not everyone admits the portentous fictions of the heretics, because not everyone has [vomited forth their] brain; but many retain a whole and sound mind.
*Not accustomed to writing.* Feuardentius cleverly gathers from this that these *Against Heresies* books are the first work of Irenaeus. Moreover, one should note here the words of the scholiast on the beginning of book 1 of Thucydides: "To write," to compose with diligence and zeal; and "to write" both simply and to find the truth without diligence. And hence, a little later, Irenaeus says that he was "destitute of the power of a writer."
Page 4. *To the Celts.* Thus it is correctly read in the Petavian edition of Epiphanius instead of "to the brothers" (*ad fratres*), which was in the Basilian edition, and thence transcribed into the editions of Irenaeus. Moreover, that the Celts were called the inhabitants of that part of Gaul in which the city of Lugdunum is, whose bishop was St. Irenaeus, is clear from Caesar, book 1 of his *Commentaries*, and Pliny, book IV, chapter 17, not to mention the common geographers.
*Of a writer.* See on this word Suidas, and Harpocration, and the notes of Valesius upon this. Moreover, others have rightly ascribed the title of "writer," which our author modestly refused to take for himself; thus in ms. codex 22, in the Bodleian archive, some things are cited "from another book of Irenaeus the writer," to be recited in their proper place.
*Amateurishly.* This word either signifies "privately," that is, separately; or "vulgarly," that is, rudely, without exterior ornament. Feuardentius prefers the former signification, looking to that which follows: "the things written are to you"; I prefer the latter, because it agrees better with the preceding words, to which it is aptly referred.
*From the annotations of Nicolaus Gallasius on chapter 1.*
Page 31. *Whoever is in the world and does not love a wife.* This passage, since it is difficult, needs explanation. And first, that difference which the Valentinians posited between "to be in the world" and "from the world" is to be noted. For they said they were in the world, but not of the world, because they were spiritual, and could not be corrupted by the vices and filth of this world, even if they were merged in them, because their inner purity and perfection was such that it could not be polluted or stained by external filth: just as was declared before by the similitude of gold. But the others, who were not of that sect, they said were "from the world" or "out of the world": because they were not regenerated, nor had they the seed of election. Therefore they called them "psychic," because they were ruled not by the spirit, but by the human soul. These, therefore, they denied were of the truth, or could arrive at it, since they were overcome by their own concupiscence. And here observe that "not" is wrongly read in other Greek exemplars, μή. For the negation ought to be removed, which confuses and overturns the sentence entirely. For the Valentinians, even if they yielded to lusts, denied that they were overcome by cupidity, because they thought they were preserved by the interior seed: but the others, who lacked that seed, they said were polluted and overcome by women. Therefore, imbued with that false persuasion, vain and impious men were puffed up, and boasted as if they were pure, and licentiously and unrestrainedly wallowed in every mire of crimes and flagitious acts. Here also *parergo* (incidentally) the transformation of those words is to be noted, by which they attribute glory and praise to themselves in acts of lust and adultery, but to the rest, for the same crimes, shame and ignominy. For when they speak of their own, who are only in the world, they say that the women whom they foully abuse come into their own power, *that she is held*; but others who are from the world, because they lack the spiritual seed, are held by a woman through concupiscence, and are possessed as if captive: *in concupiscence she is held by a woman*. Tertullian touched upon this passage when he said: "Otherwise, one is a degenerate and not a legitimate child of the truth, who, dwelling in the world, did not love a woman, nor joined himself to her." And what will eunuchs do, whom we see among them? Moreover,
A from those things which have been said, we may gather that "woman" (γυναικός) is not to be taken here for a wife, whose love is good and legitimate, but for any woman by whose love one might be captured. For it is certain that promiscuous lusts were among them, so that they joined with anyone without choice, provided that it pleased them, and they poured themselves forth into every intemperance, lasciviousness, and filth. Finally, those men, says Tertullian, vindicated their own nobility from the passivity of life (for so he speaks) and the diligence of their offenses. Such monsters have sprung up in our times (would that they did not still exist) who have come forth from the Anabaptist sect. They have been called Libertines, on account of the false liberty which they boasted in the name of religion. But rather, since they covet every license of crimes, lusts, and every corruption, they ought to have been branded with a servile name. For they are slaves of the belly, of Venus, and of all shameful acts. Irenæus describes their custom in such a way that they seem to have existed in his own time. But their ancestors and forefathers have existed, whom they copy very finely. Indeed, he has so depicted a living image of these men that we do not doubt they were trained in the same school, and employed the same master, and were born from the same seed of error as those ancients. They boast that, however much they may indulge in wine and gluttony, however much they may commit adultery, act madly, slander, curse, or kill, they are guilty of no fault, nor are they in any way stained or polluted: because they are new men, liberated from the condemnation of Adam, and their inner man is not touched or defiled, nor does their spirit consent to those things that are done by the body. Thus they say they are manumitted and free, so that everything is permitted to them; and the rest, who are restrained by the fear of God and conscience, they mock as rude and ignorant, because they are still in Adam and do not yet know how to assert their liberty. But in order that you may understand more clearly what they have in common or disparate with these men, read the booklet written in French by John Calvin against the Libertines, which we have now for many years translated into the Latin tongue.
Scholia of Billius on Chapter 1
Page 5. *Proarchen*. I add this word both from the old interpreter and from Tertullian. *Bythum*. Tertullian writes that this name was attributed by the Valentinians with little propriety to Him who dwells in the heights. For *Bythus* signifies the depth. Yet he calls it *Bythium*, not *Bythum*. *Monogenem*. Tertullian says that this ought to have been called *Protogenem* more aptly than *Monogenem*, since they imagine him not as an "only-begotten" (unigenitum) but a "first-begotten" (primogenitum). *Which they also call Charin and Sigen*. These words are missing in the Greek exemplar, which we have added from the old interpreter. *Pythagorean quaternary*. Tertullian calls it the *Tetrad* and the *Quadriga*. He calls it Pythagorean because that philosopher held the quaternary number in such honor that he even prescribed this formula of swearing to his disciples: οὐ μὰ τὸν ἡμετέρα γενεᾷ παραδόντα τετρακτύν. Page 8. *Adducere cuperet*. The old translation has *nollet*. Tertullian, however, supports the Greek reading. *Derivavit*. Thus Tertullian renders this verb *ἀπέσχηκε*, and draws a similarity from vices, which, having sprouted elsewhere in the body, breathe forth their own destruction into another limb. *ἀπέσχηκε*, in French *se déchargea*, it sets upon, it ceased with an impulse. *Temeritate*. For he was not emulating, but only rejoicing over the father. Tertullian. Page 9. *Femina*. I read *θηλεῖα* with the old version. *Ne esse quoque ipsum finem haberet*. The Greek codex has *μηδὲ αὐτὸ τὸ εἶναι τελείως ἔχειν*. But it appears from the old interpreter that it should be read: *μὴ καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ εἶναι τέλος ἔχῃ*. Which reading Tertullian also confirms. For he says thus: "And to fear finally, lest an end also were to follow." B
Page 10. *Id quod accideret*. The codex of Epiphanius has *τὸ γένος*. But *γεγονὸς* follows with the old interpreter, especially since Tertullian stands by this opinion, who says "event," not "kind." Page 10. *Materiæ essentiam*. I add *τῆς ὕλης* in the Greek from the old interpreter and from Tertullian. *Conjugis experte*. That it ought to be translated thus appears both from the old interpreter and from Tertullian, who calls the image "male-female," and finally from what follows. For this reason which he provides would not sufficiently fit if *ἀσύζυγος ἀῤῥενόθηλυς* referred to Horos. *Patrem enim*. Add *πατέρα* in the Greek. *Et crucem et lytrotem*. In the Greek it is read corruptly *συλλυτρωτήν*: for which *σταυρὸν καὶ λυτρωτήν* is to be substituted from the old interpreter and Tertullian. Page 11. *Cruci affixam esse*. For *ἀποστερηθῆναι*, in the Greek it should be read *ἀποσταυρωθῆναι*. For both the old interpreter and Tertullian have "crucified," not "deprived." *Id videlicet agentis*. These are missing in the old translation, but are to be supplied from the Greek and Tertullian. *Hoc est, Christum et Spiritum sanctum*. Tertullian rightly ridicules this conjunction as most shameful, namely, of two males. *Quodque in quibus*. In this place Tertullian does not agree with the old interpreter: whose footsteps I having followed, I translated these things as if in the Greek there were *ἀκατάληψιν γινώσκοντας ἑαυτοῖς ἱκανοὺς εἶναι*. Tertullian, "to introduce (that is, to teach) the generation of the unborn," and "to make them fit for generating in themselves the knowledge of the Father," seems to have read in the Greek not *ἀναγορεῦσαι*, that is, to preach, but *ἀναγεννῆσαι*. Page 12. *Nisi Monogenis beneficio*. Word-for-word, "through the Monogenes." In the Greek the word *γινώσκεται* is to be expunged. *Cur ii omnes perpetui sint*. Tertullian translates *αἰώνιον διαμονήν* as "perpetuity," and ridicules the madness of the Valentinians, who offer this as the cause of the perpetuity of the Æons. For from it follows that the Æons did not comprehend Him, just as if they had comprehended Him. For hence was perpetuity obtained by them, when by His own comprehensibility, this is, by the Son, they only received form. *Ortus*. Delete *αὐτοῦ* in the Greek. *Hoc est, in Filio*. In the Greek it is held corruptly *ὃ δὴ ἴσος ἐστί*. For it must be read *ὃ δὴ ὁ υἱός ἐστι*, supported not only by the old interpreter, but also by Tertullian, who uses these words: "But they decree the Son to be comprehensible of the Father." Where, however, one must read *comprehensible*, that is, *τὸ καταληπτόν*. *Omnes Noas, omnes Sermones*. Ovid would have deleted his Metamorphoses if he had recognized a greater one. Tertullian. Page 13. *Produxisse*. Greek *προβαλέσθαι προλήματα*. It should be read *πρόβλημα*. For there is no debate here except about Jesus. But Tertullian also ridicules the madness of the Valentinians here, who decree that their Æons adorned Jesus as if from a public collection, although they assert that all of them were made from one. For if, he says, they were all one from the aforementioned equalization, the reason for the contribution was vacant, which almost consists for the sake of variety. And this place opportunely makes mention of the Pandora of Hesiod, just as Irenæus does in Book II, chapter 49. *Ac denique omnia*. Read in the Greek *καὶ πάντα*, not *καὶ κατὰ πάντα*, with the old interpreter and Tertullian agreeing. And on the same line, for *αὐτῶν*, *αὐτῷ* is to be substituted. Page 13. *Ac pene*. I think one must read in the Greek *κατά* or *παρά*, not *μετά*. *Et Æonum*. So I read with the old one. In the codex of Epiphanius there is not *καὶ αἰώνων*, but *ἐξάγωνος*, that is, hexagon. But if anyone prefers to read it this way, this word is to be referred to the six names of Horos which precede.
Page 14. *Eorum.* I add *αὐτῶν* from the ancient (interpretation). *Duodecadis autem.* The Greek codex of Theodoret in the first book of *Hæreticarum fabularum*, under the heresy of Valentinus, is to be corrected; and for *τὸν δύο καὶ τὸν δέκα*, one should read *τὸν δωδεκάδα*. For the Valentinians held the number twelve in the highest esteem. *Significari asserunt.* The Greek words are transposed. For instead of *σημαίνουσι λέγεσθαι*, one should substitute *σημαίνεσθαι λέγουσι*.
Page 15. *Innui.* For *προσημαίνεσθαι* one should read *ὑποσημαίνεσθαι*. And in the same line, for *τῆς ἀποστασίας τοῦ Ἰούδα*, one must restore *διὰ Ἰούδαν* from the ancient interpretation, as the sense requires it. *Cujus.* For *αὐτῆς* one should read *αὐτῇ*, and a little later, before *lin*, the conjunction *καὶ* should be inserted from the ancient (interpretation). A *A rupte* is found in this place; it confirms *conformavit*: for it should be read *conformavit*. *Resoluta fuisset.* The ancient interpreter here seems to me to have slipped. He translates: "to have come into all its essence," as if the Greek had *ἣν ἐληλύθει*. But the reading *ἣν ἣν*, that is, "which had been reduced and resolved," is more true, as is evident from those things which Irenaeus said above when he was speaking of the calamity of Sophia.
Page 16. *Egressa virtus a Filio.* From the ancient interpreter, instead of *τούτου*, restore *τοῦ Υἱοῦ*. Likewise, for *αὐτὴν* one should read *ταύτην*. *Atque extra complementum.* The Greek, *καὶ ἐξορισθείσης ἐκτὸς τοῦ Πληρώματος, ἣν δὴ καὶ δευτέραν ὀγδοάδα καλοῦσι, περὶ ἧς μικρὸν ὕστερον ἐροῦμεν*. Although these words exist also in the ancient interpretation, in my judgment they are to be deleted. For they contribute nothing to the matter, nor do they possess an absolute meaning. And furthermore, it is false that the Valentinians call the second Enthymesin an Ogdoad. 23. *Salvatorem porro.* In the Greek, for *τὸν μὲν Ὅρον*, one should read *τὸν δὲ Σωτῆρα*. B
Page 17. *Ventilabrum enim illud.* I read *ἐκεῖνο* with the ancient (interpreter). *Nam cum multi.* I follow the ancient interpreter in this place, who does not recognize these words *ἕτεροι δὲ*; and indeed, they are redundant.
Page 18. *Et vacuitatis loca.* In the Greek, for *σχοινώματος*, one should restore *κενώματος*, from Theod(oret), book 1 of *Hæret. fab.*, just as the ancient interpreter reads; and Tertul(lian) agrees, who says that the Enthymesin was expelled into the places of alien light (that is, *σκιᾶς*) and into that vacuum and void of Epicurus. *Superiorem.* I add *ἄνω* from the ancient (text), as well as *αὐτήν* a little later after *καταλιπεῖν*. *In se.* For *αὐτήν*, one should read *αὐτῇ ὑπὸ* from the ancient interpreter.
Page 19. *Invisibiliter.* I read *ἀοράτως* with the ancient. *Atque in omnium.* I follow the ancient in this place, who indeed reads, *ἀγνοοῦσα δὲ τὰ πάντα οὐ καθάπερ*, etc. For this reading seems to me simpler. *Et omnem.* I add *καὶ* from the ancient.
Page 20. *Enim vero gestit animus.* Tertull(ian) said: "And false and bitter and sweet and cold drops, and bituminous and ferruginous and sulphurous and poisonous (drops), etc."
Page 21. *Ab ipsius sudoribus.* The Greek in this place is faulty. For one must read *γένεσιν ἐσχηκέναι ἀπὸ τῶν ἱδρώτων αὐτῆς*, as the ancient interpreter reads and the sense requires. *Quoniam autem.* Read *ἐπεὶ δέ*. *Pursus descendere.* In Theod(oret) in the place cited above, it is read mistakenly *μετελθεῖν* instead of *κατελθεῖν*. *Ad eam.* One should read in the Greek *πρὸς αὐτήν* or *αὐτῇ*. *Atque item Eonibus.* Here too an error has crept into the Greek. For instead of *σχοινώματος* one should read *γους*, as the ancient interpreter (does). *Sibi obduxit.* I prefer to read *sibi*, with Tertullian, so that it refers to Achamoth herself, rather than *ei* with the ancient interpreter. C
Page 22. *Scientiæ formam.* In Tertull(ian) it is found in this place, *confirmat*: it should be read *enim conformavit*. *Secretas eas.* This place in the Greek is corrupt: *πρὸς χωρήσει τοῦ* is to be substituted for *χωρίς*. For Irenaeus does not mean this, that these passions were least confused, but rather, on the contrary, they were mingled among themselves and confused. *In corpoream materiam.* In the Greek, for *ἀσωμάτων* one should read *ἐνσωμάτων*, from the ancient interpreter and Tertul(lian). *Altera mala.* Tertul(lian), *de vitiis pessima*: concerning the conversion of the passional element: in Greek *ἐμπαθής*. *Achamoth autem.* I add *σὺν αὐτῷ*, not *ἐν αὐτῷ*, as in the following line, from the ancient interpreter.
Page 23. *Arripuisse.* This passage tormented me greatly. For since *συλλαβεῖν* in this place (is thought) to be the same as to conceive, I did not see what this conception of the contemplation of the angels could be. To this was also added that somewhat lower (in the text) it is written that Achamoth did not bring forth a contemplation, but *κατὰ τὴν ἐκείνων θεωρίαν*, brought forth a fetus. Not to mention that if *συλλαβεῖν* here meant the same as to conceive, the conception would precede the congress. Which is absurd even to think. Finally, Tertullian himself writes that she was merely warmed by the contemplation of the angelic lights and kindled as if toward Venus, but did not conceive a contemplation. Wherefore, in this place, *συλλαβεῖν τὴν θεωρίαν* seems to me to signify nothing other than *θεωρεῖν*. *Cumque ipsis congressam.* *Ἐγκισσᾶν* in this place is to admit to Venus. Tertul(lian) translates *subare*. *Ad similitudinem effectum.* One should read in the Greek *γεγονός*, not *γεγονότων*. *In formasse.* *Μεμορφωκέναι*. It is read mistakenly in Theod(oret) *σχοινῶσαι* instead of *εἰδοποιῆσαι*.
Page 24. *Ac nihil ejusmodi sentiens.* I add these words from Tertul(lian) for the sake of clarity. There, however, for *a quo*, one must substitute *a qua*. D *Que post eum.* I read *μετά* with the ancient interpreter. *Hoc est, hylicorum.* In Tertul(lian) for *materiam* one must read *materialium*. *Ex ipso procreatos.* I read *τούτων* from the ancient interpreter and Tertul(lian). *Spirituales.* *Νοητούς*, that is, those which are comprehended only by the intelligence, but do not fall under the aspect. Furthermore, the negative particle should be deleted here in the Greek, as is apparent from the ancient interpreter and Tertul(lian)—who, however, reads *νοερούς*, not *νοητούς*, which pleases me more.
Page 25. *Hujusce opinionis.* The codex of Epiphanius has *οἰήσεως*. Nevertheless, the ancient interpreter reads *οἰήσεως*. He translates it *operationis*. The prior reading, however, seems to agree more with those things which precede.
Page 26. *Quia imbecillior.* In Greek *αὐτὸν ὑπάρχοντα*, (the) ancient interpr(eter has) *ἀνώτερον αὐτὸν ὑπάρχοντα προγινώσκειν*. Thus it holds: to foreknow that he himself is superior. But this reading agrees little with the sense of the author. *Psychicum filium.* I add *ψυχικόν* from the ancient (interpreter). *Quia psychicus sit.* In the Greek, for *ψυχικά* one should substitute *ψυχικόν* from the ancient interpreter. *In subcœlesti.* One should read *ὑπουράνιον* in the Greek, so that it is contrasted with *τῷ ὑπερουρανίῳ*, in which the mother has (her) seat. *Cosmocratorem autem.* I read *Κοσμοκράτορα*, not *παντοκράτορα*, for he understands the Devil. The ancient interpreter and Tertul(lian) agree. *Terram nimirum.* I read *Γῆν*, not *τὴν*, from the ancient and Tertul(lian). *Metus motionem.* These words seem to be deleted in the Greek, *τῶν δακρύων*, and the ancient interpreter does not recognize them. *Mæroris concretionem.* *Λύπης*. The ancient reads *ὓλης*, but wrongly. *Insitum esse.* One should read *ἐμπεφυκέναι*, not *ἔκπε-...*
ἔκπε-...* A *Pag. 32. Per sponsum et sponsam.* In these, naturally, are the words of the Gospel: *Go out to meet the bridegroom and the bride.*
*For the bridal chamber.* It alludes, I think, to this passage: *Can the children of the bridegroom fast* etc. For there in the Greek is *νυμφῶνος*, which word signifies the bridal chamber, or marriage bed. Further, the Valentinians contended that their Pleroma was signified by this word.
*But animal [psychic].* One must delete *καὶ* in the Greek and place it after *ψυχικόν*.
*Pag. 33. And this, indeed.* Supply: *the Savior*, who had descended upon him in the form of a dove. For thus Tertullian expounds it, and one must read *τοῦτον* from the ancient.
*As it were, spiritual.* For *τό*, I restore *ὡς* from the ancient.
*Through him.* The preposition *διά* must be added from the ancient, and *εἶναι* must be deleted a little later.
*Pag. 34. From this seed.* The ancient reads, *from the seed.*
*The complex of the lower ones.* I read *χειρόνων* with the ancient.
*To have persisted.* *Διατετελεκέναι*. This reading I approve. For *διατετηρηκέναι*, as the ancient interpreter seems to have read, accords poorly with the author's sense. A little later, I read *Σωτῆρος* with him, not *Κυρίου*.
*In the office of administering the world.* Tertullian executes [the interpretation of] the *dispensation* of the world.
*Pag. 35. That from these also.* In the Greek, before these words *καὶ ἐκ τούτων*, these must be placed: *ἵνα ἐπιδείξῃ*, from the ancient.
*Will rest.* The ancient interpreter reads *ἀναπαύσεσθαι* in the future tense.
*Of the just.* In this place, for *δικαίαις*, the ancient interpreter reads *διὸ καὶ*, but... [Note: [alt-version omitted]] ...elegantly mocked by Tertullian. *They will be distributed, he says, to the angels of the Soter. To children, you suppose? No. But to apparitors? Not even that. But to images? Would that it were even that. To what then, if one is not ashamed to speak? To brides. Then those Sabines will applaud the rapes by right of matrimony.*
*These souls themselves.* For *ψυχικός* I restore *ψυχάς* from the ancient interpreter.
*Pag. 36. Arguteness.* *Σοφία*. The old interpreter reads *φαντάσματι*, that is, *a specter*, which word squares perfectly with these compilers of distorted Scripture passages, who do not bring a solid body of useful doctrine, but construct a vain specter, as it were.
*Pag. 37. To the inner Pleroma assembly.* In the Greek, for *ἐν τοῖς τοῦ* one must read with the ancient interpreter, *τοῖς ἐντὸς τοῦ*.
*Their Christ.* I read *αὐτῶν* with the ancient, as also the verse; likewise *αὐτήν* instead of *αὐτῇ*, or *οὔσης* instead of *οὔση μιᾷ*.
*Pag. 38. To renounce those who are in my house.* *Ἀποτάξασθαι τοῖς ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ μου*. It can also be translated, to say a final farewell to my household.
*Pag. 39. Now that of theirs.* In the Greek, for *ὅτι ἴδων*, one must read *ὅτι δ' ὧν*.
*If the root is holy.* One cannot but admire the drowsiness of Gallasius, who did not perceive the error of the Greek codex even here, but in a most open passage of Scripture hallucinated as if in broad daylight. For he translates: *and the first-fruits were holy*. But in Greek, for *ἦν* one must read *ἐν*, as is clear to anyone, unless he is completely blind.
*And to have been contracted in itself.* *Συνεστάλθαι*. I suspect the ancient interpreter’s codex was faulty in this place, who translated *erect*, as if it were *συνανεστάλθαι* in the Greek.
*To which what.* The word *πρόβατον* is missing in the Greek.
*Pag. 40. Gave thanks to God.* I read *θεῷ* with the ancient, not *αὐτῷ*, and that it should be read thus is clear from his own canticle.
*Who coming.* *Ὃς* must be read, not *ὡς*.
*Pag. 40. Gave thanks to God.* I read *θεῷ* with the ancient, not *αὐτῷ*, and that it should be read thus is clear from his own canticle. *Who coming.* *Ὃς* must be read, not *ὡς*.* A Setting down the seat. Read *μένουσά* as one word. And now. I add these from the ancient. Page 41. But in the beginning. *ἐν ἀρχῇ* must be added in the Greek, from the ancient. It is more closely connected to it. *οἰκειοτέρα*, nearer, more familiar. And here the preposition *ἐν* must be deleted. It bears fruit. Tertullian, for the verb *καρποφορεῖν*, sometimes translates it "to sprout," sometimes "to bear fruit," returning to the verb "to fructify." Of man, indeed. In the ancient translation, for "men," we must read "man." In the same verse, these words, *τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ*, must be deleted. Page 42. Of the entire Pleroma. *παντὸς τοῦ πληρώματος*. Yet the ancient interpreter seems to have read *οὗ παντός*, but *ἐντός*. For he translates "within"; but I agree more with the former reading. Which are from the passion. I read *πάντα τὰ* with the ancient. Just as in the same line, *μορφώσας* instead of *ἁρμόσας*. Page 43. And in this manner Ptolemy. I add these words from the ancient. Themselves also. I read *αὐτάς* with the ancient. Proposed to John. It must be read in the dative, *Ἰωάννῃ*. And not long after an interval. In the Greek, these words, *τοσοῦτον δειχθῇ τῆς ὀγδοάδος καὶ οὐκ ἂν μετά*, must be deleted. Or if of the rest. In the Greek one must read *ἢ εἰ τῶν*. Page 44. And abusing names. A copulative particle must be added in the Greek. No mention. Here too the negative particle *μή* must be added in the Greek. Who is born from all. I read with the ancient *ὁ ἐκ πάντων γεγονώς*, not, as it is in Epiphanius, *ὁ τῆς οἰκονομίας*. For by these words he understands that fictitious Savior of the Valentinians, who drew his origin from all the Aeons, and therefore, in the discourse of that one who is of the first class of Aeons, he is later in birth.
A From the ancient. To measure out, in this place, the Greek *περαιῶσαι*, is the same as to cross over, to transport. What the ancient interpreter read, I cannot conjecture. For he explains it by translating "to explain," which is far from the meaning of the word *περαιῶσαι*. B Page 45. He, I say, of one. The ancient interpreter of Irenaeus seems to have read *ἀπὸ τοῦ*, not *ὁ τοῦ*: but both come to almost the same thing. He made words. In the Greek, for *ἐμπεποίηται*, read *πεποίηται*, and in the following verse, for *λέγουσι δέ*, *λέγουσι γάρ*. Prince of them. I add *γάρ* in the Greek, from the ancient. How falsely. For *ψευδῶς* the ancient interpreter seems to have read *ψευδωνύμως*: for he translates "by a false name." Page 46. He says these things and from on high. The grace of this whole cento, stitched together from Homeric verses, is lost in the Latin translation. But many things of the same kind exist among the Latins, and especially in Ausonius. Irenaeus aptly compares the heretics to Homeric centonists, who, to gain grace and faith for their monstrous doctrine, patched it together from various places of Scripture, as if they were certain centos. They accompany him as he goes. The ancient interpreter seems to have read *κίοντες*. But *κίοντα* pleases me more, so that it may be referred to Hercules. He will recognize the verses indeed. In the Greek, after *σεται*, these must be added from the ancient: *μὲν τὰ ἔπη, τὴν δὲ ὑπόθεσιν οὐκ ἐπιγνώσεται*. In his book. I add *βίβλῳ* from the ancient, just as in the same verse: *τὴν παροῦσαν*. Page 47. But since. I read *ἐπεὶ δέ* with the ancient. Redemption. He will discourse later at length concerning the redemption of the Valentinians. Gallasius errs here from heaven to earth, because he does not understand what this redemption means; and this is so when he himself interprets this fable. Which is certainly a sign of shameful negligence. Whence it becomes credible to me that he never reread his own version. For otherwise he would undoubtedly have emended this passage from chapter 18 of this book, where the fable of redemption is set forth, [had he read it]. He passed through the Minium of iron. I read *Μῖμον αὐτῶν* with the ancient.
Page 9. *Novissime forte absorptum*. Write, *Novissime forte absorptum fuisse*, or *absorptus fuisset*. Pamelius in Tertullian prefers *forte*, or that which is here in the margin; it is true that it may nevertheless be retained, *forte*. *Τελευταῖον ἂν καταπεπόσθαι*: Tertullian, "it almost, by force of sweetness and labor, came to be devoured." This trifle is refuted in book 2, chapters 24 and 28. *Qualem naturam habebat femina*. In Greek it was *θίλειαν τεκεῖν*: Tertullian, "and [she] brings forth a female." And Billius, indeed, reads from the ancient translation, *θήλειαν τεκεῖν*. Therefore Cornarius had translated it, "what kind of nature a female nature could bring forth." But since not only a male, but not even a female, can a female bring forth alone, one might suspect that it was so distinguished, *οἷαν φύσιν εἶχε, θήλειαν τεκεῖν*, "what kind of nature it had, [that] it brought forth a female"; so that, as to that *on* [Aeon] by female nature, so also that unformed substance was endowed with that same female nature. And thus the former *τεκεῖν* would be more conveniently deleted, which Billius hints by his interpretation is redundant. Page 10. *In imagine sua sine conjuge*. The true reading is to be drawn back from the margin, *sua sine conjuge masculo-femina*. Tertullian, ch. 10: "Horon [Aeon] brings forth in his image a female-male." Billius: "In his image, devoid of a spouse, and produces a masculo-female." In the Greek, therefore, for *ἄζυγον ἀθήλητον*, it must be corrected *ἄζυγον ἀρσενόθηλυν*, as Gregory Nazianzen [uses] *ἀρσενόθελυς σωματότητος*. Furthermore, Tertullian explains *Metagoge* as "conductor." Page 12. *Et causam quidem*. Correct: *Et causam quidem æternæ perseverationis iis omnibus incomprehensibile Patris esse*. Tertullian, ch. 11: "They were taught that the incomprehensible [nature] of the Father was indeed the cause of their perpetuity." Page 13. *Satellites quoque*. The reading which they [the margin and context] conflate, which the Greek demands: *Satellites quoque ei in honorem ipsorum ejusdem generis angelos*. Tertullian, ch. 12: "They proffer satellites as angels to him." Greek, *δορυφόρους*. Theodoret: "That they might be his satellites." *Et crucis ipsorum*. The word *ipsorum* is absent from the Greek, in which for *στύλου* one must write thus: *καὶ τοῦ ὅρου καὶ σταυροῦ καὶ λυτρωτοῦ*; also, the truer reading is to be repeated from the margin, *de pœnitentia, ἐκ μετανοίας*. Page 14. *In universas generationes*. Greek: *τῶν αἰώνων τοῦ αἰῶνος*, "of the ages of the age." But in Eph. iii, 21, we read *τοῦ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων*, which the translator has. Shortly after, in the name *Ἰησοῦς*, understand iota to be worth ten, but eta as a vowel, and thus they result from the two prior letters, eighteen. Page 15. *Qui est veritatis primæ*. Amend, *qui est veritas primæ tetradis*; or, "the truth of the primary tetrad." Page 17. *Tollens crucem, sequere*. One must read in the Greek *ἀκολούθει μοι*. Which words are read in the Greek of Mark x, 22, *καὶ δεῦρο ἀκολούθει μοι ἄρας τὸν σταυρόν*. Epiphanius's translator: "Taking up his cross, and he follows me"; less correctly than here: "Taking up the cross, follow me." That *ἄρας τὸν σταυρόν* is absent from the Vulgate. Erasmus also says it is not in the ancient codices, nor to be found in other evangelists, so that it could have been transcribed thence to here. Yet besides this Irenæus, Theophylact reads in Mark: "And follow me, the cross having been taken up"; that is, having prepared yourself for death for my sake; and as seems [to be the case with] Nicetas, Gregory Nazianzen, orat. in Pascha 2: *καὶ ἐμαυτὸν καὶ τὰ δικαίως κτηθέντα προθύμως, ἵνα κούφως τὸν σταυρὸν αἴρῃς, καὶ πλουτήσῃς τὰ μὴ ὁρώμενα*. You, indeed, discard [the] riches sought by just reasons, so that you may lightly take up the cross, and attain the riches which are not seen. *Ventilabrum ejus in manu*. Read, *et emundabit aream, et colliget*: unless perhaps he wished it to be a Hellenism, *τοῦ καθαίρειν ἕνεκα τὴν ἅλωνα*. *Plasmate universorum*. *πάντων* he reads, not *πάντα*, as the Greeks have, from which it should be written thus, *et plasmate universi*, or "all," they say. [And] with many a parable. Page 18. *In umbratæ vanitatis*. Correct from the Greek and the traces of the manuscript: *In umbræ, et vacuitatis locis deferbuisse*. So shortly after: *quod derelicta sola esset in tenebris et in vacuo: ἐν τῷ κενώματι*: which confirms Billius's correction and interpretation, *in umbras et vacuitatis loca velut æstu quodam abreptam*. But Tertullian translates *ἐκβεβράσθαι* more simply, ch. 14: "She was cast out into places of a foreign light," as if he meant nothing else but "expelled and ejected," he adds, "into that vacuum and void of Epicurus": with whom Irenæus also compares this vacuity, Lib. 2, c. 19, "Taking the shadow and the vacuum of theirs from Democritus and Epicurus." But in the Greek, perhaps from a manuscript, *ἐν σκιᾷ καὶ κενώματος*. Theodoret: "And to dwell in a certain shadow and void." Page 19. *Formatam ante*. More truly, *formatam autem*. *Statim autem evacuatam*. I read Greek: *κενωθεῖσαν ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀοράτως αὐτῇ*. *Ne adversarius*. "Lest the adversary [should] irrupt earlier." Furthermore, Tertullian, c. 14 in *Valent.*, reads *Jao*, not *Jaioth*, to which place Pamelius warns that *Jaioth* seems not to be read here, because that word belonged rather to the Basilidians than to the Valentinians. Certainly the manuscript has *Jao*. *Omni parte passionis*. "Succumbing in every part [of the] passion, mult[iplied] and var[ied] existing." Tertullian: "She began to be afflicted by every kind of passion." *Mater ejus prima Sophia*. "Prima Sophia and Aeon, demutationem [change], etc." Page 20. *Quis enim non eroget*. For *quæ ex passione Eonis*, Greek literally, "which is of the passion of the Aeon," *τῆς ἐνθυμήσεως τοῦ πεπονθότος αἰῶνος*. Tertullian, ch. 15: "For out of her tears the whole nature of the waters flowed." Billius: "of that calamitous Aeon." Cornarius, "of the afflicted age": but I would prefer the name of the passion to be expressed, for Tertullian and Irenæus said she was afflicted by every kind of passion, *παντὶ μέρει τοῦ πάθους*. Gallas, "disturbed by the contemplation of the tears of the Aeon." He did not see, of course, that *ἐνθύμησιν* is the name of the Aeon. Page 21. *Præstante ei virtutem*. I read, *præstante ei virtutem omnem Patre*. Besides the support of the Greek text, so Tertullian, ch. 16: "The Father of all having granted to him the supreme power of the Aeons, for all things to be subjected unto them." *Achamoth reverita*. "When they say Achamoth having reverenced, at first indeed [she] imposed a covering on him for the sake of reverence." In the Greek the word *αὐτῇ* is absent, *κάλυμμα ἐπιθέσθαι αὐτῇ, vel ταύτῃ, δἰ αἰδῶ*. Tertullian: "At once she cast a veil over herself, from the duty of the first generation." Shortly after; "separating them from her, and not having neglected them." Page 22. *Habilia et possibilia essent*. *Ἐκτικὰ καὶ δυνατά*. Billius: "That [the] roots had taken hold, and had gained strength." Tertullian, "exercised and through use vigorous." Cornarius: "that they had already passed into a habit." *Sed segregantem*. Read, *separatim commiscuisse et coagulasse*. Which Billius corrects *χωρὶς*, Tertullian confirms. "She set apart in [that] corporeal matter the preparation"; and Theodoret: "She separated, and having separated, she fastened [them] together." *Altera autem conversionis*. Write, *conversionis passibilis*: for so it can be translated *ἐμπαθῆ*, nor is it necessary to usurp Tertullian's word, as Rhenanus wishes. "So that the double condition of substances might be ordered: from [them] the worst of evils; from the conversion, passion[al]. From here, however, learn that it could have been better translated: "The other, however, from passionable conversion, that is, subject to passion." *Et propter hoc virtutem*. "And for this cause [by] virtue of the Savior and, [she] had conceived from the congratulation of those who are with him, the vision of the lights." Delete from the margin the reading of nothing, *concepiu*. Page 23. *Sed spiritale quidem*. Greek must be read, *μὴ δεδυνῆσθαι αὐτὴν μορφῶσαι*, "not to have been able to form it." Tertullian, c. 18: "But the spiritale indeed"
A they themselves say, and because of this they call it the hebdomad. And l. II, c. 55: That S. Paul had a remainder, a fourth heaven, so that he might draw near to the Demiurge. But if you ask what is opposed to the *hyperouranion* [supercelestial], there follows the place of the Cosmocrator, or, as Tertullian says, the World-holder, in that world which is according to us. And thus Tertullian badly changed the place. Pamelius, c. 31: *Et Demiurgus tunc de hebdomade subcælesti in superiora mutabit*: it was rightly read before, *de hebdomade cœlesti*. Read therefore, by my advice, here, *εἰς τὸν οὐράνιον, τοῦτ' ἔστιν ἐν τῇ ἑβδομάδι*. There is also in the same Tertullian, c. 23, a passage to be corrected from those which follow it, *ex Sophia utilissimis casibus*, perhaps better, *vilissimis casibus*; Irenæus, from a baser matter, *ἐκ τοῦ ἀσημοτέρου*; Billius, as if from an ignoble stock.
Page 27. *Angelorum qui sunt erga*. There is no doubt that there is a copyist's error, for *circa Salvatorem*, *περὶ τὸν Σωτῆρα*, as elsewhere in this same chapter, to the angels who are around the Saviour. Tertullian calls them his satellites; Irenæus, *δορυφόρους* [bodyguards].
*Ejusdem substantiæ matris suæ spiritalis*. Write, *matri suæ spiritalem*; B *ὁμοούσιον τῇ μητρὶ πνευματικόν*; at least our translator is accustomed to translate similar words in this way, as a little before, *οὐχ ὁμοούσιον τῷ θεῷ*, not to be of the same substance as God.
*Perfectæ rationis*. The translator read *τοῦ τελείου λόγου*, but erred while he translated "perfect reason," if indeed one ought not to assent to him rather than to Tertullian, c. 25, *Adversus Valentinianos*. It would be found suitable by suspecting *sermoni perfecto* at some time. Whence also, from other things of this kind, one might collect that the author of this Latin edition is not Irenæus; Billius certainly, even if he follows him in the emendation of the Greek codex, does not do so in the interpretation.
Page 28. *Et hunc esse in semeipsis*. Pamelius in 25 Tertullian wishes *hic* to be read here, and *et hunc esse ex semelipsis* [from themselves] humans they wish, that it may have [a meaning]. But it is not necessary, since Epiphanius does not have it, as he himself wishes, from his own invention, and Billius follows the old one. Here, however, a little after the place of those, they say he received the first fruits, he warns that Tertullian wrote *prospicientias* [foresights], not very conveniently: but later Latinius, or Petrus Ciaconius, noticed that it should be read *prosicias* [the bits cut off] of those substances he had put on. Glossary: *prosiciæ*, *ἀκροθίνια*. Also, *prosiciæ*, *αἱ τῶν θυμάτων ἀπαρχαί*: see Festus. I do not agree with Pamelius either, who a little after, for *a disjone* [sic] *circumdatum*, wishes it to be read, *a dispensatione*. For in both ways it can be translated *οἰκονομίας*: and our man here is accustomed to render it more often *dispositione*, as elsewhere, and concerning the disposition which is: *ἐκ τῆς οἰκονομίας*.
Pag. 30. *In honore eorum*. Gr., *εἰς τιμὴν τῶν εἰδώλων*: in honor of idols, or at least of gods. *Apud homines odiosum muneris*, he expressed the Greek terms, *θηριομάχων καὶ μονομαχίας*, of bestiaries and gladiators.
Page 31. *Insensibilibus iis sermonibus*. Take *insensibiles* as humans, not discourses; D *ἀνοήτους*, he calls them senseless men. A little after the truer reading is in the margin, *emissum*.
Page 32. *Spiritales vero*. These are to be punctuated in this way: *Spiritales vero exspoliutos animas, et spirituales factos, etc.*, within the Pleroma. Tertullian, c. 32: *Despoliari est autem deponere animas, quibus inauti videbantur*.
*Refrigerare et ψυχάς*. *Ἀναπαύσεσθαι* (he is not accustomed to translate futures otherwise, as a little before *ἀναπαύσεσθαι*, he adds), for *in refrigerio fore*. Billius, that they are to be in quiet.
*His autem factis*. It is not expressed by the translator *τὸ ἐκλάμψαν*, and the futures are rendered as present tenses, which should have been restored thus: "But these things having been done thus, the fire which was hidden in the world shining forth, and blazing up, grasping the whole material, consumes it, and having been consumed itself together with it, departs into that, so that it may no longer be." Tertullian, c. 32: "But I believe"
that secret fire will break out and, having devastated the entire substance, will itself also finish in nothingness, all things having been turned to ash.
Page 33. *Primogenite et primae quaternionis*. [It should be] *Primogeniti et primi*; Gr., *τῆς τετραχτύος*, unless perhaps he wrote *quaternationis*. *Cum traderetur*. Better: *traheretur*, translating *προσαγομένου*. *Quapropter et in prophetas*. In the manuscript, it read *eos*, just as in Greek *αὐτούς*, but Billius more probably followed [the reading *eas*]. Therefore, *eas in prophetas*. And so in Greek it should be written: *ἔτασσεν αὐτάς*: something similar is in Apoc. v, 10. Tertullian, c. 29: "He was accustomed to choose from their list for kings and priests."
Page 34. *Exponunt quippe eum*. Read: "They expound [what was] said through the prophets," for the reason that it is of a higher nature, namely the seed; although one might suspect that it was written "because they were of a higher nature," since it is in Greek B *ὡς ὑψηλοτέρας φύσεως ὑπαρχούσας*; so that it may refer to the souls which were chosen for kings and priests, because they were of a more sublime nature, and the words added concerning the seed are inserted as a parenthesis. A little later, write: "and that Jesus indeed said something by the Savior," *ἀπὸ τοῦ Σωτῆρος*, [meaning] by the instinct of the Savior. *Quam spiritus qui prophetat*. The interpreter translated poorly. Write: "or the spirit which prophesies"; and a little later, "to have preserved," understand it as if it were said: "to have persevered." *Et in gaudium ei cessisse*. Gr., *καὶ ἄσμενον αὐτῷ προσχωρήσαντα*: where perhaps more conveniently it would be read *προσχωρήσει*: and Lat., "and that it had come to him in joy," or, "that it had arrived to him with joy." Tertullian, c. 28: "He runs up hurriedly and eagerly, with all his strength."
Page 38. *In loco medietatis refrigeraturum*. This is: "that he will be in cooling [or refreshment]"; *ἀναπαύεσθαι*, so that later, *refrigeraturis*; *ἀναπαυσομένων*, "those who will rest."
*Spiritalia vero*. These things are disturbed and imperfectly rendered, whether by the scribe or by the interpreter; they are better read thus: "But the spiritual things which Achamoth sowed, from that time until now, in just souls, having been schooled and nourished, because they are emitted [as] little ones, and then afterwards through perfection, etc." Tertullian, c. 29: "Therefore, that grain of spiritual seed is small and tiny at [the moment of] casting, but the faith of this one having been schooled is increased and moved."
27 Page 36. *Fide digna*. *Ἀξιοπίστως*, *fide digne*, etc. A little later, *ψηφίδας*, stones or pebbles, or you may understand them as tesserae, such as were used for museum work, or "mosaic" as Pliny calls it, when vermiculated pavements were made with small cubes, or emblems were painted, or [decorated] with shells variegated to the likeness of things and animals. Spartianus, concerning the Emperor Pescennius Niger: "We see him painted in the curved portico of the gardens of Commodus, among the friends of Commodus, bearing the sacred objects of Isis."
Page 37. *Anicularum fabulas assumentes*. Gr., *συγκαττύσαντες μύθους*, "cobbling together fables." One seems to have written "stitching together fables," and hence [conveying that] they wish to adapt them here and there. Justin to Zenas, *συνάλλαγμα βίαια συγκαττύοντας*. *In abortionis parte*. *Ἐν ἐκτρώματος μοίρᾳ*, in the manner of an abortion. The ancient [copy] had written *parte*. *Et passiones*. These are preceded by certain things concerning Moses in Greek, which can be sought from the interpretation of Billius. In these, the ancient interpretation is lacking, but it is redundant in those things which follow: "In this indeed, that it is left by the light"; these are absent from the Greek, and can be deleted without any loss to the sense.
Page 38. *Quam tristis est anima*. That "quam" is absent from the Greek, and *λύπη* would have been better rendered as "tristitia" [sadness], *gasm* [meaning] "tædium" [weariness]. *Dicenti, Sequar te?* [The text] does not have [the word]. Gr., *ἐν δὲ εἰπεῖν τῷ ἐρωτήσαντι, Ἀκολουθήσω σοι;* To the one who asked: "Shall I follow thee?" if he said—is not present. The very learned Billius converts it, but it is Matt. viii, v. 19. But these [things] the heretics could cite erroneously, from whose perfume-boxes/treasuries these are produced. Correctly convert this... C D
A yoke. But the Greek book must be corrected, *syzygiarum* [yokes/pairings], for it also says afterwards: "That it is not regarding the *syzygiar*..." So also Billius translates.
*He would not have permitted.* That is, he would not have allowed.
Page 44. *And another Christ.* That word must be expunged, that is, as foreign to the meaning, and it seems to remain from an interpretation of the word *Christos*; perhaps it was, that is, "anointed," as he said before, *Monogenes*, that is, "only-begotten." Hellenism follows: *he did not make mention*, *mneian ou poiesasthai*, he did not make mention. And, *what was said to him in the beginning by the Word*, that is, what was said by him. But these things perhaps should be translated a little differently, in this way: "For recapitulating concerning that which was said by him in the beginning to be the Word, he further explains." As if to say, that that very Word which he had just before said in the beginning was in the beginning, he had added that [it] became flesh.
Page 45. *But if the Word of the Father.* Translate, "The Word of the Father which descended."
Page 46. *Going, but he himself.* The true reading is to be drawn back from the margin into the context, and thus it will agree with the Greek, *kionta*, not *kiontes*, as if he were going to death itself.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 1
Page 5. *A narrative of the whole argument of the disciples of Valentinus.* Who or what sort of man this Valentinus was, from whom the Valentinians [come], deserves to be told. Epiphanius reports from rumor that he was a Phrebonite (otherwise Phobonite, and Phibionite) from maritime Egypt, but instructed in Greek letters at Alexandria. Whence also [arose] the imitation of Hesiod’s Theogony, of the thirty gods related by Hesiod himself. And he himself, with the fabulous poetry of the nations conceived in his own mind, and having obtained opinion from those who departed from the truth with him and before him; he himself also, as Hesiod had done with other names changed into others, desired to deceive the world. For this man also wishes to introduce thirty gods and heavens, the first of which is *Depth*, just as Hesiod said *Chaos* was the first of the gods. But it is clear that *Chaos* and *Depth* have the same meaning. He reports again that he preached the Catholic faith in Egypt in the beginning, and likewise in the Roman Church; to which Tertullian assented; but upon coming to Cyprus, he suffered the shipwreck of his faith. How, however, he fell into heresy, Tertullian recites in these words: "Valentinus had expected the episcopate, because he was able [to attain it] both in talent and eloquence: but indignant that another had obtained the place by the prerogative of martyrdom, he broke away from the Church of the authentic rule (as souls stirred by ambition for the primacy are wont to be inflamed by a presumption of revenge), [and] turned to extinguishing the truth." And B if you have not understood these things, do not let them depart much from your studies, for instance. For they themselves, the assemblers of such fables, struck by a just blindness on account of their preceding sins, were blind at midday, not understanding (as Paul says) what they were saying, nor concerning what they were affirming, being themselves the authors and causes of such ignorance for themselves. Augustine subscribes to these things in his book *De Haeresibus*: "They, so to speak, are fable-mongers, that is, those who have spun empty fables, and long and perplexed ones, [and] are so full of many false doctrines that they themselves cannot even count them, or can do so only with the greatest difficulty. Nor does any heresy easily become known to anyone else as it does to its own followers."
*In infinite Æons.* That is, throughout infinite ages of centuries, or throughout infinite past eras, as Tertullian wrote, concerning the idle God, such as Epicurus desired, *Angentes*. Moreover, the sentiment of the Gnostics and of this place is of this kind: The first Æon, who is also perfect, and before the beginning, and is called the first Father, and *Depth*, is truly only and eternal, invisible, unbegotten, and incomprehensible. But they had preferred to designate God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by those prodigious and fabulous names, rather than to profess Him with the prophets, apostles, and all Christians as God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. "There was present also with him (they add) *Ennoea*, that is, intellect, intent, or thought, and Grace, and Silence. But Bythus, wishing to emit the beginning of all things through Silence, begot Intelligence, his equal, which is also called the Only-Begotten, and Father, and Principle of all things: and at the same time he emitted Truth," etc. But I do not doubt that those fanatical C men, through such fables and trifles, deform the ineffable and eternal generation of the Son from the Father; and at the same time have striven to pervert with diabolical cunning the beginning of the Gospel of blessed John, by which that is described as most holily and as far as human mind can grasp; a thing which the new Arians in Transylvania, Lithuania, and Poland, instructed by the writings of the Calvinists, now attempt with incredible malice.
*He wished to be premised.* We have deleted "he wished," both by the authority of the ancient manuscript codex and the Greek reading: for he speaks of the thought and intention of Bythus.
*And only knowing.* Thus they deformed what is clearly said in the Gospel: "No one knows the Father, except the Son," etc. Which Augustine, explaining, says: "To Thee alone art Thou wholly known, Trinity holy and almighty."
*And that this is the first.* The Pythagoreans, attributing almost everything to numbers, therefore preferred the quaternion to the others, because the denary was perfected by a multitude: but the denary was a composition of the D quaternion. "All things that are," they said, "are bound together by the quaternion: the elements, the principal winds, the ends of the world, the joints of the ages." They considered the square figure more perfect than all others, because it is contained by four equal lines, and has as many equal angles. A square body, as is a cube, is perfect: for it has six square surfaces equal, of which each one has four lines and four angles; and however it may lie, it is always right. Hence they called a good man "square" and "tetragon." Indeed, they [taught] that even the soul, in possession of reason, consists of a certain quaternion, namely, mind, knowledge, opinion, and sense, from which they had made for themselves a religion of an oath, whence that saying: "By the quaternion, which hands down to our soul the fountain of eternal nature." What if they had recognized the principal name of God, which is uttered in almost all nations by a miraculous consensus in only four letters? For He who is called by us *Deus*, by the Greeks *Theos*, by the Hebrews 7777, by the Arabs, Turks, and Mahometans *Alla*, by...
the Persians *Syre*, is called *Orsi* by the Magi. But the unhappy Gnostics wickedly abused these antiquarian mysteries, just as they did the divine Scriptures, to establish their own ravings.
Page 6. *Sentientem autem Unigenitum*. Tertullian refers to this passage thus: "Once he received the office of his own prolation, he sends forth from himself the Word and the Life." But those most wretched deceivers, who set up the only-begotten Son of God as someone other than the *Logos*—that is, than the Word and the Life—when the Evangelist openly teaches: *The Word was God: in him was life.*
*De Logo autem*. Tertullian: "But this offspring, too, sent forth at the beginning of the universe and of the formed Pleroma, produces fruit; it procreates Man and the Church." A For the distinct emanations of the Son and the Holy Spirit make manifest that there is a fruitfulness in the divine nature, one that is in a sense ineffable and incomprehensible to men and angels. These oracles of the highest prophets also confirm this: *Shall I, who cause others to bring forth, be barren? I have brought forth today. From the womb before Lucifer I have begotten thee. The Lord begot me before all the hills*, etc. Since, therefore, the impure Gnostics were unwilling to believe this simply, or were unable to grasp it, they took to describing it—or rather, to defiling it—in the manner of Hesiod, Orpheus, and other profane pagan poets, positing diverse sexes, marriages, and impure unions occurring in the divine realm; as Epiphanius diligently observes, following Lactantius, Book IV, ch. 8, against heresy 31.
*Acinetos*. Thus we have replaced *Agne*, from Theodoret, Epiphanius, Tertullian, and subsequent Irenaean texts.
*Donant*. We have restored this from manuscript copies and the Greek reading, which has τὰ αὐτὰ ὀνόματα χαρίζονται (they grant the same names), in the plural number; we have indeed deleted *donavit*.
Page 7. *Hi sunt triginta*. Looking to this passage, Cyril of Jerusalem contends that the Valentinians, who were preachers of thirty gods (for they held the Aeons to be like gods), were far worse than the pagans, who invented only a few. Athanasius also, in Oration 5 against the Arians, says that they introduced empty phantoms in place of truth and the faith of things.
*Nec enim Dominum*, etc. Tertullian indicates in his *Apology* that the title of "Lord" was observed by early Christians not with vulgar religious usage: "Augustus," he says, "did not even wish to be called Lord. And this is indeed a title of God. I shall plainly call the emperor 'Lord,' but in the common way: although I am not compelled to call him Lord in place of God. My Lord is one, the almighty and eternal God, who is also his." And in his book *Against Hermogenes*: "God is named from the beginning, but 'Lord' only after all things were created." Accordingly, when it is stated without an addition, it belongs to God alone, and is always said regarding those related to us, and only by way of comparison to servants, over whom He holds sway by right of creation and providence. Since, therefore, they supposed the world was created by another, and—as Irenaeus writes—even claimed to be like Christ Jesus himself and in some respects even superior to Him, it is no wonder if they begrudged Christ the name of both God and Lord. You will note at the same time that the heretics, having spurned the ancient and Catholic way of speaking, invented strange and novel formulas for themselves, along with profane novelties of language, which the Apostle commands us to avoid. Regarding this error B Greek speakers used to translate *Kúριος* as *Dominus*; therefore, just as they denied that Christ was true and eternal God, so too did they deny Him to be Lord. To the contrary, that same One is called both God and Lord, cf. Ps. 44 and 109; Isa. 9; Jer. 23; John 11 and 20; Rom. 8; Heb. 1; and in the Apostles' Creed we are commanded to profess: "And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord."
1390 *Nihil fecisse*. Indeed, on the contrary, as a young child He led the magi to Himself by means of a star, was circumcised, and was offered in the temple, fled into Egypt, and at the age of twelve reasoned in the temple with the doctors, ascending to Jerusalem most religiously every year for the feast days. And having returned to Galilee, in the opinion of Justin Martyr, Basil the Great, and several other authors of the first note, He at times exercised the carpenter's trade with Joseph, both to sanctify mechanical arts and especially so that He might teach all of us, by this example, that idleness ought to be avoided.
Page 8. *Reliquis vero omnibus*. Printed copies have *hominibus* (men); but the old codex, with the Greek reading *λοισπoῖς πᾶσιν*, has "with all the rest."
*Reliquis quoque Æonibus*. In the printed copies: "to share in the rest of the Aeons also": this we have changed for the sake of the manuscript exemplar and the Greek reading.
*Quoniam vellet*. Printed copies have *nollet* (he would not); but the old codex and Greek reading have *διὰ τὸ θέλειν*, as we have restored. Tertullian: "Clearly the *Nus*, as far as it was in him, both wished and attempted for the others, too," etc.
*Qua exorsa*. Printed copies have *exors*. Then we restored *erga Nun* in place of *vitergu*: both from the Greek reading and the manuscript codex.
Page 9. *Dulcedine*. Printed copies had *ad ultionem*; we restored it from the manuscript exemplar, with the agreement of Epiphanius, Tertullian, and the Greek reading: *ὑπὸ τῆς γλυκύτητος*.
*Abstentum*. We decided to restore this in place of *absentem* from the old codex. But *abstentus*, to the jurists, is one who has been recalled by the guardian's authority from entering upon an inheritance. The blessed Cyprian uses this word in epistle 18 to Cornelius, and epistle 42 to Stephen. But *abstenti* are called by our people those who have been moved and rejected from the communion of the Church and the participation of the sacraments.
*Peperisse substantiam informem*. Tertullian repeats this in a very heavy sarcasm: "Then from that grief, and by herself alone, with no work of marriage, she conceived, and brings forth a female. Do you marvel at these things? A hen has been chosen to bring forth from itself. But they say that even vultures bring forth females only, and yet it is a mother without a male."
29. *Absconderet*. Thus we have restored it for *absconderet* (or *absconderat*), from the old codex and the Greek.
Page 10. *Patrem enim aliquando*, etc. For shame! The fanatical wretches constituted various sexes, most lewd unions, births, fetuses, and hermaphroditism in divine things, as is gathered from this place and the end of the fifth chapter of this book; such as impure poets fable concerning the gods of the Gentiles. Lactantius reproaches this insanity to Hermes Trismegistus in book four, chapter eighteen: which he excellently overthrows in book one, chapter eight. Laughing at this madness, Tertullian says: "They were more modest, claiming that no sex should be attributed to *Bythos*: and perhaps they pronounce this in the neuter gender: *HOC DEUM* (this thing God), and not *HIC DEUS* (this one God). Others on the contrary say both C male and female, lest Fenestella, the commentator of the *Annales*, should suppose a hermaphrodite existed among the people of Luna alone."
Page 11. *Mandatum*. We have removed *mandatum*, because the old codex had it thus (in a different sense). Tertullian: "restrained from illicit things, and purged of evils."
*Cognoscentes sufficientes sibi*, etc. Printed copies have *cogitoscentem*: but we have restored it from the old codex and the Greek reading.
Page 12. *Comprehensibile*. Thus we propose it should be read, from Tertullian, Epiphanius, and the old codex, although the printed copies had *comprehensibilia*.
*Omnes Christos*. These words we have added from the old codex and Epiphanius.
*Hymnizare Propatorem*, etc. Tertullian expresses this Greek idiom thus: "They sing a hymn to the Father with great fruit of joy. And He himself was spread abroad in gladness, D really singing sweetly to the sons and grandsons. Why not, if the sons..."
A thirty years, even to the time when He suffered, etc. They hold more correctly who teach that Christ suffered in the 33rd year of his age.
Page 16. *Everything to be*. The printed copies have *everything is*: another old codex and the Greek have what we have restored. Tertullian, however, says: *They name Jesus the Savior, and Christ, and the Word.* And *Everything now, as it were, constructed from a deflowering of all things, the daw of Aesop, the Pandora of Hesiod, the Patina of Accius, the Cocetus of Nestor, the Miscellany of Ptolemy.*
*Which also*. By the authority of the old codex and the Greek reading, we have deleted *which*.
Page 17. *But not only from the Gospel*, etc. By applying a most apt simile at the end of this chapter, he will declare these sacrileges of the heretics regarding the Holy Scriptures more fully.
*Which and Achamoth*. Tertullian, in book *Against the Valentinians*, says that among them the name was uninterpretable. Epiphanius, against the thirty-first heresy, asserts that they called them Savior, and Bound, and Cross. Theodoret, in book 1 of *Heretical Fables*, thinks they applied this name to a deformed fetus and a thought of Wisdom. Moreover, the etymon of this word is derived from the Hebrew, which signifies wisdom, from the root *n* [נ], that is, he was wise, he was prudent.
*In places of shadow and emptiness had cooled*. Thus, from the old codex, the Greek letter, and the judgment of Rev. Fr. Fronto, we have restored the reading. The printed codices had hitherto *served in places of shadowed vanity*.
*Adoration*. Thus we have restored from the old codex and the Greek reading. Tertullian: *The odor of incorruptibility is iterated*, etc. The printed codices: *adoration*.
Page 19. *To have succumbed to every part of the passion multifariously and variably existing*. Thus we have restored the passage from the manuscript codex, in place of that which the printed ones had, *to have succumbed to every part of the passion existing multifariously and variably*.
*To have said Jao*. The old codex had *Joath*. But with great consensus Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Theodoret read *Jao*. But what Tertullian means by this, he explains no otherwise than if one were to exclaim: *Moreover, Quirites*, or: *The Faith of Caesar*. Epiphanius, against the twenty-sixth heresy, writes that they placed the prince in the first heaven. Macrobius, book 1 of *Saturnalia*, ch. 18, among many other things, proves that this name was attributed by pagans to the sun alone, by this oracle of Apollo Clarius: Φράξει τὸν πάντων, ὕπατον θεὸν ἔμμεν Ἰάω, that is, *Understand that Jao is the supreme God of all.* Diodorus Siculus, book V of the *Library*, ch. 5, deceived by the ignorance of the word Jehovah, dreams that Moses among the Jews received the laws from a God who is called Jao. Eusebius, book IV of the *Evangelical Demonstration*, ch. 29: *Jaho is salvation, that is, the salvation of God.*
*Lest in the same way*, etc. From the old codex and the Greek reading, we have added ten words which all the old editions had omitted. Tertullian has: *lest, just as he might be deprived of light, so he might be deprived of life: through consternation, then ignorance.*
*Of conversion*. From the old codex, Tertullian, and the Greek reading we have written thus. The printed codices had *of conversation*.
Page 20. *Which also conveniently*, etc. How the Valentinians have hidden their most shameful fabrications, Tertullian explains graphically: *If you inquire with good faith; with a fixed face, with raised eyebrows, "It is something," they say. If you test them subtly; through bilingual ambiguities, they affirm a common faith. If you show that you know; they deny whatever they acknowledge. If you contend hand-to-hand; they disperse your simplicity with their own slaughter. They do not even entrust it to their own disciples until they have made them their own*, etc.
*But those alone, who [seek] great rewards*, etc. There are two things which most of all drive men to crimes, luxury and avarice, because nothing is so sanc-
sanctioned that it cannot be violated; nothing so fortified that it cannot be stormed; nothing so pure that it cannot be defiled, that money can do. And, "What do you not compel mortal hearts to do, O cursed hunger for gold?" A That heretics have labored under both diseases throughout all ages, the slaughters, rapines, arsons, and sacrileges of the sects of our own age, as well as the reading of those ancient authors, indicate. Ignatius, Epist. 3, calls them "corrupters of women, coveters of what belongs to others, rapacious for money, and like whirlpools." After Optatus of Milevis, Augustine complains gravely, Lib. I *contra litteras Petil.* c. 64 and Lib. III *contra Cresc.* c. 42, concerning the tyrannical rapines, invasions, thefts, and depredations of the Donatists, which are entirely similar to those by which the Calvinists have most disastrously devastated our Gauls for thirty years.
"I wish also [to say] something," etc. This is irony, by which Tertullian wittily mocks chimeric trifles of this kind: "Here it must be reckoned what kind of exit he led her to, with what kinds of tears he sweated. He had salty [tears], he had bitter and sweet, hot and cold drops, and bituminous, and ferruginous, and sulfurous, and indeed poisonous ones, so that he even sweated [waters of] Nonacris (Vitruvius, Pausanias, and Seneca have written that this is a deadly water in Arcadia), which killed Alexander; and of the Lyncestians (of these Livy, Lib. I, c. 103), from which it flowed, which makes men drunk; and of Salmacis (read Vitruvius, Lib. I, *Archi.*), from which it dissolved itself, which makes males soft." Achamoth pipiazed heavenly showers. Moreover, that God is the omnipotent creator of the waters, as of all other things, the Scriptures explain everywhere: Gen. 1, Exod. xv, Job xxvi, Psalm LXXVI, CIII, CXLVIII.
Pag. 21. "And this Achamoth." By the Greek reading, and by the judgment of the Reverend Father Fronto, we have substituted "it" (eam) for "him" (eum); and "cooperation" (cooperationem) for "co-operation" (coopertionem). And a little later: "and not to have neglected them" (eas) for "him" (eum); item "separately" (separatim) for "it separated" (separavit); and "passible" (passibilis) for "passible" (passibile).
Pag. 22. "Prior [things]." The printed codices had "prior," but we have changed it from the old codex and the Greek reading. The interpreter of Epiphanius: "For it was not possible for them to be destroyed, like those former ones, because they had already lapsed into a habit and were validly existing."
Pag. 23. "Of the same subst." The printed codices have "its substance"; but the old codex, "of the same." Billius, the new interpreter of Irenaeus, and others in Epiphanius, explain these things a little more clearly. Moreover, "which [are] on the right, and which on the left," that is, they say "animal," we have proposed should be read, instead of "the right and the left," which was in the printed codices.
Pag. 24. "And this of the only-begotten Son." Thus we have restored it from the ancient codex and the Greek reading; but we have deleted "And this only-begotten." Epiphanius's interpreter: "Illum (him) truly in the image of the only-begotten Son; but archangels and angels made by these in the image of the remaining ages."
"Diverging." Before it was "Drowning," but the old codex and the Greek reading *κατωφερή*, with Tertullian, made us change it. Epiphanius's interpreter: "And of those things which are carried upwards, and of those which subside downwards."
"And seven heavens, etc." From Tertullian, Epiphanius, and the old codex, we have restored certain things. The words of Tertullian are: "They depute however [as] 'noeric' heavens (that is, intellectual), and sometimes they make angels, just as also the Demiurge himself: just as also the fourth archangel's paradise (the codices had 4 archangels): since they place him also above the third heaven, from whose virtue Adam may have taken [his existence], dwelling there among the little clouds and shrubs." Furthermore, Augustine, Lib. *De hares.*, asserts that to deny the visible paradise is the heresy of the Seleucians and Hermians: B Origen in the *Anchoratus* is refuted by Epiphanius, because he had denied that it was on earth. It pleased me very much, the sentiment of Theophilus of Antioch concerning the same, in his second book *Ad Autolycum*: "To man created," he says, "God chose a region in the eastern parts, outstanding in amenity, flashing with light, and illustrious with splendid air, fertile with various plants; and he placed man in this," etc. And Jerome in *Daniel*, orders the ravings of those to be silent who think that rivers and trees and paradise are to be undermined by the laws of allegory; hitting at Philo, I think. Augustine, explaining Genesis far and wide, never wished to indicate its site or place: because he judges that where it is pertains to questions that are outside of faith, Lib. II *Contra Pelag. et Coelest.*, cap. 23.
Pag. 25. "It" (eam). We have deleted "him" (eum), by the authority of the old codex and the Greek reading. Epiphanius's old interpreter: "Indeed, to hold the place of the middle itself, and to be truly above the craftsman, but below, or outside the complementary [realm], up to the consummation."
Pag. 26. "The Cosmocrator, etc." Christ indeed called the devil "the ruler of the world," John xii and xiv; and Paul, "the god of this age," II Corinth. iv; nay, even "the cosmocrator of the darkness of this age," Ephes. vi. But [they did this] to indicate his impotent tyranny, which he exercises against the impious, and his pride, by which he raises himself against God. These men, however, adorned him with such an august epithet, for the sake of honor; because they asserted that he presides over this inferior world, and was wiser than the Demiurge. Hence Tertullian mocks them skillfully: "They affirm the devil is the work of the Demiurge, and call him the Munditenens (World-Holder): and they defend him in nature as more knowing of higher things, as spiritual, rather than the Demiurge, as animal. He merits from him the preference, for whom all heresies are procured." But concerning the communion of demons and heretics, it will be said below.
"Creature of the Demiurge." Although our old codex, along with the printed codices, had "Creator," nevertheless we have judged that "creature" should be read, because the Greek has *κτίσμα*, and Tertullian has "work of the Demiurge."
Pag. 27. "When he had fashioned." Tertullian in his own custom expresses these things thus: "When [there are] such things about God, or about gods, as [there are] fictions about man? For the Demiurge, having fashioned the world, brings his hands to man, and takes his substance not from this dry [earth], they say: but from the invisible body of that matter, namely philosophical, from its flux and fusile [nature]: which whence it was, I cannot estimate, because it is nowhere," etc.
"Of the flux." From Tertullian, the old codex, and the Greek *ἐκ πνευματικῆς ἀποῤῥοίας οὖσαν*, we have proposed it should be read thus: we have deleted the definition.
"Leather tunic." When it is *δερματίνην* in Greek, and Tertullian translates "pelliceam" (of skin/hide) tunic, of which Moses wrote: "And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife leather tunics, and clothed them," we did not hesitate to restore the passage thus, having exploded the various conjectures of Erasmus, Rhenanus, and certain others. Moreover, it is the delirium of these Gnostics that this tunic is human flesh, when man was created in the beginning not without sentient flesh and skin, as Tertullian teaches in Lib. *De Resur. carnis*. Jerome also refutes John of Jerusalem, because he understood human bodies by those leather tunics. But because it is circulated by the common people more festively than gravely, that God was therefore the first tanner from whence those skins, by which the nakedness of the protoparents was veiled, were taken, see if it has [weight], Quest. 49 Justin Martyr *ad orthod.* and Methodius of Tyre, in Epiph. Lib. II *contra hæreses*. What, however, it signifies, Augustine treats in Psalm ciii.
"To his mother, the spiritual." Thus the R.P. Fronto teaches it should be read, instead of "to his mother the spiritual" (adjective), which is in other printed codices.
A Page 29. *Wherefore, and to us indeed*, etc. From this passage, and chapter 20 of this book, it is clear that the impious dogma of Valentinus and Simon Magus was that good works are not necessary for salvation and the blessed life. But the heresiarchs of our own age, progressing to the worse, having surpassed this impiety by many parasangs, cry out that works are pernicious to salvation; that a just man sins in every work, however good it may be; that all the works of men merit nothing but eternal fires. Therefore, eternal punishments (that they may be judged by their own verdict) are due, and the just Judge will undoubtedly pay them for their tunes, their ditties, their sermons, and their catechisms: truly a reward worthy of such labors. But the Word of God teaches that it shall be rendered to everyone according to his works; and that everyone shall receive a reward according to his own labor; and that those who have done good shall proceed to the resurrection of life, etc. It is therefore much more wholesome that the Fathers, having set the prize before us, excite us to every kind of good work. Tertullian, Lib. Scorp.: "How," he says, "are there many mansions with the Father, if not because of the variety of merits? How shall star differ from star in glory, unless because of the diversity of rays?" Clement of Alexandria, *Strom.*: "Proportion being held, there are various mansions according to the dignity and merits of those who have believed." And Augustine, Sermon 39, on the words of the Lord (now 108): "Decline from evil, and do good; and when you have done this, expect life securely: and then with a good countenance you will say to the Lord: 'I have done what You ordered, render what You promised.'" *Just as gold, etc., so also themselves, etc.* This most proud boasting of the heretics, whereby they taught themselves to be spiritual by nature and pure, and stained by no sins however abominable, the Calvinists seem to me to have recalled from hell, while they lie in words and writings that they and theirs are sanctified from their mothers' wombs; and that no crimes are imputed to them, provided only that faith in Christ is present: that by no sins, however detestable, does the Spirit depart from them, etc. B Page 30. *For indeed things sacrificed to idols, etc.* He reproves them for gluttony, and because they kept no choice of foods, contrary to the apostolic tradition. As long as paganism stood, for so long did Christians abstain from things sacrificed to idols, as Tertullian witnesses in *De Idol.* and *De Cibis Judaicis*; Origen in Book V *Contra Celsum*; and Cyprian *De Lapsis*. Indeed, regarding abstinence from certain kinds of food in the time of fasts, not because of an abomination of them, but so that the mind may be rendered more exercised for the worship of piety, says Canon 50 of the Apostles; and that the flesh, rebelling against God, may be punished by the torments and sufferings of fasting, Tertullian says against the psychics, that this was observed through the whole Church, as Clement of Rome testifies in Book V of *Constit. apost.*, cap. 19. Who also allows the use of bread alone, salt, and vegetables: but to abstain from meats and wine on days of fasting, the same book confirms in chapter 21 with many places of Sacred Scripture. He brings forward the practice of this matter in the life of St. Peter, Book VII of the *Recognitions*, who, in those laborious wanderings of his, used to refresh his little body with bread alone, with olives, and rarely with vegetables. Celebrated to all are those clear voices of the most strong martyrs, under the Emperor Severus: "You err much, O men, thinking that those who do not even use the flesh of dumb animals feed on human viscera." Eusebius, Book V *Hist.*, cap. 1. At which times also Tertullian, writing against the psychics, asserts that *xerophagiae* (dry-diet fasts) were observed on days of fasting, with food dried and free from all meat and broth; C and in his book *De Cultu Mulierum*, that some forbid themselves the creatures of God, abstaining from wine and animal products. Jerome says that Paul lived perpetually on palm fruits; and Hilarion on a small amount of dried figs. Athanasius and Basil, in their book *De Virginitate*: by legumes, bread, and oil, with a few small vegetables sometimes added, compelling the flesh to serve the spirit at fasts, as they intend.
*On every feast day of the pagans.* He finds fault with them because they celebrated days sacred to the gods or to pagan emperors along with them, surely in their honor: indeed, they did not even abstain from those spectacles in which many used to die in gladiatorial combat or were torn by the teeth of wild beasts. In this, truly, they manifested themselves to be most audacious despisers of pious ancestral traditions; when they [the Fathers] warned that all, whether stage spectacles, or Circensian games, or theatrical shows, were to be studiously shunned, as the fomenters of all vices, the irritants of evil desires, and (to speak with Chrysostom) the plagues of cities, the fountains of all evils, the chair of pestilence, the gymnasium of incontinence, the workshop of luxury, the orchestra of impurity, and the Babylonian furnace. For the custom of watching shameful things also takes on the license of imitating them, and vices fly most quickly through the windows of the eyes into our souls, they irritate, they kindle, and they inflame. "There is nothing for us to say, to see, or to hear," says Tertullian, "with the insanity of the Circus, with the impurity of the theatre, with the atrocity of the arena, with the vanity of the xystus." And mocking the solemnities of the Caesars a little above: "A great duty, forsooth," he says, "to bring out hearths and choruses into the public, to feast by neighborhoods, to abolish the state of the city into the habit of a tavern, to drive the mud with wine, to run in crowds to injuries, to impudences, to the allurements of lust. Is public joy thus expressed by public disgrace? Do these things befit the solemn days of princes, which do not befit other days?" etc. And a little lower than him, Minutius Felix: "We," he says, "who are judged by our morals and modesty, rightly abstain from your pomps and spectacles: whose origin we know from your sacred rites, and whose harmful blandishments we condemn. For who, in the chariot games, would not shudder at the insanity of a people warring against each other? In the gladiatorial games, at the homicide discipline? In the scenic, the furor is no less, the shame more prolix. For now the mime either exposes adulteries, or shows them: now the enervated actor, while he feigns love, inflicts it. By putting on your gods, he degrades them with impurities, with sighs, with hatred," etc. Lactantius also pours out a river of his eloquence in criticizing the theaters in book V, cap. 20. Cyprian deters as gravely as he can, in his epistle to Donatus. Epiphanius writes that the Catholic Church condemns spectacles, and equestrian contests. And blessed Augustine teaches that theaters are to be shunned as pits of shame and open professions of scandals. D *Some, and with the pleasures of the flesh, etc.* Further on also, in chapters 8, 9, 20, and 23, he makes the Gnostics guilty of fornications, adulteries, and various lusts: which was so common to all heretics, that Jerome writes in chapter IX of Hosea, that it is difficult to find a heretic who loves chastity. The lewdness of the Nicolaitans is manifest to all. Clement of Alexandria writes in *Strom.* III that the Carpocratians, gathering for banquets, men and women together, with the light removed, mixed as they wished and with whom they wished. Philastrius had committed similar things regarding the Florians to writing before Augustine. Tertullian, in *De Præscriptione*, calls Apelles a deserter of continence and fallen into the flesh: and asserts that Marcion was cast out of the Church because of the defilement brought upon a virgin. He reproaches Hermogenes because he was constantly marrying and was entirely an adulterer, in preaching and in flesh. Apollonius describes Montanus in Eusebius, Book V, cap. 18, and the women whom he led around as prophetesses, as having been taken from their own husbands for his own lust.
1397 A With great impudence Tertullian complains of those who are in conflict.
Book I of St. Irenaeus
. Cyprian, Epistle 48, calls some of his own time defilers of virgins, destroyers of marriages, and ravagers. All the schismatics of this our age seem to have deviated little from the slippery footsteps of those ancestors of theirs, while they inculcate to all that continence is entirely impossible: they dissolve the bonds of the sacrament of matrimony; and those who preside over their assemblies, generally deserting the vow of continence, embrace incestuous marriages.Pag. 31. *Wherefore in every way.* Here again, both from the very words of the Gnostics and sufficiently, Irenaeus indicates how lascivious and impure they were, who professed that they had to practice at every time and place their *syzygy*, that is, carnal copulation with women. Tertullian subscribes to Irenaeus with these words: "For also for the sake of honorable and heavenly marriages, it is said among them that the sacrament is always to be pondered and celebrated by adhering to a companion, that is, a female. Otherwise, he is degenerate and not a legitimate child of truth, who, while dwelling in the world, has not loved a woman, nor joined himself to her." Furthermore, I observe after the learned Pamelius, that Tertullian, writing in Latin, calls marriage a sacrament, which Epiphanius, Irenaeus, and the Apostle Paul B in Greek call μυστήριον. And so, the new Gnostics of our time are worse even in this matter than those ancient Gnostics, because they deny that marriage is a legitimate sacrament among Christians. But more on this later.
Pag. 32. *Nymphon.* The codes say *Symphon*; the old one, *Nymphon*; the Greek, νυμφῶνα, bridal chamber; from this, therefore, we have restored it.
Pag. 33. *As water through a pipe.* These blasphemies against the Incarnation of Christ the Lord from the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he most powerfully destroys in Book I, chapters 18, 31, and 32. But after him, Tertullian in his book *On the Flesh of Christ* has fought most bitterly against them, and the martyr Vigilius in his entire book *Against Eutyches* applies himself to this business.
*Book On the Flesh of Christ.* Augustine also, in book *On the Nature of the Good* against the Manichaeans, chapter 44, indicates a certain Scripture filled with blasphemies, to which they gave the name of Treasury, and that they read, heard, and believed the same: just as also the letter of Manichaeus, which they called The Foundation, in the book where he refutes it at length. The same writer also, in Book XIV, *The City of God*, chapter 23, is a witness that many things were brought forth by heretics under the names of prophets and apostles, which, under the name of apocrypha, were removed by canonical authority after diligent examination. This stratagem also was not lacking to the heretics of our age, who fabricated or debased a certain Bertram against the Eucharist; Charlemagne, against images; and Uldric or Udalric of Augsburg, against celibacy.
Pag. 36. *To weave ropes of sand.* The Greek words of the proverb are: Ἐξ ἄμμου σχοινία πλέκειν, in which there appears a wonderful appropriateness in explaining the stupidity of the Valentinians, who attempted to weave together the shreds of Scripture collected from every side, which in no way cohere among themselves, for the confirmation of their own error. Synesius later used the same phrase to signify the same thing in his fifty-seventh letter against Andronicus, who elegantly said that he was joining civil virtue with the priesthood, which he calls κλώθειν τὰ ἀσύγκλωστα, that is, to spin that which cannot be spun.
*How if someone [were to clothe] the image of a king, etc.* By this comparison, he wittily explains the crafty art of all heretics, by which they cover their putrid fables with divine eloquence; just as if someone were to adorn an ape—a foul and ugly animal—with purple, or clothe an ass in a lion’s skin, and (as Nazianzen says to Nicobulus) hide and conceal leaden swords in silver scabbards; or (if you prefer it from the sacred writings) clothe ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing, or transform Satan into an angel of light. He C asserts that those Valentinians are like public harlots, with Tertullian drawing his pen against them, for just as they daily ensnare themselves in paint, so those men ensnared the unwarry with the figments they were inventing day by day; Vincent of Lérins also writes that they are like apothecaries, who crown noxious herbs with healthy labels.
Pag. 35. *Since therefore such is their argument, etc.* He rejects their opinion, first, because it rests neither on prophetic preaching, nor on the doctrine of Christ, or apostolic tradition. With the same weapons he thus destroys the heresy of Florinus in the book *On Monarchy* in Eusebius, Book V, History, ch. 19: "These dogmas, Florinus, are not of sound doctrine and opinion. These dogmas are contrary to the Church, in that they cast down those who follow them into the greatest impiety. These dogmas not even the heretics who were cast out of the Church ever dared to affirm. These dogmas the presbyters who were before us, and who were disciples of the apostles themselves, by no means delivered to you." You see how grave an argument drawn from tradition seemed to Irenaeus: but more on this will be a convenient place to speak in the following pages. Secondly, because they established their hypotheses from *agraphois*, that is, from what is not written—not from legitimate ones, but from supposititious, spurious ones, and ones fabricated by themselves—by which they dragged the simple into their nets; which he indicates more openly below in chapter 17: "Beyond these, however," he says, "they bring forward an ineffable multitude of apocrypha and spurious Scriptures, which they themselves have fabricated, for the astonishment of the senseless," etc. And chapter 35: "They propose a Gospel in the name of Judas the traitor," etc. I will add also Epiphanius, who testifies that Marcion, a book compiled from the mutilated and depraved sentences of the Gospels and the Apostle, which he called *The Apostolic*, had written and circulated; the Sethians, seven books in the name of Seth, one book in the name of Abraham, and others in the name of Moses; the Encratites, Scriptures which were said to be of Andrew, John, and Thomas; the Archontics also, having books fabricated for themselves, which they adorned with the nomenclature of *Great and Little Symphony*, writing and circulating one for each. D Confirm. So the old codex. In Greek: διορθοῦντο: we have therefore expunged it, *conformet*.
Pag. 37. *Salvator.* We have deleted *Salvatore*.
Pag. 38. *And aporia, that is, consternation, etc.* Instead of *Cornarius*, Nicolaus Gallasius translates *desperationem*, so that, I suppose, he might patronize his own bishops and fellow-priests, whom it did not shame, from those impious fables of the Valentinians, to make Christ, our hope and salvation, while He was shedding drops of blood in His sweat and hanging on the cross, overwhelmed by the huge burden of divine wrath, condemned to the flames of hell (coerced, and not merely shuddering—I use their words, lest they cry out that I am an impostor), buried in the deep gulf of hell, submerged, perishing, and despairing. Nay, they are even worse than the Valentinians, because those men obscure the matter by the ambiguity of words meaning the same thing, while they use *Achamoth*, *Sophia*, and *Christ* for the same thing: but these, using no circumlocution at all, even glory in the manufactured and signal contumely against Christ. But what kind of person would have despaired, who, with their crime excused, prayed for others with such charity? Who is to be thought to have despaired, who promised entrance to the kingdom to the thief, commended his spirit into the hands of the Father, whom he was beseeching earnestly in words by no means ambiguous? Casting away hope, they either inflict violent hands upon themselves, or offer contumelies to the Divine Majesty, and rail with insults and blasphemies; they certainly never [utter] these pious voices, "My God, my God."
A considering, says: "For I am not a God, but a man." But they, in the book *On the Divine Names*, chap. 5, § 4, say that God is called "the beginning and measure of ages, and the essence of times, and the eternity of things that exist." For just as in eternity, neither past nor future is given, but it is always present, so also God "neither was, nor will be, nor was He made, nor is He made, nor will He be made," as Dionysius adds in the same place, and from thence concludes: "For He Himself is the eternity of eternities, existing before every eternity." Confer the commentators on these words.
*Protopatorem kai Bython*. Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, just as in his Hymns he abused poetic license, adapted almost all the mal-theology of the Valentinians to true theology, and sang of orthodox faith with a heretical voice; these two names he also attributes to the true God the Father. Thus in Hymn II, v. 27: *Bythos patroös*, "Profound paternal." Hymn III, v. 47: *Propatōr, apatōr*, "First father, without a father." Hymn V, v. 69: *Bythion kallos*, "Immense beauty."
*Hr.* I would have this article deleted, and these words: *kai per sperma... enēthē* B put in parentheses, believing the text, in which it is agreed that some word is redundant, is more rightly emended in this way than if *kai* were deleted before *kathēsthai*, which Fronto Duc intended. For all Latin and Greek codices have this copulative particle; conversely, the word "quam" appears in no manuscripts, nor in the printed editions of Erasmus and Gale, and was therefore omitted by me, but added by Feuardent from the Greek text, into which it had crept, I know not how: which, however, I did not wish to delete without the authority of a manuscript codex.
Pag. 6. *Proballein kai auton Logon*. Tertullian, *loc. cit.*: "He sends forth also Himself" (Nous) "from Himself the Word," etc. Therefore, there is a lapse of memory in Cyril’s *Catecheses* 6, where the generation of the Word is ascribed to Bythos; there is also in that place a corrupt reading, punctuation, and version of the text. Read, emended from the 25 Roe manuscript in the Bodleian Library, and rightly punctuated: *Bythos egennēse Sigēn, kai apo tēs Sigēs eteknopoei Logon*. "Thou art worse than the Zeus of the Greeks, who had union with his sister; for this one was said to be the child of Bythos C and Sige." Bythus begat Sigen, and from Sige received Sigen the Word. This is worse than the Jove of the heathens, who was said to be united to his sister: for Sige was reported to be the proles of Bythos. But Synesius sang in an orthodox way with Valentinian words in Hymn IV, v. 130: *Logos, hon megalō* *Patri synymnō,* *Noos arrhētou* *Tiktei se Patros.* Word whom with the great 33 Father I sing, Mind of the ineffable Father begets thee. Other Fathers also speak in this way.
*Morphōsin pantos tou plērōmatos*. In Tertullian, therefore, in the place often cited, read: "but also this offshoot to the beginning of the Universality and the formation" (the place *formati*, as it is in the printed editions) "of the whole Pleroma was sent forth," etc.
Pag. 7. *Triakonta*. Thus after Irenaeus all the D narrators of heresies, and most prolixly of all Epiphanius, who deduces their origin from Hesiod’s *Theogonia* and his thirty days, *Haer.* 31, § 4, writing among other things: *Triakonta gar kai houtos Aiōnas bouletai paristan, hous kai theous onomazei*. ("For he also wishes to represent thirty Aeons, whom he also names gods" — as also Origen, in his single homily on the book of Kings after the middle: "which Aeons, or which gods they call") "Add, and for the name of gods..."
A in order to confirm the number thirty, Paulinus the presbyter in the *Life of St. Ambrose* writes: "The heresy of the Valentinians worships thirty gods," or, as Agobard in his book *On Jewish Superstitions*, chapter 2, cited it in the plural: "The heresies of the Valentinians worship thirty gods." Ambrose himself agrees on the name but disagrees on the number in his letter 29 to the Emperor Theodosius, written around the middle, where he writes of the same, saying that they worship thirty-two Aeons, whom they call gods. What is the meaning of "thirty-two" here? The editors of Ambrose at Rome in 1585, who cut this knot but did not untie it, had "thirty Aeons" printed in letter 17 (for the order of the letters is different there) and omitted "and two," which the Parisians followed in the 1614 edition and elsewhere. But in all the oldest exemplars, I found the words of Ambrose expressed as I just cited them, namely in the Basle editions of 1492, 1527, 1567, and in the Parisian edition of 1586. Therefore, the most recent and best edition by the Benedictine Fathers deserves praise for this, as in other places, for it restored the number XXXII, as I learn from the renowned Luigius’ appendix to the *Dissertation on Heresiarchs* § 53, since I do not have it at hand right now. But it is noted less correctly in that same place that "Bythos and Sige" were added by Ambrose to complete the said number. For these are already contained in the number thirty, and therefore two others must be accepted, namely Christ and the Holy Spirit, whom Irenaeus reports in § 4 of this chapter were produced by the Monogenes for the fixation and consolidation of the Pleroma, and he contends in book II, chapter 15, that these are to be numbered among the remaining thirty Aeons.
B Aeons. It is clear from the above that the Valentinians called their Supreme God, or Bythos, a "perfect Aeon," just as we are accustomed to proclaim the true God absolutely as such. But they also gave the name "Aeons" to the inferior spirits they invented, though not perfect ones, just as Catholics were accustomed to designate a certain kind of good angel with this term. Thus, in the interpolated *Epistle to the Trallians* by Ignatius, § 5, we read: "Distinctions of angels and hosts, differences of powers and lordships, variations of thrones and authorities, the greatness of Aeons, and the preeminence of the Cherubim and Seraphim," etc. Concerning these words, Ussher indeed noted that nowhere else, whether in Holy Scripture or in the writings of Catholics, does any mention of Aeons in this sense occur. But the great man slipped in his memory as far as ecclesiastical writers are concerned. For in the *Apostolic Constitutions*, book VIII, chapter 12, God is said to be the one who "made the Cherubim and Seraphim, Aeons and hosts, powers and authorities," etc. Concerning this passage, Cotelerius well noted that in Eusebius’ C *Oration in Praise of Constantine*, page 606, there are also commemorated "hosts of angels, spirits born of intellectual light, ageless Aeons, and other infinite aeons of aeons." And among the Latins, Hilary in his book *On the Trinity*, before the middle, says: "Archangels do not know, angels have not heard, the ages [saecula] do not contain." Concerning Holy Scripture itself, I would not dare to affirm it; nor, however, would I wish to dispute with the aforementioned prelate. For, not to mention other passages, there have been those who understood "angels" through "aeons" in Ephesians III, 9. "Ages [saecula]," says Jerome there in his commentary, "are all the spiritual and rational creatures that exist in the ages." Whence the dispute ought not to have been raised so strongly over the name against the Valentinians, had they not erred in the matter, and had they not put forward the figments of their own imagination in place of the true angels of God.
D Silent, [i.e., *Zecirnuéro*]. Tertullian, chapter 9: "Mother Sige herself prescribes silence to her own heretics." Synesius, *Hymn* I, v. 75: "Let Silentium cover the things above," And *Hymn* II, v. 22 seqq.: "The blessed silence of the things before, Both of intellectual and intelligible things."
"And let silentium conceal, The deeper [things], and those worthy of silence."
*The phantasms of them.* Origen also, in *Commentary on John*, book II, page 71, notes the Valentinians as having "refashioned the fable of the Aeons into syzygies," that is, setting forth a fabulous account about Aeons by means of syzygies.
Page 7. *To be known only,* etc. Synesius, *Hymn* V, v. 10 seq.: "And the ineffable shoot Knows the root of the Aeons,"
But that it is unknown to the remaining angels is stated thus in *Hymn* III, 123 et seqq.: "For it is not right even for the gods To look with intent eyes Upon thy fires."
Page 8. *To all the rest.* That is, "To all the rest," even to the Logos, whom Nus first produced. Thus book I, chapter 24: "Logos, having a third order of generation, knew not the Father, as these teach." This he refutes in the same place.
*And Sige held him,* etc. To this assertion of the Valentinians I think one must also refer what Clement of Alexandria has in the *Excerpts from the Oriental Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 794, col. 1: "Sige, they say, being the mother of all those produced by Bythos, the one which she could not speak of concerning the Ineffable, she kept silent; but that which she apprehended, this she called Incomprehensible."
*Root without beginning.* Just as the Valentinians earlier called the first-born quaternion the "root of all"—so here, in this quaternion, they called the first, Bythos, existing from himself without beginning, a "root without beginning." The heretics are wrong, indeed, regarding their invented Bythos and quaternion, but the Catholics are sufficiently correct regarding the true God and the most holy Trinity. Thus Synesius, *Hymn* II, vers. 25 et seq.: "One fount, one root, The triple-shining form shines forth." And *Hymn* III, v. 171 et seq.: "Fount of founts, Beginning of beginnings,"
*Root of roots.* *Fount of the founts,* *Principle of the principles,* *Root of the roots.* And in *Hymn* IV, v. 136 et seq., concerning the Son of God: *First of the first,* *Proceeding root.* *First from the first* *Propagated root, etc.*
A Thus also other orthodox ecclesiastical writers have called God the Father, in relation both to the Son and the Holy Spirit, as well as to creatures, the "Root" and "Fount," as (to pass over Tertullian, *Against Praxeas* ch. 8) Ambrose, *On Luke*, book X, and book V *On the Faith to Gratian*, ch. 5; Basil the Great, *Homily on the Faith*, 18 (and 17 *Against the Sabellians*); Cyril of Alexandria in many places, etc.
*Nωθρότατος.* For younger men are wont to be more rash and less continent. Hence Tertullian: "In the incontinence of his own [mind]," he says, "he breaks forth into inquiring about the Father." But to say that among the Æons one is younger and another older seems quite justly absurd to Irenæus, book II, ch. 24.
*Ἀποσκήμματα.* Tertullian, excellently paraphrasing this word of Irenæus: "It had derived," he says, "as vices are wont in the body, when they have taken root elsewhere, to breathe their own destructiveness into another member." For as Galen writes in *On the Method of Healing to Glaucon*, book II, ch. 9, vol. X, p. 382: "They call *aposcemmata* (abcessions) those states when certain humors, having annoyed one part, leaving that, migrate to another." Most aptly, therefore, did Irenæus with this word express the opinion of the Valentinians, who say that evil, contracted from the inquiry into the inscrutable Bythos, began to infest the remaining Æons; but afterwards, flowing down like a bad humor, it settled in the last Æon, Sophia, as is taught here and in book II, c. 24: "They dare to say that while it began from the Logos, the derivation resulted in Sophia."
*Pag. 9. Τεκεῖν οὐσίαν ἄμορφον.* I note by the way in this place that Tertullian wrongly attributed *οὐσίαν ἄμορφον* not to the "offspring," but to the "bearing mother" by apposition, as is evident to anyone inspecting his full context. Irenæus, on the contrary, both here and in book II, c. 37, says: "Their Æon brought forth an unformed substance."
*Qualem naturam habebat femina parere.* The old interpreter reads *θήλειαν*, not *θηλείαν*, and Billius along with him, whence he himself translates: "And what manner of nature the female could have brought forth"; and likewise Cornarius, the interpreter of Epiphanius: "What sort of manner the female nature could bring forth," implying, of course, by the connection. Fronto Ducæus, who reads and punctuates the text of Irenæus thus: *οἵαν φύσιν εἶχε, θήλειαν τεκεῖν*, and interprets it so that Sophia is said to have brought forth a "female," because she herself was of female sex; noting thence that *τεκεῖν* before it should be deleted as superfluous. And yet I do not consider this to be necessary; but as far as the reading of the word *θήλειαν* and the meaning of the words are concerned, I agree entirely: for not only did Tertullian in c. 10 render it: "She conceived and procreated a female"; but Irenæus himself, the best interpreter of his own words, confirms this, writing at the end of this section: *Καρπὸν ἀσθενῆ καὶ θῆλυν αὐτόν λέγουσι* — "They call him a weak and female (female) fruit." And book II, ch. 36: "That (Sophia's) passion fructified a female fruit (as they say), invalid, and infirm, and unformed." Therefore, according to the genuine reading of the Greek text, the meaning of Irenæus in this place would have to be expressed in such words as these: "And of what nature (she) herself was, a female she brought forth."
*Timuisse ne hoc ipsum finem habeat.* Billius approves this interpretation, as if from the Greek B and confirms it by the authority of Tertullian, writing in ch. 10: "And to fear at the last, lest the end also should stop." Nor otherwise does Petavius in his version of Epiphanius. But I, leaving the interpreter (whom Tertullian in this place has imprudently followed, as I said in the Prolegomena, where I discussed the age of the old version), hold entirely to the Greek reading in Epiphanius, and I interpret Irenæus in such a way as to say that Sophia was first grieved, because she brought forth an imperfect fetus, namely a female one, which in comparison with the male sex nature-scrutinizers have always judged to be imperfect; afterwards, that she feared, and being anxious in mind, was in doubt whether the nature even of this more imperfect sex were intact in that deformed offspring, or whether it had any portion of it that was perfect at all. For the words *μηδὲ αὐτὸ τὸ εἶναι τελείως ἔχειν* conveniently admit this meaning. Which, therefore, I think should not be disturbed.
*Τὸ γένος.* Billius prefers *Γεγονός*, thinking that the old interpreter read it thus, and also Tertullian, who in ch. 10 said "case" and not "kind." And indeed concerning Tertullian I hardly know what to say; but as to the old interpreter, I deny he read *Γεγονός*, because he did not render it "that which was done," but "that which was born." Yet *γένος* signifies "born offspring," as is evident from the lexicons, and therefore there is no need to correct that word, especially since it fits perfectly well with the Valentinian notion that Sophia wished to hide her own fetus, as being totally deformed.
*Pag. 10. Συνδεηθῆναι δὲ αὐτῇ καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς Αἰῶνας.* They did this out of compassion. For as we read in the *Extracts from the Didascalia of the Valentinians* by Clement of Alexandria, p. 794, col. 2: *Διὰ τῆς τοῦ δωδεκάτου Αἰῶνος πείσεως τὰ ὅλα παιδευθέντα, ὡς φασι, συνεπάθησεν· τότε γὰρ ἐπέγνωσαν, ὅτι εἰσὶν χάριτι τοῦ Πατρός* — "Through the passion of the twelfth Æon, all things (which were in the Pleroma), being taught, as they say, suffered with it. For then they knew that they subsist by the grace of the Father."
*Διὰ τοῦ Μονογενοῦς.* Horon says it was emitted from the first Father through Monogenes, and he names both, so that he might embrace both opinions of the Valentinians. For, as he writes in book II, ch. 15: "Some indeed say that Horon was emitted by Monogenes, but others [say] by the Propatore himself in his own likeness."
*Ἀσύζυγον, ἀθήλυντον.* "Without a spouse, male-female." From this version, as well as from Tertullian, ch. 10, where we read "in the image of male-female," Fronto Ducæus after Billius gathered that in the Greek it should not be read *ἀσύζυγον, ἀθήλυντον*, but *ἀζύγῳ ἀῤῥενοθήλει*. "For neither," says Billius, "would this reason, which he subjoins, suffice if *ἀσύζυγος* were referred to Horon." But I think it is the Latin interpreter (by whom Tertullian also seems to me to have been seduced) who should be corrected rather than the Greek text. If Fronto Ducæus had considered the word *ἄζυγος* instead of *ἀσύζυγος*, because *μετὰ συζυγίας* follows immediately in this place, he would have chosen better. Nor is it necessary to change *ἀθήλυντον* into *ἀῤῥενόθηλυν*, because it fits the preceding word perfectly. Moreover, what is of greater importance, I am most firmly convinced that *ἀσύζυγον*, and the word that follows it, should be read in the accusative, not in the dative. For just as we are not wont to say that God created "man" according to "His holy image" in the dative, but "created holy man" in the accusative; so also here the Propatore is better said in the Greek to have produced "Horon," according to his image, void of a spouse and "male-female" (if you please), than in the Latin: "in the image of the spouse void and male-female." And the reason which he subjoins also fits very well with the fact that Horon is called "void of a spouse": namely, that his generator, the Propatore, is also represented by the Valentinians as sometimes without a spouse, although they commonly join Sige to him. Whence it is no wonder if such an offspring is also imagined to have been emitted by him. I would not wish, therefore, to change the Greek text, but rather in the Latin translation...
A **Kar-pisten*. That is, "avenger" or "assertor" of liberty. It is rendered thus in the old Graeco-Latin Glossary. You have an example in Arrian, Book III, of the *Discourses of Epictetus*, ch. 26, p. 369, Cambridge ed.: “Speak the truth then, slave, and do not flee from your masters, nor deny them, nor dare to present yourself as a *karpisten*, when you have so many arguments of your slavery at hand.” And earlier, p. 365: *“Oti karpisten didonai*,” which is to present yourself as an avenger and assertor.
*Metagōgea*. Tertullian and Petavius in his version of Epiphanius called it "leader about" (*circumductorem*). I would rather render it "deductor." But what is the reason for this surname? As I was thinking about this matter, it occurred to me that *anagōgē* is used when we ascend from an obvious meaning to more sublime and mystical things. What if Horos is therefore called B *metagōgēa* because he led back and repelled the junior Aeon, so that it would not strive to penetrate further into the most lofty mystery of Bythos? For in Greek compounds *meta-* is often the same as *re-* in Latin, as *metakalein*, "to recall," Acts xxiv, 25; see Dionysius the Areopagite, etc. Finally, to the various names of Horos, add *Soter* from Book II, ch. 15.
Page 11. *Eirai*. One ought rather to read *meinai*, because the interpreter has "to have persevered," and Tertullian "to have remained."
*Apostere-thēnai*. One ought to read *apostaurō-thēnai*, Billius advises, because the ancient interpreter and Tertullian have "crucified," not "deprived." Indeed, I readily admit the reading *apostaurōthēnai*, but this word ought rather to have been rendered here as if "surrounded by a rampart and separated from the Pleroma." Thus in Thucydides, Book IV, ch. 69, the scholiast explains *astauroun* as "they were making palisades." Nor do I read anywhere else in all of Irenaeus's work that the *Enthymesis* was affixed to a cross.
*Christon didaxai*, etc. Tertullian, perhaps using a faulty manuscript, translates these words—shall I say, or perverts—as: “Christ’s role was to induce (or, as Pamelius conjectures one should read, to teach) the Aeons the nature of conjunctions, and the conjecture of the unbegotten, and to make them fit for the knowledge of the Father in themselves.” C Where note the addition of *kai... agennētou katalēpsin*, the omission of *ginōskontas*, the change of *einai* into *poiein*, and of *anagoreusai* into *anagennē-sokai*. Petavius also does poorly in his version of Epiphanius: “Christ, the nature of conjunction and the comprehension of the unbegotten being known, taught that it was necessary to be content,” etc. Billius is better, though not exactly according to the mind of Irenaeus: “For Christ taught them the nature of conjunction, and that those to whom the comprehension of the unbegotten was known, were sufficient for themselves.” As if in the Greek it were read: *Kai agennētou katalēpsin ginōskontas heautois hikanous einai*. But it is not necessary—nay, one ought not—to add either *kai* or *heautois*, because *hikanos* here signifies not so much "content" as "sufficiently instructed and fit," just as it is used in other sacred and profane writers. Therefore, that is what Irenaeus said according to the opinion of the Valentinians: “Christ taught the nature of conjunctions,” so arranged, that is, that they might know enough, if they know the comprehension of the unbegotten, that is, the Son; inasmuch as in him the unbegotten Father, in himself incomprehensible, can be comprehended. Furthermore, those words: *anagoreusai te en autois*, etc., are well rendered in the old version, and are so clear that there is no need for words. I add only the parallel passage of Irenaeus, Book IV, ch. 14: “They are liars, those who are from Valentinus, [who say] that Christ said to their Aeons: ‘Do not seek God: for he is unknown, and you will not find him.’”
Page 12. *Akatalepton*. Note in passing that definition of Chrysostom D which fits here perfectly: *To akatalepton legetai, hotan ereunēthen kai zētēthen mē katalēpthē para tōn zētountōn auto*. “That is called incomprehensible, which, even though it has been investigated and sought, is yet not apprehended by those who seek it.”
*Ouk estin oute idein... ē dia monou tou Monogenous*. Clement in the 35th *Epitome* from the Valentinian *Oriental Didascalia*, p. 791, col. 1, C: *Prosōpon Patros ho Huios, di’ hou gnōrizetai ho Patēr*, “The Son is the Face of the Father, through whom the Father is known.” And p. 793, col. 2, A: *Huios esti de, kai hoson katalēpton tou Patros di’ Huiou dedidagmenoi theōrousi; to de loipon agnōston esti tou Patros*. “And the Son is, even as much of the Father as is comprehensible, which they who are taught through the Son contemplate; but the rest of the Father is unknown.” Synesius had this Valentinian hypothesis in mind when he sang in *Hymn III*, v. 123, and following:
Atenes de drakein Epi sous pyrsous Themis oude theois Piptōn de noos Apo sas skopias Ta pelas sainei Akichēta kichein Epiballomenos Prosidein aiglian Akamati bythō Amarussomenan. Abatōn de apobas Epi prōtophanes Eidos ereidei Ommatos alkan.
To look with fixed eyes On thy fires Is not permitted, not even to the gods: But the descending mind From thy watchtower Caresses the things near, Attempting to reach The unreachable, And to behold the splendor Shining In the wearyless abyss. But departing from the impassable, On the first-appearing Form it fixes The strength of its eye.
And the cause, indeed, of eternal perseverance, etc., is the Son. Similarly Tertullian, ch. 11: “They were taught that the incomprehensible [nature] of the Father was the cause of their perpetuity: but his comprehensible [nature] was the reason for their generation and formation... But they constitute the Son as the comprehensible [nature] of the Father.” Thus also all the moderns, Billius, Fronto Duc., Petavius, etc., omitting *to prōton*, and changing four Greek words of Irenaeus, *katalēpton* into the contrary *akatalepton*, *autou* into *autōn*, *hō* into *ho*, *isos* into *huios*, and thence rendering a sense utterly alien, which Tertullian also attacks as usual. I interpret Irenaeus, or rather the doctrine of the Valentinians related by him, without the change of a single letter, as follows: “And the cause indeed of [their] eternal perseverance (so that they might exist immortal, not like mortal men) was primarily the comprehension of the Father (not of the unbegotten Propator, but of the only-begotten, whom the Valentinians called Father and principle of all, as was said in § 1), but the cause of his (the one called Father) generation and formation is ‘the comprehension of him to whom he is similar,’ that is, the first Father, to whom the only-begotten is similar and equal (*ison*), and alone perceives his greatness,” as is expressly taught in the cited place.
A *Spirit* indeed holy. Add ‘one’ according to the Greek Gospel, which indeed Tertullian does not seem to have read; I, however, acknowledge it as genuine, and think that the Valentinians imitated that of the Apostle in I Cor. xii, 13: *For by one and the selfsame Spirit.* And I suspect it was added here to hint at the reason why the Holy Spirit made all the Aeons equal, and brought unity into the Pleroma, namely, that he himself also was ‘one,’ or to hint that, while there were indeed two Christs (one higher, one lower, of whom presently), there was but one Holy Spirit. Hence Origen, lib. II, *De Principiis*, cap. 7: “We have heard that the heretics dared to speak of two gods and two Christs: but we never heard of two Holy Spirits being proclaimed by anyone.” Furthermore, in Tertullian read: “The property of the Holy Spirit,” that is to say *erat* (was), not *propria* (proper).
*In form and judgment, the Aeons were established as equal... all words*, etc. Tertullian, cap. 12: “All things are made equal in form and opinion, for all have been made that which each is: no one is other, because one is another. All are poured back into the Nous, into the Words, all into the Men, into the Christs, etc.” Clement, in *Excerpts from the Oriental Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 794, col. 2, B: “Since, therefore, there is unity in the Pleroma, each of the Aeons has its own Pleroma, that is, the syzygy.” *Since unity is in the Pleroma* (so, namely, that all are Menses, Sermones, Homines, etc.), *each of the Aeons has its own Pleroma, namely in its own conjugation*. And page 793, col. 2, B: *They say also that the Aeons are called by the same name as the Word, ‘Words’*.
*Being supported*, etc. Tertullian, loc. cit., expressed these things thus: “Thence they were refreshed, and were established, and having been composed in rest from the truth, they hymn the Father with great fruit of joy. He himself also was diffused with gladness, as those who were singing were well-pleasing both to the children and the grandchildren.”
*To hymn the Propatôr*. Synesius, hymn 11, v. 40 and following: *A chorus of immortal sovereigns* *And the begetting glory,* *And the first-sown form,* *He chanted with intellectual hymns.* *A chorus of immortal angels* *Sings the glory of the Father,* *And the first-begotten form,* *With celestial hymns.*
And lest you doubt that Synesius looked to the tenets of the Valentinians, take what follows: *A host of ageless angels,* *Looking toward the Nous,* *Harvests the principle of beauty.* *An army of angels lacking old age,* *And partly looking toward the mind,* *Harvests the principle of beauty.*
Which agrees with those things that follow shortly after in Irenaeus concerning the perfect beauty and the *dêla* (manifestation/splendor) of the Pleroma.
Page 13. *Homogeneous angels*. “Angels of the same kind;” but are they of the same kind among themselves, or with the Savior? Tertullian, wavering in his mind, says: “Equal, he says, in genus (kind). If among themselves, it may be possible: but if they are consubstantial with the Savior (for I have found it positioned ambiguously), what will be his eminence among equal satellites?” Athanasius, however, in *Oratio II contra Arianos*, much after the middle, tom. I, page 363, determines the matter while speaking of Valentinus: “He indeed declared the angels homogeneous to Christ.” *Here indeed he proclaimed the angels as of the same kind as Christ.* And in the longer epistle to Serapion against those who say the Holy Spirit is a creature, in the same volume I, page 185: “For he says that when the Paraclete was sent, his comrades (*hêlikiôtai*) were sent with him B *Agônos sympêxis*. In all editions of Irenaeus and Epiphanius, *hexagônos* is read as a single word, which Billius refers to the six preceding names of the Horos. But to say nothing of *hexagônos* being read with a smooth breathing, not *hexagô-nos*, who would call an appellation expressed by six names a ‘hexagonal structure’? Soon, therefore, having rejected this reading, it was intended that *kai Aionôn* be placed there, because in the old version it is: *and of the Aeons*. Truly, this change is violent; and the proof is weak: for no manuscripts have *et Aeonum*, but, as Voss has most corruptly, *lex Aeonum*; Arundel and Merc. 1, *ex Aeone*, as if from the Greek *ex Aionos*, *from an Aeon*. Which, although it departs less from *exagônos*, nevertheless pours forth no sense suited to the present matter, and accordingly Erasmus, etc., placed *et Aeonum*; equally ineptly, as is evident to anyone inspecting the text. Petavius, therefore, in his notes on Epiphanius, attempted to aid Irenaeus with another emendation. “Perhaps,” he says, *exô tôn Aionôn sympêxis*. For it was said a little before about the Aeons. But what was said? Here is a deep silence; so that no one can know, nor perhaps did the author himself know, what he meant for himself with these general words, much less what the meaning of Irenaeus is according to this reading. Furthermore, Fronto Duc. and Feuardent completely passed over this very difficult place dry-shod, not even indicating their own or Irenaeus’ meaning with a single word. But behold the correct reading, not even a letter changed, and the plain meaning. From the one word *exagônos*, which is nothing, I make two, *ex agônos*, and translate: *after the struggle*. For as Eustathius notes on Homer *Il.* E, v. 865: *The preposition ‘ex’ (out of) is taken not only here for the preposition ‘after’, but also elsewhere.* Applying this to the present place, I explain the sense from the antecedents thus:—It was said above that the last Aeon, Sophia, while she wished to comprehend the incomprehensible Father, *en pollô panu agôni genomenon dia to megethos tou bathous*, etc., *having been placed in a great agony on account of the magnitude of the depth*: it was also said in the same place that this Aeon *propter hoc fere absorptum et in universam substantiam resolutum fuisse*, *had been almost absorbed and resolved into the universal substance*, *analysbasthai*, had not the Horos occurred, to whom the *stêrizousa dynamis*, *a ‘consolidating virtue’*, is attributed, and it is taught that, confirmed by it, the Aeon returned to itself and to the Pleroma. Irenaeus, therefore, summarizing these things in this place, after *symphoran pepenthontos Aionos, kai kata mikron apololotos*, having suffered a sad misfortune, and having almost perished, added the *autou agônos sympêxin*, the consolidation after the struggle, so that it would not be resolved entirely and diffuse; attributing it to the Horos as the efficient cause.—Whence perhaps it would not be inconvenient to read *dia tou Horou*, not however necessary, provided it is understood in this way. Tertullian surely understood it, since in chapter 13, *Horou ex agônos sympêxin*, he rendered as the most opportune help of the Horos, which indeed he brought to the imperiled Sophia. I had written these things before the most learned Mr. Dodwell had benevolently communicated to me the various readings of the Latin version collected by Mercer. Comparing these, and finding in another of the codices *ex Aionia* noted, I have been clearly confirmed in my opinion.
Page 14. *Of the Eucharist*. The old interpreter reads *tais eucharistiais*, with thanksgivings. Feuardent, however, notes not ineptly that prayers and praises customarily poured forth in the celebration of the eucharistic sacrament are understood here, concerning which also the words
(this is the first page of the chain)
Page 15. (*hyposemainesthai legousi*) "by reason of the apostasy of Judas," etc. The Greek in this period was corrupted long ago: whence the ancient interpreter changed "of the apostasy by Judas" into "of the apostasy of Judas," and omitted four words entirely—"which having happened, the treason is shown," as they say. Although this be too violent, Billius and Petavius nevertheless approved it; Fronto Ducæus and Feuardent, however, said nothing here. I, reading the words of Irenaeus again and again, finally perceived that they all must be retained, and interpreted as I have set down in my notes on the Latin version, except for the words placed within parentheses (*hyposemainesthai legousi*). For I conjecture these crept into the text from the margin; in which someone, intending to correct the preceding *semainousi legesthai*, wrote *gr.* (that is, *graphontai*) *hyposemainesthai legousi*. A foolish scribe, taking this note for *hypo*, placed *hyposemainesthai legousi* into the text, as the Petavian edition of Epiphanius has it; or *hyposemainesthai legousi*, as it exists in the Basle Epiphanius and all editions of Irenaeus. Moreover, Irenaeus refutes this comparison of the Valentinians between the suffering Aeon and Judas, and between the suffering of the former and that of Christ, in Book II, chapters 36 and 37.
"But this suffering," etc. This period, according to the genuine Greek reading, must be rendered in Latin thus: "But they say that this suffering, which happened to the twelfth Aeon, is signified by the apostasy, that is, the treason committed by Judas, who was the twelfth of the apostles."
*Ekeine he dynamis*. Billius, in his new version of this text, placed not the word "Virtue," but "Aeon," as if in the Greek it should be *aeon*, not *dynamis*. For the name "Virtue" was not observed attached to the suffering Aeon in this first chapter of Irenaeus, and from that perhaps suspicion of an error arose. But that the genuine reading is *dynamis* is evident from book II, chapters 36 and 40, where our author, refuting this argument, in the former place posits two "Virtues" according to the judgment of the Valentinians; and where he had mentioned one, which has gone out from the Savior, which they say holds pre-eminence (that is, surpasses), he immediately adds concerning the other: "For that Virtue which suffered, extended and flowing into the infinite, so that it was in danger of being dissolved into all substance, when it had touched the first quaternion, which is signified by the fringe, it stood and ceased from suffering." These things are exactly consonant with the place in which we now are. Similarly in the said chapter 40, where he had said that the twelfth virtue suffered and flowed down into the infinite, he expressly adds: "that is, the twelfth Aeon." Whence there is no doubt but that the Valentinians called this one by that name, and so also Irenaeus called it here. A
*Ei me*. Billius wants *Kai ei me* to be read, misled by the ancient interpreter, who has: "et nisi tetigisset." B And this indeed the reason of the connection compelled him to add, because he had previously added the verb "was signified," whereby the sense of the clause is closed. But in the Greek *kai* is rightly absent, provided that *ekeine he dynamis* be taken by apposition, and thus the sense be suspended, as I expressed in the notes to the Latin version. C
Paul, 1 Tim. ii, 1, where he commands "supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings," to be made for all 36 men, some Fathers have accepted. For some contend that this clause existed even in the first age of the Church: "For ever and ever," proving it from the liturgies of James, Clement, etc. And yet it is sufficiently certain that these are either supposed or interpolated; nevertheless, it is not in vain to conjecture that those rites, which are expressed in all these liturgies and which were already long ago used everywhere among the sacred mysteries, flowed from apostolic tradition. This at least is evident from this argument of the Valentinians, that the said formula was in use in the age second after the birth of Christ. Furthermore, there is another thing which I gather incidentally from this place, namely that the clause of the Lord's Prayer, by which glory is given to God *eis tous aionas*, was long ago acknowledged neither by the Catholics nor by the Valentinians. D For they would not have ceased to draw an argument from it, just as they did from other doxologies of the Catholics and places of Holy Scripture.
Page 16. *Toutou, einai de taute ton Horon thelousin*. Billius rightly restored *tauten* for *tautes* from the ancient interpreter; but to put *tou Yiou* for *toutou* is not necessary, because the name "Savior" (*Soteros*), which precedes shortly, is conveniently understood, which also is fitting for Horos, of whom he makes mention here, as I noted already above on page 12, book I, chapter 15.
*Kai exoristheises*, etc., up to *eroumen*. These words, although they exist in the ancient interpretation, Billius nevertheless judged should be deleted. For he says they contribute nothing to the matter, nor do they have an absolute meaning: and furthermore it is false that the Valentinians call the Enthymesin the "second Ogdoad." But I cannot wonder enough that a learned man wrote these things, and that Fronto Ducæus and Feuardent consented so easily, since all three members of this proof are most foreign to the truth. Billius is mistaken when he says it is false that the Valentinians called the Enthymesin the "second Ogdoad." For Irenaeus speaks it again and again below in these words: *Ten de metera ten Achamoth kalousin Ogdoada, aposozousan ton arithmon tou archegonou kai protes tou Pleromatos Ogdoados*. “But they call the mother Achamoth the Ogdoad, preserving the number of the first-born and primary Ogdoad in the Pleroma.” And soon after: *Tauten de ten metera kai Ogdoada kalousi, kai Sophian*. “But they call this mother and Ogdoad, and Sophia.” But that the mother Achamoth is that very Enthymesin of that superior Sophia, whom they also call Achamoth, separated from the Pleroma, etc., is evident from these words: "The Enthymesis of the higher Sophia, which they also call Achamoth, separated from the Pleroma," etc. Which exactly coincide with the controversial words; and therefore the principal objection of Billius against them vanishes into smoke. But what he says, that they contribute nothing to the matter, and have no absolute meaning—even this is not so. I admit the sense is not absolute in the Latin text; nevertheless, it is given most fully in the Greek. But what do the additions regarding the same, proscribed extra Pleroma, and the name of the second Ogdoad acquired therefrom, contribute to the present matter, where the Savior is said to have opened the womb of the Enthymesis? Intending to answer this in three words, I preface that the Valentinians said concerning Jesus the Savior that he opened the womb of the Enthymesis or mother Achamoth, not as a son born from her, but as a husband, who so impregnated her that she bore various offspring, and produced seven heavens through the Demiurge. Since he was therefore more eminent, and decorated with the title of Ogdoad, yet ejected extra Pleroma, and subsisting far within the dignity of the Savior, nevertheless that he did not disdain to approach her, Irenaeus wished to say briefly in this place, according to the opinion of the Valentinians, and promised that he would speak more prolixly a little later, and did so below, where he speaks more on these matters.
*Kai autos esti ta panta*. "And he himself (Christ) is all things." Learned men have hitherto sought whence the Valentinians cited these things. I answer, from the epistle of Paul to the Colossians, chapter III, verse 11, where the Apostle writes: *Ta panta kai en pasin Christos*. "All and in all Christ." Just as elsewhere 1 Cor. xv, 28, concerning God the Father: *Hina o Theos ta panta en pasin*, "That God may be all in all."
*Tes theotetos*. The Valentinians seem not to have acknowledged the word *somatikos*, which is read in our codices Coloss. ii, 9. But also certain Catholic Fathers cited the words of Paul without that adverb, as S. Cyprian, book *De bono patientiae*, shortly from the beginning.
A and Archelaus in the *Disputation with Manes*, § 25. They argue, however, corporeal-wise, as do all the Greek Fathers, and among the Latins, Hilary, books viii and ix, *De Trinitate*, Augustine, and many others.
*Καθὸ δὲ μερίζει καὶ διορίζει*. Origen. Clement in the often-cited *Excerpts from the Oriental Didascalia* of the Valentinians, p. 735, col. 2. At the end: “*Ὁ σταυρὸς τοῦ ἐν Πληρώματι Ὅρου σημεῖόν ἐστιν· χωρίζει γὰρ τοὺς ἀπίστους τῶν ἀπίστων* (read *ἀπὸ πιστῶν*), *ὡς ἐκεῖνος τὸν κόσμον τοῦ Πληρώματος*.” “The cross of him who is in the Pleroma is of Horus, or the Limit, a sign: for it separates the faithless from the faithful, just as he (Horus) separates the world of the Pleroma.”
*Ὅς οὐ βαστάζει*, etc. The Valentinians alleged the words of Christ regarding the meaning from Luke xiv, 27, not from Matt. x, or Mark viii, as Feuardentius claimed. Moreover, the words of Matthew, cited to this end, are read in the *Excerpts* of Clement of Alexandria in the cited place: “*Ὅς οὐκ αἴρει τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθεῖ μοι, οὐκ ἔστι μου ἄξιος*,” for *ἄξιος*, as it is read in our New Testament codices.
Pag. 18. *In umbræ et vanitatis locis deservisse*. In the Erasmian and Gallasian editions it is read very corruptly, *in umbratæ vanitatis locis deservisse*. Feuardentius proposed: *in umbræ et vacuitatis locis deferbuisse*; and thence in the notes: “Thus,” he says, “from an old codex, Greek letter, and the judgment of Rev. Fronto, we have restored the reading.” I would have preferred him to state more distinctly what he corrected from the Greek and from the conjecture of Fronto Ducaeus, and what from the old codex. The Vossian and Merchant codices 2 have *in umbræ vacuitatis locis descruisse*, having erroneously omitted the particle *et*: so also the Arundel, except that it reads *cumbra* for *umbræ* there. And the word *vacuitatis* is indeed correct, but *deservisse* (or rather *deferbuisse*, as I had it printed in the text—for it is well known that *v* is found written as *u* in manuscripts) is wrong; I say the scribes wrongly substituted this for *deferbuisse*, which I am persuaded the interpreter rendered *ἐκζεῖν* [to boil over], having taken *ἐκ* in *ἐκζεῖν* in the negative sense, to mean "ceasing to [boil] ferment." But this genuine reading of the version is totally adverse to the sense of the Valentinians: for they wished, by the verb *ἐκζεῖν* or simply 37 *ejectam* [cast out], to indicate the Enthymesis into shadowy places, or "expelled," as Tertullian rendered it; or rather they indicated that it "boiled" there, according to that saying of Juvenal, sat. x, v. 169: “*Estuat infelix angusto limite mundi.*” The interpreter, conversely, said it had "cooled down" (*deferbuisse*), that is, it had been refrigerated.
*Διὰ τοῦ σταυροῦ ἐπεκταθέντα*. Do not take this to mean the cross simply, but understand it with Tertullian as Horus, who is known to be named "the cross," from what was said above. For Irenæus himself says in book iii, cap. 20: “He who is fled from by them is Christ, extended over Horus, that is, the limit, and formed their mother.”
*Τῇ ἰδίᾳ δυνάμει*. These words are not to be joined to the participle *ἐπεκταθέντα*, as has been done heretofore in the editions of Irenæus and Epiphanius, but to the following infinitive *μορφῶσαι*, as the thing itself shows, and as Tertullian confirms while rendering it: “to inform it with his own powers.”
*Ἰαώ*. That the Valentinians designated the supreme God by this name is clear from the fact that the Gnostics, their progenitors, according to Epiphanius, *Hær.* 26, § 10, called the supreme prince in the first heaven *τὸν Ἰαώ*. And he himself indeed, *Hær.* 40, *Archontic.*, § 5, among various names of God with interpretations, seems to hand it down as slightly different, saying: “*Τὸν Ἰαθέ, ὅς ἦν καὶ ἔστι, καὶ ἀεὶ ὤν*.” “Jabe, who was and is, and always existing,” that is, who will be. But that was the pronunciation of the Samaritans, as Theodoret makes certain to us, *Quæst.* 15 in *Exod.*, writing concerning the name of God: “This is said to be ineffable among the Hebrews. It is forbidden for them to pronounce it with the tongue. It is written, however, B with four letters, and for that reason they call it the Tetragrammaton. The Samaritans, however, call it Jabe, the Jews, Aia. *Καλοῦσι δὲ αὐτὸ Σαμαρεῖται μὲν Ἰαβέ, Ἰουδαῖοι δὲ Ἀιά*.” (That this last word is corrupt everyone sees; for this sound does not in any way square with the four letters of the divine name.) Moreover, the testimonies brought forward by Feuardentius in the notes to this place from Macrobius, *Saturnal.* book i, cap. 18, and Diodorus Siculus—not indeed book v, as Feuardentius cited, but book 1 part i, page 84 of the Greco-Latin edition—are common, so much so that it is not necessary to recite them. I add rather the testimony of Sanchuniathon of Berytus, whether true or forged, about whom Porphyry wrote in his work *Against the Christians* in the third century of the Christian era, that he dedicated his history to Abibalus, king of the Berytians, approved by him as well as by other seekers of truth. “Their times, moreover,” he says, “are prior to the Trojan times, and they approach most closely to the times of Moses, as the successions of the Phoenician kings show.” But concerning this Sanchuniathon, Porphyry, *loc. cit.*, says: “He narrates things concerning Jewish matters which are most true, since they are most agreeable to the places and names of the Jews, having taken the commentaries from Hierombalus, priest of the God Iao, *εἰληφὼς τὰ ὑπομνήματα παρὰ Ἱερομβάλου τοῦ ἱερέως τοῦ Θεοῦ Ἰαώ*,” as one may read in Theodoret, *De curandis Græcorum affectionibus*, sermon 2, *De Principio*, pag. 493. I confess the reading is different in Eusebius, book i, *Præpar. evangel.*, cap. 9, p. 31, *Ἰευώ* for *Ἰαώ*. But this is undoubtedly to be imputed to the ignorance of the scribes. I could perhaps provide more on the name *Ἰαώ* if the book of Cornelius Labeo, mentioned by Macrobius *loc. cit.*, were extant, although it is of a pagan writer, the title of which was: “De oraculo Apollinis”; since he went into the interpretation of that deity and name at great length therein. These, however, are sufficient to prove that the said word *Iao*, which the Valentinians were feigned to have proclaimed as Ioros, is the name of the supreme God himself.
*Ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ δὲ τὰ πάντα, καὶ οὐ καθάπερ*. Billius seeks to trouble this in vain, thinking it should be read *ἀγνοοῦσα δὲ τὰ πάντα, οὐ καθάπερ*, because the old interpreter rendered: “Ignorant however of all things, not as her mother,” etc. But the faulty edition of Erasmus and Gallas, which Feuardentius also heedlessly followed, deceived him, against the faith of our manuscript codices, in which the ancient version corresponds exactly to the Greek. Nor is there any doubt that the interpreter wrote *vel in ignorantia*, or *ignorantia autem omnia*, so that *ignorantia* is the neuter plural of the participle, expressing the same sense then. But what sense? I answer briefly: that the Valentinians taught that all things, “namely as much the sadness as the fear and consternation of the mother, were in ignorance,” that is, joined with ignorance. For so indeed Irenæus says most plainly shortly after: “*Καὶ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τοῖς τρισὶ πάθεσιν ἐγκεκρύφθαι διδάσκουσι*.” “And they teach that ignorance is hidden in all three passions (aforementioned).” Tertullian, cap. 14: “It began to be afflicted with sadness, fear, consternation, then ignorance. Nor as her mother,” etc. Whence it also appears that from these words, *Καὶ οὐ καθάπερ ἡ μήτηρ αὐτῆς*, a new period must be started, contrary to what was done in all editions of Irenæus from the opinion of Billius, and the particle *et* was wrongly omitted from *incire*.
*Ἐπινοῦ μὴ πάντα ἀπὸ τῶν δακρύων αὐτῆς προβεβλήσθαι*. Nilus the Ascetic, the disciple of S. John Chrysostom, imitated this irony of Irenæus, *Epist.* 254 to Carpion, a follower of the Valentinian heresy, to whom when someone of the Catholics had proposed this question, whether all waters, as much sweet as salt, were derived from the tears of Achamoth? this man however deferring the answer, Nilus wrote to him in these words: “It behooved you to reply by saying that while the bitter tears of the non-existent Achamoth brought into being the salt seas, as from...”
her misery and great bitterness they were poured forth; yet from the sweat of that poor little woman there sprang forth springs, and rivers, and wells, and lakes, and the remaining sweet waters.” We say these things in answer to your trifles not without laughter. A
“To turn to the intercession of the light that had left her, that is, Christ.” We read that Christ interceded for her in Clement of Alexandria’s *Excerpts from the Oriental Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 793, column 1: “For Christ, having left Sophia who had projected him, and having entered into the Pleroma, asked for help on behalf of Sophia who had been left outside; and by the good pleasure of the Aeons, Jesus is projected as Paraclete to the Aeon who had passed away.” For Christ, leaving her from whom he had received his origin, Sophia (for Valentinus himself also said that Christ was produced outside by a mother, as Irenaeus testifies, Book I, ch. 5, unlike those whose opinion is described above), having entered the Pleroma, asked for help for Sophia who was left outside. Whence, by the good pleasure of the Aeons, Jesus is sent to the Aeon who is passing—or rather, perishing—as a consoler. The same immediately follows in Irenaeus: “Who, indeed, having gone up into the Pleroma... he hesitated,” etc. In the aforementioned Excerpts of Clement, Christ is not depicted as sluggish in his descent, but as detained by the Aeons and the Paraclete, page 794, column 2: “But he, having left his mother, and having ascended into the Pleroma, was detained, just as by all the [Aeons], and so also by the Paraclete.” Here, indeed, Christ, leaving his mother and returning to the Pleroma, is detained by all the Aeons alike and by the Paraclete. Yet the Paraclete, namely Jesus, is soon said to be sent to the mother in Christ’s stead. B
“And he sent forth the Paraclete.” Clement, cited earlier on page 793, col. 1: “The followers of Valentinus call Jesus the Paraclete, because he came full of the Aeons, as having proceeded from the All.” The Valentinians attribute the name of Paraclete to Jesus, because he came full of the Aeon, as having progressed from the whole (Pleroma).
“He having given to him all the power of the Father,” etc. The same dogma, or rather almost the same words of the Valentinians, did Clement excerpt from their Oriental Didascalia, or the *Writings of Theodotus*, in which, on page 796, col. 1, these things are extant: “And the Spirit having given all authority (read instead, from Irenaeus, ‘the Father,’ which two words, being abbreviated by unskillful scribes, could easily have been confused), and the Pleroma having consented, the Angel of Counsel is sent forth, and becomes the head of all after the Father; for all things were created in him, visible and invisible, thrones, lordships, kingdoms, divinities, ministries.” And the power having been given by the Spirit (Father), and the Pleroma also approving, the Angel of Counsel is sent (from Isaiah IX, 7, according to the LXX translation) and becomes head of the universals after the Father: for all things were created in him, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, kingdoms, divinities, ministries (of angels).
“And needing the Aeons.” For *deomenos* (needing), read *deomenon* (needing them, i.e., the Aeons), as Billius and Petavius likewise rightly advised concerning Epiphanius, because the ancient interpreter rendered: “And to the Aeons likewise,” that is, they giving to Jesus the supreme power of all things. Tertullian accepted these words less accurately, as if the supreme power of all things, even of the Aeons, had not been given to Jesus the Paraclete by the Aeons, whence in chapter 16 he rendered: “The Father of all things having granted to him the supreme power of the Aeons, etc.” C
“Divinities.” This word is nowhere used for a peculiar celestial D order of spirits, but is read as accepted, even if they be said in general to be called gods. Whence Theodoret perceived this to be a peculiar notion of the heretics, adding on page 200, *hos autoi legousin*, “as they themselves say.”
“And Sophia, having felt shame at him,” etc. Among Clement in the cited place, the following Valentinian tenets consonant with this passage are read: “Sophia seeing him, recognized the light similar to that which had left her, and she rejoiced, and worshipped; and having seen the male angels who were sent with him, she was ashamed, and put a covering upon herself. Through this mystery Paul commands women to wear authority upon their head because of the angels.” (1 Cor. XI, 10). Seeing him, therefore, Sophia recognized that light similar to that which she had abandoned, and she ran to him, and exulted, and worshipped him; but having beheld the male angels sent with him, she was reverent, and imposed upon herself a veil. On account of which mystery Paul commanded women to wear authority upon their head because of the angels. According to these things, therefore, the mother Achamoth is said not so much to have worshipped the Savior himself as to have stood in awe of his angels, and to have veiled herself, on the occasion taken from the said passage of the Apostle, which is adduced for this end and thereafter in § 16, where see the notes.
Page 22. “And that he formed her with a formation according to gnosis,” etc. Recall what was said above: “The superior Christ formed a formation, which was according to substance only, but not according to knowledge,” and you will better perceive what is said here—that Jesus, sent to perform the tasks of Christ, formed a formation according to knowledge. Nor does Irenaeus alone, but Clement also in the cited place reports this opinion of the Valentinians in these words: “The Savior therefore immediately imparts to her (perhaps *to her*) a formation according to knowledge (from Irenaeus correct without scruple: 'according to knowledge and the healing of passions,' showing from the unbegotten Father those things which are in the Pleroma and those which reach as far as her).” The Savior therefore immediately applied to her a form, which is according to knowledge, and a medicine for her passions, showing from the unbegotten Father what things are in the Pleroma, and what things pertain even to her. For there is between the Pleroma and the seven heavens, above which the mother Achamoth sits like a second Ogdoad, a great chasm, which the Savior is feigned to have offered for her view.
“Having separated through her,” etc. Among Clement in the cited place you have these twin statements: “Having moved away the passions of the one who had suffered, he rendered her herself passionless, but the passions he distinguished and kept; and he did not consume them as of the one within (the Pleroma), but brought them into an essence of a second disposition.” (perhaps *ate*, i.e., "as being of a second disposition"). Having separated the passions from the one who suffered, he constituted her herself void of passions, but he kept the passions separately: nor did he dissipate them as he did those of the one who is within (the Pleroma), but led them into an essence (of matter, namely, from which the creatures were made), as being of a posterior disposition, that is, those which from a disposition have sunk into a habit.
“Incorporeal matter.” Billius changes this in vain to “corporeal matter,” appealing to the authority of Tertullian and the ancient interpreter. And he indeed, in chapter 16, said “the corporeal preparation of matter;” but the ancient interpreter wrote entirely from the Greek “into incorporeal matter,” as is expressly read in the Arundell codex, even though all the editions have “corporeal.” The *Excerpts of Clement* confirm the Greek reading, which at the cited place thus narrate: “First, therefore, from an incorporeal passion and accident, into an incorporeal matter he poured them and changed them.” (The preposition *epi* is to be deleted entirely). Therefore, he first poured them and changed them from an incorporeal and accidental passion into an incorporeal matter. The immediately following parts also confirm...
that this matter was, A incorporeal, in act, indeed, but in potentiality corporeal. Nor will anyone doubt this reading who observes the source from which the Valentinians derived this hypothesis of theirs—I mean the doctrine of Plato, whom Origen, in his as yet unpublished [i]Commentaries[/i], says posited three principles: "God, matter, and idea." And concerning matter, he writes among other things in his own words: "Matter indeed is in potentiality a body, but in actuality it is not yet (behold the [i]incorporeal matter[/i] of the Valentinians); for, being without shape and quality, by receiving shapes and qualities it became a body": that is, matter is indeed a body in potentiality, but not in actuality; for while it exists without form and quality, having received both, it became a body. Similarly, Diogenes Laertius, book 3, page 86, says of the opinion of Plato: "Matter is without shape and infinite, from which [all] combinations are born" (behold again the word of Irenaeus, which exists in this very period on the following page, line 1). "Matter was void of figures and immense, but from it came to be concrete," B or composite, "bodies."
Page 13. "They call [them] right... they call [them] left." So say the Valentinians often in what follows. But also the Marcionites, according to Origen (or Maximus) in the [i]Dialogue[/i], page 37: "The quality and efficacy of the good is light, good, right, etc. But the quality and efficacy of the evil is darkness, evil, left, etc." ... "The quality and efficacy [of the good] is light, good, and the right... But the operation of the evil is darkness, evil, and the left," etc.
Page 24. "In the image," etc. Pamelius, in chapter 19 of Tertullian's [i]Against the Valentinians[/i], wishes for "image" to be read here, instead of "in the image," as if that were awkward: however, I deny that it was written thus by Irenaeus, or read thus by Tertullian; and in this place I would rather substitute [i]noetos[/i], as the Lyon edition has it, than violently change the [i]noetous[/i] of Irenaeus into [i]noretous[/i]. A "Archangels." Andrew of Caesarea considered this passage in his [i]Commentary on the Apocalypse[/i], chapter 2, writing: "That seven heavens and seven angels have been created by God to excel the rest, the great Irenaeus has written." Thus, the great Irenaeus wrote that seven heavens and just as many angels were created by God, excelling all others. For he does not mention the seven angels and heavens elsewhere in these five books; whence he accepted this opinion of the Valentinians, reported by Irenaeus, in a good sense as his own assertion. And do not suspect that Andrew might have cited another book of Irenaeus; if you turn the page in Andrew, you will find him writing in chapter 3 again about the "seven heavens," Irenaeus and Epiphanius; by which it is removed from all doubt that Epiphanius had no work of Irenaeus other than ours.
Page 25. "They suppose [he] had fabricated." One word or another seems to be omitted here. For in the Latin it is read: "He thought he had fabricated the whole." Moreover, Clement, in the [i]Excerpts[/i], page 796, col. 2, has the same thing: "He did not recognize her who was working through him (the mother), thinking that he was creating by his own power, being by nature industrious." "And Lord [in the] masculine [gender]." Hence Tertullian, chapter 21, where he had recounted the same Names of the mother Achamoth from Irenaeus, alluding to that final "Lord" in the masculine gender, adds festively: "Thus they all conferred honor upon that female—I think even a beard, not to mention the rest."
C "And from fear." Likewise, the often-cited [i]Excerpts of Clement[/i], page 796, col. 2, has: "and from fear, beasts." "And from sorrow." In the Paris edition of Epiphanius, it is wrongly read as "the rest" ([i]loipes[/i]), whence a corrupt version arose there. It is correctly read in the aforementioned work of Clement: "And he creates from the material, an essential [element] from sorrow, buildng the spiritualities of wickedness, against which we have our struggle." "And he created from material things, from sorrow indeed that which is substantial, creating the spiritualities of wickedness, with which we have our combat."
Page 26. "Supercelestial, that is, in the seventh [heaven]." Billius noted that "subcelestial" ([i]hypouranios[/i]) should be read, so that it might be opposed to the "supercelestial" ([i]hyperouranios[/i]), in which the mother Achamoth has her seat. But Fronton du Duc rightly rejected this, [arguing] that this correction is not only repugnant to the very words in which the Demiurge is said to dwell in the week of the seven heavens, but also to the preceding § 9, where we read: "Achamoth made seven heavens, above which ([i]epano[/i]) they say the Demiurge is." How then would [i]hypouranios[/i], subcelestial, be assigned to him as a place here? However, since Fronton could not sufficiently solve the question as to D on what grounds the "supercelestial" place of the Demiurge would be opposed to the "supercelestial" Achamoth, he grew fond of reading "celestial" ([i]ouranios[/i]), moved by the authority of the ancient translation, and [by the text] in him who is "the place in heaven," and by Tertullian, chapter 31, where in the Pamelius edition it indeed stands: "And the Demiurge shall then change from the subcelestial week to the higher regions"; but earlier it is said to have been read: "from the celestial week." I think, however, that both the ancient translator and the more recent commentators have fruitlessly evaded the word "supercelestial"; for the supracelestial place of the Demiurge is opposed to the supracelestial station of the mother Achamoth in this, that she is in the [i]mesotēs[/i], as Irenaeus expressly adds, "in the middle," between the supreme Pleroma, namely, and the seven heavens; while he subsists lower down [i]en hebdomadi[/i], "in the septenary," so that he as it were rests upon the seventh heaven, and looks upon his mother above himself. Hence Tertullian, chapter 23: "In the highest heights presides the thirty-fold Ple-
Pleoma, Horos marking the boundary. Lower than that, Achamoth measures out the midpoint, treading upon her son: for the Demiurge is beneath in his hebdomad." Read also Irenaeus, Book II, chapter 55, and you will approve these things which I have said.
"And fire to have originated in all of them," etc. One should read *empephykenai* (implanted), not *ekpephykenai* (originated). Tertullian mocks the Valentinians at this point, for they do not at all explain where the fire originated. And so he says it is credible that Achamoth had a fever during such great distresses, and that the fire proceeded from that heat. BILL. Billius's emendation is confirmed by those things which we read in harmony with these words of Irenaeus in Clement, in the place often cited: "In these three elements fire is as it were suspended, and is implanted, and lies hidden, and is kindled by them, and dies upon them." A < In these three elements (air, water, and earth) fire lies hidden as though suspended and implanted, and is shaken out by them, and perishes together with them. >
Pap. 27. "To have made also man," etc. These deliriums of the Valentinians, which Irenaeus recounts in this and the following period, are the same as those which Clement excerpted from their Oriental *Didascalia*, exactly consonant, page 797, col. 1: "Taking earth from the ground, not that which is dry, but a part of the manifold and variegated matter, he fashioned a psychic and material"—read *material*—"soul, irrational and consubstantial with that of the beasts; this is the man according to the image. But he who is according to the likeness of the creator himself is that one which he breathed into this one and sowed, setting in a certain consubstantiality with himself by means of the angels. Insofar as he is invisible and incorporeal, he called his substance a breath of life; but once formed, it became a living soul." < Receiving slime from the earth, not dry, but a part of a manifold and variegated matter, he fashioned a physical and material soul, lacking reason, and consubstantial with the soul of beasts: and this is the man created according to the image. But according to the likeness of the creator himself truly made he was, whom he breathed into and inserted, communicating something consubstantial to himself by means of the angels. Inasmuch, therefore, as it is invisible and incorporeal, he termed its substance a breath of life; but having been formed, it is called a living soul. > B
"From the diffused and fluid matter." Similarly, in the *Dialogue against the Marcionites*, which is attributed to Origen, section 5, page 131, the Marcionite says: "The body is of a fluid substance; a body existing of fluid substance." But Origen, in another sense, in Epiphanius, *Heresy* 64, §14, page 536, said: "Fluid is the nature of the body; and again: It is not wrongly called a river, the body; the body may not badly be called a river." Nor did he indicate by this phrase that the body was once formed from fluid matter, but that the matter of the body is in perpetual—as is often said—flux, and that some of its particles follow others, so that it fulfills itself in the same place, saying: "Not even for two days does the primary underlying matter remain the same in our body." For not even for two days does the prior matter remain in our bodies.
"The tunic of skin." Similarly, in the *Excerpta* of Clement, page 797, col. 2, we read: "Fourth, he is clothed with the earthly one, the tunics of skin; by the tunics of skin one must understand the man fashioned of earth." The Marcionite also, in the aforementioned *Dialogue*, section 5, page 137: "God made tunics of skin, and clothed them; that is, the body. God made for them pellicean tunics, and clothed them, that is the body." Did not Origen himself, to whom this dialogue is attributed by some, approve this mystical exposition of the pellicean tunics? Certainly some of the Fathers objected this to him, whom he names clearly. Huetius, book II of his *Origeniana*, quest. 12, §8, as well as those who impugned this sense without mentioning Origen's name. To these can be added other authors and treatises enumerated by Procopius in his *Commentary on Genesis*, chapter iii, partly extant, partly lost, and among them Justin C the martyr among the *Origeniana*, which can be placed in the margin. Yet the noted Huetius defends Origen from his own writings, from a manuscript *Catena on Genesis*, to which he adds another passage from *Homily 6 on Genesis*, where, however, the cited words are not found, but it is from *Homily 6 on Leviticus*. For there he says explicitly: "These tunics of skins, he says, were taken from animals. For the sinner ought to be clothed in such." He adds, however, a mystical sense, not indeed of the Valentinians, but another, expressed in these words: "With pellicean tunics, he says, which were an indication of mortality, which he had received for sin, and of his fragility, which came from the corruption of the flesh." And indeed, he undoubtedly directed his finger hither also, when in Book V *Against Celsus* he wrote: "The man who is cast out of paradise with the woman, clothed in tunics of skin (which God made for those who had sinned because of the transgression of men), conveys a certain unspeakable and mystical meaning, which is more serious than that of Plato." < The man cast out with his wife from paradise and clothed in pellicean tunics (which God prepared for them as they sinned on account of the transgression), refers to some hidden mystery, more serious than that of Plato. >
"The one according to the theory of the angels regarding the Savior," etc. In Clement, in the often-cited *Excerpta*, page 789, col. 1: "The followers of Valentinus say that, the psychic body having been formed, a masculine seed was inserted by the Word into the elect soul, which was in a deep sleep, which is an effluence of the angelic nature; they say in regard to the formed animal body, that a masculine seed was inserted by the Word into the elect soul, overwhelmed by sleep, as being an effluence of angelic nature." And shortly after: "The seed was an effluence of the masculine and angelic kind." And a little later, page 797, col. 2, in the exposition of the words of Paul, Gal. chap. IV, 19, you have these twin passages: "By means of the masculine angels, therefore, the seeds are supplied which are brought forth by Sophia for the generation of men, as far as it is permitted to happen. By the angels, therefore, masculine seeds are supplied, which are poured forth by Sophia for the generation (of men), insofar as it is possible."
"Sown into the soul from him," etc. So also the *Excerpta* of Clement in the place next cited sound: "And Adam had, secretly sown into him by Sophia, the spiritual seed into his soul; but Adam had from Sophia clandestinely the spiritual seed inserted into his soul." And a little after: "The first spiritual seed, therefore, which was in Adam, Sophia brought forth; that the bone—that is, the rational and heavenly soul—might not be empty, but full of spiritual marrow. For the Valentinians compared the soul to bone, as is taught in the preceding passages in the same place. But in an orthodox sense, though using a heretical word, Synesius sang in *Hymn III*, verse 558 seqq.:
"Tuum semen fero Generosa Scintillam mentis In altitudine hyla (id est, materia) Absconditam. Tu enim in mundo Deposuisti animam :
A they enter inside the bridal chamber of the Limit, and come to the vision of the Spirit, Aeons possessing an intellectual nature, having become [Aeons] for the intellectual and eternal marriage of the conjunction." B "Then" (after the wedding feast had been celebrated, of which he made mention a little earlier) "the spiritual meats having been deposited upon the souls, together with the mother, having obtained the bridegroom, they and they themselves will follow their angel bridegrooms, and will enter into the bridal chamber within the Limits; and when they have put on the nature of the intellectual Aeons, they will be admitted to the vision of the Spirit, to the intellectual and eternal marriage of the conjunction."
*The animal nature*... *as being between*, etc. In Clement at the cited place we read these things more clearly: "The animal nature, as it is self-determining (as Irenaeus calls it a little later), has an aptitude for both faith and incorruptibility, and for unbelief and corruption, according to its own choice." *Because they are spiritual by nature*... *to be saved*. Thus also Clement, not only in *Stromat.* book IV, page 363, but also in *Excerpts from the Oriental Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 798, col. 1: "The spiritual indeed is saved by nature." Origen often restricts this error in *Heracleon* and others in the *Commentaries on John*; but Clement [restricts it] in *Basilides* and his followers, from whom I cited some places in volume II of the *Spicilegium of Heretics*, page 40 et seq., to which I will soon add other words of his. *Impossible to receive corruption, even if they should be joined to any kinds of actions.* 40 Thus also Clement in *Stromat.* book IV, page 427, where he had made mention of the Basilidians, hears, "as if they either have the power of sinning because of their perfection, or at least they are to be saved by nature, even if they should sin now, because of their inborn election. Since not even their own progenitors of these doctrines allow them to do these things," as if they had the power of sinning because of perfection, or at all events were to be saved by nature, even if they should sin now, because of their inborn election: for not even these things do the primeval C *parents* of their doctrines concede to them. Concerning Eunomius, a heretic of the fourth century, Augustine says in *De hæresibus*, ch. 54: "It is reported that he was so inimical to good morals as to assert that the perpetration and perseverance of any sins whatsoever would be of no harm to anyone, if he were a partaker of this faith which was taught by him."
*Us good animal men*, etc. Billius corrects this clause in the following manner: "to us indeed, whom they call animal and say are from the world, continence is necessary," etc. And thus I confess the Greek agrees exactly with the Latin version. But these seem to me to need no amendment, except for one word "good," which must be omitted, unless perhaps you wish to take it as an appositive to "us" and interpret it thus, because the Valentinians did not think all Catholics indiscriminately, but only the "good," worthy of the title of animal men. Compare Clement of Alexandria, *Stromat.* book IV, whose words I cited in the notes to volume II of the *Spicilegium Patrum*, page 2.
*But having stripped off their souls*, etc. These things and the preceding and subsequent ones are found exactly in agreement in Clement's *Excerpts from the Oriental Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 799, col. 1: "At that time, from there, having put off, the spiritual [elements], the souls, together with the mother who is receiving the bridegroom, themselves also receiving their angels, into the... D *All matter*, which the Valentinians used to say was about to perish by fire, also embraced human bodies. Hence our author, book II, chapter 52, says concerning them: "They say that souls persevere in the middle; but that bodies, since they have a material substance, having been resolved into matter, are burned by that fire which is in it." *Concerning this.* "And concerning this" reads the ancient interpreter.
*Passing through Mary.* Our author most powerfully crushes these blasphemies against the incarnation of Christ the Lord from the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, book I, chapters 18, 31, and 33; but after him Tertullian battled most fiercely against them in his book *De carne Christi*; and the martyr Vigilius in the whole of his book *Contra Eutychen* applies himself to this matter. FEUARD. But he hallucinated when he called Vigilius, the author of the books *Contra Eutychen*, a martyr, when he was in fact Vigilius, Bishop of Trent and martyr, already in the fourth century, deceased long before the birth of Eutyches, more recent by about a hundred years, being the bishop of Tapsus in the African district of Byzacena, in the fifth century. Furthermore, to illustrate the words of Irenaeus, and to distinguish the tenets of Valentinus and other heretics, what Theodoret wrote in epistle 145 to the monks of Constantinople, tom. III, page 1073 seq., is useful: "For Simon and Menander, Cerdon and Marcion, deny the incarnation entirely, and call the birth from the Virgin a myth. But Valentinus and Basilides, and Bardesanes, and Harmonius, and those of their faction, indeed accept the conception and birth of the Virgin; but they say that the God Word did not take anything from the Virgin, but made a certain passage through her, as though through a pipe, and appeared to men by using an illusion; and that he seemed to be a man, in the way he was seen by Abraham and some others of the ancients." *Simon indeed and Menander, Cerdon and Marcion altogether deny the incarnation, and call the nativity from the Virgin a fable. Valentinus, however, and Basilides, and Bardesanes, and Harmonius, and those who are of the same stamp, admit indeed the Virgin's conception and birth: but they say that God the Word took nothing from the Virgin: that he merely passed through her as if through a certain canal, and appeared to men while possessing the appearance only, and it was seen that he was a man, just as he was seen by Abraham and certain other ancients.* Confer the same author, book V, *Hæret. fabul.*, ch. 11, and Tertullian, book *De carne Christi*, ch. 1, and *De resurrectione carnis*, ch. 2.
*And for this reason to have come*, etc. Clement also, in the *Excerpts from the Oriental Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 798, col. 2, explains this madness of theirs with these words: "He died, however, [upon] the Spirit which had descended upon him at the Jordan departing, not becoming separate, but having withdrawn, so that death might also exert itself. For how, with Life present in him, could the body have died?" "For he died, however, (Jesus) with the Spirit departing, which had descended into him at the Jordan, not existing separately (in perpetuity; for indeed he later returned to him), but withdrawing itself for a little while, so that death might exercise its power in him. For how could the body have died while Life was present in it?"
*By the seed.* Petavius wishes "above" to be read at the margin of Epiphanius, page 192, just as Gallias and Feuard also placed it in Irenaeus, seduced by the old version: "Many things said concerning this seed through the proph-
prophets, teaching that some things were said by the Mother, some by the seed, and others by the Demiurge himself." A Here it is to be noted in passing that it is the Valentinians who are blamed by Origen, *Commentary on Ezekiel*, tom. I, page 200: "Those who from the ancient writings say that some things are from a more divine and supreme power, and others from a lesser one."
"There are three kinds of men," etc. Similar things are read in Clement, *Excerpts*, page 797, col. 1: "From Adam three natures are born: the first is the irrational, to which Cain belonged; the second is the rational and devoted to justice, to which Abel belonged; the third is the spiritual, to which Seth belonged."
*Perilypos*, etc. I conjecture that because "perilypos" (exceedingly sorrowful) was written by Irenaeus, an error arose in the old version: "How sad it is," etc., instead of "since it is sad," etc. For thus in Book III, chapter 32, we read: "Nor would he have said, that my soul is sorrowful." From which place it is also gathered that "unto death" was added here in the Greek, whether by Epiphanius or by a more recent hand. Indeed, in the old version it is absent in both places, B "until death."
*Pater*. "My Father," we already read in Matthew; yet "my" is omitted also by Origen and by Basil in Niceta’s *Catena Patrum*, and by John Chrysostom in his *Commentary* on this passage.
*Ouk oida*. These two words do not exist in the text of St. John, but were added by the Valentinians for the sake of explanation.
*Klīnai*. *Klīnē* is found in the common New Testament codices.
*En tō oikō mou*. "Into my house," our New Testament copies have; just as also later: "into the kingdom of God," instead of "in the kingdom of the heavens." But Irenaeus, or rather the Valentinians, seem to have cited these from memory.
*Ta tou pneumatos*. "Of God" is added in our New Testament codices. But it is omitted not only in this place, but also in the Syriac version, by Chrysostom in his *Commentary* on I Corinthians, 11, and by Clement of Alexandria in his *Stromata*, Book V, page 557. From which I gather that in *Stromata*, Book I, page 297, it was perhaps added by a later scribe.
*Synestalkenai*. This word, approved by Billius, does not please me; rather, the reading of the old interpreter, *synanestēkenai*, seems altogether better, on account of the words following soon after: "since he himself was leaven." "For leaven makes C the mass rise," and move upwards.
*To gar ek Theou gennēthen Theos estin*. It is well to note this axiom, whether of Irenaeus or of the Valentinians, through which the true deity of Christ, as begotten from the hypostasis of the Father, can be proven.
*Oud’ en*. With these words, not only the heretical Valentinians but also certain Catholics finished the period in the text of St. John; among them our author, Book 1, chapter 19; Book 1, chapter 2; Book 1, chapter 8, etc.
*Tēn de zōēn en autō*. Origen lashes out at the Valentinians as if they were pronouncing these things without reason, in his *Commentary on John*, tom. III, page 71: "But against those who have fabricated the mythology concerning the Aeons in syzygies, and who think that the Word and Life were projected by Mind and Truth, it is not implausible to raise these difficulties. For how does the syzygy according to them of the Word and Life receive the becoming within the syzygy? For 'that which has come to pass,' he says, 'in him,' clearly in the aforementioned Word, 'was Life.'" "But against those who invent a fabulous account of the Aeons through conjugations, and imagine that the Word and Life were produced by Mind and Truth, it is not D *Full of grace and truth*. From this it is clear that the Valentinians referred these words not to the Word, but to the *Doxa* (Glory); which interpretation you may also find approved by certain of the orthodox, namely Cyril of Alexandria and Theophylact in their *Commentaries* on this passage; although the former in the Paris edition, tom. IV, page 96, is twisted to another sense. But if you continue reading page 97, you will clearly perceive Cyril's meaning. Nor, however, do I consider the dictated meaning of the words of St. John to be genuine; since the grammatical construction itself shows that the word *plērēs* (full), placed in the nominative case, does not refer to *doxa* (glory) of the accusative case, but is to be construed with the preceding nominative *Logos* (Word).
*Page 44. O tēs oikonomias*. Billius wishes to read, from the old interpreter, *ho ek pantōn gegonōs* (he who is made from all), because the Valentinians taught, as above § 4, that Jesus or the Savior was composed from the symbols of all the Aeons. But I truly consider the reading of Epiphanius to be genuine, thinking this, as being somewhat more obscure, gave occasion for a freer interpretation. But who is *ho tēs oikonomias Sōtēr*? You will understand, if you recall what was said above in § 11, and read those things which follow shortly in § 20: "And they say that the Savior put on an animal body, fashioned from the *oikonomia* by ineffable providence."
*Page 46. Ton kanona tēs alētheias aklinē*. Irenaeus here signified the Symbol of Faith, as that which Tertullian also calls by the same name in his book *De velandis virginibus*, chapter 1, writing: "The rule of faith is indeed altogether one, alone immovable and irreformable, namely of believing in one God almighty, the creator of the world, and in His Son Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary," etc. So also elsewhere, Tertullian and other more recent Fathers do this everywhere. And just as Irenaeus teaches that the Symbol is to be used as a shield against the harmful darts of the heretics, so also Tertullian frequently inculcated the same, especially in his book *De praescriptione adversus haereticos*, and in his book *Contra Praxean*, chapter 2, and in the *Apologeticus adversus gentes* itself, chapter 47.
*Ho dia tou baptismatos eilēphe*. That the symbol of faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had long ago been handed down to those who were to be baptized, and that they had professed it before receiving the sacrament, is clearly confirmed, besides Irenaeus, in this place by the holy martyr Cyprian, epistle 76, Pamel. 69, Oxon: or Book 1, epistle 6, writing thus: "But if anyone opposes that, saying that Novatian holds the same law which the Catholic Church holds, and baptizes with the same symbol with which we do: that he knows the same God the Father, the same Son Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and on account of this he can usurp the power of baptizing, because he seems not to differ from us in the interrogation of baptism: let whoever thinks this is to be opposed know, first, that there is not one law of the symbol for us and for the schismatics, nor the same interrogation. For when they say, 'Dost thou believe in the remission of sins and life eternal through the holy Church?', they lie in their interrogation, since they do not have a church," etc. Similar things he wrote in epistle 70, or Book 1, epistle 12. Whence it is manifest that even then this rite obtained not only among Catholics, but also among schismatics; which is a manifest sign that it flowed down from the holy apostles themselves. Compare on this Hilary, *Book to Constantius Augustus*, Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catecheses Mystagogicae*, Basil, *Book on the Holy Spirit*, 12, and finally *Apostolic Constitutions*, Book VII, chapter 41.
*Lytrosis*. Billius inveighs here in Galliae, as if ignorant of what "redemption" means, although Irenaeus in chapter 48 of this book has discussed it at length. But Billius ought to have taught how the redemption of the Valentinians...
A can be understood from the *exodium* of the fable, which the Greeks call *apolysis*; I agree with him, because I see that *apolytrosis* is explained in Hesychius’ Lexicon by *apolysis*, as well as by *apophyge* (escape). *Explicans* (explaining). The Greek *peraiōsas* means the same as "to cross over," "to ferry across." I cannot guess what the Old Interpreter read. For he translates it *explicans*, which is far from the meaning of the word. BILL. But the Interpreter rightly reads *peraiōsas*, and does not translate *explicans* badly. For *peraiŏō* signifies not only "I ferry across, I cross over," but also "I terminate, I bring to an end." This meaning, while perhaps not found in lexicons, could nevertheless have been learned from the writings of the Holy Fathers, which Billius otherwise had turned over with a diligent hand. Thus Justin Martyr to Trypho, p. 228 of Sylburg’s edition: *Dia tōn anerōtēseōn toutōn kai peraiōthēnai syn tachei ton logon agōnioumai* — “By these questions I will strive to bring the discourse to a conclusion with speed.” And Trypho to Justin, p. 230: *Peraiōson oun kai auton hēmin*, etc. — “Bring this therefore to an end for us,” namely, the passage of Isaiah cited in the preceding part. In Clement of Alexandria this meaning also occurs several times, as in *Stromata*, bk. VI, p. 683: *Hēde gar kosmogeneia en hex peraioutai hēmerais* — “For the creation of the world is completed in six days.” And yet *explicare* (to explain/complete) has the same meaning among both profane writers and sacred, just as Sulpicius Severus, *Hist. Sacra*, bk. I: “Solomon completed (*explicuit*) the work of the temple begun in the twentieth year.” And Orosius, *Hist.*, bk. VII, last chapter: “I have completed (*explicui*), with Christ aiding, according to your precept... from the beginning of the world until the present day.” Hence was born the common formula, *explicit liber*, that is, “the book is finished,” regarding which Jerome writes to Marcella: “We are accustomed, when the little works are completed, as a distinction from the other thing that follows, to insert in the middle *Explicit*, or *Happily*, or something of that sort.” Therefore, the *explicans* of them, here, is the same as having finished their fable, or bringing it to an end through the telling.
*Scholia of Billius on chapter 2.* Page 48. *Et mare* (And the sea). For it must be read in the singular. It is, indeed, a verse of David. *Dispensationes* (Dispensations). I add *theou* or *el*. *Partim jam inde ab initio* (Partly already from the beginning). That is, those who have never deflected from the course of piety and justice. To these he subordinates those who, although they had previously given themselves over to the enticements of vices and the allurements of pleasures, later betook themselves to a better harvest. But here after *tois* I add *men* from *el*.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 2.* Page 48. *Ecclesia enim* (For the Church). Here I observe two most certain marks of the true Church: first, that it is catholic, that is, diffused through the whole world; second, that it is one in the highest heads of faith and doctrine; which never happened to any sects of heretics. Next, the symbol of faith, which he named a little above “the rule of truth received through baptism,” and again at the beginning of the following chapter 19. This designation was borrowed from him by Tertullian, *De Praescript.*, *De Velandis Virg.*, and *Contra Hermog.*; Augustine, bk. I *De Symbolo*; and Chrysostom, *hom.* 1 *in symbolum*, as being published by the apostles themselves and the disciples of Christ, and handed down to all the ends of the earth. But they all boldly oppose this to the dogmas of heretics, and desire them to be examined by this standard, because they in no way doubt that the apostles composed it, preached it, and handed it down to all the Churches throughout the world. But in order that the impiety of those who deny that the apostles were the authors of it may be exploded and hissed out B by all, I will add other testimonies from the Fathers. Clement of Rome, an auditor and eye-witness, writes in *Epist. 1 ad Jacobum*: “With Christ rising and ascending into heaven, the Holy Spirit being sent, and the knowledge of tongues having been conferred upon the apostles, while they were yet gathered in one place, they composed the symbol which the faithful Church now holds, each saying what he felt; so that, departing from one another, they might preach this rule through all nations.” That adults also recited this same thing in explicit words when they were being baptized in the sacred font, beyond doubt by the prescription of the apostles, he himself also writes in the seventh book of the *Constitutions of the Apostles*, chapter 41. Rufinus, *Expos. Symboli*, subscribes to him; Jerome, *Epist. ad Pammachium*; Ambrose, *Epist. 81* and *Serm. 38*; Augustine, *Serm. 115* and *181 de Tempore*; Leo the Great, *Serm.* and *Epist. 13*; Isidore, book II *De Eccles. Officiis*, chapter 23; and Peter Chrysologus throughout his works. Moreover, I could easily persuade myself that the same apostles chanted that same thing while they were celebrating the most sacred mysteries of the Eucharist, and especially when I consider with myself the statement of Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, *Eccles. Hierarch.*, chapter 3, and of Blessed James, Bishop of Jerusalem, of this kind: Deacon: “Let us attend wisely.” Priest: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God,” etc. These things are there. Who does not see that this first tradition is to be attributed to the apostles, and not to the third Council of Toledo or to Constantinople?
Nor do I think it will be ungrateful to curious readers if I should refute the heretical adversaries of this apostolic symbol even from the heresiarch Luther. He frequently said to his own in his *Colloquies* (which his table-companion Petrus Rebenstock collected and published in 1571): “I believe the words of the Symbol were constituted by the apostles, who in their congregation composed this symbol in 42 words, most brief and consoling. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to describe such a thing in such brevity, with such most efficacious and emphatic words. Outside of the Holy Spirit and the apostles, it could not have been composed so, even if a thousand centuries strove to compose it,” etc.
*Quae est in unum Deum* (Which is in one God). Valentinus Gentilis and other new Trinitarians and Arians from Poland and Transylvania try to take from this C safeguards for their perfidy against the co-eternal and consubstantial deity of Christ with the Father; as if the mind of Irenaeus had been to preach only God the Father and creator of the world, and not the Son and the Holy Spirit. But how wickedly and flagitiously they collate this is evident even from the fact that, on the contrary, he confirms here that it is one faith to have belief in one God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as if in the Triune and One God; below he very often calls the Son God and Lord; and to Him—and to the Holy Spirit—he attributes the creation and government of all things equally with the Father. Here, therefore, the blessed martyr, preserving the form of the apostolic symbol, deemed the word “God” to be repeated in individual persons—especially in such brevity—less necessary, being content to profess that there is one God the creator, namely, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For thus also Justin Martyr says: “There is truly one God of all, who is known in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” D
*Præcepta ejus servantibus, etc.* (To those keeping his precepts, etc.). These things were said against the foul error of Simon Magus and Valentinus, who rejected good works. Hence you see by what manner the Fathers of this age taught that true righteousness before God subsists not by faith alone, but also by hope, and by charity, and by good works; which you will be able to gather more fully even from Irenaeus alone in his second book, chapter fifty-one; and in the third book, chapter twenty; in the fourth book, chapter twenty-seven, thirty-two, thirty-four, and forty-nine. Which I wished to note, so that by all—
A the fruits of their labors, if, in short, that union, agreement, and peace which our Lord so earnestly sought in his final supper, appears anywhere at all: it will be seen most clearly of all when the Fathers—so separated by the diversity of tongues, the passage of so many ages, the vast distances of lands, kingdoms, provinces, and climates, and by such vortexes, rivers, and ocean waves that they might seem to inhabit a different world—think, believe, write, and teach the same things regarding the same subjects. And they do this with such constancy of soul that they would rather endure fires, beasts, crosses, swords, and a thousand deaths than be torn away from them by even a hair’s breadth. This, without doubt, is the unity of the Spirit, the single schoolmaster and teacher of so many peoples, in the bond of peace; and the illustrious Dionysius of Alexandria, in his letter to Novatus, judges that all manner of tortures should rather be endured unless this peace is preserved fully intact from every nuisance and schismatic dissension; nor does he consider the martyrdom undertaken for that cause to have any less—indeed, much more—commendation than that which is undertaken so as not to sacrifice to idols at all. Eusebius reports in the fourth book of his *History*, chapter twenty-two, that when Hegesippus was traveling to Rome and conversing with many bishops of Asia and Europe, he exclaimed that he had found one and the same form and institution of doctrine, and that the Church was still a virgin. Augustine also, in the fourth chapter of his book *Against the Letter of the Manichaean*, confesses that he was most justly held in the bosom of the Church by this same agreement of peoples and nations. But as for those who think that so many and such great churches throughout the entire world have erred, I would wish them to attend to the words of Tertullian alone, a most weighty and ancient writer. "Come now," he says, B "if all have erred: if the Apostle has been deceived in rendering testimony to some; if the Holy Spirit has not looked to any, so as to lead them into the truth, though sent by Christ for this purpose, and asked of the Father to be the teacher of truth; if the steward of God has neglected his duty," etc. The truth was waiting to be freed from some Marcionites and Valentinians: meanwhile, it was improperly preached, improperly believed; so many thousands of thousands improperly baptized, so many works of faith improperly performed, many virtues, so many gifts improperly exercised, so many priesthoods, so many ministries improperly fulfilled, and finally so many martyrdoms improperly and in vain. Vincent of Lérins wonders, after all this, that there are still some who remain, with such hardness of a brazen forehead, such an anvil of impudence, of such adamantine persistence, who do not succumb to such great displays of heavenly eloquence, do not grow weary under such great weight, are not crushed by such great hammers, and finally, are not broken by such great thunderbolts.
Of the Church disseminated throughout the whole world. Observe how far and wide the Church was already being extended, against those who, like some Platonic idea, make it invisible, or who contend that it is confined to whatever corners of the earth they wish, as if by bolts and bars. For the congregation of Christians began before Hegesippus wrote, and had penetrated into every race of men, and no nation of the Roman world remained that did not partake of its worship. A little later, in his book *Against the Jews*, Tertullian convinces us that the borders of Christ’s kingdom are much wider than those of Solomon, Darius, Pharaoh, Alexander, or Caesar, which were indeed enclosed within their own limits: but Christ was believed and heard by Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Armenians, Phrygians, Cappadocians, and the 43 inhabiting Pontus, Asia, and Pamphylia, those staying in Egypt and the region of Africa beyond Cyrene, Romans, inhabitants of Jerusalem, the varieties of Gauls, the borders of the Moors, all the boundaries of the Spains, the diverse nations of the Gauls, and places in Britain inaccessible to Romans, and of the Sarmatians, and the Dacians, and the Germans, and the Scythians, etc., in all which places the name and kingdom of Christ is extended, is everywhere believed, and is held by all.
Fr. Feuardent’s footnotes on chapter 3. This preaching, etc. He rightly opposes the consensus of all churches as an impregnable and brazen wall against all heretics, because if the promise of Christ concerning the constant presence of the Spirit, if the overthrow of the gates of hell, if the apostolic—
A—is worshipped, everywhere reigns, everywhere is adored. So much for him.
"Nor these, which are in Germany." He confirms the previous thesis with a concise enumeration of parts. Furthermore, Joannes Aventinus, no sluggish investigator of antiquities, writes that the Germans had already given their name to Christ in the age of the apostles, while he testifies that Lucius the Cyrenian, Paul’s cousin, first promulgated the Gospel in Vindelicia and Rhaetia; Mark, a colleague of the same Paul, in Noricum; Crescens in Mainz; and a certain Clemens in Metz. Their archives record that Maternus, Eucherius, and Valerius were sent by the blessed Peter to announce Christ at Trier and Cologne; and Athanasius and Hilary attest that there were illustrious churches there in their own time. Arnobius also, among various nations dedicated to Christ, names the Alemanni, lib. 1 *Adversus gentes*.
"Nor these, which are in Iberia." I do not think he means those people who dwell near the Pontus by the Caucasian mountains, when Ruffinus, Socrates, and Theodoret relate that they embraced Christ in the reign of Constantine: but the Spaniards, who are washed by the river Iberus, from which the whole region is called Iberia, just as Hesperia [is named] from Hesperus, and lastly from the city of Hispalis, situated at the Atlantic strait (which is now called Seville), B Hispalia, and now [it] is called Hispania. Obadiah had predicted that the Gospel would be announced in the regions of Europe, writing thus: "The trans-migration of this army of the children of Israel," that is, the Church of the disciples from Judea, "[shall possess] all the places of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath,"—which all Hebrews interpret as Gaul—"and the captivity of Jerusalem," that is, of the apostles, "which is in Sepharad" (the Chaldean paraphrast translates this as Hispania), "shall possess the cities of the south," by the word, clearly, and by miracles, leading them to Christ. Isidore writes that blessed James, the brother of John, illuminated Spain and the parts under the setting of the world with the light of his preaching; and that divine Paul, that assiduous trumpeter of the Gospel, by whose mouth alone the whole world almost resounded, having been released by Nero, proceeded to the Gauls, the Spains, and other regions of the West, as he had signified a desire to do before in his letter to the Romans (chap. xv); Athanasius to Dracontius, Chrysostom in *Homily 7 on the Praises of Paul*, Epiphanius, Ado of Vienne, and Sophronius all assert that he claimed these for Christ. Blessed Cyprian also commemorates celebrated churches in Hispania Tarraconensis, at Leon, Astorga, Zaragoza, and Merida in Lusitania (Epistle... Council of Elvira).
"Nor these, which are in the Celts." According to Pomponius, Appian, and Pliny, the Celts are the peoples of Gaul Comata between the Garonne and the Seine, whom Manetho the Egyptian and Berosus the Chaldean also mentioned in the fifth book of their *Antiquities*. Yet it would be difficult to find any part of the world that embraced the Gospel with such greed and such ardor of mind, and which had so many apostolic men given by God as the bestower, as Gaul. For Paul, seeking Spain, left Trophimus at Arles and Crescens at Vienne, as apostles of the Gauls, according to Ado of Vienne. The people of Marseille and Aix, through the industry of Lazarus, Maximinus, Martha, Mary Magdalene, and Marcella, received the elements of the faith soon after the Ascension of the Lord. Aurelian, a disciple of the same, relates that the people of Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Cahors, and the whole nation of the Aquitanians, Basques, and Goths, and that whole tract from the Rhone to the Ocean, were filled with the name of Christ by blessed Martial, one of the seventy, an institutor and doctor of the disciples. Before Irenaeus, the martyr Photinus had announced the word of God at Lyon: and that there were illustrious churches of Christians there and at Vienne before the forty-second epistle of Cyprian, C those grave letters of the martyrs mentioned by Eusebius in *Historia*, book v, chap. 1, make clear, which report a huge multitude of martyrs from those places. The Bituriges had Nathanael; the Cenomani, Simon the Leper, who is also called Julian; the Senonenses and Carnotenses had Savinianus and Potentianus; the Suessionenses had Sixtus and Sinicius in the reign of Nero; and they had teachers of Christian piety while the blessed Peter was still alive. Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of blessed Paul, together with Eleutherius, Rusticus, Lucianus, and Regulus, hearers of the apostles, taught the articles of the true Catholic faith to the Parisians, Meldenses, Silvanectenses, and Bellovaci. To the above, blessed Clemens had added Nicasius, Taurinus, and Exuperius, whom the people of Rouen, Evreux, and Bayeux received with great alacrity as apostles and shepherds. You will be able to see many more in Vincent, Antoninus, Petrus de Natalibus, *Fasciculus temporum*, Sigebert, and the *Martyrologies* and *Chartophylacia*.
"Nor these, which are in the Orient." That certain kings of the East were also drawn by the piety, doctrine, and miracles of Christ while He was still in Palestine is clear from Eusebius, Damascenus, and Nicephorus; who relate that the toparch of Edessa sent to Him from the borders of Mesopotamia. Nicephorus alone (lib. 11, cap. 7) relates that a most powerful satrap of the Persians also committed the task to a sent painter so that he might obtain at least His likeness. Luke recounts that Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Cappadocians, Pontians, Asians, etc., were present in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, and heard them speaking in their own tongues the great works of God. Eusebius (lib. 3, cap. 1) writes that Parthia fell to blessed Thomas in the division of the apostles. Jerome concurs, saying he had accepted by tradition that he preached to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and Magi; nay, Nicephorus adds (lib. 3, cap. 1) that he even penetrated to the island of Taprobana. Eusebius (lib. 3, cap. 1) affirms that blessed Andrew proceeded into Scythia, to whom Sophronius adds the Sogdians and Sacae; Nicephorus, however (lib. 2, cap. 39, and lib. 3, cap. 1), says he went through Cappadocia, Galatia, and Bithynia into the solitudes of the Scythians, to both sides of the Euxine Sea; Nazianzen also indicates in his *Oration against the Arians* that he was sent into Epirus. The Christian churches of Asia Minor are better known from the Apocalypse of blessed John than there is need to recount here.
"Nor these, which are in Egypt, nor these, which are in Libya." Tertullian abundantly testifies that there were very frequent Christian assemblies in the more celebrated parts of Africa, who writes that neither the Getuli, nor the Moors, nor the Carthaginians, nor the Egyptians were destitute of the evangelical light in his own time. It is clear from *Historia ecclesiastica* that Alexandria was initiated into the sacred mysteries of our faith by blessed Mark, and that in direct succession it had the most famous doctors of piety: Abilius, Justus, Cerdo, Anianus, Primus, Pantaenus, Clement, Heraclas, etc.: and that there were almost numberless flocks of martyrs from the Thebaid and all of Egypt, led like sheep to the slaughter, the epistle of blessed Dionysius of Alexandria to Fabius of Antioch openly testifies. D For that land, from the Ptolemies to Christ, had been a workshop of philosophy and all the best disciplines: and from the Ascension of Christ down to the Mahumetan furies, it had most learned and eloquent theologians, who, wonderfully instructed in finer doctrine and eloquence and, as Eusebius says (book 5, chap. 10), well exercised in the study of the sacred letters, enlarged and propagated the Church; such as we gather from the monuments of the ancients were Origen, Pierius, Didymus, Ammonius, Peter, Alexander, Athanasius, Theophilus, Cyril. Woe to our sins, the wrath of the divinity
A inciting them, who delivered this most flourishing church of old to the yoke of the most savage beasts, that is, to the Turkish empire. But also the interior of Ethiopia at once acknowledged, believed, and adored Christ, through the preaching of that eunuch of Candace whom Philip had baptized. For after his return to his homeland, he first preached the knowledge of one God and the salutary advent of the Savior Jesus into the human race, says Eusebius; and for this reason, Jerome names him the apostle of the Ethiopians; and Abdias writes in his seventh book that the blessed Matthew received him with a cheerful spirit when he was sent there later; and Sophronius is witness that he finished his life with a glorious martyrdom for the name of Christ. The sixth canon of the Nicene synod mentions the bishops of Libya by name; and the blessed martyr Cyprian is witness that bishops from the same province were present at his own, that is, the Carthaginian council. B *Sic et lumen.* It was religious to expunge this word, even though the Greek context does not have it. But what if we read: *sic et lumen, et praedicatio veritatis* [so too is the light, and the preaching of the truth], etc.? For thus it will fit more aptly the adopted similitude of the sun: and these following words, *ubique lucet, et illuminat* [everywhere it shines, and illuminates], etc. Moreover, we see this unity of doctrine and agreement of the same faith, which we have said is one of the marks of the true Church, being urgently pressed here by Irenaeus, and pointedly objected against the dissected sects of all heretics: since these never agree with themselves nor with the truth. For it is manifest (to pass over those Gnostics) that the Arians were presently divided into four, then into seven, and furthermore into ten parts; nor did the Donatists, Manichaeans, and Pelagians defend the same hypotheses. How great are the dissensions even now among Turks, Persians, Tartars, and Moors concerning the Mahommedan Alcoran and error? In this age, Lutheranism, scarcely having arisen, was immediately dragged into Carolstadians, Zwinglians, Calvinians, Oecolampadians, Schwermeros, Anabaptists, Schwenckfeldians, and very many other classes. In every way, that is, by the intercessions of princes, by letters, prayers, duties, synods, and colloquies held at Wittenberg, Marburg, Schwabach, Smalcald, Ratisbon, Constance, Zurich, Aarau, Basel, Worms, Maulbronn, Altenburg, Heidelberg, Frankenthal, Montbéliard, etc., they strove to return to concord: but the ministers always departed from these more hostile than they had approached. Therefore, there is no true faith or Church in these assemblies, but a spirit of all error, giddiness, and perdition. C *Neque hæ quæ in medio mundi.* The Hebrews with great consensus constitute Judea as the center of the habitable earth, and for this reason it is not rarely named by the prophets as the heart of the sea and the navel of the earth: to which, before Vadianus and Lyranus, Jerome and Gregory subscribe. Philo also, in *Legatio ad Gaium*, calls Jerusalem the metropolis not of one region of Judea, but of many nations: from which it happens that I consider the blessed Irenaeus to be commemorating here the churches which existed at that time in Judea and Palestine. For there the splendor of the Gospel ought to have shined forth first, and thence to scatter its rays into all nations, because Isaiah had predicted that a law would go forth from Sion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem: and David had predicted that the rod of virtue, by which the strength of the Gospel is designated, would be sent forth from Sion. It is evident from the preachings and miracles of Christ, his apostles, and his disciples in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles that there were notable Christian churches in all the borders of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee before the destruction of Jerusalem, which mention the brethren who were in Azotus, Lydda, Joppa, Caesarea, Ptolemais, Pella, Ephraim, Damascus, Tyre, and Sidon. But even after that horrible devastation of Syria and the destruction of Jerusalem, the Roman emperors permitted the Christians, some of whom were destroyed and some dispersed throughout the world, to inhabit that region and to celebrate ecclesiastical assemblies. For where James was taken away by martyrdom, the disciples who still enjoyed the use of light, coming together with those who had kinship with the Lord according to the flesh, committed the helm of that church to Simeon, son of Cleopas: whom he ruled happily until Trajan. Eusebius, book II of his *History*, chaps. 10, 26, 30; and book IV, chap. 5, teaches that many others from the race of the Hebrews, in the right order of succession after him, were in charge of this one also. D *Sed sicut sol.* By the example of the sun, he aptly shows that on account of the various tribes, provinces, and languages in which the Church is spread, the unity of faith and doctrine can in no way be dissolved: which the blessed martyr Cyprian, imitating with a similar arrangement but with richer eloquence, explained thus: "The Church is one, which is extended into a multitude more widely by the increase of fruitfulness: just as there are many rays of the sun, but one light; and many branches of a tree, but one strength founded on a tenacious root. And when many streams flow from one fountain, though the multitude appears diffused, unity is nevertheless preserved in the origin. Pull a ray of the sun from the body, the unity of the light does not receive division. Cut a stream from the fountain, having been cut off it withers. So too the Church, flooded with the light of the Lord, extends its rays over the whole world; yet it is one light which is diffused everywhere, nor is the unity of the body separated," etc. *Creatura.* We have deleted *creaturæ* by the authority of ancient codices and the Greek reading, *τὸ κτίσμα*.
Pag. 50. *Ampliat.* We have expunged *amplius*, with the ancient codex and the Greek verb *ἐπλεόνασεν* teaching otherwise. Ex Jo. Ernesti Grabe's annotations in chap. 3.
Pag. 49. *Ἐκκλησίᾳ, καίπερ ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ διεσπαρμένη*, etc. Irenaeus opposes the churches, although dispersed through regions of the world far separated, to the heretics who, although in one and the same place, often teach diverse things, and scarcely agree except in this one thing, that they break the unity of the Church and corrupt the faith.
*Ενα οἶκον οἰκοῦσα*. Cyprian, *De unitate Ecclesiæ*, pag. 3 edit. Oxon: "In the house of God, in the Church of Christ, they dwell unanimous, persevering concordant and simple."
*Αἱ ἐν Γερμανίαις ἱδρυμέναι ἐκκλησίαι*. There are some who wish these to be understood only of the border of Germany along the Rhine, subject to Roman rule, and deny that the Gospel was preached to the Franks and Saxons and others across the Rhine before the age of Irenaeus. But our author, saying in the plural number *ἐν Γερμανίαις* that churches were founded, indicates not obscurely that the faith of the Gospel already at that time obtained in diverse parts of Germany. And Tertullian, *Contra Judæos*, chap. 7, expressly mentions "the inaccessible places of the Britons, subjected to Christ, and of the Sarmatians, and Dacians, and Germans, and Scythians, and many hidden nations." Moreover, what Feuardentius noted from Aventinus concerning the first apostles of Germany is uncertain, and is rejected by others with the same ease with which it is accepted by some.
*Ἰβηρίας*. Feuardentius wisely advised that the lands of the Spaniards, not of the Iberians in Asia, are to be understood: but he acted less correctly in that he recounted the fable concerning the preaching of the apostle James the Greater in those regions without censure. Nevertheless, others teach that the journey to Spain was not only proposed by the Apostle, namely Paul, about which he himself writes to the Romans, chap. xv, 24 and 28, but that it was actually undertaken when he escaped from his first Roman chains, and that a church was founded there, according to Epiphanius, *Hæres.* 27, John Chrysos...
Chrysostom in homil. 76 on Matthew and in homil. 7 on the praises of Paul; Jerome in ch. 11 of Isaiah and ch. 5 of Amos; and one more ancient than these, Hippolytus, in his booklet *On the Twelve Apostles* (if indeed that work is his genuine offspring). Nor does his friend Saint Clement, in his *Epistle to the Corinthians*, obscurely confirm the same, writing that he had been sent away from his shackles in Rome A *eis terma dyseōs*, "to the limit" or furthest shore of the West; it is known from geography that Spain is situated there, although there are not wanting those who extend *terma dyseōs* to Britain, whose opinion I leave in the middle here.
*En Keltois*. That the Celts were the peoples of Gallia Comata between the Garonne and the Seine is noted here by Feuardentius, and he piles up many more things from there concerning the first apostles of the Gauls, most of which is fabulous and refuted by the learned Gauls themselves, and by their most learned man, Launoy. But to inquire who were the first, and when they brought the light of the Gospel to Gaul, is not of this present institute: it suffices that from this place of Irenæus and the aforementioned Tertullian, it may be established that the various nations of the Gauls were subject to Christ and had faithfully adhered to Him, so that they sent a great multitude of martyrs to God, as has been passed down to memory in the letter of the Viennenses and Lugdunenses, Christians of that age, to the churches of Asia and Phrygia in Eusebius, lib. v, cap. 1.
*Kata tas anatolas*. That churches in the eastern provinces of Asia Minor and major, and also among the Parthians, Medes, Persians, and the Indians themselves were founded by the apostles, the sacred historians testify, from whom Feuardentius reports a few things, which it is not of this place to follow. See Baronius, who discourses more extensively on these things at the year of Christ 44.
B *En Aigyptō, en Libyē*. Renard has collected more things here concerning the African churches, which, as they are sufficiently known, it would be useless and also ill-timed to describe. But it would have been work to adduce, for proving the apostleship of the eunuch of Queen Candace, testimonies sought from far away, when the authority of Irenæus himself, lib. iii, cap. 12, and lib. iv, cap. 40, was at hand for him.
C Scholia of Billius on chapter 4.
Page 50. *Ingenio ac prudentia*. The old interpreter has one word in this place which is missing in the Greek, namely "understanding," so that the sense is that some might see more in the understanding of the Scriptures through the keenness of their intellect, etc.
*In eo nobis satis præsidii*. To the word, "as if He Himself did not suffice for us." In the Greek, for *toutous* one must read *toutou*, or at least *arkoumenou toutou*; although I would less approve of this; for he would have said *arkountos* rather, if he had wished to express an active significance.
*Salutem faciam*. I read *genomenēn* with the old interpreter.
*Quodque diuturna lenitate*. From these words, Irenæus seems to feel that demons are not at all tormented by that vindicating fire before the day of the final judgment; he attributes this to the supreme long-suffering of God. Theodoret holds this opinion, lib. iv *Polymathia*, and some others. But nevertheless, the contrary opinion, as more true, is held by the Church.
Page 51. *Grata oratione complectatur*. I am suspicious in this place of the word *eucharistein*, which responds little to these other words: *didaskein, mēnyein, exereynan, apangellein*, etc. Therefore I translated it thus: "and that it may have, together with an act of thanksgiving, a significance also of some declaration."
45 *Potius quam in initio*. In the Greek for *hē archē*, I read *ouk en archē* *einai*, although I do not deny that *hē archē* can also be read conveniently, so that this passage is translated thus: "that is, the beginning appeared at the end."
*Populus factus*. The old interpreter does not recognize this word *epitē*.
*Quæ ipsius parens sit*. The old interpreter reads in the Greek, *mētera toutou kai autōn*: and I gladly read *toutou*. For Irenæus attacks those who append the mother Enthymesis to the Demiurge, that is, to that supreme artificer of all things. But D that can indeed be defended; for she was not the mother of the thoughtless Enthymesis of Eon, but arose from him, as some most foolish rogues used to dream.
*Aat rursus in eo*. Read *eis to* in the Greek for *ton*.
*Nune triginta*. Correct to *nyn men triakonta* in the Greek from the old version for *to men hen*.
Notes from the adversaria of Fronto Ducaeus on chapter 4.
Page 50. *Nosse quosdam intelligentiam*. The word "understanding" is redundant, as appears from the Greek, but rather the word *phronēsin* should be substituted for "prudence": for to know "understanding" is a phrase of Scripture, as Isa. lvi, 11: *Ouk eidotes synesin*—Jerome: "not knowing understanding." Again, "but in that which to inquire," *zētein*, instead of, "but in that one might inquire and add the arguments of truth," *en tō prosenergazesthai*, as he translates, *en tō ekdiēgeisthai*, "in that it might explain," and "because the magnanimous God existed, etc.," and why He made other things, etc., declares, and the rest in the same way up to, "proclaim."
*Quasi non ipse sufficiat*. In the Basle edition of Epiphanius, it was read: *hōs mē arkoumenous toutous*. Gallasius edited it: *hōs mē arkoumenou toutou*, and translated, "as if He Himself did not suffice for us, better than Corn., so that you are not content with this." It will be simpler, "as if this one did not suffice," that is, as if it were not enough, but one must be helped by the powers of another: for *arkeisthai* has the same value as *arkein*, to suffice, to be enough.
*Sed aliis aliter adesse*. The interpreter translated *synien* as "to be present," when he ought rather to have done so: "but differently to others, to understand," or "may he understand," that is, that he may understand why it appeared differently to others. A little later, "was passed," that is, the Word, as if *syneinai*.
Page 51. *Neque in eo quod est super hanc*. Gallasius had altered the Greek words at his own discretion; we have published those as they were in the Basle edition of Epiphanius, and we have added the corrections of Billius in the margin, as also in other places, in which perhaps one should write *nyn men th'* for *to men hen*: note of the thirty.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 4.
Page 50. *Plus autem*. It is not for pious and wise men to invent another God or Christ; but to inquire into those things which were written obscurely: and first of all to inquire with piety and diligence into divine long-suffering towards sinners, supreme equity in judging, ineffable grace in the incarnation of the Word, benevolence in the calling of the nations, and similar mysteries, and to manifest them to others.
*Et quoniam magnanimus exstitit Deus*. Thus the old interpreter, Grecizing, translated *emakrothymēse*, "he bore with great spirit and much patience the defection of certain angels, having granted them some delay of time for repenting, if they had wished": alluding to the words of Paul, Rom. ix, ch.: "God endured," *en makrothymia*, that is, in much patience and long-suffering, "vessels of wrath fitted for destruction," etc.
*Et quare testamenta multa*. The Old Testament, which went into disuse with its types; and the new, sanctioned by the Gospel, miracles, and useful sacraments, that these are covenants far different, he discourses here and also below, and proves in book iv, ch. 21, 22, and 24; which thing Saint Justin Martyr and philosopher had also abundantly convinced before him in almost his whole *Dialogue with Trypho*, and in q. 97 and 101 *ad Orthod.* But it pleased us to observe these things against those who, so that they may make the shadows of the Judaic sacraments equal to the evangelical sacraments, and that nothing more is offered to us by the latter than by the former, vociferate that there is one covenant from two testaments, against the clear Scriptures, Matth. xxvi; I Cor. xi; Hebr. vi, viii, ix, xiii; Gal. iv.
Page 51. *Et quare desperatas gentes*. You will scarcely find
a more abstruse mystery, or one which from the beginning caused greater difficulty to the Jews and A the apostles than the calling of the nations. For they saw the Messiah promised to the seed of Abraham, and thought that he was destined for them alone; since they did not attend to the many and most evident promises made to the nations. From this arose various dissensions, which the apostles could scarcely suppress later by a public decree of the council. And hence we read that the Church of Jerusalem was for the most part judaizing under James. Therefore he calls them “desperate nations,” which had already come into desperation regarding the undertaking of the Christian religion and the receiving of the faith: for whose salvation from the knowledge of the Gospel no hope was entertained for the future. Then we have deleted *corporates*, and have put *inconcorporatas* in its place.
*Præconiare*. With excessive religious care in expressing κηρύσσειν, which is to publish, giving it to the herald’s office, the interpreter translates *præconiare*, for “to announce, to promulgate,” and *prædicare*. Here and throughout you may observe that the interpreter takes care to render word for word, as Horace says, so that he may appear faithful both to the spirit and the words of Irenæus, the expounder, so long as he utters most faithfully what is expressed from words into words, and offers them to the reader to be read and compared.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ernst Grabe on chapter 4.*
Page 50. *Ἀρχουμένους τούτους*. Billius advises reading *τούτῳ*, or *ἀρκουμένου τούτου* (as Gallasius placed it in his edition of Irenæus), although he does not approve of this very much. *Ἀρχόντων* he would rather have said, he says, if he had wished to express an active signification. Correct indeed: but neither is it necessary to change *τούτους* into *τούτῳ*, since the former can refer to *τινάς*, and the latter may be subaudited.
*Πάντα*. I would not have you think it should be corrected and written *πάντας*. For it is evident from the collation of this passage with book III, chapter 22, that Irenæus read the words of the Apostle thus.
Page 51. *Εὐχαριστεῖν*. Billius says that this word seems suspicious to him in this place, because it answers poorly to the preceding *διδάσκειν, μηνύειν, ἐξερευνᾶν, ἀπαγγέλλειν*, etc. And it is indeed true that *εὐχαριστεῖν* is properly said of that which is done to God in thanksgiving; yet here it has been transferred by Irenæus to the prayer by which God’s benefits and the reasons for them are set forth before men, because he did not wish to repeat the words *διδάσκειν, ἀπαγγέλλειν*, etc., and because eucharistic prayers, by which the incarnation and passion of Christ are celebrated, are directed chiefly to the honor of God, B but also to the use of the faithful, and thus “the death of the Lord” is announced “both before God and before men,” I Corinth. xi, 26.
*Ἡ ἀρχή*. Billius preferred to read *καὶ οὐκ ἐν ἀρχῇ* by the clue of the old interpreter; nor does he deny, however, that *ἡ ἀρχή*, “the Beginning,” i.e., the Son of God, could be very well called “to have appeared at the end of the times.” I certainly have no doubt that Irenæus wrote it so; but the old interpreter, not having reached his meaning, was pleased to express his own here. Furthermore, that I may say a few words about the causes of the so late advent of our Savior, among the many which the Holy Fathers have handed down, that one seems to me the most true which Eusebius sets forth more at length in the prologue to book VIII of *The Evangelical Demonstration*, and in book I of *Ecclesiastical History*, chapter 2. For he says that the descendants of Adam, scattered throughout the whole world, formerly led a life more beastly than human, circumscribed by no laws or rights, uncultivated by any virtue or philosophy, so that they contaminated themselves with mutual uncleanness and slaughters, devoured human flesh, dared to wage war against the true God himself, etc. Therefore it was necessary that the habits of such savage men should be gradually corrected, partly by philosophy, partly by the Mosaic Law, and then at last the Word of God should appear in the world to bring the perfect law of justice and salvation to the human race.
*Οὐδὲ τῷ*. Thus Petau without doubt caused it to be printed from a manuscript codex, instead of *οὐδέ τῷ*, as it is in the Basle edition of Epiphanius. I think it should be read either with Billius *οὐδ’ ἐν τῷ*, or rather with the old interpreter *οὐδ’ ἐν τῷ*.
*Scholia of Billius on chapter 5.*
Page 52. *Veteres doctrinas*. For *ἀρχὰς διδασκαλείου*, I restore *ἀρχαίας διδασκαλίας*, from the vet. [interpreter].
*Ad hunc modum docet*. Greek, *ἐξεφρόνησε*, corruptly, as I think. The old [interpreter] has, *sic definit*, as if he had read *οὕτως ἔφη ὁρισάμενος*.
*Binarium quemdam*. I add *τινά*, from the vet.
Page 53. *Illorum matrem*. I read *Αὐτῶν* with the vet.
*Meliorum recordationem*. I read *Μνήμην* with the [vet.] interpreter, not *γνώμην*, so that the sense may be, that she produced such fruit in the recollection of that blessed state, which she did not lack without great grief.
*Ipsi subjectorum*. I add *αὐτῇ* from the vet.
*Sinistrum principem*. I read *Ἀρίστερον* with the vet., not *ἄριστον*.
*Ei cum illis convenit*. The old [interpreter] reads *ὁμοῦ*, not *ὁμοίως*, but wrongly, as the sense openly teaches.
*A veritate*. I prefer with the old interpreter to read *ἀληθείας*, rather than *ἐκκλησίας*, because it squares better with that which follows later, that “they may produce the plants of truth.” Where, however, it is also to be noted there that the old interpreter read *φύλλα*, not *φυτά*, which reading nonetheless I less approve.
Page 54. *Sed post triginta Æonas*. Or, *a fructibus eorum*. Tertullian, *a fructibus de substantia venientibus*.
*Initium omnium*. The preposition *ἐπί* is to be deleted from Epiphanius.
*Quod quidem initium*. *Μονάδα* is to be added in the Greek after *πρῶτος*, from the vet. and Tertullian.
*Nomina imposuit*. I read *Ὀνόματα* from Iren.
*Quam ego Solitatem voco*. *Μονότητα* is to be read in the Greek, not *μονάδα*, just as in the same line *μονότητι* not *μονάδι*, from Iren. and Tertullian.
Page 55. *Quandoquidem figmento suo*. *καί* is to be deleted in the Greek.
*Nominibus veritas*. I read *Ὀνόματα* with the vet.
*Primo et quinto loco*. I add *τόπῳ* from the vet. and Tertullian.
*Ex Aennoesto*. I delete *τῆς ἀρχῆς* from the vet. and Tertullian.
Page 56. *Ex Aorato denique*. After *ἀοράτου* in the Greek, I add these words from the vet. interpreter and Tertullian: *τετάρτῃ καὶ ὀγδόῳ τόπῳ*. “But what reason disposes this,” says Tertullian, “that individual things, and indeed ones born in such cut-off places, should be born, I would rather be ignorant than learn.”
*O nugatores sophistæ*. *Ὢ ληρολόγοι σοφισταί*. Otherwise, however, the old interpreter seems to have read it. For he translates: *O pepones, sophistæ vituperabiles*. Which words provide an occasion for suspecting that there is in the Greek even that Homeric poem *Iliad* II: *Ὦ πέπονες, κάκ' ἐλέγχε', Ἀχαιΐδες, οὐκέτ' Ἀχαιοί.* or at any rate, slightly changed.
*Conjugis expertem*. Tertullian calls them more modest, who, mindful of the honor of the divinity, so that not even a single spouse’s disgrace they might attribute to Bythos, would rather...
A assign to it no gender: and perhaps they pronounce it 'this neuter God,' not 'this masculine God.' "Nature of a hermaphrodite." "Others," says Tertullian, "when they call it male and female, lest the commentator Fenestella should think the Hermaphrodite was a creature of the Lunenses alone."
Notes from the Adversaria of Fronto Ducaeus on chapter 5. Page 53. *Sed a matre*. Read: "but being brought forth from the mother externally, according to the account of the better authorities, it was brought forth with a certain shadow"; or, "but being made externally, it was brought forth." He means, of course, that Christ was produced having been expelled externally from the mother. Furthermore, we have restored the word *tinos* from the Basle edition. *Similem iis qui dicentur*. The interpreter read *hoion*, not *homoios*, but incorrectly, as Billius notes; and therefore it should have been rendered "similar to these," or "in that way in which those who are spoken of." *Fructificarent folia veritatis*. The interpreter read *ta phylla tes aletheias*; whereas in Epiphanius it was: *ta phyta tes aletheias*, "the plants of truth": which Billius finds more likely. And indeed the edition of Gallasius represented the Greek of Irenaeus from Epiphanius up to this point; but in this present edition, I have decided to append the Greek from the same source for the rest of the passages up to chapter 9. For although Epiphanius does not profess to be quoting the actual words of Irenaeus, he nevertheless uses almost the same words as those which the interpreter of Irenaeus translated from the Greek; for Theodoret, like him, drew these accounts of heresies from the same source. *Quaternionem esse dextram*. Write: "right and left; also, and the departing one, and the power deprived, not from thirty." In the interpretation of Billius, add one word, "the first ogdoad": for both the ancient text has it, and Epiphanius [has] "first," which the interpretation of Billius follows, not the old interpreter, as when he translates: "but after thirty Aeons"; in place of which ours has: "but from their fruits." Page 54. The expression, *ejusdem substantiæ ei, quam et eam voco Hen*, signifies *homoousion*, that is, that that power, which is called 'the one,' is consubstantial with the monad: for so it must be written in Billius's interpretation. *Ju, in et pheu*. Where he has added some things to the preceding ones. Epiphanius, regarding Epiphaneus and Clement of Alexandria, returns to these [words] of Irenaeus, in which he uses that *pheu*, regarding which Suidas notes that it is an interjection of annoyance, and is also one of astonishment; but it has the notion of an admirer in Tertullian (*Adv. Valent.*), where the scholastics exclaim *pheu* and applaud; but in Irenaeus it is that of one lamenting, as the author himself indicates more openly in another place, where he says: "It is beyond *pheu*, and beyond every tragic outburst, and [beyond] mere annoyance, or rather," [it is] "annoyance." *Quam et ipsam*. I read: "which I also call Henotetem [Unit-maker]; it is manifest that he has confessed that whatever has been said by it are fabrications." *Quoniam, etc.* The word *est* [is], which was absent from earlier editions, is recognized by the Greek text, and it sounds *saphestata* "most clearly." Page 56. *Pleroma hoc primæ ogdoadis*. We have added in the margin in the first place the word *topon* [place] from the old interpreter, from whom the reading must be corrected from the Greek so that it performs its duty, and in the eighth place *agenneton* [unbegotten], "this Pleroma of the first ogdoad." They desire this to have been; this is absent from the Greek. It is commanded that *agenneton* be written not only by the Greek, *agenneton*, but also by Tertullian, who attacks all these things in *Adv. Valent.* 35.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 5. Let us see now, too, their inconsistent, etc. Concerning the wonderful concord of all the churches, which can only arise from the Holy Spirit, B he puts forward the dissensions, fights, and opinions which can never agree, of the sower of tares and wars, that no one might be unaware that he is the author of these. For just as she who is the genuine spouse and dove of Christ is one, and by that unity has remained invincible against the forces and attacks of enemies of any kind, so the sects of the heretics, being divided, and like heads fighting in a civil war, have always collapsed from mutual wounds. I prefer to show that this is the most certain mark of falsities and lies from the most ancient Fathers, rather than to forge anything by my own endeavor. "I am mistaken," says Tertullian C, "if they do not also vary among themselves from their own rules, while each one modulates what he has received according to his own judgment: just as he who handed it down composed them according to his own judgment. He recognizes his own nature, and the manner of his origin, the progress of the thing. The same was permitted to the Valentinians as to Valentinus; the same to the Marcionites as to Marcion, to innovate the faith according to their own judgment." And a little higher up: "Whence are the heretics strangers and enemies to the apostles, if not from the diversity of doctrine, which each one according to his own judgment has either proposed against the apostles or received? There, therefore, an adulteration of the Scriptures and of expositions must be adjudged, where a diversity of doctrine is found." So much for him. I will add Justin the Martyr D: "Now since," he says, "heretics condemn one another on account of the dissensions of their opinions; it is clear that all their heresies have had their occasion from the ambition and mutual envy of the heresiarchs: for which cause they were called 'grievous wolves' by the Apostle. Indeed, while they oppose themselves to one another, they confirm our faith, as Hilary writes in the seventh book *De Trinitate*. The discordant sentences of the faithless harmonize into a single standard of the right faith, and their vain contests produce a trophy of our victory. For the perfidy of Sabellius condemns the error of Arius: again, the error of the Arian dogma excludes the impiety of Sabellius," says Vigilius the martyr. And if it ever happens that they agree, that is finally brought about, as Athanasius writes in his oration against the Arians: like Herod and Pilate, they agree in their blasphemies against Christ. But this place demands that we also add something regarding the mutual fights and manifest dissensions of the latest "Hugnostics" [Huguenots], besides those which we have proposed a little before. With puffed-out cheeks the Genevans, Heidelbergers, Tigurines, and English, addicted to Calvinist doctrines, bluster about how they are professors of the Augsburg Confession, and are in concord with their Lutheran brothers: but how mendaciously and impudently they say this, is openly gathered even from the honorific and fraternal titles with which they adorn one another. For Calvin, in his book against Heshusius, calls the Lutherans "headstrong men, wicked, rabid, minions of Satan, whom the devil has fascinated in a horrible way." Also, "dogs, scoundrels, impure spirits, drunken Saxons." And lest they answer that these dissensions were removed by the death of Calvin, let them hear Beza, in his *Creophagia*, murmuring these words against the same Heshusius: "Forgive us, master doctor ass, with the remaining individuals of your species." From there, for the sake of fraternity and feigned concord, he calls him "a Polyphemus, an ape, a buskined stunted and pileated ass, a dog in a bath, the most asinine sophist, a beast, a ghost, a biped ass and an impure one, a histrionic and monstrous man, a mixture of the species of apes and wild asses, a carnivorous animal, a Cyclops, a cubit-and-a-half long and raging ass, worthy to hang from forty-seven tillia." In the judgment of Danaeus, also, "the Lutherans are heretics, damned and excommunicated." Finally, Jezler, in his book *De diuturnitate belli eucharistici*, page 93, recites that the Lutherans are everywhere considered by their Zwinglians as
Christ-killers, bread-worshippers, worshippers of an impanated God, deniers of the redemption wrought by Christ, Eutychians, Swenckfeldians, subverters of many articles of faith, etc. And this is the judgment of the Sacramentarians concerning their Lutheran brethren; this is their argument for a manufactured peace and concord; this is, if it pleases the powers above, their vaunted harmony.
But the Lutherans, provoked by these things, as Jezler says in the same place, called the Zwinglians "convicted heretics, demoniacs, obsessed by the devil in every part—before, behind, above, below, within, and without—devils’ martyrs, to be warded off by the sword of the civil magistrate rather than by words, to be shunned by all good men, to be numbered with the Anabaptists, Nestorians, Arians, and Turks, the worst of all the mortals the earth has ever borne," etc. What concord, therefore, exists among these men? What consensus is there among the Evangelical and Reformed Hugnostic brethren? What bond of unity and Christian apostolic charity, etc.?
B A certain duality. We have deleted "second" on the authority of an old manuscript. And a little later, for "they call something," we have substituted "it calls another"; just as we have "determined" for "define," and a little later "sent" for "lost." Furthermore, "determining" for "moreover I define," and "their mother" for "that Nus from the mother": this being done on the authority of an old manuscript, as well as the Greek reading, and instructed by the admonition of Lord Bill.
Page 53. Gnostics of false name. That the Valentinians gave this name to themselves is evident from chapter 24 of this book, and indeed from the most expansive notion of all things, in which they boasted themselves to be endowed above all other mortals, as Clement of Alexandria says in *Paedagogus*, book 1, chapter 6. But heretics possess this, as if by hereditary right, from every age, so that they might adorn themselves and their assemblies with specious titles. Simon affirmed himself to be "the great power of God"; Montanus, "the Paraclete promised to the Church"; Noetus was carried into such madness, says Epiphanius, "that he would say he was Moses, and his brother Aaron." Augustine frequently reproaches the Manichaeans that they called the name of Manes, their patriarch, "Mannichaeum," with a doubled 'n', as if he were "showering manna," so that in Greek the implication of insanity might be avoided. There was also great impudence in the Novatians, who called themselves "Cathari," that is, clean and pure, says Epiphanius, writing against them. But in our own age, heretics follow this self-love of their ancestors hand and foot, while they are not ashamed to call their own heresiarchs, prophets, apostles, Pauls, and Eliases, the suns and luminaries of this world; and in turn they, in turn, do not blush to call the "evangelicals, the reformed, those sanctified from the womb (and what not?)" those whom they miserably drive to madness.
C But the second. Tertullian mentions this in his book *De Praescriptione*, and says that, with a few exceptions, he is in agreement with Valentinus. Augustine writes that he differs only in this, that he added works of depravity; but Epiphanius, that he rather soothed the ears of his followers with sonorous voices, but throughout his reason he had an ornament of error from the seminary of the devil, the most miserable of all miserable men. Theodoret, in the first book of *Hereticarum Fabularum*, recounts fewer things than this Irenaeus here.
Page 54. But another certain person. Theodoret and Epiphanius call him Epiphanes. But what an obscene monster he was, and how he perished by a sudden death, it is better to learn from Clement of Alexandria, *Stromata*, book 3: "This Epiphanes," he says, "was the son of Carpocrates, and of a mother named Alexandria; on his father's side, indeed, an Alexandrian, but on his mother's side a Cephallenian. He lived for only seventeen years, and in Sama, which is a city of Cephallenia, he was honored by the people as a god: in which place a temple, altars, shrines, and a museum were built and consecrated for him; and when there is a new moon, the Cephallenians assemble and sacrifice the birthday anniversary related to Epiphanes, and they offer libations, hold feasts, and sing hymns." And a little before: "Those who descend from Carpocrates and Epiphanes believe that wives should be common, from whom the greatest disgrace originated for the (Christian) name." Eusebius expresses this more clearly: "They gave the Gentiles an abundance, and as it were a handle, for impudently and impiously detracting from the sacred Word of God, with this manifest design, that the rumor, widely spread concerning the shameful manner of their life, might brand the entire multitude of Christians with a foul mark of ignominy. Whence it certainly happened that a certain nefarious opinion concerning us, excited through the minds of the infidels, pervaded far and wide, that we did not fear to violate mothers and sisters by nefarious intercourse, and even to use a wicked kind of food."
"Io, in!" and "pheu, pheu!" That these are the exclamations of those who are indignant and grieving, or even sometimes marveling—sometimes single, sometimes doubled according to the subject matter of the emotions—is well known in both the comedic and tragic works of the Greeks. You may find both on almost the same page in Aristophanes' *Birds*. In Sophocles' *Ajax*, you find both as well; it is so frequent in Euripides, especially "ioù, ió," that it would be superfluous to note it. But Irenaeus preferred to take from the tragedians, so that he might show the monsters of the Valentinian opinions to be the greater, the more tragedy surpasses comedy in the gravity of its persons and affairs. Nor will it be irrelevant to cite Tertullian here. "I am compelled," he says in his book *Contra Valentinianos*, "if these names happen to require it, to produce a similar example. In the Carthaginian schools there was a certain very rigid Latin rhetorician, Phosphorus by name. When he was orating for a brave man, 'I come,' he said, 'to you, best of citizens, from battle, with my victory, with your happiness, enlarged, glorious, fortunate, greatest, triumphal.' And the scholastics immediately acclaimed, 'Of the family of Phosphorus, *peu*.' You have heard *Fortunatam*, and *Hedonen*, and *Acinetum*, and *Teleten*; acclaim the family of Ptolemy, *oeu*. This will be that arcane Pleroma, the fullness of the thirty-fold divinity."
In this. We have expunged "no one."
Page 55. Nothing, therefore, prevents. The blessed martyr, intending to mock these ridiculous and old-womanish dreams and the words of the heretics, "even by his own," says Epiphanius, "applied such a nomenclature, as if worthy to be conferred upon their trifling delusions, namely, the kinds of melons and cucumbers and gourds," etc. Tertullian also judged it worth his while to sometimes brand heresy with urban and facetious words. "If it is laughed at by anyone," he says, "the matters themselves will be satisfied; many things are worthy of being refuted in this way, lest they be adored with gravity. Merriment yields to its own vanity. It is fitting for truth also to laugh, because it is joyful; and to play with its rivals, because it is secure. Wherever laughter is worthy, it is a duty."
But with that. We have added these twelve words, as well as eight others a little later, from a large and faithful old manuscript copy, which also make the passage clearer.
Page 56. O melon-sophist. This is a verse from the second book of Homer's *Iliad*, which he uses against them with as much right as the blessed Paul sometimes used the words of Epimenides, Menander, and Aratus. According to Pliny, the melon is a species of cucumber, exceeding the rest in size, difficult to digest, but greatly cooling and softening the bowels. The Greeks use *pepon* metaphorically for a man who is broken, effeminate, dissolute, and soft.
A We have received it that Simon was the first to be the author of every heresy. » *Ἀρχὰς εἰς ἴδιον χαρακτήρα διδασκαλείου μεταρρυθμίσας*. Billius, following an ancient interpreter, wishes to substitute *ἀρχαίας διδασκαλίας*. But the most illustrious Dodwell correctly defends the reading of Epiphanius (Dissert. 4 against Irenaeus, § 13). Indeed, that the Valentinians borrowed *ἀρχάς*, that is, the “principles” of their doctrine, from the Gnostics is gathered from the parallel passage in Irenaeus, Book 1, ch. 18. “From whom [the Gnostics], these [the Valentinians] also, having received the beginning of their emissions (*ἀρχὰς προβολῶν*), were convicted in the first book.” Similarly, that the phrase *ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα διδασκαλείου* was customary for Irenaeus is indicated by his words regarding the Basilidians, in the chapter below; and regarding Tatian in ch. 31: *ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα διδασκαλείου συνεστήσατο*—that is, he established a character proper to his own teaching, which the ancient interpreter did not translate altogether accurately, because the word *διδασκαλεῖον* properly denotes a “school,” not a doctrine. Regarding *μεθαρμόζειν* and its sense, see more in the aforementioned Dodwell, § 12, and Pearson in the place cited above.
*Ἐξηροφόρησε*. “A corrupt word,” says Petavius, “in which it is useless to attempt divination.” Others have tried, diverging in different directions, whose various conjectures Pearson reviews, and finally adds his own, writing in the aforementioned place thus: “Hammond reads *ἐξεφόρησεν*; Isaac Vossius, by a slight mutation, *ἐξηροφόρησε*.” But Billius thinks the ancient interpreter read *ἐξηροφόρησε*. I am of the opinion that the ancient interpreter did not understand the word he read, and therefore omitted it, thinking it could be done while preserving the sense. I believe, therefore, that the most ancient reading was *ἐξερροφόρησεν*, and it perhaps originated from Irenaeus himself; for *ἐξερροφεῖν* can mean the same as to relate something in a “dry” (*ξηρᾶς*) manner, as the Greeks say. Another opinion of Cotelerius is added, who prefers to read *ἐξηροφόρησε* in the cited passage. But I either believe *ἐξερροφόρησεν* must be retained, or if this seems too harsh, I think it should be read *ἐληροφόρησεν* according to Vossius, not only because this is the slightest mutation, but also because, toward the end of this chapter, the exclamation follows: *Ὦ ληρολόγοι σοφισταί*—“O babbling sophists!”—as in the verse of Homer written above. And another: *μαλθακωτέρα πέπονος συκοῦ μοι γέγονας*, that is, “You have become softer to me than a ripe fig.” For these Gnostics defiled themselves with such shameful lusts that, having stripped them of the name of men, and having imposed upon them more atrocious, yet deserved, names, the Church Fathers detested their institution. Hence, the blessed Polycarp, hearing John, called Marcion, whom he met, “the firstborn of Satan.” Irenaeus, in the following sections, calls them “apostates of the truth” and “advocates of the serpent”; “Pandora,” “most perverted sophists”; “not men, but mute animals, preferring the shadows of men.” Clement of Alexandria, *Stromata* VII: “Wild and hollow almonds, adulterating the truth; thieves of the rules of the Church, princes and leaders of the mysteries of the impious, unclean animals, which indeed have cloven hoofs but do not ruminate.” And older than these, Ignatius: “Babblers, seducers of the mind, merchants of Christ, hucksters of the evangelical word, sycophants, deadly fruits, a cursed progeny, enemies of the cross of Christ, branches of them who killed the Lord of glory, murderers of the prophets, evil herbs, murderous beasts, the seed of the evil one, a nursery of enemies, monuments and sepulchers of the dead, evil workers, mute dogs, serpents coiling themselves, scaly dragonets, asps, basilisks, scorpions, crafty thoes, and apes, the mimics of men.” And Clement of Rome: “Not men, but cruel beasts in human figure, pernicious wolves, instruments of the devil, and children of wrath.” Indeed, Epiphanius reports in his book *Against Heresies*, 26, that their impudence was so obscene and detestable that one could scarcely, if at all, read it without grave indignation of mind, and because of this, he says they deservedly received such monstrous names, so that they might be called Borborians, Coddians, Stratiotics, Phibionites, Barbeliotes, and Barbelites: to which Theodoret easily subscribes, *Book of Heretical Fables*, book 1.
Excerpts from the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on ch. 5. Page 22. *Ὁ μὲν γὰρ πρῶτος*. Blondel and Daillé constructed these words with the following ones, *ἀπὸ τῆς Γνωστικῆς αἱρέσεως*, to prove that Valentinus was the first of that Gnostic heresy who handed down the dogmas collected by Irenaeus in this chapter, and thence to prove that the Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Magnesians, in which the Sige of the heretics is censured, is more recent than Valentinus and spurious. But the most learned men replied well: Pearson, in part 2 of *Vindiciae Epistularum S. Ignatii*, ch. 6, near the end; and Cotelerius in his notes on the aforementioned Epistle of St. Ignatius, that *πρῶτος* should not be referred to the words immediately following in this period, but to the preceding ones: “Let us now see also the inconsistent opinion of these men, since there are two or three—*δύο που καὶ τριῶν ὄντων*—just as they do not say the same things about the same [subjects],” etc. Whence he continues: *ὁ μὲν γὰρ πρῶτος*, “for he who is first, namely Valentinus; after whom follows Secundus, then also Epiphanes, and others,” etc. And of these, Valentinus was indeed the prince; but not absolutely the first inventor of those dogmas, nor the leader of the Gnostic chorus, but rather their successor, as the aforementioned Pearson proved from this very passage and many other places of Irenaeus, adducing also the testimony of Eusebius, *De Ecclesiastica Theologia*, book 2, making Simon the “leader of the godless heretics, who, dogmatizing godless things, declared, saying: ‘God is one and Sige.’” The impious heretical prince, who, dogmatizing impious things, pronounced, saying: “There was God and Sige.” To which Laroquanus indeed took exception, that by this periphrasis not Simon, but Valentinus, was pointed out by Eusebius. But the best interpreter of his own words is Eusebius himself in *Ecclesiastical History*, book 2, ch. 15, writing: “Therefore, he was the author of the whole…” D *Εἶναι δυάδα*. Billius wishes an addition from the ancient interpreter, but it is not necessary, at least it matters little. Moreover, regarding Valentinus, Tertullian also in *Against Marcion*, book 1, ch. 5: “Valentinus dared to conceive of gods, Bythos and Sige, when he poured out as far as thirty offspring of the Aeons, like a litter of the divinity.” *Ποτὲ δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου*. To this Tertullian looked in *Against Marcion*, book 5, ch. 10, writing: “One thing can come to the aid of your straits, if you dare either to [deny] the God which Valentinus made from the Aeon, or to deny that Christ was a man, which not even Valentinus did.” — Tertullian said here “Christ” instead of “Jesus.” *Τὴν μὲν μίαν φῶς, τὴν δὲ ἄλλην σκότος*. Epiphanius therefore accepted the words of Irenaeus as if the right-hand quaternion had been called by Secundus the light, and the left-hand one designated by the name of darkness. And thus also Tertullian in his book *Against the Valentinians*: “Secundus,” he says, “dividing the ogdoad into two tetrads, into the right and the left, into light and darkness.” Whence, from these things, the sufficiently obscure version of Irenaeus is to be clarified, just as the words of Theodoret, *Book of Heretical Fables*, book 1, ch. 8, are to be explained or corrected: *Διχῇ τὴν ὀγδοάδα διείλε, καὶ τὸ μὲν αὐτῆς ἐκάλεσε δεξιόν, τὸ δὲ εὐώνυμον· καὶ προστέθηκε φῶς καὶ σκότος*. “He divided the ogdoad into two, and called one part of it the right, and the other the left; and he added light and darkness.”
ιδὰς καὶ τὰ λέγει Βυθὸν ἄῤῥητον. Femina et mas: Mystica autem mens: Hæc atque illa dicit Profunditatem ineffabilem.
Scholia of Billius on chapter 6
And affections. In Epiphanius one should read A *diatheseis*, not *diatheseis*. And here there are certain things in the Greek which are not in the ancient translation, namely, *kai ten men ennoian aei synyparxasan en auto ennooumenen aei ti probalesthai, to de thelema en auto epiginomenon*; that is, "and that thought indeed always existed together with him, while he was thinking of bringing forth something, but that the will came to him adventitiously."
*The rising of Truth.* For *te probole*, I read *e probole* from the ancient translator. *To have come forth. Proelthein.*
*Mind of thought.* The same in this place is *nous*, who is the Only-Begotten.
And on account of this, with the will arriving, for *dia toutou* I read with the ancient *dia touto*. I add, moreover, *epiginomenon* (a word the author also uses above), because the ancient translator has "adventitious."
B 49 *Ungenerated of thought.* For *ousias* in Epiphanius should be substituted *ennoias*, as the sense clearly demands.
Not by degrees. "How much better," says Tertullian, "are those who, having shaken off all this weariness, have willed that no Aeon be produced from another through degrees, as if by a rack [a *Gemonian* ladder], but the die having been cast, as they say, that this octad was once produced from the Father and his Ennoia."
*To show himself.* I read *heauton* with the ancient. But Tertullian says, "when he willed to approve himself."
*The man spoke the Word.* I add *elalesen* in the Greek from the ancient translator and also from Tertullian himself, who however seems to have read *echese*. For he translates, "it sounded."
Notes from the adversaria of Fronton du Duc on chapter 6. Page 56. *Ennoea and Thesis.* In Epiphanius, in heresy 35, we see these words, *thelema* and *thelesis*, used interchangeably. Tertullian mentioned "thought and will" in Latin in chapter 33 of *Against the Valentinians*.
Page 57. *But those who are more prudent.* Epiphanius attributes these things to a certain Colorbasus in heresy 55, and Theodoret follows him in the first book of *Heretical Fables*, with the Colorbasians; and Tertullian, ch. 36 of *Against the Valentinians*: "How much better are those who have willed that this octad was once produced from the Father and his Ennoia." He names Colorbasus the same in *De praescriptione*, ch. 15, as our translator in Irenæus, ch. 10, lib. 1. There are many things here that are inconsistent if they are examined against the sentiment of the Greeks, which Billius elegantly expressed: that the Aeons were emitted or procreated simultaneously. He should have said literally, "the emission of the Aeons produced at the same time."
*It does not seem so to you.* These things are taken from the same Epiphanius, in which, although he does not offer the very words of Irenæus, he does not depart much from his opinion. We have corrected in the interpretation of Cornarius what seemed to need correction, from the ancient translator, from which also for *touto* and *e kai*, should be read *tote e hote*. Whence it is evident that those four little words were also correctly added by the most learned Feuardent from the ancient manuscript: nor have we expunged that *phos*, "light," although it is absent from the ancient, just as Cornarius wrote *nomos*, "law."
Furthermore, I do not see why Billius translates "all the Aeons" in place of "six Aeons," for thus it is in Greek in Epiphanius: *ten ton hex aionon probolen*. Although Tertullian names an octad, yet that happens because he counts the parents with the [letters of the] alphabet. Certainly Billius followed the Greek of Epiphanius in this place, although, in our judgment at least, the Greek [could have been] from the ancient translator.
A fuerint emendanda. Plainly, these are shown to be opposed to the Colorbasians and Valentinians: for the former, in the first book, first chapter, wished the second conjugation concerning the Word and Life to be Man, that is, and Church; but the latter, on the contrary, in inverted order, [wished it to be] from Anthropos and Ecclesia, Logos and Zoe: this is taught by what follows: "Anthropos spoke the Logos, he is the firstborn son; the Logos follows Zoe." And Pamelius indeed, in [his commentary on] Tertullian, wishes Epiphanius to be corrected, so that [the text] should read "as others wish," for "or as others wish"; for thus Cornarius translated it, "and from Anthropos, as others [wish]"; to us, however, it seems that the phrase "as others [wish]" should be written after "and Church," so that the Valentinians might be designated, and then [the text proceeds]. Page 58. *Vera fuerunt.* In the Greek it should be read, *& proebaleto aletheian*. So also Tertullian: "When he produced [truth], because he produced true things, here it is called truth."
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 6. Page 56. *Hi vero.* Pursuing the mutual quarrels and contradictions of the Gnostics, he teaches that they transform the true God into a poetic one (who is subject to various passions of conjunctions, affections, and changes): when, however, the true God knows all things by ineffable wisdom, and by immutable will can do and does do all things. To this place, surely, Cyril of Jerusalem looked when he wrote: "God is not seeing in part, and deprived of vision in part: but is all eye, all ear, and all mind," etc. *Ennea*. We have deleted "Ennea" by the authority of an old codex. Page 57. *Homerici Jovis.* The passage is in Homer's Iliad: Other gods and horse-crested men Slept all night long. But sweet sleep did not hold Zeus, [but he was pondering in his heart how he might honor Achilles, and slay many at the ships of the Achaeans.] Thus we have rendered it into verse in some way: And now the other men and gods in placid rest Rejoiced: but waking, Jupiter alone Did ponder in his mind how he might grant To famous Achilles, and the Greek host might fall by great strength. Moreover, we have rendered the final verse ambigously for this reason, because the learned Eustathius warns of these things: "*Pola de to poleas*, for it makes a figure of ambiguity: for it is unclear whether he might destroy many of the Achaeans, whose slaughter made Achilles honorable, or many of the Trojans and Greeks at the ships of the Achaeans, which is better." That is: "Take note, however, of *poleas*; which we have rendered as ‘great strength’; for it has the figure of amphibology: because it is uncertain whether he is about to destroy many of the Greeks (for whose death Achilles was honored) or many of the Trojans and Greeks together, at the ships of the Greeks (which is better)." The blessed Irenaeus followed that sense which seems better even to Eustathius himself, unless you say that after "destroy," the phrase "at the ships" is missing, so that the Homeric ambiguity is preserved in him too: a thing I might think was devised more subtly than truly, since an old codex does not teach it, and it seems to have alluded to the location in Homer rather than to have usurped his words. Epiphanius, against the Ptolemaics, explains the sentiment of Irenaeus in more words and more openly. *Tunc cogitans cum vult.* We have added these four little words from an old codex. He explains, however, the four axioms concerning the infinite omnipotence of God which he had learned from Polycarp and other hearers of the apostles, against the impious fictions of the Gnostics, who coerced it within certain limits, admitting B indeed that God is omnipotent, but of those things which were subject to him: thinking that he [God] was escaping many [fears], as is gathered from the previous chapter. For the blessed martyr sagaciously observed here that God placed his omnipotence before the Fathers, lest they should fear to undertake his promises and commands; [and that] the apostles also, leaving aside those [titles of] good, just, merciful, and various others, had fixed this one epithet of God the Father to be believed at the beginning of the Symbol; and finally, that the faith in this immense power is the basis of the entire Christian religion, which if it should totter in any way, it is necessary that the whole Gospel should fall. Let those, therefore, whose dogmas our century's Sacramentarians embrace, judge, who, in order to defend their opinions concerning the absence of the body of Christ, with the greatest blasphemy against the divine majesty deny that he can do many things. Indeed, are they not driven by such madness that, against the protest of all the Scriptures, miracles, and divine works, they deny that God himself can work anything beyond the laws of the nature he created? Is not this to proclaim Gnostic and Valentinian, or rather atheism, with inflated cheeks? Much more wholesomely, the Angel ordered the Virgin, who was questioning by what art she would give birth without knowing a man, to attend that no word is impossible with God. To this also pertain these voices of the Scriptures: "Is the hand of the Lord invalid? Is it present to you to be able when you wish? The hand of the Lord is not shortened: as clay in the hand of the potter, so you are in my hand." Did he not convert mud into flesh, and flesh into a statue, above the laws of nature? Did he not command a dry rod to flower, the sun to stay its course, a brute to use human words, flames to spare some, and to devour others? Page 58. *Modum.* Thus the old codex; the printed copies had *mundum*.
From the annotations of Jo. Ernst Grabe on chapter 6. *O Ptolemaios*. The Greek words of Irenaeus were perhaps: "But those around Ptolemaeus, being more experienced, say that Bythus has two couples, which they and others call dispositions, [namely] Ennoea and Thelema." At this passage in the work of these, Epiphanius, *Hæres.* 33, § 1, has these things: "This Ptolemaeus, therefore, and those with him, having progressed more [in knowledge] than their own teacher... for this man devised and bestowed upon God, who among them is called Bythus, two couples. These also he called dispositions, Ennoea and Thelema." In the place of these, however, he [Irenaeus] with his Ptolemaeus, became wiser than those whom he had as teachers... For he attributes to God, whom they call Bythus, two wives discovered by himself, whom he also termed Affections, namely Thought and Will.
Page 57. *Tou men thelematos*, etc. These things, having been placed in distorted order in Epiphanius, should be read thus: *Tou men thelematos ton Noun, tes de ennoias ten aletheian*. The counterpart in this place is *Nous*, who is "Monogenes," as Billius noted. *Tou thelematos... ho de thelys tou thelematos*: Delete *tou thelematos* in the latter place, and correct the preceding [words] from the old version thus: *Tou men arrhen eikon gegonen, ho de thelys tes agennetou Ennoias*. For thus it must be read, the added reason most openly demonstrates, because Voluntas (Will) gave the power of bringing forth to Ennoea (Thought). Whence also Tertullian in the same manner placed [it] in chapter 33: "To the image, indeed, of Thought, the female Truth; to the image of Will, the male Monogenes," immediately adding: "For the power of Will, insofar as it provides the effect for Thought, obtains the rank of the male." *To thelema toinun*. Delete *toinun*, and read *hoti to thelema*.
50. Scholia of Billius on chapter 7. Page 58. *Patris gloriam*. I add in the Greek these words from the old [version]: *dia toutou doxazein ton Patera*. Page 59. *Ob eumque causam*. Here also I add.
these words upon this name, if it is pleasing: «He said that he himself was the Son of man, either because he was born of a Virgin who sprang from David, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham; or because Abraham himself is also the father of the rest from whom Mary’s lineage is thence derived. For we know that the fathers of daughters are also the fathers of the children whom they bring forth.» «Why is Christ man,» says Tertullian, «and the Son of man, if he is nothing of man, and nothing from man? Unless perhaps man is something other than flesh; or the flesh of man is from elsewhere than from man; or Mary is something other than man.»
Furthermore, being advised by learned men, Pamelius and Fronto, in the following line, we substitute «to those who for the support of the Pleroma» instead of «of those who,» etc.
And on this account they say he is called Christ. We have rightly added these seven words from an old manuscript codex. Moreover, regarding the appellation of Christ, Tertullian describes their various dreams below in the tenth chapter: that this name comes not from nature, but from arrangement; and that it is not a proper name, but an appellation, by which he is called *anointed*, as if clothed; and he writes that it pertains to human nature. Hence Christ, as he says elsewhere, «is called from *chrism*, which is anointing, which accommodated the name to the Lord, having become spiritual, because he is anointed by God the Father with the oil of gladness above his fellows. But he is anointed not as God, but as man,» writes Theodoret, «and after the incarnation was named Christ.» Vigilius the martyr in Book IV, *Against Eutyches*, agrees completely with this. He also testifies that this name was common to kings, prophets, and priests. Since, therefore, our Savior took upon himself the parts of all these, and for the performing of these, was anointed by the most abundant virtue of the celestial Father, namely, with the grace of the Holy Spirit poured into his soul, he is rightly called Christ, not from the Pleroma or certain Æons, as those fanatics wrongly dream.
From the annotations of Jo. Ernst Grabe on chapter 7. Page 59. *Hvdokesen*. Here add from Theodoret’s book *On Heretical Fables*, ch. 12, *di’ autou doxasai ton Patera*. Since it seems the negligent scribe omitted a whole line in the text of Epiphanius.
*Probebleisthai auton legousi*. Irenaeus left these three words for the reader to understand, but he added in this place the following: *Kai dia toutou logon kai zoen legesthai auton*.
*Eis sterigma*, etc. That it should be read, *ton eis sterigma tou Pleromatos probeblemenon*, Billius well noted, and Fronto Ducaeus confirmed it with the words of Tertullian in chapter 39: «Others, fashioned by Christ and the Holy Spirit for the establishment of the universe.» Nor will he doubt further, who has read above on chapter 4, § 4, page 13, line 13 (chapter 2, n. 5, page 11). Yet that error was not of the scribe, but perhaps of Epiphanius himself, misunderstanding Irenaeus, just as he writes in the quoted place of Theodoret: «*Alla de hypo Christou kai tou Pneumatos eis sterigma tou Pleromatos gegonenai*, etc.» Who for this reason both are to be recalled to the correct sense.
*Anthropou legousi kaleisthai*. I am mistaken if the Anthropiani are not named from this, of whom only, as far as I know, St. Cyprian makes mention in epistle 73, joining them with the Patripassians and Valentinians.
Scholia of Billius on chapter 8. This chapter in Epiphanius is held a little differently than in Irenaeus. Page 60. *Persuasit*. In the Greek, instead of *prosechein auto*, some word is lacking, perhaps *epoiese*, or *epeithe*.
Notes from the adversaria of Fronto Ducaeus on chapter 8. Page 59. *Ad se convertit*. Since it is in Greek *prose-
- A chein auto*, it seems should be read here, *and in order to turn [him] toward himself*, as one who was most learned, etc., making him have [an interest] in the places; and the Greek *proseyein auto epoiese*, *he made him turn toward himself*. Furthermore, regarding the word *perfectissimum*, if one translates it from the Greek, the interpreter did not add it of his own, but it is to be read as *hos gnostikotato kai teleiotato*. In this way he said before in chapter 5, *ina teleion teleioteroi phanosin ontes, kai gnostikon gnostikoteroi*; the ancient interpreter, *as perfects more perfect*, using a Hellenism for *more perfect than the perfect*. Moreover, you have this rendered word for word in the interpreter of Epiphanius at the beginning of *haer.* 34.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 8. Page 59. *Alius vero quidam*. Tertullian in his *De praescriptione* and Theodoret in *Haereticalium fabularum* book 1 make mention of this Marcus, summarizing all his deceptions in a few words: but Epiphanius in book 1, tom. 3, *haeres.* 34, is the most expansive of all, [writing] that the sect of the Marcosians was led forth by him, and that he, besides Valentinus, Secundus, Ptolemaeus, and Epiphanes, vomited many evil things against the Creator.
Page 60. *Et ab inenarrabilibus locis*. We have deleted *Logis*, and have added these four words from the ancient [text], with Epiphanius in book 1, *haeres.* 74, subscribing to these words: *To turn the astonishment of the more simple people toward himself, as though he were a teacher descended from heaven, the wicked impostor boasted that he had received the greatest power from unseen, celestial, and nameless places.* With similar madness they preached that they possessed not only power, but a book descended from heaven, which they carried around; [a book] of the time of Origen, [the book of] Elchasai, which whoever had read and believed would receive a remission of sins far different from that by which Christ remitted sins.
B *Virtutes perficere putatur*. He denies that these impostors worked true miracles here: but he [does this] in much more evident words below in book 2, chapter 57. Clement of Rome in almost the same words denied that the impious could perform miracles for the confirmation of false doctrine, unless he thinks that it was permitted to the Antichrist toward the end of the world. But if anyone should contend that something true in the conventicles of heretics was performed or could be done, Justin Martyr shrewdly teaches that their error is confirmed by these no more than if someone were to think that the impiety of the Gentiles is pleasing to God because the sun rises on them and they are sprinkled with heavenly dew.
Augustine also, denying that heretics performed those miracles which were falsely attributed to the Donatists, writes that they are mere fables. Regarding these, the caution of Saint Ignatius is to be observed, worthy of an apostolic spirit: "Whoever shall say something outside of those things which are established, even if he is worthy of trust, even if he fasts, even if he keeps virginity, even if he performs signs, even if he prophesies; let him be considered a wolf to you under the skin of a sheep, plotting the destruction of the sheep." From this, therefore, it is sufficiently certain that the sects of heretics have always been devoid of true miracles: and consequently that the extraordinary mission of their authors and ministers, which they themselves profess, is not from God. They run, and the Lord does not send them. And these things concerning the null or false miracles of heretics. On the contrary, that there is no head of doctrine or faith, sacrament, or rite in the Catholic Church which God has not proved and asserted by most evident miracles performed through His saints, is most easy to show by witnesses and writers greater than any exception. For the first proclaimers of this faith preached it everywhere, *the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following*. It is known from the ecclesiastical history of the most holy Nicaean and Chalcedonian councils, in which the Symbol of our faith holds the first place, that it was confirmed by manifest miracles. The history of Constantine teaches that the sanctity and power of Baptism were confirmed by signs; and Augustine recounts certain [miracles] in book 22, *De Civitate Dei*, chapter 8. Blessed Luke proclaims the excellence of Confirmation in Acts chapters 8, 10, and 19, and the miracle in the ampulla, in which holy chrism was preserved, is described by Optatus of Milevis in book 1 *against Parmenianus*. Ambrose and Nazianzen report that Caesarius and Gorgonia were saved by the application of the Eucharist; and Chrysostom, Amphilochius, Optatus, Eusebius, Prosper, and many others recount other miracles performed by the power of the same.
*Præcursor quasi vere exsistens Antichristi*. Irenaeus correctly and frequently enhances his Gnostics with this title, as do all those who have locked horns against the heresiarchs. For just as in the varying revolution of centuries, various prophets announced the true Christ by words, writings, and deeds, and therefore are called his messengers and forerunners: so, as many as rise up against Christ and His Church prepare the way of the son of perdition, and are even called *Antichrists* by the Apostle, 1 John 2 and 4. Athanasius, in the epistle *to those leading a solitary life*, calls the Emperor Constantius an Antichrist in plain words, because he favored the Arian heresy excessively and had ordered the churches to be handed over to the Arians; and Hilary, in his three books *against him*. With equal constancy, Lucifer Calaritanus in his book *On not sparing those who sin against God* calls him the precursor of the Antichrist, a shadow, a corpse, a satellite, a spirit, and an idol more than ten times in a few pages. Ambrose also [says] that Arius, Sabellius, and all who seduce the simpler folk with perverse interpretation were *Antichrists*, which Origen also wrote some time before in his thirtieth homily on Matthew.
*Anaxilaus ludicra*. Who this Anaxilaus was, others affirm; I only add my own conjecture. Epiphanius, speaking about the same, in my opinion from Irenaeus, calls his *paignia* in Greek; which the interpreter translated as *ludicra* [playful things]. Which word is of wide signification, and seems to signify here nothing else than those things by which jugglers deceive our eyes, if one attends to the words of Irenaeus and Epiphanius. I suspect, therefore, that he is the very one of whom Pliny says thus: *Anaxilaus played with sulphur, which, glowing in a new cup, with live coals placed beneath, and carrying [it] around, by the reflection of the burning, produced a ghastly pallor as of the dead, pouring it forth upon the guests (or as another reading has it), pouring it forth upon the guests.* The word *ludendi*...
A ...Paulinus and Gregory of Tours teach thus, and Vincentius Bonardus discusses this in an entire book. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Damascenus, etc., declare that countless benefits were granted to mortals at the sepulchers, garments, bones, and other relics of the saints.
That these things happened in the Catholic Church is so certain that even the principal ministers of the heretics, who have composed histories from Christ down to our own time, covering thirteen centuries, have collected, written, and published that these things occurred in every age, citing specific authors. It remains, therefore, that having contemned the errors and blasphemies of all sectaries, we should remain in that faith and Church with Augustine, which was joined together by so many and such great miracles from God Almighty, and has been demonstrated and proven up to this day.
*From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on chapter 8.* Page 59. *But another certain one, etc.* I cannot provide the Greek text of this chapter because Epiphanius, having retained only some of Irenaeus’s words, preferred to describe the person of Marcus in his own, nor has any other author preserved our author's idiom for us here. Page 60. *Precursor, as if truly being the precursor of the Antichrist.* The specific and primary reason why Irenaeus calls Marcus a precursor of the Antichrist is his magical operation of miracles. For regarding the true precursor of the Antichrist, or his "armor-bearer," as our author calls him in book V, chapter 28, and speaking of his miracles in the same place, he has this: "Lest anyone should think he performs signs by divine power, but by magical operation."
*Scholia of Billius on chapter 9.* Page 60. *Feigning to consecrate.* The Greek word *eucharistein* in this place has the meaning of consecrating, not of giving thanks. This is something that Gallasius either stupidly ignored or maliciously misrepresented. Page 65. *The helmet of Orcus.* See Erasmus in the proverb: *The helmet of Orcus.* — *That they might despair of the life of God.* The words are the Apostle's.
*Notes from the adversaria of Fronton du Duc on chapter 9.* Page 60. *He performs the Eucharist.* The Greek context demands that it be read: *He performed the Eucharist.* Page 62. *He hears, and speaks delirious things.* Billius wishes to add *kai*, which cannot be done otherwise than if these things are uttered thus: *apotolma kai lalei lerode*, instead of *apotolma lalein*. Thus to the Romans X, 20: “But Isaiah is very bold and says.” Perhaps the interpreter wished to imitate the phrasing of Scripture: but in Billius’s interpretation the verb is wanting: *vainly and impudently he utters*, or *speaks*. Page 63. *In the suppers of the lots.* These suppers, in which they used lots, recall to our memory those things in Horace B: *Nor the realms of wine such as he may allot:* *Whom Venus shall declare the master of the drinking?* When they chose the emperors of the banquet by the cast of dice. Page 61. *For "Aeons of silence."* In the Greek, *pro aionos siges*. Billius, however, followed the ancient interpreter; as did the interpreter of Epiphanius: “mystical before the ages of silence.” *We [have produced] their images.* In the Greek, we have restored the reading of Epiphanius, which the ancient interpreter follows, changed by Gallasius, and it persuades us to add *auton* after *eikonas*: Billius also translates, “we have produced their images.” But he referred it to the forms or magnitudes, whereas the ancient one referred it to the Aeons, and therefore perhaps wrote, “of them.” *Which regions according to us.* He means the tract toward the Rhone, or the Rhodanian; not, as Gallasius translates, “in the regions of Rhodansia,” which he would have found thus translated by Cornarius in Epiphanius. Perhaps the region was called *Rhodanousia*, as *Lugdounesia*, Gallic Lugdunensis. And yet Jerome in chapter LXIV of Isaiah says that the Gnostics, through the Egyptian Marcus, first deceived noble women of the Gauls around the Rhone, then in Spain, mixing pleasure with fables and selling the name of their ignorance as knowledge. *But certain ones.* In the Greek, a verb must be added, *hesyche heautas chorizousin, apelpkyiai*. The passage of the Apostle to which he alludes appears to be none other than the one to the Ephesians IV, 18: “alienated from the life of God.”
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 9.* Page 60. *For instead of a cup mingled with wine.* Lest this Marcus, most skilled in magical imposture, should seem to be wronged by the previous chapter, he appends three examples of his tricks. The first, Nicetas Choniates recounts more openly after Epiphanius in his *Thesaurus*, book IV, chapter 6: "He, as the divine Irenaeus is the author, prepared certain glass cups of white color: then, using I know not what charm, he would instantly convert them, one into red, one into purple, and one finally into blue. Afterward, refuting these prestidigitations, he adds: 'He used to bewitch the eyes of those present and cause what was being seen to appear to them to be the opposite of what their nature would allow. For he could not change the pellucid bodies of the glass vessels into various colors,' etc." The second, however, was when, from a smaller cup which he had offered to the seduced women, he would drink from a much larger one which he himself held, so filled that they would think it even overflowed from it. The last, when the delirium which they, palpitating and stupified, uttered, they persuaded themselves were prophecies. C D
A From this, then, first observe how great and what manner of arts the heresiarchs possess, and the powers of the evil spirit in propagating errors; for seeing that the apostles, prophets, and martyrs have established Catholic dogma with countless miracles, and that the minds of men are easily moved by them, they bear it with a most indignant spirit that they are entirely deprived of this charism, and they waste away with such envy that they detract from the miracles of the saints as much as they possibly can. But that they may appear at least to equal them, they turn themselves to the diabolical frauds of magi, by which they may impose upon the unwary, satisfy their own avarice, and serve their own glory. Nor is there lacking to the satellites of his fury the father of lies, himself a minister of such deceits, who—since the most just and supreme Judge has permitted it because of the pressing sins of men—can do anything. Hence the astounding impostures of Apollonius of Tyana, by which (according to Eusebius) Hierocles attempts to equate him with Christ. Hence those Delphic, Pythian, Clarian, and Dodonean oracles, which the same Eusebius writes perished at the most salutary advent of Christ. From the same workshop came the notable illusions of Simon Magus, which Clement, Abdias, Justin, and this our Irenaeus describe most fully. With similar arts that son of perdition will prowl, whose coming will be in signs and lying wonders. Finally, it is permitted here to observe how those impious early Gnostics, having abandoned the Catholic rite which Christ had delivered to all churches through the apostles for the celebration of the Eucharist, fabricated recent formulas of a certain supper, representing a practice which those of our own age have also carefully imitated.
Giving mixed cups to women. That they have changed the ceremonies of the most august Eucharistic sacrifice is clear from this too, that they would concede the total office of the priesthood—of consecrating, offering, and so on—even to their own harlots; which the Quintilians, Pepusians, and Phrygians practiced later, and for that reason, like rotten members, were cut off from the Church of Christ and are handed over into the hands of Satan by Damascenus, Augustine, and Epiphanius; “It is not permitted for a woman to speak in the Church,” says Tertullian, citing Paul, “nor to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim for herself any share in any masculine duty, let alone the priestly office.” The Blessed Clement testifies that this institution flowed from Christ and the apostles: “We do not permit (he recites the words of the apostles) women to teach in the Church, but only to pray and to hear the masters. For the Master Himself and the Lord Jesus Christ, when He had sent us twelve to teach the nations, never sent women for preaching, although they were not lacking. For the Mother of the Lord was with us, and His sisters, and furthermore Magdalene, Mary of James, and Martha, and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, and Salome, and certain others. For if the man is the head of the woman, it is not right that the remaining body should command the head.” And the recent [heretics] also imitate this impiety of the ancient Gnostics, so true is the proverb: “The offspring follows the father,” B since they assert that there is no priesthood left that is not also extended to women; and they order them not only to attend their public assemblies, which they consider churches, but [to] discourse on sacred things and even to sing, although the Apostle orders them with great caution to be silent.
Page 61. *Similar things to these.* So the old codex; in Greek: *things similar to these*: therefore we have deleted “dissimilar.”
It is given to be understood, however, as a certain demon. For as the Holy Spirit is never absent from the pious pastors of the Church of God, who teaches, directs, and preserves them, so Satan does not deny his operations to the pseudoprophets. B ...to deny, as in this place, so in the second book, chapter fifty-seven, he proves most evidently, asserting that the heretics have the same association with demons. And to pass over the histories of the ancients, namely, Judas, Simon, Manes, Apelles, Nestorius, Montanus, Novatus, and Berengarius, may I touch upon the obsessions of some heresiarchs of our own century. Whoever, with a calm mind, wishes to compare the arrogance, boasting, malediction, frequent dizziness, paroxysms, and consternations of Martin Luther—the furor of his mind, the obscene words, and the furious insults against all ranks, and the Satanic pride by which he says he would not care if a thousand Augustines, a thousand Cyprians, and a thousand councils of martyrs and myriads of ancient doctors stood against him, and against the sayings of the Fathers, of men, and of angels (these are his words) he establishes his own dogma—whoever, I say, wishes to compare these things with the writings he left behind, will not doubt that he was agitated by the devil in body and mind. For he writes in his book *On Establishing Schools*: “Some boast of the spirit: but the spirit here, the spirit there; I too was in the spirit, and I also saw spirits, perhaps more than they themselves will see within a year.” And much more openly in the booklet *On the Private Mass*, he says (in the seventh volume, Wittemberg, printed by Thomas Klug, page 228): “That the devil and he knew each other familiarly, and that they had eaten more than a bushel of salt together, and that he [the devil] frequently visited him with sweet converse, and at night awakened and stirred him to write against the mass, and supplied arguments for that cause.” C Furthermore, that he was accustomed to boast of this very familiarity with Satan entered into by himself, is openly gathered from these words of his spoken to his dinner companions, collected and published by his disciple Henry Peter Rebenstock: “From all sides,” he said, “Satan vexes me, not simply, but in a complex way: for in many ways he favors me above others,” etc. But who would not believe Luther himself, affirming these things about himself among his friends?
Zuinglius, the leader of the Sacramentarians, in his book *On the Supplement to the Eucharist*, narrates that as he was anxiously reflecting on how he might twist the words of the institution of the sacrament of the Body of Christ into a strange sense, a monitoring spirit was present in the uncomfortable night of April 13th, and he doubts whether it was white or black. But who among those in their right mind, wandering through the night in such business in the darkness, will doubt that it was one of the powers of darkness that existed? Indeed, Luther himself, in his book *On the Abrogation of the Mass*, 53, affirms that Oecolampadius, the collaborator of Zuinglius, and other Sacramentarians were impelled to sudden death by the fiery darts of Satan. Erasmus Alberus the preacher of Basel writes that a demon appeared to Carolstadt as he was preaching, in the form of a man of tall stature, three days before he was dragged off to Tartarus. Why delay over Calvin? He himself, in a letter to Bucer, who was warning him to abstain from curses and insults, replied: “It is not a malady of my nature, but of my genius.” But that this is agitated and led by the evil spirit of the Lord—who differs by the whole heaven from Him who is of peace and Christian modesty—let the more prudent people judge. D
...Father of all. So the old codex; in Greek also *the father of all*: therefore we have deleted “common.”
Page 62. *As if better for us*, etc. Although all the old editions had “better” along with the manuscript codex, it seemed proper, however, to change it; since it was a most obvious error, which we have restored thus from the Greek reading: just as a little later we substituted, “because the soul is bold and shameless,” instead of that...
a few lines down, we substituted: "these from God," for "these from him." If you ask whose words these are, remember that we noted above from Eusebius that this martyr frequently quotes the words of the ancients; but to identify the name is difficult, and it is almost impossible to gather it from the such meager remnants of the writers of that century which survive.
Page 63. "Still further, love potions." I do not doubt that "cups" is either missing or should be understood. By "love potions," that is, cups composed with art to incite the allurements of love, he means that those impure men used them; but he also relates in chapter 20 of this book that the followers of Carpocrates sought, with the same arts, to ensnare the chastity of women. Indeed, that even heathens abhorred their use, Ovid shows with these lines: *Nor, given to girls, shall love-spells pale avail:* *Spells hurt the soul, and have the force of rage.*
Observe, therefore, how wandering and foul the conversation of these men was, and how, on account of certain flagitious scoundrels, the name of Christian was evil spoken of and blasphemed among the nations. "As a certain deacon." Observe the reward with which the lascivious ministers and preachers of heresies are wont to compensate their guests. Furthermore, Peter Vermigli exerts himself—not without fraud and wickedness—in his book against celibacy and religious vows, to persuade from this passage of Irenaeus that marriage is lawful for all deacons, priests, and monks, for the reason that this one is written to have had a wife. But in truth, he was an Asiatic and a Greek, to whom it was always permitted to retain at home the women whom they had married before holy orders. To this, even from the fact that she consented so easily to Marcus, it is made most likely that the deacon, once he had received holy orders, had abstained from her, just as Peter, when called to the apostolate, had left all things—and among these, Jerome says, the use of a wife—for Christ.
B The fact that it is a remedy, and a second plank after shipwreck, is patent from this chapter. But whoever demands that this be proved from the sacred scriptures, let him listen to Augustine: "Let no one say to himself," he says, "I do it in secret, I do it before God; God, who forgives me, knows, because I do it in my heart. Was it then said to no purpose: 'Whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven'? Were the keys then given to the Church of God to no purpose? Do we make the Gospel of God void? Do we make the words of Christ void?" That this is confirmed most evidently not only by those plain words of Jesus Christ, by which the power of judging is conferred upon the pastors over delinquents, but also by the practice of John the Baptist and the apostles, the great Basil thought long ago in his *Shorter Rules*: "It is necessary," he says, "that sins be disclosed to those to whom the dispensation of the mysteries of God has been entrusted." Seeing that we discern the ancients also followed this rationale in penance, when it is written in the Gospel that they confessed their sins to John: and in the Acts of the Apostles, to those by whom they were also all baptized. I will add the suffrage of the apostolic man Tertullian: "Confession of offenses," he says, "relieves as much as dissimulation exaggerates it. For confession is the counsel of satisfaction, dissimulation is contumacy." The act of penance, which is more frequently expressed by the Greek term *exhomologesis*, is that by which we confess our fault to the Lord, not indeed as to one who is ignorant, but inasmuch as satisfaction is provided by confession, out of confession penance is born, by penance God is mitigated. Therefore *exhomologesis* is a discipline of prostrating and humbling a man. And a little later: "To nourish prayers with fasts, to groan, to weep, and to wail days and nights before the Lord your God, to prostrate yourselves before the presbyters, and to kneel to the beloved of God, etc." Let the disciple Cyprian follow no less the master:
C But how evilly and miserably the matter falls out for these new apostates who enter into marriages—or rather, incestuous and sacrilegious nuptials—against divine and ecclesiastical laws, I demonstrate from the author of them all, Martin Luther. Relating the miseries and calamities of his own marriage (as it is in his disciple Henry Peter Rebenstock), he used to say: "I have a wife, and six children. In the year 1525, in the sedition of the rustics (when everything resounded elsewhere with wailing and lamentations), on June 12th, I took a wife." Then, expostulating with her: "You persuade me of whatever you wish. You have total dominion. You women are at fault, who by cunning and tricks ensnare men, which I also experience, etc." And afterwards: "I had my wife suspected of pride, as it is, etc. All women have learned this art, because with their tears, lies, and discourse they can capture a man, and change his words, etc." And elsewhere, suffering from jealousy, he says: "I hope, therefore, for no good from my wife, and from Philip Melanchthon, etc." The rest I will gladly omit, through which it appears that it happens with most just retribution that these miserable deserters of continence are received by their harlots in the most miserable ways.
"He spent the whole time in *exhomologesis*." With great consensus the Greek and Latin Fathers called that confession, by which anyone after baptism ingenuously acknowledges himself guilty of many sins, not only before God, or by a general confession made, but also before those who preside over the Church, and which contains an open and distinct enumeration of sins, *exhomologesis*. This, however, by the prescription of Christ, the use of the apostles, and the consensus of all Churches throughout the world, is necessary for the purging of sins; D "God," he says, "sees the hearts and breasts of each one, and is about to judge not only concerning deeds, but also concerning our words and thoughts: he beholds the minds and wills conceived in the very hidden recesses of the heart. Finally, how much greater they are in faith and better in fear, who, although bound by no crime of sacrifice or libellus, since they nevertheless have even thought of this, do this very thing painfully and simply confessing before the priests of God, performing an *exhomologesis* of conscience, exposing the burden of their soul, seeking a salutary remedy for wounds albeit small and moderate, knowing it is written: 'God is not mocked'?" That the Greek Churches also through the Orient taught and kept these rites, it is most evident from St. Clement's first epistle to James, from Dionysius to Demophilus, from Origen on Psalm xxxii, from Eusebius *Ecclesiastical History*, book v, chapter 27, and book vi, chapter 27, whose sentiments I do not bring forward, consulting brevity.
*Circumobversati* (Moving around). This is from the ancient codex: we have deleted, however, *circumobservati*.
Page 64. *Patris, te via duce* (Of the father, with you as leader). It has seemed right to restore this thus, both from the ancient codex and from the Greek text, in place of what was there before, *matris sui a te*.
Page 65. *Homericam inferorum galeam* (The Homeric helmet of the shades). By this proverb he intimates that the dreams of these men are of no greater moment than the fabrications of the poets. It is taken, however, from Homer's *Iliad*, book v, who feigned that Pallas had covered herself with the helmet of Orcus, lest she be seen by Mars. The same is afterwards used by Nazianzen, *First Oration* against Julian, who wished to cover his rabies and fury against the Christians with the guise of a certain outward philosophy of gentleness. "By no reason," says the theologian, "will he ever hide himself, not even if he turns himself every which way, and into all forms of counsel cal
and like the helmet of Orcus, as the saying goes, puts it on, or hides himself by the turning of Gyges’ ring and of Pales." Origen uses the same [comparison] in Book I, *Against Celsus*, declaring it to have been more fitting that Christ, in fleeing into Egypt, should withdraw himself from the madness of Herod, than if, hiding himself with the helmet of Pluto, he had deceived him.
Page 65. *Cauterized.* He alludes to this sentence of Paul A: "In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron" (1 Tim. iv, 1). By this metaphor, drawn from wicked slaves and beasts which are marked with a branding iron so that they may be recognized, he signifies the lies, hypocrisies, and impostures of future heretics, by which, night and day, with their conscience protesting, they impose upon the world; and with such stubbornness, as if by a branded mark, they grow hardened, so that you would sooner break than correct them.
They also make *exomologesis* (confession) in the open. That public penance was customary in the ancient Church is clear even from this passage, the method of which was this: Once the enumeration of sins, both hidden and public, had been made before a legitimate pastor, if there were any, whenever it was expedient for the edification of the Church, they were commanded, by the authority of the priest and the consent of those doing penance, to perform the fines, satisfaction, or, if you prefer, the fruits of penance, openly. The Council of Agde, distinct. 20, cap. *In capite*, describes the rite most extensively. That this was the case is indicated by the example of the emperor Theodosius, and testified to in explicit words by Origen, Hom. 2 on Psalm xxxi, Cyprian, lib. *De Lapsis*, and Tertullian, lib. *De Poenitentia*.
*Reverent* (Reverentes): this is to be read instead of *reverting* (revertentes), as it is read in the Greek, *ai δυσωπούμεναι*, that is, those who were affected by shame and blushing within themselves, because of the levity, defection, and other vices by which they had been depraved by the deceit of the impostors.
Neither inside nor outside. It is a Greek proverb, *μήτε ἔξω, μήτε ἔσω*, elegantly applied to these little women, who, when they openly saw that they had been deceived by the Gnostics and corrupted in mind and body, neither clung to them any longer nor sought to be reconciled to the Church through confession. Similar to this is: "The middle of a razor's edge," which Tertullian uses in relation to those who, tossed about by their own judgment between good and evil, as between a sacred thing and a rock (inter sacrum et saxum), are carried to neither side. I believe that those mediators of our own time, whom we commonly call "politicians," rightly *amphoterizontes*—that is, both-sided—or *amphibioi*, not unlike these little women, could be so named.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ernst Grabe on chapter 9.*
The Greek text of this and the following chapters of Irenaeus has been preserved for us by Epiphanius, *Haeres.* 34, § 3 sqq., having prefaced it thus: "I now, therefore, so that I may not bestow labor twice, have thought it necessary to be content with those things which were treated by the most blessed Irenaeus against him [Marcus] and those who spring from him; which I have endeavored to set forth here word for word, and they are these. For Saint Irenaeus says to them (perhaps *himself*) in revealing the things said by them, speaking thus: 'But I, lest I seem to do a thing twice done, have persuaded myself that it satisfies me if I use those things which are read as having been argued against this Marcus and his followers by the most blessed and saintly Irenaeus: which, indeed, I have decided must be written down here word for word. But they are of such a kind as those he wove together in reviewing their dogmas.'"
Page 60. *Mixed* (Kekramena). Heretics have used wine mixed with water in the Holy Eucharist, just as the Catholics; indeed, our author in Book V, cap. 2, explicitly makes mention of the "mixed chalice."
*To give thanks.* The observation of Billius, who notes that the word B *eucharistein* signifies "to have grace," not "thanksgiving," strikes the old interpreter just as much as it does Gallasius. And indeed, that notion is not a little confirmed by the following words: *mikroterou tou hypo tes gynaikos eucharistemenou*, as Irenaeus says; or rather, Justin Martyr, *Apol.* 2 (or rather 1) page 97, where he makes mention of *eucharisthentos artou, kai oinou, kai hydatos* (the bread and wine and water having been consecrated by thanksgiving), and page 98, where he calls the sacred bread and drink *ten di' euches logou tou par' autou eucharistheisan trophen* (the food consecrated by the prayer of the Word which is from him). Clemens Alexandrinus comes to mind, Book I, *Stromat.*, page 317, writing about heretics who offer only water in the sacred chalice: "For there are those who also consecrate bare water (eucharistousin)." To say nothing of others. Having neglected, however, though not rejected, the censure of Billius, Petavius, having followed the old interpreter of Irenaeus, interpreted *eucharistein* in Epiphanius as "thanksgiving," noting that a distinction must be applied in that sense after *poteria oino kekramena*; so that, indeed, these things are not to be construed with the verb *eucharistein*, but with the following *anaphainesthai*.
"The word of the invocation." That is, of the Holy Spirit. To what end, however, this invocation of the Holy Spirit looks, is clearly evident from the Greek liturgies, in which the Holy Spirit is invoked so that he may turn the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. BILL. In all the liturgies, indeed, of the Oriental Church, which can be read in volumes VI and XII of the Morellian *Bibliotheca Patrum*, the priest prays to God that he may send down the Holy Spirit upon the proposed gifts, by whose power and grace the bread may become the body, and the wine the blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ. Concerning which, the most learned notes of Richard Simon in the *Opuscula* of Gabriel of Philadelphia, pages 146 to 156, may be consulted. As for the rest, that the heretic Marcus strayed far from the apostolic formula of administering the eucharist, and brought forth his own delusions, there is no doubt, and it is handed down to memory by Irenaeus himself in the following passages.
Page 63. *Of the women* (Ton gunaikon). These things, and what Irenaeus relates above concerning the seduction of excellent women, Jerome cited in *Epist.* 29 to Theodora, which is the epitaph of Lucinius Baeticus, writing as follows: "Irenaeus, a man of apostolic times, and a disciple of Papias the auditor of the evangelist John, bishop of the Church of Lyons, relates that a certain Marcus, descending from the stock of the Gnostic Basilides, came first to the Gauls, and stained those regions through which the Rhone and Garonne flow with his doctrine; and especially seduced noble women, promising them certain hidden mysteries, seduced them by this error, procuring love for himself by magical arts and the secret pleasure of bodies; thence, passing through the Pyrenees, he occupied the Spains, and made it his study to seek out the houses of the rich, and in them especially the women, who are led away by various desires, ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth." That he wrote, etc. See the testimonies of the ancients regarding Irenaeus at the beginning of this work.
*Of our own* (Ton hemeteron). From this word you may perhaps conclude that both Irenaeus, as well as he to whom he sent these books against heresies, were Asians.
P. 64. *Redemption* (Apolytrosin). That through the "redemption" which he mentions here and a little later, a certain formula of prayer is to be understood, not only the context of Irenaeus himself, in which follows: "O consort of God," etc., shows, but the rationale of the Jewish rite clearly confirms, which I shall explain, taken from the dissertation of the learned man, Jacob Rhenferd, on the redemption of the Marconians and Heracleonites, § 21. For the Jews have a certain formula of prayer, or rather of confession, which they insert into their daily prayers, by which they celebrate God as their Avenger and Redeemer; whence they call it *Geulah*, that is, liberation or redemption; to which they attribute such power that if anyone uses it correctly, they make for him a sure hope of eternal blessedness. In the codex Bera-
Achoth, fol. 4, col. 2, it is said: "This follows the redemption [connected] to the prayer of the evening." R. Joannes: "Who is the Son of the age to come? Whoever joins redemption to the evening prayers." Where by the word "redemption" or "liberation," nothing other is understood than the formula dealing with that liberation. It is, however, twofold: the one which is added to the morning prayers, the other to the evening. That which is recited at the time of the morning begins from
אמת ויציב
(*emet vejazzibh*), and is called by these initial words. In which, since there is frequent mention of liberation and of God the assertor, and the liberation from Egypt is narrated quite prolixly, it finally ends with this clause, which is strictly called:יהוה צבאות שמו קדוש ישראל ברוך אתה יהוה גואל ישראל
"Our Redeemer, Lord Sabaoth is His name, the Holy One of Israel. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, Redeemer of Israel." To the evening formula, this initiation belongs:אמת ואמונה
(*emeth veemunah*), which finally is closed thus:את יעקב וגאלו מיד חזק ממנו ברוך אתה יהוה גואל ישראל
. And it is said: "For the Lord redeemed Jacob, and delivered him out of the hand of one stronger than he. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, Redeemer of Israel."B
Ὁ πάρεδρε
. These things are not directed to the Judge, as at first glance it might seem, but to a certain fictitious mother, of whom no mention has been made above. BILL. Whence he himself, in the new version, used the feminine gender, rendering: "O you who sit by God." Rightly so; but that he says no mention of the mother, to whom the redemption or prayer is directed, was made earlier, he is mistaken. For it is to be understood that here no other is intended than Sophia, who holds the last place among the thirty Aeons, and was imagined by the Valentinians as the mother of the mother Achamoth, according to chapter 1 of this book; this is clearly obvious from the end of chapter 18 (21), where it treats of the various redemptions of the Marcosians, and among other prayers of humans at the point of death, by which "they become incomprehensible and invisible to the princes and powers," this prayer of the soul departing from the body to those who are around the Demiurge is referred: "I am a vessel more precious than the woman who made you [i.e., the mother Achamoth]. If your mother is ignorant of her own root, I know myself, and I know whence I am, and I invoke the incorruptible Sophia,καὶ ἐπικαλοῦμαι τὴν ἄφθαρτον Σοφίαν
, who is in the Father, and is the mother of your mother, namely Achamoth." Of whom the description follows there; and soon at the end of that prayer it is said again: "But I invoke her mother,ἐγὼ δὲ ἐπικαλοῦμαι αὐτῆς τὴν μητέρα
." Whence finally Irenaeus adds: "And concerning their redemption, these are the sorts of things that have come down to us."C
Πρὸ αἰῶνος
. The ancient interpreter readsαἰώνων
in the plural. Billius himself followed his authority, as also Cornarius, the interpreter of Epiphanius, who rendered: "mystic [things] before the ages of silence." But it matters little how it is read. It should be observed rather thatνῦν αἰών
in this place seems to signify "a long age," not the figment of the Valentinians, which they called an Aeon. For before all ages Sigen, whom they claimed to have existed with Bythos, as is evident from the beginning of chapter 1 of this book, where note by these words,ἐν ἀπείροις αἰῶσι
, time is meant.Τὰ μεγέθη διαπαντὸς βλέποντα τὸ πρόσωπον τοῦ πατρός
. That by "magnitudes" the angels are to be understood, is gathered from this epithet, because it is read as expressly ascribed to the angels by Marcus in the following page 46, line 25, from Matt. XVIII, v. 10.Ἀνασπάσαι ἄνω τὰς αὐτῶν μορφάς
, etc. that they are those forms of angels, it is rightly asked. Petavius incorrectly understood the faces of these angels themselves, and thence in his version of Epiphanius put: "They withdraw their faces into heaven." But they signify in this place the "forms" of the angels, representations of their form, just as the author of this Marcosian prayer soon expressly callsεἰκόνας
, designating the "spiritual" (as they were called) men, whom the heretics taught that the mother Achamoth conceived from the contemplation of the angels of the Savior, and gave birth to such as they were, supra chap. 1 of this book, § 8 at the end (cap. 4, n. 5). And from thence you may also easily understand the following words:ὡς ἡ μεγαλότολμος
, up toἔχουσα
. "Attraction to things above" is explained a little later, where it is said of this mother Sophia:ἀνασπάσασα αὐτοὺς, εἰς τὸν νυμφῶνα εἰσήγαγε
, etc., which if you compare with the ultimate words of § 12 of chapter 1 (cap. 7, n. 1), you will fully perceive the sense of this oration. DἈμφοτέρων ἡμῶν
. It is somewhat difficult to say what those two things are, for which he seeks a common defense before the judge. I scarcely doubt, however, that the mother Achamoth, whom he had previously calledμεγαλότολμον
, and the spiritual men are to be understood; for they taught that both were to be admitted into the bridal chamber of the Pleroma, where all things will have been consummated, supra cap. 1, § 12 at the end (cap. 7, n. 1).Pag. 65.
Ἐν τοῖς καθ' ἡμᾶς κλίμασι τῆς Ῥοδανούσιας
. He understands the tract along the Rhone, or the Rhone region: not, as Gallasius translates, "in the regions of Rhodanusia," which he might have found translated thus by Cornarius in Epiphanius. Perhaps the region was called "Rhodanusia," as also "Lugdunensia," "Lugdunensian Gaul." But Jerome, in chapter LXIV of Isaiah, says that the Gnostics, through Marcus the Egyptian, first around the Rhone, then in the Spains, deceived noble women, "mingling pleasure with fables, and selling their ignorance under the name of science." FRONTO DUC. You have the integral words of Jerome among the testimonies of the ancients at the beginning of this work. And in- sofar as he follows our Irenaeus, asserting of Marcus that he infected the Rhodanensian tract with his heresy, he does not err: but he hallucinated when he added "noble women of the Spains," of whom Irenaeus says nothing. For there was indeed some Marcus, a disseminator of Gnostic errors in Spain, of whom Sulpitius Severus, lib. II Hist. sacrae, cap. 60, writes: "Marcus first brought it [the Gnostic heresy] into the Spains, having set out from Egypt, born in Memphis. His auditors were a certain Agape, a not ignoble woman, and the rhetorian Helpidius." But that he was at least two centuries more recent than the magician Marcus, is evident from that very passage of Sulpitius. For with no word interposed, he adds, having cited them: "By these Priscillian was instituted"; who, as it is clear from the progress of history in Sulpitius, lived under the emperor Gratian and Pope Damasus, and is too well-known to need proof. Sulpitius also reports, cap. 61, that the mentioned Helpidius and Priscillian, both laymen, were condemned in the council of Caesaraugusta, which it is certain was celebrated around the year 380 from the tomes of the Councils.Εἰς φανερὸν ἐξομολογοῦνται
. Feuardentius gathers public penance and satisfaction in the sight of the Church from this place; I, however, think that public confession, when it was made, is demonstrated thereby. Whose use Origenes also teaches quite clearly in homil. 2 on Psalm XXXVII (not XXXI, as Feuard. cited), where these words are held: "If, therefore, such a man, mindful of his offense, confesses what he has committed, and thinks little of human confusion—those who reproach him as he confesses and note or mock him, etc. If, therefore, there be anyone so faithful that, if he is conscious of anything, he should proceed into the midst and himself be his own accuser, etc. Item: If he understands—"VARIOUS NOTES
and that the priest has foreseen that such is your languor, which ought to be exposed and cured in the assembly of the whole Church, etc. AScholia of Billius on chapter 10. Page 65. *This Marcus.* I read *Oὗτος* with the ancient [text]. *If he brings.* In this place, in the Greek, instead of *εἰσηγήσατο αὐτόν*, I read with the ancient, *σῖγῆς ἑαυτόν*, the sense also demanding this. *Deficiency of seed.* Here, from the ancient interpreter, I add in the Greek *σπέρμα*. Page 66. *From these places.* For *τούτων*, I restore *τόπων* from the ancient and the version. For *γυναικείου*, I read *γυναικεῖα*. *And what it might be.* I read *ἑαυτήν* with the ancient. *Who is without the Father.* I add *ἀπάτωρ* from the ancient, and I delete the word *ὠδινεν*. *To be born.* *Τὸ ἄρρητον γεννηθῆναι.* The ancient seems to have read *τὸ ἄῤῥητον ῥητὸν γενηθῆναι*. But I prefer to follow the Greek in this place, because *ῥηθῆναι* fits better with *μορφωθῆναι* which follows. *And its syllable.* *Συλλαβή.* I had at first translated it as "complexion," because a syllable, as it is used by grammarians, would not consist of four letters here. But upon giving it more careful attention, it has appeared otherwise to me afterwards. For the insane Marcus invents everything here according to his own fancy. Page 67. *Of which it is an element.* The ancient interpreter seems to have read *οὐδὲ αὐτὸς ὑπέρ*, but wrongly. *May he know the utterance.* I read *γινώσκει* with the ancient, not *πολιορκεῖ*: although this reading also should not be entirely rejected. *Of the extreme element.* For *ἑκάστου* read *ἐσχάτου* from the ancient. There, for *μονογλωσσήσαντος καταστῆναι*, I read *μονογλωσσήσαντα καταθῆναι*, with the ancient. Page 68. *Of which elements.* In the Greek, for *ὡς στοιχείου τὸ ὕστερον*, read with the ancient *ὧν στοιχείων τὸ τοῦ ἐσχάτου ὕστατον*. A little later for *καὶ τῶν* read *καὶ τά*. *Whose sound.* The Greek in this place is to be amended thus: *οὗ τὸ ἦχος ἦν συνεπακολουθοῦν τῷ ἤχει κάτω ὑπό*, etc. In the following verse, for *λέγειν*, I substitute *λέγει*. *Thirty letters.* Delete *ὁ* in the Greek from the ancient. In the following line, for *ἐξ οὗ*, read *ἐξ ὧν*. Page 69. *The Quaternity.* The Quaternity is introduced here, explaining those things which were spoken more obscurely by Sige. *It pleases.* In the Greek, for *θέαν* one must read *θέλω* with the ancient. *Back.* The ancient interpreter has "belly" here for back, and afterwards for belly, "private parts": but an error has crept into the letters. *The begetter of himself.* In the Greek *ἑαυτοῦ γεννήτορα*, or as a single word *αὐτογεννήτορα*, I read with the ancient, just as in the same verse, *πατροδότορα, οἷον στόματος*. *Immediately to have been silent.* In the Greek, for *παρ’ αὐτῇ καὶ σιωπήν*, one must read *παραυτίκα σιωπᾷν*, or *σιωπῆσαι*. In the following line it must again be read *στόματος*, not *στομάτων*. *You think to hold.* After *δοκεῖς*, I add *ἔχειν* from the ancient. *Consisting of six letters.* For *ἐξ ὧν* read *ἐξ ἔχων*. Page 70. *Who himself by kinship.* I add *αὐτοῦ* or *αὐτῷ* from the ancient, and in the following line, for *αὐτῶν* I restore *αὐτῷ*. *By the pride of those below.* One must read in the Greek *τὸ αὐτά*, or something similar; he opposes *ἀναφορὰν* to *ἀποφορά*. *They have, therefore.* I add *οὖν* from the ancient. *Since however not sufficient.* *Ἐπειδὴ τοῦ ὑστερήσαντος λόγου.* I prefer, however, *ἐκ ὧν* with the ancient. Nor does *ἐπειδὴ* fit with those things that precede. The meaning of these words, however, is this: Since the Father and Truth contained nine letters, but Man and the Church only seven, the Word and Life eight, because of the inequality of these numbers to be corrected it happened that the one letter by which the Father abounded descended to Man and the Church: and thus to each of these conjunctions its own octad of letters was constituted. *Three places.* I add *τρεῖς* from the ancient.
*He says she was bound.* For *ἀφίησι*, I read *αὔφησι* with the ancient. Page 71. *By the force of analogy.* One must read in the Greek *δυνάμει κατὰ ἀναλογίαν*, from the ancient interpreter; and in the following line, *ἀπεφανέναι*, not *πεφυκέναι*. *Who descended.* One must read in the Greek *τὸν καταβάντα καὶ κρατηθέντα*. *Whom with.* I add *ὃν* in the Greek from the ancient interpreter. *According to the administration.* In this place, for *καί*, I read *κατά*, because of the word *ἀπεφηνέναι*, which I do not remember to have read in an active sense in any author, but only in the middle. P. 72. *Into this number.* In the Greek for the last *δι’ αὐτοῦ*. For it is had twice. I read *ἀριθμόν* with the ancient. *Significant number.* *Ἐπίσημον*, that is, the senary. Note that the sign of the senary among the Greeks is ϛ. Therefore, since there are three double letters, it is equivalent to the senary. *By the magnitude of the numbers.* *Ἀριθμῶν μεγέθει.* *Who from the significant.* I read *ἀπό* with the ancient. *Other, however.* I add *ἀλλά* from the ancient. *Of inimitable things.* *Ἀμιμήτων.* The ancient translation has "imitable," but wrongly, as I think. *And the fourth from the middle.* I read *μέσον* with the ancient, not *μέρους*.
*Note from the Adversaria of Fronto Ducaeus on chapter 10.* Page 66. *And its syllable.* The Greek sounds, "and its syllable of four letters." Page 67. *Unigenite Aeon.* In the Greek we have restored *ἀγέννητον*, which Gallasius had changed into *ἀγένητον*. Page 68. *The letter itself.* In the Greek delete *αὐτοῦ ἦχος ἦν*, and read, as we wrote in the margin, *τὸ μέν τοι γράμμα, οὗ τὸ ἦχος ἦν συνεπακολουθοῦν*. Page 69. *Belly X, T.* To the Greek exemplar write: *Cinctum* E and Y, *dorsum* Z and T, *ventrem* H and Σ, *femora* P. A little later in the Greek, for *τὸν αὐτὸν γεννήτορα καὶ πατροδότορα*, perhaps it should be read, *τὸν αὐτογεννήτορα καὶ πατροδώτορα*; as afterwards *αὐτοβουλήτου*, "thought by itself," is translated. Page 70. *But from the lesser.* *Λόγος* here can be translated as computation or ratio, but not as "discourse," which Gallasius had written. A little later: "who is of the number seven," understand, "who is of the number of the septenary, he received the virtue of the eight themselves, or of the octonary; for so the interpreter is accustomed to translate the Greek articles *τῶν ὀκτώ*, 'of those who are eight'." *Of which elements.* I read in the Greek *εἰκόνας εἰκόνων*, and in the Latin interpretation I translate, "double letters; which when you have added to the twenty-four letters, by virtue, which is according to analogy; or, which when added make the number." P. 71. *Which is in the pure supper.* Greek, *ἥτις ἐστὶ παρασκευή*. Here the place of the ancient interpreter confirms the observation of Joseph Scaliger on Festus, at the word *Penem*: "Coena pura is that which they used when they were in a chaste state." Glossary: "Coena pura *προσάββατον*." He calls it the preparation of the Jews in imitation of the Gentiles. Furthermore, in the Greeks, whoever thinks nothing is to be changed here will contend that the active meaning is given to the middle verb: for *φαίνειν* in the active is often taken for "to bring to light," or "to exhibit," or "to bring forth," as in Philo, *τὴν εὐσέβειαν ἀπέφηνε*. But if it pleases to read *κατ’ οἰκονομίαν δέ*, here you will translate, "according to the dispensation, however." Page 72. *Use is being made of the deacon.* Among the Greeks the sign of the senary is ϛ, which itself is also equivalent to two letters: they call it *ἐπίσημον*; others *ἐπίσημον*, but less correctly, in the way that it was also read in Jerome in Psalm LXXVII, in that place cited by Sixtus Senensis lib. vi Biblioth., annot. 131: "It is written in Matthew that our Lord was crucified at the sixth hour. Again, it is written in Mark that he was crucified at the third hour. It was an error of the scribes, and in Mark it was the sixth hour: but many thought the Greek episemon ϛ was a στ. For so the more correct edition of Victorius has it."
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 1.* Page 65. *This Marcus, therefore.* The most filthy rascal was lying that he was the Unigenite of God, and the Quaternity
A of some woman descending from the heavens in female form, who had revealed to him many secrets, which were shadowed forth by Greek syllables and letters. Furthermore, in the text we have restored the words “defect,” and “thus:” but we have expunged “light,” as much by the authority of the Greek reading as by the admonition of Father Fronto.
*Colarbasus of Silence.* Tertullian mentions this Colarbasus, joining him to Marcus in such a way as to suggest that he held the same view as he did, namely, that there is another God besides the Creator; that Christ did not exist in the substance of flesh; that there would be no resurrection of bodies; and that he had so affixed all truth to the letters of the Greek alphabet that to recount their every vanity he considers inept, vain, idle, and even dangerous. But Augustine, Theodoret, and Damascenus attribute a sect to him separately. Epiphanius, as if untying a knot, affirms that he first followed the opinion of Marcus, and that their sect was then like a two-headed serpent: but that later, as if he knew something greater than his associates, he also had those called by his own name. Nicetas in his *Orthodoxia* writes that Colobarsus (or Colabarsus) reshaped certain sentiments of Ptolemy, Marcus, and Valentinus, and carried their quaternity B to the number of eight, building ladders of perdition both for himself and for the followers of his faction: and he refutes these errors in the same place.
Page 66. *Insubstantial.* In Greek *anousios*, that is, void of substance. If they thought that substance, insofar as it is subordinate to accidents or can be constrained by limits, does not in any way befit God, they are so far from having erred that they even have many Fathers supporting them. Augustine says it is manifest that God is abusively called a substance. Dionysius frequently calls the Deity a substance, but an ineffable, supersubstantial one, supereminent over all substances. Damascenus, book 1, cap. 8, *tais holais ousiaïs epibateuousan, kai pasēs ousias exērēmenēn*, that is, “supereminent over all substances, beyond all things, and excepted from every substance.”
Page 67. *Whose element it is.* The Greek context and Father Fronto taught that this should be read thus: but we have expunged “not it itself, above.” Item, a little later, for “extra,” we have substituted “a,” by the authority of the ancient codex.
*Then also the reintegration of all things.* They do not seem to depart far from that great Platonic year, which Tertullian rightly laments became the condiment for all heretics. But the fact that they thought their inventions were confirmed by the ecclesiastical exclamation, Amen, is of the same impudence as the fact that they wanted the labyrinths of their Eons to be proven by this closing, *Through all ages of ages.* Moreover, after the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ had been offered to the Father of all through the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, Justin Martyr wrote before Irenæus that the whole assembly of Christians sang *Amen*, which in the Hebrew language signifies *Fiat* (So be it). Indeed, Augustine thinks that it is among those names which, on account of their holier authority, were not translated into another language. And he affirms that its sacrosanct use is like that of *Alleluia*, epist. 178.
*All things coming down.* We have added these five words from an old codex, with the consent of the Greek reading, *hotan ta panta katelthonta eis to hen gramma.*
*To be. Sounds.* So the Greek codices teach it must be read, to which the old codex is conformable.
Page 68. *Proper.* We have deleted “progeny,” by the authority of the old codex and the Greek reading.
*And each one of these thirty letters in himself to have*, etc. Thus we have corrected this place by the counsel of Father Fronto. The printed codices had “and each one of these thirty letters in himself to have,” etc. D *That.* We have deleted “that”: and shortly after for “to have said,” we have restored “to have said,” by the authority of the old codex and the Greek reading.
Page 69. *Figure.* We have expunged “make.”
Page 71. *To have.* Erasmus, “he has:” and shortly after we have added seven words, by the authority of the old codex and the Greek reading.
*Which is the pure supper.* Thus also book v, cap. 23, he calls the sixth day, on which the Lord was nailed to the cross, the *pure supper*: of which name Tertullian also makes mention in lib. v *adv. Mar.*, cap. 4. Augustine in tractate 120 *in Joan.*, and Bede in cap. xix *Joan.* Thus they call that day, because according to the prescription of the Law it behooved those who were about to celebrate the sacred Passover to be pure in garments, foods, bodies, and souls. Whence also the princes of the Jews did not enter the praetorium of Pilate, that they might not be defiled, says the evangelist, but, pure, namely, they might eat the Passover.
Page 72. *Virtue.* Thus the old codex; in Greek it is also read *dynamin*; previously it was “of virtues.”
*Hence also.* Previously it was read: “Here also.”
*Is used.* The printed codices: “is seen.”
*Says.* We have expunged “as.”
*Imitation.* We have deleted “mication.”
*Done, but the rest.* Thus the old codex and the Greek letter; we have deleted “from this stench any.”
*Exclaims.* We have expunged “exdant,” by the authority of the old codex and the Greek reading.
*From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on chapter 10.*
P. 66. *Anousios.* That is, “void of substance.” If they thought that substance, insofar as it is subordinate to accidents or can be constrained by limits, does not in any way befit God, they are so far from having erred that they even have many Fathers supporting them. Augustine, lib. v *De Trinit.*, cap. 4 et 5, says it is manifest that God is abusively called a substance. Dionysius, lib. *De cœlest. hier.*, cap. 4, et lib. 1 *De divinis nominibus*, cap. 1 et 5, frequently calls the Deity a substance, but an ineffable, supersubstantial one, supereminent over all substances. Damascenus, lib. 1, cap. 8, *Tais holais ousiaïs epibateuousan kai pasēs ousias exērēmenēn*, that is, “supereminent over all substances, and excepted from every substance.” FEUARD. I add that Origen, lib. vi *contra Celsum*, moving that question, whether God has *ousian*, writes: *“All' oude ousias metechei ho Theos; metechetai gar mallon ē metechei.”* “But God does not partake of substance: for He is partaken of rather than partaking.” A little after, he adds that it is to be asked whether God should rather be named *ousia ousiōn, idea ideōn*, “substance of substances, and idea of ideas.” Similarly, the statement of the Arians was: “God effects that there be substance, yet He is not Himself reckoned in substance.” For since every substance receives contraries, God, who can admit nothing diverse, ought not to be called a substance, as Gregory Nazianzen reports in *orat. 49 de Fide*, and adds: “I would forgive you if you said this simply; if you wished to know the reason, if you approached this question as a novice, if you were not the one who always asserts the Son of God from another substance, or from no existing things,” etc. Whence in what follows he accurately disputes and proves that God is rightly called substance, although not such as is given in sublunar things. Read him yourself, and compare Casaubon’s *Exercit. I ad Apparatum Annalium Baronii* num. 10, after the middle.
*Mēte arren, mēte thēly.* Thus also above at the end of chapter 5. Moreover Casaubon, in the cited place, having alleged these words of Irenæus, adds his own: “To this...
A pertains that which some of the ancients observe, because there is no sex in God, for which reason the Holy Spirit, who is the third person of the Holy Trinity, is said to be of feminine gender in Hebrew, masculine in Latin, and neuter in Greek: of which observation mention is made also by the pseudo-Hieronymus in *De Assumptione Mariæ*.”
*To arrhēton gennēthēnai*. It seems the ancient read *arrhēton rhēton gennēthēnai*. But I prefer to follow the Greek in this place, because *gennēthēnai* squares more aptly with *prophōnēthēnas*, which follows. BILL. Yet even if *gennēthēnai* is retained, *rhēton* still seems altogether to be rejected, as something which I do not doubt fell out through the carelessness of a scribe on account of the same two final syllables of the preceding word.
*Hē syllabē autou stoicheiōn tessarōn*. By this is signified the first tetrad B of the Æons, of which in chapter 1, § 1.
*Tēn deuteran*. Subentangle *syllabēn*, that is, the complex.
*Kai autē stoicheiōn tessarōn*. By these the second tetrad is indicated, of which in the same place.
*Deka*. Understand the ten Æons begotten from Logos and Zoe, which are enumerated in the cited place.
*Tēn meta tauta*. That is, the fourth utterance.
*Dekaduo*. Take the twelve Æons sprung from Anthropos and Ecclesia.
*Tou holou onomatos*. By *onoma* understand the Pleroma of the Æons.
*Triakonta*. According to the number of the thirty Æons.
*Tessarōn*. According to the quadripartite division into the first and second quaternation, as the interpreter is accustomed to call the *decade* and *duodecade*. But above in chapter 1, § 1, with both tetrads joined, the Pleroma of the thirty Æons was said to be divided tripartitely.
Page 67. *Poliorkei*. Read *ginōskei* with the ancient, not *poliorkei*, although this reading is also not entirely to be condemned. BILL. Petavius in the margin of Epiphanius, page 237, placed *epistatai*. But that the infinitive *ginōskein*, or rather *epistasthai*, ought to be read is evident from the entire context.
*Monoglōssēsantos katastēsai*. I read *monoglōssēsanta katastēnai* with the ancient, BILL. But *katathēsai* is absolutely to be rejected, and if anything must be changed, it should be read *katastēnai*.
*Tote de kai tēn apokatastasin*. It was the opinion of Marcus that then at last the perfect restoration would be, when all things, as one, shall have been made subject to the one supreme God, according to 1 Cor. xv, 28.
Page 68. *Hōs stoicheiou to hysteron gramma*. Read with the ancient *tōn stoicheiōn to tou eschatou gramma*. BILL. To me it seems that nothing else is to be changed than *hōs* into *ou*.
*Hou ōchos*. It designates the Enthymesis of Sophia, of which see chapter 4, § 7 (chapter 2, n. 2, 3).
*Kai tōn*. Read *kai ta*. BILL. But the things before these are the Demiurge, the seven heavens, and other celestial creatures.
*To men toi gramma*, etc. Understand this and the following things of Sophia, the thirtieth Æon, and that you may understand correctly, read above chapter 1, § 2 and 3 (chapter 2).
*To ēchos tō ēchei*. These four words enclosed in parentheses, which the ancient interpreter justly did not recognize, seem to have crept into the text from the margin, in which someone, intending to correct Irenæus beyond necessity, noted that for *ho ēchos* one should read *to ēchos*, just as the text follows hereafter. And indeed I marvel that a triad of learned men—Billius, I mean, Fronto-Ducæus, and likewise Petavius—should have wished such, and thence *synepakolouthoun* instead of *synepakolouthōn* should be read, when nevertheless *ēchos* is of the masculine gender, and is so frequently used by Irenæus in this very chapter, and expects a dative, as if formed from *tō ēchō*...
*Tō ēchei kai to*. That for *kai to* one ought to read *katō*, the ancient interpretation shows, with the comma following the subsequent words: *memenēkenai de eis katō ton ēchon*. D
Page 69. *Kephalēn anō, to alpha*. The interpreter seems to have read *Kephalēn autou anō, prōton alpha*. For Alpha is the first letter.
Page 70. *Tōn tēs klēseōs*. Thus the heretics used to call the catholics, calling themselves *spermata eklogēs*, seeds of election. Confer *Spicil. Patrum et hæreticorum sæculi II*, tom. 1, page 91, where you have the words of Heracleon on this matter.
Page 71. *Ha estin hex*. Three *stoicheia*, or three Æons, Pater, Anthropos, and Logos, are called six, on account of the three consorts, Alethia, Ecclesia, and Zoe, intimately united to them.
*Ton auton autois arithmon*. Understand the number twenty-four.
*Dipla grammata*. Double letters signified to Marcus two Æons joined in conjunction.
*Ekeinon ton meta tas hex hēmeras*. He refers to the history of the transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Thabor, into which it is narrated in Matt. xvii, 1, and Mark ix, 2, that he ascended with three apostles, Peter, James, and John, after six days, the number of them being soon increased when Moses and Elias appeared in the same place, so that then they were six in number.
*Ton kratēthenta kai katabanta*. Billius wants *tēn katabanta kai kratēthenta* to be read in inverted order, led by the authority of the ancient interpreter. But the reading of Epiphanius seems better to me; for he stayed somewhat on the mountain before he descended, partly by the conversation with Moses and Elias, and partly by Peter saying in verse 4: “Lord, it is good for us to be here,” etc. Indeed, that he spent the whole night there, I shall soon prove.
*En tē hebdomadi*. That he alludes to the seventh day on which Christ lay in the sepulchre, and remained among the dead, Petavius noted in his *ad Epiphan.*, page 72. And the seventh day is indeed to be understood by *hebdomada*. For just as the Sabbath of the Jews was called *hebdomas* by the Greeks, as Theophilus of Antioch testifies in lib. II *ad Autol.*, page 94, so nothing prohibits calling any seventh day an *hebdomada*. Yet I do not accept the seventh day here on which the Savior lay in the sepulchre, because it is a question of the transfiguration of the Lord, while there is absolute silence regarding the passion or the burial; but that day on which he descended from Mount Thabor after the transfiguration. You will say: Whence is it certain that Christ descended only on the seventh day, and not the sixth itself, on which he ascended? That fact is evident from the Gospel of St. Luke, who, narrating the history of the transfiguration of the Lord, writes in cap. ix, 28: “He ascended into the mount to pray.” And as the same evangelist reports in cap. xxi, 37: “He was teaching in the temple by day, but going out at night he prayed in the mount, which was called Oliveti.” Confer cap. vi, 12. And to these prayers on Mount Thabor he approached no doubt in the nighttime, as the sleep of the disciples further proves, about which Luke says again in v. 32: “But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep, and awaking they saw his majesty,” etc. Therefore, awaking at length, they saw the glory of Christ, and after they had spoken some words with him, a cloud overshadowing them, they heard a voice speaking from heaven, etc. Which things and others openly teach that Christ did not descend from the mountain before the morning of the seventh day. It seems, however, that Mark mystically explained this seventh day, either concerning the Demiurge, who was called *Hebdomad*, as is evident from page 25, line 19 (p. 24, l. 41); or concerning the “seven heavens,” beneath which Jesus descended, when nevertheless he himself was an *ogdoas*.
*Episēmon ogdoada hyparchonta*, etc. Jesus “the notable Ogdoas,” that is, the first and principal, than whom the mother Achamoth is far inferior—the “second Ogdoas,” as is termed on page 25, line 20 (page 24, l. 43)—was said by Marcus [to be such], because he was thought to contain in himself the whole virtue of the first eight Æons, indeed not only of these, but of all the thirty Æons, or of the entire Pleroma, as chapter 1, § 4.
A page 14, lines 15 et seqq. (chap. 2, n. 6), the heretics taught. Whence also in this place it follows: *And having in himself the whole number of the elements.* Where it is evident from what precedes that the Æons are designated by "elements."
□ *And having.* What is read in the Apocalypse, chapter 1, 18, concerning the true Saviour Jesus, they attributed to their own fictitious Saviour, whom they said had descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove.
*And the economy... to have appeared.* Billius liked to read *according to the economy*, because of the word *to have appeared* (*pephenenai*), which he remembered never to have read in any author in an active signification. But Fronto-Ducæus proves that *phainein* is taken actively for "to bring to light" or "to set forth," by the authority of Philo Judæus, in whom is read *he set forth piety*. But the Lexicons also teach this. Moreover, the economy provided the Saviour with *a body*, of which above on page 29, line 46 (page 28, line 1 of the notes), *but from the economy it was clothed with a body, having an animal substance*, that is, a body surrounded by a disposition, possessing an animal substance.
*Double letters, the distinguished number,* etc. What are those three double letters? If I am not mistaken, they are the three *episēma*: *bau*, *sampi*, and *koppa*, concerning which see Scaliger's *Animadversiones* on Eusebius, pages 112, 115, and 116.
*He uses as a deacon for the number of the seven.* For the ministry of the seven principal angels, it was said, the heretics claimed Jesus was used, just as the seven Spirits are assigned as ministers to the true Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, Apocal. 5, 6.
58 *Of seven powers, and in imitation of the power of the hebdomad.* In place of *and* I substitute *according to* by the authority of the ancient interpreter; and by *seven virtues* I understand the seven heavens (concerning which see page 25, line 22 [page 24, line 29] and the notes to tome 1 of *Spicilegium Patrum* of the 11th century, page 224), as what follows immediately declares, and as is held at the beginning of chapter 14 (17). By the *hebdomad of virtues* strictly I suspect the seven principal angels are designated. Moreover, concerning the word *powers* denoting both heavens and angels, let the *Eclogae from the Prophetical writings* § 1 of Clement of Alexandria be read, which exist in Greek after his other works, and truly with a Latin version in tome I of the *Newest Library of the Fathers* edited by Combefis. Confer § 52, where by the name *heavens* it is taught that not only the higher orbs are signified, but also the operations of the angels; and § 58, where *powers* are said to be *first-created angels*, or "angels of the first condition."
*Scholia of Billius on chapter 11.* Page 73. *The heavens declare.* In the Greek, *of the heavens* ought to be deleted. *For the sake of being recreated.* *Into a percolation* [the] Old [version] *for revelation*: *percolation* properly signifies "straining." *It consists of members.* After *twelve-membered*, add *being* from the old [version], and after *letters*, *of each*. *It spoke.* Thus I read in the Greek with the old [version]: *if it converse, not having conversed*. *In revelation.* *Of the revelation*, I read with the old [version].
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 11.* Page 73. *The showing, however.* With what blindness and stupidity the impostors labored is evident even from the fact that they sought the proofs of their dogmas from the wailing and crying of newly born infants, and hunted for a little glory for themselves. But Tertullian warns that those tears portend something quite different: "For they salute life with wailing, and because of the prospect of a tearful life, some interpret that cry as an augury of troubles," while perhaps indicating Plato, if it is Plato's, in the *Axiochus*, or Lucretius, or perhaps Pliny. For he considers Nature under the title of a cruel stepmother rather than a kinder parent, because she casts out man, just born, naked onto the naked ground, immediately to wailing and weeping, so that he may begin life from tortures. Another reason for the wailing of children, and one which can be brought forward here, which I will gladly subjoin from the words of Martialis Campanus, a physician of Bordeaux, divinely liberated from the chains and slaughter of robbers: "The wailing of children," he says, "may conveniently be attributed to the nature of those coming forth into the light from the womb of their mothers, with the great effort and impetus of the expulsive faculty: because, having been enclosed therein for a long time, they are at last forced to make a new and sudden change of place. Excluded and expelled out of doors, then, whatever the temperament of the air may be, always differently affected by the condition of the rest, they immediately receive it and at the same time put it on. Whence it happens, according to the bodies and the temperature of the surrounding air, that wailings are either uttered frequently, or not at all, or rarely. In short, they arise on account of the lukewarm and usually temperate exit, and on account of the surrounding air, which by its intemperance pricks the skin of the children from time to time, and sharply bites it, and thus insinuates a force quite alien into the native heat. The nature of the already born children, terrified by the novelty of the thing, complains of the injury, however much it may also suffer it with difficulty of itself; and it immediately expresses itself now with groans, now with tears, now with both; but on the contrary, when it experiences nothing evil, then it is quiet, and does not wail, happy in its lot."
*From the annotations of John Ern. Grabe on chapter 11.* Page 73. *Into a percolation.* In all editions these two words are joined to the following word *it appeared*, and *percolation*, properly signifying "straining," is accepted metaphorically by the ancients and all recent interpreters for "revelation" or "recreation" of the mind after afflictions. But since these seem to be constructed with what precedes, so that the soul vexed by troubles is said to be *into a percolation*, that it might be, as it were, purged by straining, that is, that it might be freed from vices, which according to the heretics' tenets arise from matter and adhere to the soul, through afflictions. *The higher soul.* That is, the supernal idea of the soul, such as Marcus seems to have posited with Plato.
*From the annotations of Nicolaus Gallasius on chapter 12.* Page 78. *Yesterday and before.* *Heri et nudiustertius*, that is, yesterday and the day before yesterday. Concerning the meaning and use of this proverb, see the *Chiliads* of Erasmus. But from this place we see that it was customary for the Greeks, when they were speaking of things recently done and very new. But Irenæus understands "recently" as things whose authors and inventors can be pointed out. Although, therefore, the invention of letters is very ancient, as far as concerns men, yet it is most recent if we look at eternity and divine things. It is therefore most foolish and absurd to bring forward testimony from things found among men, whose time and author can be noted, even though the gifts may have proceeded from God, as if they were eternal.
*Scholia of Billius on chapter 12.* Page 74. *Unity to exist at the same time.* *Unity* is to be read. *Silence five.* And yet this word consists of only four letters. But the mad Marcus, as in the other remaining things, thus also in calculating numbers, cares little for the truth. *Father the same.* I add *five* in the Greek, from the old. *The name that falls into speech.* In this place in the Greek for *eighteen* [one] must read *Jesus* with the old; for *the*, *the*. In the same way *Christ*. Here also in the Greek for *Son Christ of twelve letters*, I read with the old *and Christ of seven letters*. Page 75. *This bird.* Not even here do I see in what way the word *peristera* (which signifies a dove) corresponds by number to these letters, *pi* and *omega*.
But it is very easy to demonstrate this: *pi* is worth 80, *epsilon* 5, *rho* 100, *iota* 10, *sigma* 200, *tau* 300, *epsilon* 5, *rho* 100, *alpha* 1, all of which together make one thousand and eighty-one; and the signs of the Greeks signify this number by *alpha* and *omega*, for *alpha* signifies one, and *omega* eight hundred. Tertullian, *De Præscriptione*, ch. 50, and our author here in ch. 10: "Him whom He manifested when He had come to baptism, the descent of the dove which is Ω and Α. For His number is one thousand and eighty-one."
And DCCC, which is Jesus. I do not agree with Billius in deleting *kai* [and] *alpha*, but rather with Feuardentius in restoring it from the manuscript, and DCCC; for the fact that the ratio of the number did not seem to consist for that very learned man was due to the authority of the ancient translator, or because he did not wish to examine the signs of the Greeks too minutely: for thus the era of the sum can be explained: *iota* makes 10, *eta* 8, *sigma* 200, *omicron* 70, *upsilon* 400, *sigma* 200; therefore these gathered signs *iota, eta, sigma, omicron, upsilon, sigma* yield 888, and this is what he says later: "For the name Jesus according to the calculation of Greek letters gives the sum of 888." You have it clearly: for thus it must be restored from the Greek: *tò gàr Ἰησοῦ ònoma katà tòn én tois grámmasin arithmón oí estín ogdoēkonta oktō*. The Sibylla Cumana, book 1, may be cited as a witness:
Eight monads, as many decades in addition to these, And eight hecatontads, to unbelieving men The name will declare.
Wherefore also *alpha beta* of the Greeks. Greek: *tòn* or *tón...* "Wherefore also the alphabet of the Greeks possesses eight monads, and eight decades, eight hecatontads, showing the number 888," or "showing." But he indicates these single numbers thus: from *alpha* to *theta* there are eight monads, for the sign of the hexad is adopted: from *iota* to *pi* there are eight decades, for no other sign expresses nine: and from *rho* to *omega* are eight hecatontads, this last-mentioned refers to the ninth sign, but the millennium to *alpha* with a subscript comma.
For *alpha* and *beta* and *gamma*. Greek: "for one and two and three." For *alpha* and *beta* and *gamma* and *delta* composed in themselves make ten, or with the numerical signs removed, for one, and two, and three, and four in themselves, or composed into one.
Which with *iota* applied. Billius thinks that in the Greek it is corruptly *tòn Ἰησοῦn apekýēse* [birthed the Jesus], but in the ancient translation, "it generated the number 888." Furthermore, he thinks there is an error there, because from the octonary and denary multiplied between themselves, this number does not emerge. But after he wrote these things, Feuardentius restored the legitimate reading from the manuscript: "it generated the number 888." So therefore it is to be understood that the ogdoad has been applied with the *iota* or decade,
A making 80, and the decade again applied eighty times to make the number eight hundred; for ten times eighty is 800, and then the ogdoad is repeated a third time to make 888. Certainly there was a reason that it is written here in Greek *tòn Iēsoun*, for 888, because the letters of the word *Iēsous* are marks of that number.
Page 77. *Begotten through Mary.* Begotten, *genesiourgeitai*.
Page 78. *And above all.* In the Greek delete *tó*, and read *hypèr pasan*: and a little later in the Latin interpreter, instead of "this brand of alphabet letters, recently, just as what is from the beginning, which is wont to be said, yesterday and the day before." The Greeks confess that they first received sixteen from Cadmus; B he seems to have read *hōsper to ap' archēs*, instead of *pros to ap' archēs*. I think the sense is that they market what was done yesterday and the day before, or quite recently, as if it had begun to exist from the foundation of the world. Cornarius, in his *Epiphanius*, had translated: "to that which is from the beginning and the day before yesterday, which is wont to be said." Gallasius changed it thus: "to that which was said in the beginning, yesterday and the day before": and thus indicated he had understood *to dē legomenon* as being the note of a proverb: so that from these and others of this kind it may be gathered that this is the praise proper to it, so that what were not altogether badly rendered by Cornarius seem to have been rendered worse.
*Time than Cadmus.* It should be written: "time than Cadmus, and those who were before him, but later than those who added the remaining elements, and later in time than he himself..." which is merely verbose *Sigen*.
Page 79. *He calls the Aeon unnamable.* The word "Aeon" is absent from the Greek: and so it must be considered whether it should be added from an old manuscript, in this way, *onomazei aiōna*.
*And the form of the invisible made.* Write: *factum*, the Word, that is, *gegonota Logon*.
Page 80. *He has inveighed against thee, saying.* The old interpreter omitted the adverb *emmetrōs*, which Cornarius, the interpreter of Epiphanius, had rendered thus, and correctly acclaimed as the herald of truth. For Gallasius, following him, published *kēryx tēs alētheias emmetros*. We have restored the ancient C reading, which Billius follows; and therefore it can be written here: "the herald of truth has inveighed in verses": as in Plato, *eperchetai de moi emmetrōs eipein*: or Plutarch, *mē chrān emmetra tēn Pythian*, concerning oratory bound by numbers: for he will note that these eight iambic senarii are not altogether bad, and except for the sixth, to which the sixth foot is lacking, he will notice them as whole, for him who wishes to weigh them, the first words of which I will note: 1 *Eidōlopoiē*, 2 *Astrologikēs*, 3 *ho di' hōn kratyneis*, 4 *Sēmeia*, 5 *Apostatikēs*, 6 *Hō soi choregei*, 7 *hē di' angelikēs*. 8 *Egōn se prodromon*.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 12.
Page 74. *But thus.* Marcus fabricates that Silence had told him many things about the Monad, the hexad, the quaternion, the name of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the dove: which are all refuted as impious and idolatrous figments. Nicetas cites this passage in the fourth book of the *Thesaurus* thus: "That long-winded fable, as Irenaeus says, which he called *Sigen*, or Silence. By name, indeed, a thing which would by no means suit a fable."
*The Monad.* Thus the old manuscript, with which the Greek reading is in conformity; the printed copies had "Unitam."
*Silence five.* The error of Marcus is manifest: unless he either counts the last letter *n*, as though composed of a double [letter], instead of two: or he has removed the article, *hē sigē*: or in some oblique case *sigēi*, and *sigēn*: or finally, as the interpreter of Epiphanius seemed to wish, he thought *asigē* should be written.
D *The same number.* Thus we have restored it by the evidence of the old manuscript. Furthermore, these ravings about the letters of the name Jesus are refuted also in book 1, c. 41.
*But his ineffable.* These figments of Marcus are inconsistent with themselves, when, with a line hardly interposed, he writes to the contrary that that very name consists of thirty letters. But what that ineffable name is, consisting of 24 or 30 letters, I do not sufficiently understand: since neither *Iēsous* nor *Christos* contain them: nor are they considered ineffable names. The name Jehova, indeed, from which perhaps he judged that the name of Jesus was derived, the ancients said was *anēkphōnēton*, that is, ineffable; not because it could not be uttered, but because, with great reverence, they abstained from uttering it.
Page 75. *And Christos of seven letters.* This indeed is true, but afterwards the heretic, contradicting himself, says that it consists of eight letters, from which the first ogdoad is signified: to such a degree are these packers of lies oblivious.
*That he might manifest the dove.* All ancient copies had "per ista manifestat"; yet Tertullian easily indicates the error at the end of his book *De praescriptione*: "Finally, the heretics said that Jesus Christ had descended, that is, that the dove had come into Jesus, which, since it is pronounced *peristera* in the Greek name, contains the number 801." Add also the Greek reading of Epiphanius: *hina tēn peristeran mēnychē*: "That he might manifest the *peristeran*, that is, the dove."
*And 888.* We have added this number from the old manuscript, consistent with the Greek reading; but we have deleted the *dal*.
*60 888.* We have added this number both from the Greek and by the judgment of P. Fronton.
Page 78. *Yesterday and the day before the Greeks confess from estimation.* He shows that these demonstrations which they thought were firm, drawn from the letters of the Greeks, as if they were eternal, are inept and futile; since the Greeks ingenuously profess that their invention is so recent and temporary, because they can easily designate their authors and inventors. Furthermore, "from Cadmus first, not from estimation," is what must be read, it is most certain. For they report that he first brought sixteen letters from Phoenicia into Greece, [letters] 8, *alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon*, and that this was a little before the times of Xerxes, Eusebius proves in book 10 of the *Preparation for the Gospel*, cap. 2, from the *Antiquities* of Josephus. Pliny writes in book 7, cap. 58, that the lyric poet Simonides afterwards added those four: *zeta, ēta, psi,* and *ōmega*; but that Palamedes found the remaining ones, *theta, xi, chi, phi*, in the time of the Trojan war.
*And those who are before.* Warned by P. Fronton, we have deleted "us": and a little later, "of the time than Palamedes"; since they are also absent from the Greek context. Just as in the following, we have substituted "verbose" for "wordy," and "factum" for "factam."
Page 79. *You say.* We have deleted "your," given the old manuscript and the Greek reading.
*Dadalus himself the maker.* He rightly compares him with the elder Daedalus, the Athenian workman, who, because he had killed his sister's son, fled in fear of trial to Crete, where he is said to have built the labyrinth, a most monstrous work; so this man also, a traitor and destroyer of souls, built labyrinths of inextricable errors.
Page 80. *Maker of idols, Marcus.* He makes the heretics guilty not only of interior idolatry, by which they busied themselves to substitute their own dreams for the true word of God; but also because they altered the nature of God, and his properties, with impure lies, and fabricated another, nay, even many other strange gods, he frequently convicts them below in book 1, cap.19; book 2, c. 9 & 47, and book 3, c. 40. Tertullian agrees, saying: "Heresies do not differ from idolatry, since they are of the same author and work as idolatry. For God is either..."
A alium," etc. The same author says: "Just as the nations fashion idols with their hands, so too do the heretics fashion idols with their words, that is, another god and another Christ." Thus, Athanasius and Lucifer of Cagliari consider the Arian heresy to be idolatry; Cyril considers the Nestorian, Augustine the Manichaean, and finally Jerome, in ch. 8 of Ezekiel and in ch. 13 of Hosea, by transferring whatever is said by the prophets against idols to heresies, teaches that every heresy is a spiritual idolatry. He also writes again: "Each one of the heretics fashions whatever he wishes, and adores his own figment, as Marcion does the otiose God, Valentinus the thirty Aeons, Basilides the god Abraxas," etc. Augustine agrees with this: "Whoever thinks of God as He is not, carries an alien and false god in his heart." Concerning himself, while he was still held by the heresy of the Manichaeans, he says: "My vain phantasm and my error was my God."
But let us consider more closely whether the Lutherans and Sacramentarians, the chief heretics of this age, now labor under equal turpitude and infamy. Indeed, if their mutual testimony regarding one another is to be believed, this has already been concluded and proven. For Luther calls the Sacramentarians "dogs, destroyers of the sacrament, idolaters, who slaughter Christ and God the Father in their words, and present the devil in place of God." But Jezierus, the Zwinglio-Calvinist, testifies B that the Sacramentarians judge the Lutherans to be "anthropophagists, Christ-killers, bread-worshippers, and worshippers of the impanated God." Who will deny that this mutual testimony of the evangelicals—those "purified from every pontifical error"—regarding themselves is true? Especially since the Anglicans in their Apology, the Genevans in the Preface to the harmony of confessions, and the Polish in the Consensus of Sandomierz openly contest that the Lutherans and Zwinglians are brothers, friends, and most closely united ministers of the word, and therefore it is most unjust to charge them with discord and lack of order.
But let us establish what has been proposed with stronger arguments. Luther in ch. 47 of Genesis, Chemnitz, Schlusselburg, and the Lutheran followers on one side; Calvin, Vermigli, Bucer, and the Sacramentarians on the other, willingly admit that Christ is to be adored by faith in the perception of the Eucharist. But on the other hand, they protest elsewhere that the same Christ is as far absent from the bread of the supper as the highest pinnacle of the heavens is distant from the center of the earth; while the latter have no legitimate priest—that is, a minister who can truly consecrate—but mere laymen and profane men. Therefore, by adoring the Eucharist, or the bread of their supper, they are in reality idolaters.
Furthermore, it is manifest that the Lutherans admit and believe in place of the Word of God the opinions which Satan suggested to Luther against the sacrifice of the Mass; and that the Zwinglians and Sacramentarians cherish as divine Gospel that opinion which the Spirit, walking in the dark of night, revealed to Zwingli; and that they venerate as the Word of God not only these, but all the heresies and fanatical opinions which they have either recently invented or restored from ancient heresiarchs. No one, therefore, will deny that they are all truly called and are idolaters.
Moreover, if they invent God as the author of evils, that is, as the executor of all crimes both among demons and among men; and if He who destines men to be created in order that He might destroy them; who (with all freedom of will removed) necessarily compels them to dare and do anything at all; who is not touched by any care for wicked men; who finally is unable to understand, or to will, or to bring it about that one body exists in many places at the same time: is this not a new and C false God that they invent and worship? Neither the prophets nor the apostles preached such a God, nor has the entire Christian world acknowledged Him up to this time.
In addition to this, by proposing a Christ born in the common manner from His mother, ignorant, acting improperly, and reasoning absurdly; who, opposed by the judgment of God, could neither merit nor satisfy for us; who out of weakness of spirit forgot that He was the Redeemer of the world; who refused to perform His duty; who uttered rash, castigable, and revocable vows contrary to His vocation; who asked the Father for things impossible for Him to be granted; who finally, guilty of the sins of the entire world and subject to divine curse and wrath, uttered words full of desperation while dying: they erect and constitute a Christ who is clearly new, that is, an abominable idol to be adored and worshipped by His followers. For the apostles did not announce such a Christ, the disciples did not preach Him, the martyrs did not believe in Him, the confessors did not call upon Him, the virgins did not fear Him, the entire Church of Christians until now has not worshipped Him, etc. May the Holy Spirit, therefore, open the eyes of these blind men, so that, having perceived and abandoned the foul abomination of their idols, they might at last return to the worship of the one true God and His Christ, which has been preserved in the Catholic Church until now.
Azazel. The name of one of the demons who preside over the elements and devote themselves more to those things, Agrippa thinks is from the D Hebrew cabala—and he babbles that he is the prince of the meridian, also called "Amaymon." Reuchlin also writes in book 3, *De arte cabalistica*, that he rules most widely in the army of Satan.
From the annotations of Jo. Ernst Grabe on ch. 12. Page 74. *Ἐπιλύσεως*. Billius wishes *ἀναλύσεως* to be read, because the old translator translated it "resolution." But it is established that *ἐπίλυσις* has the same meaning of "resolution" or "explanation," and therefore there is no need for a change.
*Οὕτως οὖν*. Nicetas cites this passage thus in lib. 4 of the *Thesaurus* (fol. 163, page 4, Paris edition): "Fashing a certain prolix fable, he called it, as the same Irenaeus says, *Sige* or Silence; a name, indeed, which would in no way suit the fable and its theme." FEUARD. But so that you might correct this perverse interpretation of Nicetas' words, here is the Greek text from an excellent manuscript of the Bodleian Library, Roe 22, which almost matches the age of Nicetas: *Μακρόν τινα πλασάμενος μῦθον, ἔφησε εἰρηκέναι τοῦτον τὴν Σιγήν, ἀπροσφυῶς τῷ τε τῆς ὀνόματι καὶ ἐπαγγέλματι.*
*Ἡ δὲ Σιγὴ πέντε*. Billius, Fronto Ducaeus, and Feuardentius, all offended by this statement of Marcus, object that *σιγή* has only four letters. But Marcus, whether according to the custom of that age or his own sick mind, wrote *σιγῇ*, as is gathered from the old version, about which see below; so that there is no need for these quibbles which Fronto Ducaeus and Feuardentius have made.
*Τὸν δὲ ἄῤῥητον αὐτοῦ, γραμμάτων εἰκοσιτεσσάρων*. Billius has correctly advised that *πάντα* should be replaced by *τόν*. By the "ineffable name of Jesus," I understand a certain mystical explanation or periphrasis of it, which the Marcosians devised in imitation of the Hebrews, who came up with various interpretations of the tetragrammaton name, regarding which see Buxtorf's *Lexicon Hebraicum* under the word *יהוה*. What that mystical exposition of the name consisting of 24 letters was, just as that of the name of Christ, which he says is of 30 letters, hardly anyone will be able to say.
Page 75. *Υἱὸς Χριστός, γραμμάτων δώδεκα*. In place of...
1473 IN LIB. 1 S. IRENÆI. 1474
Quatuor 61 horum verborum Billius reponi vult: A *Christus litterarum 7*, seduced by the faulty reading of the old version: *et Christus litterarum 7*. But since this is clearly repugnant to the reasonings of Marcus, and for that reason, with that reading rejected, the former reading should be retained, it shines forth more clearly from the words immediately following on p. 73 (76), "it is said, he says, also Son Christ," etc., where the Latin agrees well with the Greek. If you ask, whence then are there eight letters in the word *Christos*? For, as Fronto Ducaeus observed, even if you divide the *s* into *s* and *t*, you will not find more than seven; I answer that Marcus read *Xpristos*, as Petavius conjectures in his notes on Epiphanius, page 72, adding that *Christus* was sometimes read as being called *Chrestus*. Thus we have just seen him write *Seige* for *Sige*.
*Hyperouranion*. Because seven heavens were posited by the followers of Valentinus, the origin of the supercelestial name Jesus was gathered by these heretics from the number eight, which transcends the seventh. B Therefore, Billius’s observation, changing *hyperouranion* to *hyperouranion*, is not to be approved.
Page 76. *Toutou tou onomatos*. Subunderstand "Christ," whose *episemon* he says the name "Jesus" is, because it is placed in assimilation and figuration to him, as is taught toward the end of the following paragraph.
*Tes ano dynameos*. That "Christ"—or "the Savior"—whom they imagined to have descended upon Jesus, is to be understood here, as is clear from what follows. But since the heretics set him as *teleiotaton kallos* ("most perfect beauty") above on page 14, line 22 (page 13, line 2), they invented that this Jesus was made a man in his image.
Page 77. *Egenesiourgesan ton epi ges phanenta Iesoun*. I note here in passing that the Latin version of Nicetas in the *Thesaurus of the Orthodox Faith*, page 266 of the later edition: "Virtues, moreover, which had emanated from them, were generated by him, Jesus, who had appeared on earth," should be corrected in this way: "Virtues, moreover, etc., generated Jesus, who had appeared on earth." And the Greek manuscript codex 22 of Roe in the Bodleian Library well admits this correction: *And from these, powers having flowed forth generated the Jesus who appeared on earth.*
*Katelthein eis auton hos peristeran ton anaryponta ano*. Subunderstand the Savior, or Christ composed from the collation of all the Aeons, of whom—on the cited page—these things are presently held: *And into him at the baptism descended that Savior who was from the Pleroma, from among all, in the form of a dove.*
*Sperma phesin einai tou Patros*. Marcus said the power in Jesus descending in the form of a dove was "the seed of the Father"; other followers of Valentinus called it "the spirit of the Father’s Enthymesis," according to Clement in the *Excerpts from the Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 792, col. 1: "And the dove, moreover, was a body; some say it was the Holy Spirit, others from Basilides say it was the deacon, and others from Valentinus say it was the spirit of the Father’s intention, which performed the descent upon the flesh of the Word." Let our author's book ii, cap. 17 be compared. C
*Echon en heauto kai ton Patera... kai tous hapantas Aionas*. For they imagined Jesus to be composed of the entire Pleroma, as was just said.
*Homologesan heauton huion anthropou*, etc. Christ, who descended into Jesus, professed himself the Son of Man because he had taken his origin from the Aeon Anthropos, and the Anthropos born of the dodecad of Aeons.
*Anthropou*. Marcus seems to have called Christ *anthropos* (man) for the reason that he posited him to be the Son of Man.
Page 78. *Ton chorēsanta auton*. Billius wants *ton* to be changed into *hon*, and the *de* to be deleted by the authority of the old version. But with only the distinction point deleted, these words, without any mutation, respond to the sense of the interpreter.
*Eschēkenai*. I subunderstand Jesus, who received the Savior, not the one received.
*Ouk ēn Alētheia*. These can be taken either absolutely, as an absurdity brought in from the fictions of Marcus, or interrogatively: whence the question mark is expressed in all editions in the Latin.
Page 80. *Emmetrōs*. Scaliger was injurious to the Cologne edition of Irenaeus, edited by Fenardentius, in Eusebius page 219, while he observed there that *emmetrōs* was read for *emmetrōs*, and attacked the interpreters because *emmetros* ("measured") had been "a herald"; D while, however, in that edition it was expressly *emmetrōs* ("in verse"), and it is read in Billius’s Latin version: "The herald of truth thus exclaimed to you in verses."
*Encheirēmata Azazēl*. Delete *Encheirēmata*, and take the name *Azazel* to be about the evil angel, whose mention is made in the Chaldean Paraphrase, commonly ascribed to Jonathan on Gen. vi, 5 (although it is there corruptly called "Uziel"), and also in Rabbi Solomon Jarchi on Num. xiii, 34, translated into Latin in these words: "The Nephilim, or giants, are the Anakim from the sons of Schamchazai and Azael, who fell in the days of the age of Enoch." Yet in the book of Enoch, page 348 of our *Spicilegium Patrum* of the first century, *Azazel*, or *Azael* (for it is read there in both ways), is numbered tenth in order among the twenty fallen angels, and page 331, God is reported to have spoken thus to the holy angel Raphael: "Go, Raphael, and bind Azael, *kai dēson ton Azazēl*, bind his hands and feet with chains, and cast him into the darkness; open the desert of the desert of Dudael, and having gone there, cast him into it; and having placed sharp and rough stones under him, bring darkness over him, which he may inhabit forever." Whence the name seems to have stuck to the desert and rough mountainous places, because indeed *Azazel*, and the evil angel, were believed to be kept bound there. Thus the text of Leviticus xvi, 8 seqq. is to be understood, where of the two goats, one is commanded to be offered to the Lord as a sacrifice, the other is ordered to be sent to *la-azazel ha-midbar*, or *la-azazel*, which is read, that is, "to the rough places of the desert." The Book *Sephre*: "To Azael, that is, to the most difficult place in the mountains." And Aquila, in verse 26, rendered this word into Greek as *erēmon* (desert). See, besides the commentators on the cited place, Moyer’s notes on the Epistle of Barnabas, page 648 seqq., where he has collected many things, to be read with judgment, however.
*Ta pollō chronō kekrymmena*. From these things it is clear that Marcus, some time before the Irenaean age, sowed the virus of heresy. I would not wish, however, entirely...
A to blame the author of the book on heresies edited by Jacob Sirmond under the title *Prædestinatus*, for assigning Marcus to the age of Clement of Rome and asserting that he was condemned by him. Regarding this and other parachronisms of that author, see our *Spicilegium Patrum et hæreticorum sæculi II*, Vol. I, p. 81 seq., and the Scholia of Billius on ch. 13.
Pag. 80. *Quis aberrationem et inventionem.* Greek: *tēn planēn tou probatou kai aneuresin*. See here how miserably Gallasius has hallucinated in a place of all the most easy and perspicuous. For he rendered *planēn* as "imposture," and *aneuresin* as "invention."
Pag. 81. *Si a binario.* For two and four, and six, and eight, and ten, make thirty. *Quod asseclam.* In Greek, it should be read with the veteran [manuscript]: *dia to*. The following lines in Greek are to be read thusly; the *dia to* is to be deleted, along with *synepakolouthēsanta autē dia ton episēmon*. *Abscedentem.* It should be read in Greek: *apostasan*. The following line, *ini*, is to be deleted. *In ove undecim.* This computation is false. For if we read "eleven," as the Epiphanius codex has it, it will be false that which is said here, that eleven remain over from the sheep, when 99 remain. Again, if we read with the old interpreter "eleven times nine," these certainly produce not 99, but 821. I preferred, however, to follow the Greek in this place, so that the ratio of the numbers might be consistent and follow what responds to it. *Amen.* For *n* and *st* make 90, *st* and *a* make 9.
Pag. 82. *Dempta senarii nota.* For *hyperexairoumenou*, read *hyperexairoumenos*. *Usque ad elementum 8.* It should be read thus, not 6. *Ex tribus virtutibus.* *Triakonta*, that is, thirty, the Epiphanius codex has; but for *malo* read *homou* with the veteran. He understands, in my judgment, the ogdoad, the decade, and the dodecade. *Sursum reliquit.* For *tous anō*, read with the veteran *anō tous*, and on the same line *katallēlōs*.
62. *In figura sermonis.* *En* is missing in Epiphanius. I did not wish, however, to change anything here, when not only the Greek codex, but also the old interpreter, conflicts. I only admonish the reader that for *logou* it seems to me that *logon* should be read. For *logos* here contributes nothing to the matter. *Nonum et nonagenarium.* I add *enneēkontonta* from the veteran. *Figura litteræ M.* Add M in the Greek from the veteran. *Typum fugiant.* I read *autōs* with the veteran, and so on in the following line.
Pag. 83. *Vereque ineffabilis.* I read *alēthōs*, not *alētheias*. *Non est salus.* That is, a greeting; Greek: *chairein*.
Pag. 84. *Ad suscipiendam fraudem.* *Hyperkrousin* (for this is how it should be read, not *sispekkrousin*—so I translate it, so that it signifies the same thing as *parakrousin*). *Ignorante spirituum.* I read *agnoias* with the veteran, as the sense demands, not *anoias* as in Epiphanius.
Notes from the adversaria of Fronton du Duc on ch. 13. Pag. 81. *Unum enim et duo.* In order that these might agree with the Greeks and among themselves, they should be corrected thus: "one, and two, and three, and four, combined into one, make ten." *In ove vero undecies 9.* The most learned man says this computation is false. For if we read "eleven," as the Epiphanius codex has it, it will be false what is said here, that eleven remain over from the sheep, when 99 remain. He supposed, indeed, that this alluded to the hundred-sheep number, Matt. XVIII, 12, from which one was lost and 99 remained; but it should be noted that Irenaeus said at the beginning of this chapter, that when the fall happened around the number twelve, the sheep went astray and luxuriated, and thus there were eleven left, as we read in Epiphanius: thus here it should be read: "in the sheep, however, eleven perplex themselves in generating 99 numbers; since nine times eleven [make] 99."
Pag. 82. *Ter idem factus.* The Greek is clearer and fuller, but to be corrected thus: *tris autos genomenos T. e. e. tris gar triakonta*—"ter idem facias 80 fecit." For three times thirty are ninety. And it itself, moreover. *Quoniam ab alpha sine episemo.* Restore "quoniam ab alpha sine episemo, ipsarum litterarum numeris, usque ad 2 compositus secundum segmentum litterarum cum ipso 2, 90 et 9 facit numerum." *Quoniam autem a, quæ est undecimo loco, ad similis sui descendit inquisitionem, ut, etc.* *Quapropter et fugere.* This place in the Greek is to be corrected: *tēn tōn ē chōran*, for *tēn tōn E Th chōran*, or, as it was in the Basle edition of Epiphanius, *tēn tōn eth*, by an easy mutation of the *G*, which is the sign of the nonagenary, into *c*. These will bring light, which Bede teaches, in the little book *De loquela per gestum digitorum*: for the ancients used their fingers on the left hand, so that they counted with their gestures up to 99, but they expressed one hundred and the remaining hundreds with gestures of the right hand; holding, namely, the nail of the index finger in the middle, they gave one hundred with the knuckle of the thumb. Juvenal, Sat. X, v. 245: *... Atque suos jam dextera computat annos.*
Pag. 83. *Non est enim gaudere.* The passage is Isa. XLVIII, 22, in the LXX: *Ouk esti chairein, legei Kyrios, tois asebesin*. Which Augustine renders with our text in *De civit.* XIV, 8. Vulgate Latin: "Non est pax impiis." And as the Hebrews, when greeting each other, said, "Peace to you," so also the Greeks at the beginning of their letters wrote *chairein*: and when they greeted each other twice, *chaire*: therefore the allusion is more open in Greek, *ho legōn autois chairein*. "He who says to them to rejoice." And: "Non est gaudere impiis." *Ab ogdoadis nequissimis spiritalibus.* The Greek sounds: "from the ogdoad of most wicked spirits." *Aut plus rident, et valere.* The interpreter seems to have read it thus: "quanto plus rident, et valere se putant, etc., tanto magis male habent."
Pag. 84. *Super tonum sagittantes.* *Hypertonon to toxeuein*, in the number of the multitude, as in the common proverb, *askopa toxeuein*. *Hypertonon*, however, is not only called a *neuron* (chord/bowstring) which is strained, but also anything great, vehement, or immoderate: as in Aristophanes, *boēsomai tēn hypertonon boān*. Suidas: "great, high, exceeding": or Clement of Alexandria, *Strom.*: *hypertonon phthengesthai*. Furthermore, let the learned see whether it should be read a little later *to tēs anoias*, *pneuma tēs anoias*, "spirit of ignorance," as at the end of the chapter *tēn ogdoada tēs anoias*: even though the interpreters translate *ignorantiæ* in both places; for he said that they do not know, the more they think they know; and the Apostle, 1 Tim. III, 9: "Their ignorance shall be manifest": finally the author himself in ch. 1: *phylaxasthai ton bython tēs anoias*: "to keep oneself from the abyss of senselessness."
Adnotations of Fr. Feuardentius in ch. 13. Pag. 80. *Generationem.* The figments of the Marcionites about the lost sheep, the binary number and the senary, the lost drachma, the letter episemon, the shape and virtue of the lambda, are worthy not so much of ridicule as of deploration: and their authors are to be avoided. *Adunantes.* Thus it should be read, as the veteran codex taught. The Greek reading has *ēnōsanto epi to auto*: we have therefore deleted "adunantis."
Pag. 81. *Duodecadem.* We have expunged "unde eadem" by the authority of the veteran codex and the Greek reading. *In ove vero undecim perplexos sibimetipsis.* Thus we propose it should be read, by the judgment of Billius and Fronton. The printed codices: "undecies novem perplexos sibimetipsis," as in the next line, and we restore "Amen" for "tamen." *Cum episemo.* That is, with the senary number.
Pag. 82. *Appositus.* Thus it should be replaced, for "appositis": as a little later "sursum" for "rursum," as the veteran codex taught, with the Greek reading consenting.
A *Usque ad* composite. Thus for "compositum"; and the next line, "makes the number," for "they make"; then, which is in the eleventh place; and, "his" for "of his"; item, a little later, "them" for "his," we substitute according to Fronto’s judgment. And to flee. We have removed "of a figure," by the authority of the veteran codex and Greek reading; as also a little later for "them" we have restored "his."
Pag. 83. *But they are worthy of lamentation.* This most pious martyr deems their madness to be lamented with piteous compassion, because they so impudently unhinged the writings of the prophets and apostles, and also spurned the apostolic tradition of all the Churches throughout the world; and they violently distorted the adorable mysteries of the Christian faith through Pythagorean numbers and the old-wives' tales of the cabalists, and exposed them to be ridiculed by the Gentiles. Therefore, by this saying of the most grave martyr, we are recalled, lest we waste oil and labor in computing, collecting, and explaining those numbers in overly long commentaries. Those who thirst for profane things have where they may satisfy their thirst. I have only undertaken to compare the earlier editions with the old codex faithfully, beyond those things which pertain to true theology.
*There is no rejoicing for the impious.* οὐκ ἔστιν χαίρειν, it is a Grecism, and it abounds in almost every individual similar chapter, so that it would be immense and tedious to note it always.
*Exsufflating and anathematizing.* He alludes to those sacred rites by which, in the baptism of adults, they turned toward the west, and struck with their hands, and by spitting out, exsufflated and anathematized the demon: which they observed no less cautiously, thereafter averting themselves from the blasphemous sentiments of heretics. Moreover, those to be baptized were taught beforehand to renounce the devil, as Clement of Rome testifies in many places, and to aggregate themselves to Christ. In the very article of baptism they twice professed: "I renounce Satan, and his works, and his pomps, and his worship, and his angels, and his machinations, and all things which are under him." Dionysius the Areopagite, another disciple of the apostles, has things even clearer than these: "Having brought the one to be baptized, and having stripped him by the hands of the ministers, and placing him facing the west, the bishop, intending, and laying his hands on him, turned to that same region, commands him to exsufflate, to breathe upon Satan, and to spit upon him thrice, and besides to profess the renunciation thrice." For it is established from Tertullian not only that Christians were accustomed to spit out all unclean things with a breath, but also that those about to enter the baptismal water first testified under the hand of the presiding priest that they renounced the devil, and his pomp, and his angels, and furthermore that they had transferred, expelled, revised, and rejected the same by daily exorcisms. When, however, they washed infants in the sacred font, who because of the imbecility of their age could not exsufflate and spit, it is open from the writings of Augustine that the ministers of the Church and sponsors performed these things in their stead, in book *De eccl. dog.*, chapter thirty-one; in book *De nuptiis et concup.*, chapters seventeen, eighteen, twenty-nine; and in book five of the *Hypognosticon*. It pleased me to write these things on the occasion for those who so greatly criticize these rites of the Christians.
Pag. 84. *Shooting above the tone.* He shows that the attempts of the Gnostics are clearly ridiculous and empty, having taken the metaphor from archers who strive to stretch the bow more than is fitting. To whom it happens that the further they think they will shoot, the more they are deceived and expose themselves to be ridiculed, while either the bow is broken or their strength is enervated. Truly, I would have thought that *ὑπέρτονα τοξεύειν* signifies "to exert oneself more vehemently than is fitting in bending the bow." The old interpreter perhaps did not read *ὑπέρτονα*, but *ὑπέρτονον*, or B from one or two words, in the same sense indeed; except that one would scarcely find it distinctly: but *supra* [above] pleases.
63 From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 13.
Pag. 81. *διὰ τὸν ἐπίσημον συνεσχηκέναι, διὰ τὸ συνεπακολουθήσασαν αὐτῇ τὸ ἐπίσημον.* Billius thinks these should be corrected from the veteran as follows: *διὰ τὸ τὸν ἐπίσημον ἐσχηκέναι συνακολουθήσαντα αὐτῇ, διὰ τὸ τὸν ἐπίσημον.* Petavius agrees in the margin of Epiphanius. But in either way Irenaeus scarcely escapes the crime of tautology, nor does he explain clearly enough how the dodecad contains the senary. Therefore I would prefer, with a lighter mutation having been made, to read: *διὰ τὸ τὸν ἐπίσημον συνεσχηκέναι, διά τε συνεπακολουθῆσαι δίς* (which an unskilled scribe perhaps expressed through β, and another made the termination of the preceding word from it, changing *συνακολουθῆσαι* into *συνεπακολουθήσασαν*) *αὐτῇ τὸν ἐπίσημον*, for the reason that it contains the senary number, and has this doubled as its follower.
*τὸ δὲ σὺν μὲν τῷ ἐπισήμῳ ὀγδοάδα εἶναι.* It is, that the letter η holds the eighth place in the alphabet, and thence denotes the eighth number, if the episemon vau, that is 5, is counted in the letters of the alphabet.
*ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου ὀγδόου κείμενον τόπου.* From the veteran interpreter it is evident that it should be read: *ἀπὸ τοῦ ὀγδόῳ κείμενον τόπῳ.*
*τρεῖς αὐτὸς γενόμενος..... τρεῖς γὰρ τριάκοντα.* The Greek [words] are clearer and more abundant, but they should be corrected thus: *τρὶς αὐτὸς γενόμενος..... τρὶς γὰρ τριάκοντα.* FRONTO DUC.
*ὀγδοήκοντα ἐννέα* should be read by the pointing of the veteran interpreter, as Billius and Petavius have warned.
Pag. 82. *Τοὺς ἄνω τοὺς, κατάλληλον λέγουσι.* I read with the veteran *ἄνω τούς*, and in the same line *κατάλληλον*. BILL. But it matters little; nay, it is doubtful whether it be not better to retain *τοὺς ἄνω*, and to adapt the Greeks to the Latins.
*τῷ σχήματι τοῦ λόγου.* Billius notes that *ἐν* is wanting here, and he advises very well that the letter *λ* seems to be read in place of *λόγου*. Nor indeed does *λόγος* achieve anything here to the point, but [it relates] to the *λ*, all which follow exactly correspond.
*τὸν τῶν ἐνενήκοντα ἐννέα ποιεῖται ἀριθμόν.* Whosoever shall have instituted the computation with the episemon number—that is, the senary—stripped away, will discover this to be true; although these trifles are not worthy that anyone should intend or dwell upon them.
*τύπον ἀριστερᾶς χειρός..... εἰς τὴν δεξιάν*, etc. That I may explain this place from ecclesiastical writers: Sidonius Apollinaris, book IX, epist. 1 to Faustus, writes at the end: "Since your right hand has already numbered your years, that is, you have already reached or surpassed your hundredth year." For as Cassianus *Collat.* 24, chapter 26, says: "The centenarian number is transferred from the left into the right, and although it seems to hold the same figure in the computation of the fingers, it nevertheless supercresces immensely by the magnitude of the quantity." Compare Jerome, book 1 *Contra Jovinianum*.
Pag. 84. *ἐπιτήδειον εἰς ὑπερέκκρουσιν.* Read *ὑπέκκρουσιν* with Billius; but it is not necessary to restore *ἐπιτηδείως* from the veteran interpretation, provided that you construe *ἐπιτήδειον* not as a neuter with *πνεῦμα*, but as a feminine with *γνώμην*.
Scholia of Billius on chapter 14.
Pag. 84. *Then Virtues.* The veteran reads *ἑξῆς* for *τῆς*. But the former reading pleases me more. For *ἑξῆς* responds to *τῷ πρώτῳ*. *Corporora.* We must read *σώματα*, not *σωματικά*.
Pag. 85. *Which signifies.* We must read *ζωδιακόν*, not *ζώου*.
*Saturn* the higher place "ener's" Corruptes
A this place in Epiphanius, where it says "time." The ancient version has "that which is superposed is the heaven," as if it read *οὐρανός* in the Greek. But it must be read *ὁ ὑπερών*, or "the superposed time": for it is clear that Irenaeus is speaking of Saturn. *Peragrantem* (perambulating). For *εμπεριεχομένην*, we must read *εμπεριερχομένην*. For the ancient interpreter translates it "circumambient." *Expressisse* (to have expressed). We must read *ἐκτυπῶσαι*, not *ἐκτυποῦσι*. *Illustris duodecadis* (of the illustrious duodecad). The ancient interpreter reads *οὐ φαεινῆς*, that is, invisible and occult. Pag. 86. *And the singular.* I add *ἑκάστην* from the ancient version. In the following line, *κατὰ κάθετον* must be read as two words. *To that virtue.* In the Greek it must be read *δυνάμει*.
Notes from the adversaria of Front. Ducæus on chap. 14. Pag. 84. *Bodies circumdata* (surrounded). Perhaps he wrote *κυκλωτά*, or *κυκλικά*, *σώματα κυκλοειδή*, "in a circular form." Pag. 85. *Which [applies] to the concavity itself.* A little before, he seems to have read *ὁ ὑπερὼν οὐρανός*, which he translates: "that which is superposed is the heaven": for this reason he refers it to the Greek word, "which [is] to it," instead of "which [is] to that concavity." Billius reads as in Epiphanius, "which Saturn is superposed, who weighs upon that cavity." Cornarius, however, translates, "who weighs by his own body, and in turn slows down their velocity by his own slowness." Certainly *κύτος* in Hesychius is also *σῶμα*, *ὄγκος*, body and mass. Therefore we suspected it could be translated: "who weighs down beyond the mass itself, and by his contrariety regulates their velocity by his own slowness": as if to hint that he not only retards the heaven with his weight and mass when he presses upon it, but also by the slowness of movement innate to him. *From sign to sign.* Perhaps he means from point to point, unless you prefer to refer it to the 12 signs, of which he spoke a little before.
B From the annotations of Jo. Ernst Grabe on chap. 14. Pag. 85. *The thirty-named Mother of them.* The Pleroma of thirty Aeons is to be understood here. For I do not find the thirty names of Achamoth—whom he otherwise usually calls the Mother of them—anywhere, but I read of only seven in chap. 1, § 9 (cap. 5, n. 2).
Scholia of Billius on chap. 15. Pag. 86. *Something new.* I add *τι* in the Greek from the ancient version. And in the same line, for *τέλος*, I read *τέλειος*. *By twisting they accommodate.* In the Greek, for *μεταμορφώσουσι*, we must read *μεθαρμόζουσι*. "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." These words are wanting in the Greek. Pag. 87. *That too which is in it.* In the Greek, for *τὸν* we must read *τό*. And in the following line, for *τήν*, we must put *δέ*. *Water and spirit.* In the Greek, for *ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς*, the ancient interpreter seems to have read *ἐν οἷς εἰσι*, and translates it. C After all these things. In the Greek, for *πετεινά που τοῖς*, I read with the ancient version *ἐπὶ πᾶσι τούτοις*. In the following line, for *τριάκοντα*, I read again with the ancient version *τριακοντάδα*. *Which comes from one source.* For *πηγήν*, I read with the ancient version *πηγῆς δύναμιν*, and in the same line *ταύτην*, for *ταῦτα*. *Let him have two ears.* In the Greek we must read *ἔχοντος*. *The body of truth.* I add *σῶμα* from the ancient version, and in the same line I delete *τοῖς σώμασι*. *In orders.* It seems *στοιχεῖοις* must be read. Pag. 88. *Also the dispensation.* We must read *οἰκονομίαν* in the Greek, not *οἶκον μίαν*, as Gallasius did, whose laziness—I will not say, but whose stupidity—was so great here that he did not even notice that *μίαν* cannot possibly be joined with a noun of the masculine gender. It would certainly have been better to remain quiet than to write so inconsiderately. Pag. 89. *By that which [concerns] Sara.* In the Greek, after *τήν*, I add *κατά* from the ancient version, and for *ὡς* I read *πῶς*. *Jeroboam also.* From this one passage it can be seen clearly how precipitously and without any judgment Gallasius behaved in this version, while he was too lazy to consult the ancient translator—a fault which one should not forgive, I will not say a professor of sacred theology, such as he wishes to be thought, but not even one who has greeted sacred letters from the threshold. For what is this metamorphosis, that he should make Roboam out of Jeroboam, whom it is certain had not ten, but only two tribes subject to his rule and authority? Therefore in the Greek, for *Ροβοάμ*, read *Ἰεροβοάμ*. Pag. 90. *Into the cave.* In the Greek we must remove *Ἰεραφ*. And in the same line, for *τοῦτο*, we must read *τούτῳ*.
Notes from the adversaria of Front. Ducæus on chap. 15. Pag. 86. *Whatever things they transform are adapted.* Billius correctly corrected *μεθαρμόζουσι*, a verb he uses more often elsewhere: as in the following chapter, *εἰρηκέναι μεθαρμόζουσι*: and in chap. 17, *εἰς τοῦτον χαρακτῆρα μεθαρμόζουσιν*: and in chap. 1, *καὶ μεθαρμόσοι, καὶ ποιήσοι μορφὴν κυνός*. D *After the decad.* In the Greek amend *μνημονεύοντα φῶς λέγειν*, instead of *σαφῶς λέγειν*: which neither Cornarius saw, who translated in Epiphanius "to say clearly": nor Gallasius, who [wrote] "while he says openly": nor finally Billius himself, in whom it can be written thus: "And immediately mentioning the decad, light, and day, and night." Certainly, the system cannot be established otherwise: for the wood/matter will not be in the tenth place, if you begin counting from the day. And yet, Genesis 1, 3, after those words: "And the Spirit of God was moving over the waters," follows: "And God said, Let there be light." Again, in the ancient interpreter, that phrase "mentioning the decad," is *ελληνίζει*, for "making mention." Thus *μνησθήσονται* is translated in Psalm xxii among the Augustinians, "they shall be remembered, and shall turn unto the Lord," for "they shall be recalled." Pag. 88. *Great luminary.* We have written *μέγαν φωστῆρα* for *μέγα*.
μέγα*.
A their *Quaternio*. The Greek texts require: "they say that these things were done," *τοιαῦτα γεγονέναι*, "that such things were done." A short while later, distinguish it in the Greek: *πάλιν δεικνύσθαι οὕτως*. In the *Enthronement* (or, *In the Triclinium*). What follows concerning Jeroboam in Epiphanius’s interpreter Cornarius must also be corrected; for he seemed a suitable authority to Gallasius, from whom he would have borrowed a large part of the interpretation.
Pag. 90. *And Samuel declining.* 1 Reg. ix, 22. "Samuel, taking Saul and his servant, brought them into the dining-hall, and gave them a place at the head of those who had been invited; for there were about thirty men." But in the Greek LXX: *Καὶ ἔθετο αὐτοῖς ἐκεῖ τόπον ἐν πρώτοις τῶν κεκλημένων, ὡσεὶ ἑβδομήκοντα ἀνδρῶν*, "and he set for them there a place among the first of the invited, about seventy men." This must be noted, so that from this we may gather that Irenaeus—or those heretics—had another Greek edition, in which it read, as in the Latin Vulgate, from the Hebrew. Furthermore, *declinare* (to decline) can even be retained, with the kind permission of the Latin profane authors, among whom "sleep declines the eyes," and "an army declines its leaders," although *reclinantem* (reclining) would have been more appropriate, as in Luke xxvii, *reclinavit*, *ἀνέκλινεν*; and ix, v. 4, *κατακλίνατε*, "make them sit down." Thus this passage should be filled out from the Greek: "Setting Saul among the thirty invited, first, and by David, who for thirty days, etc."
*Which thirty days.* The passage should be completed from the Greek: "...declining Saul, and by David, who for thirty days was hidden." Yet David says in 1 Reg. xx, 5: "that I may be hidden in the field, even unto the evening of the third day"; and in the LXX, "unto the evening" only, *κρυβήσομαι ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ ἕως ἑσπέρας*. Where then are the 30 days? Clearly, the rationale of these new arithmeticians escapes here, unless they were perhaps looking at some other passage of Scripture. But II Reg. xxiii, v. 13: "Moreover, three also had descended, who were chiefs among the thirty, and they came to David at the cave of Odollam." LXX: *Καὶ κατέβησαν τρεῖς ἀπὸ τῶν τριάκοντα πρὸς Δαυΐδ, εἰς τὸ σπήλαιον Ὀδολλάμ*. And thus perhaps it should be read in Irenaeus: *τὸ σπήλαιον Ὀδολλάμ. Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο*, instead of *Ἰσραήλ*. But in other copies of the LXX we read *τρεῖς ἀπὸ τριάκοντα ἄρχοντες* (three chiefs from the thirty), which agrees with the Latin Vulgate, so that all say those three men, not thirty, as the heretics do—although that same chapter of II Reg. mentions another thirty-seven.
B Adnotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 15. Pag. 86. *Perfectus enim nemo, etc.* ("For no one is perfect"). That he had established the highest degree of mastery and the summit of his perfection in loading carts with lies and recent trifles, and that he had contended to add to his previous errors ones that were worse, so that they seemed to vie for the palm of impiety—this Nazianzenus gravely affirms after Irenaeus: "Certain men lay ascensions in their heart, not of confession, but of abjuration; nor of theology, but of blasphemy. For they vie among themselves in the liberality and munificence of spreading the riches of impiety, just as if they did not fear that they might enmesh themselves in impious errors; but [as if they feared] that they might sin less lightly and tolerably in this matter than the rest."
*Necessarium est.* We have deleted *esse* by the authority of the ancient codices and the Greek readings, and for *argutionem* we have substituted *ar-gutionem* (that is, confutation).
Pag. 88. *Tubernaculi quoque.* ("Also of the tabernacle"). Whoever has despised the cold allegories of the Gnostics, as is fitting, and has desired expositions of these Mosaic rites that are more solid and suitably accommodated to Christ, the Church, and the sacraments, [will find them] from the most learned commentaries of Rupert, Bede, and Rabanus, and the homilies of Origen on the Pentateuch, and Clement of Alexandria, *Strom.* v, C if it is thought that he will be satisfied.
*Volunt eum sexto.* We have deleted *dicunt eum septimo*, and soon after, for *septimo* we have substituted *sexto*, by the authority of the ancient codices and the Greek reading.
*Sed et arcæ.* Thus, the sense and the Greek edition absolutely require it to be read.
Pag. 89. *Duodecim tintinnabula.* ("Twelve bells"). It pleased us to touch briefly upon the pious allegorical explanations of these bells by certain Fathers, and to oppose them to the Gnostic ravings. They signified the twelve apostles, as Justin Martyr [taught], "hanging from the power of the eternal priest Christ, through whose voice the world was filled with his glory and grace." Tertullian: "Why did he choose twelve apostles, and not some other number? Truly, I could interpret my Christ from this, not only proclaimed by the voices of the prophets, but also by the arguments of the things themselves. For I detect the figures of this number in the Creator: the twelve fountains of Elim, and the twelve gems on the priestly tunic of Aaron, and the twelve stones chosen by Jesus from the Jordan and placed in the ark of the covenant; for as many apostles were foretold," etc. Clement of Alexandria: "But the three hundred and sixty-six bells which hang from the ankle-length garment are the annual time: the year, I say, of the Lord, welcoming, proclaiming, and resounding the great advent of the Savior." Augustine writes: "By the priestly garment, the Church is signified; but by these bells, that the way of life of the priest should be noted, as the Apostle says, 'show yourself an example of good works.'" "It is commanded to Moses," says Gregory, "that the priest, entering the tabernacle, be surrounded by bells, so that he may have the voices of preaching, lest he offend the judgment of the heavenly spectator by silence. But the bells adhere to the vestments, so that with the sound of the tongue, the very good works of the priest may also cry out." Bede: "If we should wish to attend to the words of Josephus, in which he says that there were seventy-two pomegranates on the tunic of the high priest, and the same number of bells, this agrees with the figures of the mysteries, so that just as he was commanded to carry the apostolic number on his shoulder and breast, so also he had the assigned number around his feet for the seventy-two disciples, who themselves were also sent to preach."
D *Et per Samuelem.* That something is missing here in all our Latin copies is shown both by the Greek reading and the context of the Scriptures. Thus, therefore, let it be read: "per Samuelem, who first made Saul sit down among the thirty invited guests; and by David, who for thirty days was hidden in the field," etc. And so the word *declinantem* is suspect, from the Greek *κατακλίναντος*, which in truth is said of the one who makes the guests sit down in specific places.
Ex Jo. Ernesti Grabii adnotatationibus in cap. 15. Pag. 86. *Μεταμορφάζουσιν.* The emendation of Billius and Fronto Ducaeus, who wish it to be read *μεταρμόζουσι*, does not please, or is at least not necessary; although it cannot be denied that Irenaeus used this verb elsewhere more often. If one may take a conjecture of this passage from the ancient interpretation, it was written *μεταμορφάζοντες* (or, as the Basle edition of Epiphanius, and from it all the editions of Irenaeus have, *μεταμορφάζοντες*) *μεθαρμόζουσι*. *Καὶ οἱ στύλοι οἱ δεκαπήχεις.* For a long time I searched Holy Scripture for the ten-cubit pillars, until finally in the Frankfurt edition of 1597 of the LXX translators, Exod. xxxvi, 17 et seq., I found these things written: *Καὶ ἐποίησε στύλους τῆς σκηνῆς ἐκ ξύλων ἀσήπτων· δέκα πηχέων τὴν στύλον τὴν ἕνα*. But in the Roman edition of Flaminius Nobilius, and
those of Walton, these things do not exist at all. For the entire chapters xxxvi and following differ immensely in the Roman and Alexandrian codices.
*The Twelve Bells*. In Holy Scripture, Exodus xxviii, nothing is read regarding the number of these bells. But not only the Marcosian heretics, but also certain Catholics, such as Justin Martyr, who in his *Dialogue with Trypho the Jew*, page 260, says: *δωδεκα κώδωνας ἐξῆφθαι τοῦ ποδήρους τοῦ ἀρχιερέως παραδεδόσθαι* (65), have received by tradition that twelve bells were attached to the robe of the high priest. Which he himself makes a type of the twelve apostles, who adhered to Jesus Christ, the high priest of the New Testament. Others, however, have handed down 72, and others a different number of these bells, concerning which read the excellent treatise of Braun, *De vestitu sacerdotum Hebræorum*, book ii, chapter 5, § 23. For I do not wish to digress here with Feuardentius.
[Scholia of Billius on chapter 16.] Page 90. *Necessarium autem*. I add *Δέ* from the ancient [codex]. Page 91. *Quod autem non*. For *οὐδέ* in the Greek, one should read *οὐ*, and in the same line, for *ἐπί*, *ὑπό* or *παρά*. *Cum parabolarum*. In the Greek, *ἑτέρω* should be deleted.
[Notes from the Adversaria of Fronton du Duc on chapter 12.] Page 91. *Ostenditur procedente*. The Greek is *δειχθήσεται*, "it shall be shown." The passage of Daniel in the new Roman edition stands thus: *Δεῦρο, Δανιήλ, ὅτι ἐμπεφραγμένοι καὶ ἐσφραγισμένοι οἱ λόγοι, ἕως κ. π. ἐκλεγ. καὶ ἐκλευκανθῶσιν*, etc., not different from those things which the Latin Vulgate of Daniel xii, 9, 10 says: "Go, Daniel, because the words are closed and sealed." But we do not read, as the heretics cite, *καὶ οἱ λευκοὶ λευκανθῶσι*. These are somewhat different from the autograph of the prophecy, which Cyprian cites from this place, which however agree with those things which are found in this same Irenæus, book v, c. 43.
[Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 16.] Page 90. *Dominum nostrum*. We propose that *τὸν* should be read from the ancient codex and Greek reading. Before it was "Not another Lord," etc. *Et fabricatorem quidem*. With a twofold argument he refutes their falsehood: first, because they make the Creator of the world a different being from the supreme and invisible God; second, because they imagine that He was seen in essence by the prophets, and that with bodily eyes. And Augustine more correctly teaches that all the visions granted to Moses and the other prophets were manifested through a created medium to signify the invisible God: nor that Moses himself ever openly saw God. But that the creature is assumed in various ways to signify God to our senses, the same man later pursues shrewdly. Namely, sometimes in an angel; sometimes in a form arranged by an angel; sometimes, truly, the prophets themselves signified the person of God by words and deeds. This same thing is also confirmed most amply in epistle 3 by many sentiments of Scripture, and by the testimonies of Ambrose, Jerome, Athanasius, and Nazianzen. Page 91. *Recurre, Daniel*. Cyprian reads this place of Daniel in this way: "Seal the words, and sign the book until the time of consummation, that many may learn, and knowledge may be filled, because when there is dispersion, they will know all these things." But he does not interpret it of some unknown God, as these men wrongly think: but correctly of the blindness of the Jews, who were not going to understand the holy Scriptures until Christ should come in the last times, who would explain them to the disciples by word and deed.
[From the Annotations of John Ernest Grabe on chapter 18.] Page 90. *Ὁ λαός με οὐ συνῆκε*. The LXX interpreters, according to Jerome on chapter 1 of Isaiah. The LXX alone translated: "Israel did not know me, and my people did not understand me." And thus from here A they were cited by both heretics and Catholics; St. Basil, Cyril, Theodoret in their Commentaries, and Justin Martyr, older than these, in *Apology 2 (1)* page 93, C. Whence also in the former part of this Apology, 77, A, it seems should be read *ὁ λαός με οὐ συνῆκε*, not *μου*, as is in the published copies.
[Scholia of Billius on chapter 17.] Page 91. *Puerili ætate esset*. In the Greek for *τὰ δία*, one should read with the ancient [codex] *παιδὸς ὄντος καὶ τὰ γράμματα μανθάνοντος, καὶ τοῦ διδασκάλου*. Page 92. *Per id præterea quod*. For *διὰ τό*, it reads *διὰ τοῦτο*: but wrongly, as the sense shows. *Dicere recusavit*. In the Greek before *εἰπεῖν*, *ποιεῖν* should be added, or *οὐ*. *Abscondita sunt a te*. Add *ἀπό* in the Greek. *Se eos edocturum*. This passage is corrupt in Epiphanius, and is to be restored from the ancient translation: *ὑποσχέσει διδάξειν. Ἀπόδειξιν δὲ τὴν ἀνωτάτω*, etc. *Abscondisti hæc*. Add *ταῦτα* in the Greek. *Sic tibi complacuit*. *μου* should be deleted.
[Notes from the Adversaria of Fronton du Duc on chapter 12.] Page 93. *Apocryphorum et perperum*. *Ἀποκρύφων καὶ νόθων γραφῶν*, better perhaps "of apocryphal and spurious Scriptures." *Et propter hoc non respondisse*. The interpreter perhaps read *διὰ τό*; but he wished to express the Hellenism, for in this way he is accustomed to render articles. Page 91. *Per eum sermonem qui est*. Too awkwardly he translates *ῥῆμα* as "a word," which grammarians [call] "a verb": thus therefore it will be plainer, "by the word, 'things are hidden,' he has signified that the apocryphon of Bythus has been manifested": this is while he uses the word *ἐκρύβη*, he has designated the occultation, or the obscurity of Bythus. *Confiteor tibi, Pater*. Since the ancient interpreter persuades this, it must be read, as in Luke x, 21, *ὁμολογοῦμαί σοι*, in the Greek: although the author may seem to change the words of Scripture sometimes, as when he says *οὐρανῶν*, not *οὐρανοῦ*, unless this also is a fault of the copyist. That certainly in the beginning of the following chapter is indeed the fault of the copyist: *διὰ τὸ ἐν ἕκαστον*, for he did not think *ἓν ἕκαστον* could be rightly joined with *τό*, because it is of a different gender. You understand *διὰ τὸ παραδιδόναι ἓν ἕκαστον αὐτῶν αὐτήν*: we have restored *παραδιδόναι* from the Epiphanius codex for *διδόναι*, which was in the edition of Gallasius.
[Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 17.] Page 91. *Scripturas*. We have imposed this new title, because no one would judge that it fits better: but the old one [we have relegated] to the beginning of the next chapter, to which we have also relegated the four subsequent lines of this one, so that it may be the beginning of that. *Multitudinem apocryphorum*. An apocryphon is that which for St. Augustine D whose hidden origin was not clear to the Fathers: for it hides, whence *ἀπόκρυφον* is "I hide," or "I conceal." Furthermore, that the Gnostics not only had books, whose origin was unknown, but also breathing blasphemies, both has been said above, and in this chapter it becomes more than sufficiently clear; when they ridicule Christ as ignorant, and learning his ABCs as if under the cane of some pedagogue. For then, as the blessed Clement testifies, the pestilential books were composed under the name of Christ and the apostles by Simon and Cleobius, which the heretics circulated to the fraud of simple Christians. Which he asserts was also done in superior times, namely, that writings pernicious and hostile to the truth were published under the names of Moses, Enoch, Adam, Isaiah, David, Elias, and the three patriarchs. Leo Magnus also writes that he found many most corrupt codices of the Priscillianists, which were titled canonical. For how could they deceive the simple, unless they had offered poisoned cups with some honey
A of the name of Jesus being placed for perfection, and that he should learn his letters. The ancients of the Gnostics are attempting to revive this error, common enough to our ignorance, as impiously as they are stubbornly, when, under the influence of Calvin, they say that he was ignorant of very many things; and with Gallasius supporting them, that it was necessary for him to learn and be educated in the manner of men. We have refuted these impieties copiously in the fourth dialogue against their errors: and more will be said about them below.
"Incognitum" (Unknown). So it is in the ancient codex, and in Greek also: *τὸ ἀγνώστου*; therefore we have expanded it to *cognitam*.
Page 92. "Sed et in eo" (But even in it). Thus, the ancient codices and the Greek reading have taught that it should be read. But that which they report Christ to have said, since it exists in no Gospel, they have fabricated.
"Apocryphum Bythi" (The Apocryphal [work] of Bythos). Thus it should be read, instead of "apocryphum Bythum": and later, "veritatis Patrem" (Father of truth) instead of "veritatem Patris" (truth of the Father). Likewise, "promisit se" (he promised himself) instead of "promisisse" (to have promised) it taught, with the ancient codex and the Greek text: just as above, "ostendisse eum" (to have shown him) instead of "non ostendisse" (not to have shown).
Page 93. "Et aptare" (And to fit). We have removed "a Patre" (from the Father), following the ancient codex and the Greek reading.
"De incognito" (Concerning the unknown). We have deleted "de cognito" (from the known), following the ancient codex and the Greek reading, although this is *κείσθαι*, not as in the Greek *κεκομίσθαι* (to have been brought).
"Cum quibusdam profanis" (With certain profane [ones]). In Eusebius, lib. iv, c. 10 of the *History*, it is read *μετ' ἐπικλήσεών τινων τοῖς τελουμένοις, εἰς τὸ ὕδωρ, εἰ μητέρα τῶν πάντων, εἰς τὸ ὄνομα, καὶ ὅσα τοῖς τελουμένοις*, and the rest as in Epiphanius. Therefore, in both Greek books the word *βεβήλων* (profane) is omitted, which, however, the interpreter of Irenaeus expresses, and Rufinus, when he translates: "For indeed certain of them build a bridal chamber, and celebrate a certain nefarious kind of initiation, as if consecrating him who is introduced with certain secret incantations and words, not so much sacred as execrable." Christopherus also [says]: "And they perform certain nefarious mysteries on them with invocations." However, our interpreter may have added this of his own accord, as later: "with certain similar profane expressions." In the Greek, there is only *βεβήλων ὁμοιοτρόπων* (of similar profane [ones]). Where the word "profane" was omitted by Billius.
B Notes from the adversaria of Fronto Ducaeus on chapter 18.
Page 91. *Ὡς τοῦ Κυρίου* (As of the Lord). This piece of trickery, as it is deservedly called by Irenaeus, is also found in the apocryphal [work] which is falsely ascribed to Matthias, existing in the manuscript codex 1697 in the Royal Library at Paris, as witnessed by Cotelerius in his notes to lib. vi of the *Apostolic Constitutions* of Clement, cap. 16, and in the *Gospel of the Infancy of Christ*, which Henricus Sikius edited with a Latin version, pages 144 and 146, and also, although slightly different, in the pseudo-Gospel of Leucius, which exists in manuscript here at Oxford in the library of Corpus Christi College, where in the chapter "How Jesus was to be taught his letters," these things are read: "And the master began to teach him copiously (or imperiously), saying: Say alpha. But Jesus said to him: Tell me first what beta is, and I will tell you what alpha is; and for this the master, angered, struck Jesus, and after he struck him, he died."
Scholia of Billius on chapter 18.
Page 93. "Ad fidei abjectionem" (To the rejection of the faith). Greek: *ἀπόθεσιν* (laying aside). In the Greek, instead of *εἶδος τοῦ*, one should read *εἶδος τοῦτο* (this form).
Page 94. "Intimum Bythi sinum" (The inmost bosom of Bythos). I add in the Greek *τοῦ Βυθοῦ* (of Bythos) from the ancient [codex].
"Profanorum quorumdam" (Of certain profane ones). I add *βεβήλων* (profane) from the ancient [codex].
Page 95. "In eo qui in Jesum descendit" (In him who descends into Jesus). *εἰς τὸν κατελθόντα εἰς Ἰησοῦν*. The ancient edition: "in nomine descendentis Jesu" (in the name of the descending Jesus). In the manuscript codex, however, from which infinite places have been corrected, it is not "Jesu," but "spiritus" (spirit) that is read. Which reading indeed has the same meaning as the Greek codex.
Page 97. "Filius autem in eo qui praeexistit" (But the Son in him who pre-exists). The Greek codex of Epiphanius has *ἐν τῷ παρόντι*, that is, "in the present." But it appears that the ancient interpreter read *προόντι*. For he translates: "who was before."
"Veni ut" (I came that). *Ἦλθον*. But in the Greek codex, a little later, instead of *ἐκ τῶν*, one should read *τὸν*.
"Quae patris expers" (Which is devoid of father). The sense in this place clearly demands that with the ancient interpreter we read *πατέρα* (father), not, as corruptly in Epiphanius, *μητέρα* (mother).
"Hoc autem" (But this). *Τοῦτο* should be read in the Greek, with the ancient [codex].
FINIS OF THE SCHOLIA OF BILLIUS.
Page 95. "In nomine ignoti" (In the name of the unknown). Although in Greek it is read *εἰς ὄνομα ἀγνώστου*, yet the ancient interpreter and Billius more correctly [read] "In nomine ignoti" than Cornarius and Gallasius, "In nomen ignoti," for thus also Rufinus had translated: "in the name of the unknown Father of all, and in the truth, mother of all, and in him who descended into Jesus"; and it seems this was rendered according to the example of the words of our true sacred initiation in Matt. xxviii, 19, *εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς*. Vulgata: "in nomine Patris" (in the name of the Father), in the same way as Cyprian, ep. 23, and other Latin Fathers: although Tertullian also, in *De baptismo*, 13, said: "Baptizing them in the name of the Father."
"In nomine descendentis in Jesu" (In the name of the one descending into Jesus). It is wonderful how careless here were Cornarius and Gallasius, who translate: "in him who descends Jesus, and in him who descends."
"Et spiritus et Vita" (And spirit and Life). Greek, *πνεῦμα ἀγαθὸν καὶ ζωὴ*; "Spiritus bonus et vita," perhaps *ἁγίον* (holy), as later, "per Spiritum sanctum in redemptionem angelicam" (by the Holy Spirit into angelic redemption).
"In zonis luminis" (In the zones of light). Greek, *ἐν ταῖς ζωναῖς τοῦ φωτός*; "in zonis luminis"; and thus our Billius reads: *ἐν ταῖς ζωναῖς τοῦ φωτός*. I change nothing here, but I advise noticing *τοῦ Χριστοῦ*, [which is] in the Greek a little later from the ancient, which has: "Christi non divido spiritum" (I do not divide the spirit of Christ): for these traces of Hebrew expressions also indicate this, *Messia opharech*.
Page 96. "Et incorporalia et insensibilia" (And incorporeal and insensible). There should be added to the Greek the word *ἀνωνύμων* (nameless/unnamed) from the ancient, *καὶ ἀσωμάτων καὶ ἀναισθήτων*, unless perhaps this is by the interpreter, not by the author.
Page 97. "Alii sunt qui mortuos" (There are others who [say] the dead). Because this was donated to the Latinity also by the most learned Billius, and they were found in the Greek of Epiphanius, we have described them from his book, since they were not in the edition of Gallasius: although it must be noted that it is not cited here by Epiphanius exactly as they were in Irenaeus, lest anyone should wonder why the Latin does not respond to the individual Greek words.
Page 98. "Ipsos abeuntes in sua" (Themselves departing into their own). I do not agree with the most learned Billius, who thinks these things are read in error in the plural: for thus he said in the beginning: "Et praecipiunt eis venientibus ad potestates" (And they instruct them coming to the powers), and, "venire quoque eos" (that they also come). Epiphanius, however, already from the beginning said, *Ἐντελλόμενοι δὲ ἐὰν ἔλθῃ ἐπὶ τὰς ἀρχάς* ("instructing, however, when he shall have come to the principalities"): thus, however, these precepts were many, from those Gnostic mystics, so that what everyone ought to say might be expressed. Nor does Epiphanius bring forth the words of Irenaeus himself, as we have warned, but has borrowed those things from him, and inserted or changed them at his own pleasure.
"Anima vero eorum projiciatur" (But the soul of them may be cast out). These things are missing in the interpretation of Billius, although they are found in the Greek of Epiphanius, which [is] thus in Cornarius: "Anima vero ipsorum opifici astet superne in defectu constituto, et illic maneant apud ipsum" (But may their soul stand above to the creator, set in defect, and there may they remain near him). Thus also in Tertullian from
A ages unknown, and another from the maker of the world; secondly, "Alethia," that is to say, that Truth, the mother of all, whose idol, fashioned from the figures of twenty-four letters, he recounted in chapter 10; thirdly, 67 "Christ," in the beginning other than Jesus, whom they feigned to be the Christ who descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove while he was being baptized by John, and that he was then joined to him for the completion of the miracles which are written in the Gospel; and that he himself was also to be proclaimed up to the time of the passion, at which he withdrew to the things above, from whence he had flown down, and that Jesus alone was left to suffer the passion.
However, it is manifest that the sacrilege of these scoundrels in corrupting the form of the sacrament of baptism is here most rightly rebuked and condemned by Irenaeus. For since it was established completely and absolutely by the eternal Son of God that it should be conferred by the sprinkling or immersion of water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, it pertains to no man by his own authority to detract from or change anything in these. "For the law of baptizing," says Tertullian in his book *De bapt.*, "is imposed, and the form prescribed: Go, teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And in his book *De præscript.*, chapter 20: "He commanded the (apostles) to go, and to teach the nations, to be baptized into the Father, and into the Son, and into the Holy Spirit." Cyprian also writes in his twenty-third epistle: "The Lord said, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit let the nations be baptized, and in baptism let past sins be forgiven." And again in his seventy-third epistle: "After the resurrection the apostles are sent to the nations and are commanded to baptize the Gentiles in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Didymus also in book 11 *De Spiritu sancto* says: "He who omits one of the prescribed names B neither attains the perfection of the sacrament, nor frees a man from his sins." Finally, Augustine writes: "The evangelical words are certain, without which baptism cannot be consecrated, etc."
*Basima ea cabasa*. Nicetas in his *Orthodoxia* recounts these words a little differently, writing: "To strike greater awe into him who is being baptized, they superadd these Hebrew names: *camosi, bae, anoora, mystadia, rhuda, custaba, plogor, calathi*. The interpretation of these is: 'O Thou who art above every power of the Father, we invoke Thee, Thou who art light, and good Spirit, and life; for Thou hast reigned in the body'." It is very difficult to indicate the sources of these words; take, however, what seems most likely to us concerning them. That these impostors were delighted by magical arts and produced many prodigious and portentous things by them is most certain from Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius, Theodoret, and Augustine. Furthermore, it is a confession among all sacred and profane writers that the Magus invented and whispered monstrous, and, by the very harshness of their pronunciation, even horrible words and charms by the aid of evil spirits, in which they asserted that a marvelous energy resided for their sorceries. For Apuleius believes that by magical whispering, rivers move backward, the sea is bound, winds expire, the sun is checked, the moon is drained, the stars are plucked down, the day is removed, and the night is held fast. Virgil also says: Charms can bring down even the moon from the sky: By charms Circe changed the companions of Ulysses. The cold snake in the meadows is burst asunder by chanting. And Tibullus of a certain enchantress: She by her chant splits the very ground, and from the tombs Exits the shades, and calls forth the bones from the tepid pyre. And another boasts in Ovid: I burst the viperous jaws with words and charm, And the earth, shaken by its own strength, and the living snakes.
Serenus Sammonicus also trifles about the name Abracadabra, as others do about Aralitha, etc. It is therefore likely that these cunning conjurers invented these magical and barbaric portents rather than names, and impressed them with great arrogance to stir the minds of the simple, so that, in their great astonishment, they might think those things which they did not understand to be deeper; and the demons, assisting the pacts made, would perform those things which the pronunciation of these words demanded, as you have it above concerning the supper of Marcus, chap. 9. But if you insist that what you have here should be called Hebrew by Irenaeus, I would answer that it is to be understood not in his sense, but in that of the Valentinians, since I can confidently and truly affirm this one thing: that they were not derived from the Greek, nor from the Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, or Arabic language. A
Regnasti. The old manuscript reads thus. In Greek it is ἐβασίλευσας; therefore we have deleted renasci.
Page 96. *They anoint the sacred [body] with opobalsam.* That there are certain degrees of impiety, and that no one suddenly becomes at his worst, is apparent even in these Gnostics. For although they corrupted many things from the Holy Scriptures, perpetrated unspeakable deeds, and vomited forth horrible things against God, nevertheless they observed the protestations and anointings used by Catholics in baptizing; to such an extent had the tradition of those rites grown strong throughout the whole world, with the Apostles handing them down. Nor does Irenaeus condemn them on this count here, or in what follows; which he would certainly not have done sluggishly if they had declined from apostolic tradition in this.
But those who contend that this rite should be removed from the midst because it was usurped by heretics for a wicked end, judge perversely and impiously, since they would at the same time remove both water, and a part of the words common with us, and the remaining portions of the Gospels which they were using. C “For the virginity of holy women is not to be detested,” says Augustine, “because there were also Vestal virgins; nor are the sacrifices of the fathers to be criticized because there were also the sacrifices of the Gentiles; because, even if the use of certain things seems to be similar for us to that of the Gentiles—I add, and of heretics—such as food, drink, houses, clothing, washings; yet far otherwise does he use them who refers their use to another end, and otherwise he who gives thanks to God for them, of whom he does not believe false things.”
Furthermore, we gather that there were three oily and chrism unctions in baptism from apostolic times. First, around the waters, “which the pontiff,” by the authority of Dionysius the Areopagite, “sanctified with a holy prayer and invocation, καὶ τρισὶ τοῦ παναγιωτάτου μύρου σταυροειδέσι χύσεσι τελειώσας αὐτό,” i.e., finalizing it by pouring into them three times the most holy ointment in the shape of a cross, he perfects them with this rite. Second, after the renunciations and exorcisms, with either the whole body, as is in Dionysius and Cyril of Jerusalem, or the breast only and the shoulders, they anointed the one to be baptized with oil, which is therefore called that of the catechumens. Finally, with chrism, composed of oil and the juice of balsam, to express the unity of royal and priestly glory, says Cyprian, the baptized were signed on the crown of the head. That from the Apostles, with the Holy Spirit as teacher, all churches throughout the world have constantly retained these received rites up to this day, and have used them to signify the gifts of the Holy Spirit, are witnesses those who lived in the first century after the Apostles, or with them: Clemens Rom., lib. II, De constit. apost., chaps. 15, 16, 17, and lib. VII, chaps. 23, 28, 41, 42, 44, and lib. Recog. and Epist. 3; Dionys. Areopag. lib. De eccles. hierar., chaps. 2 and 7; the author of the Questions among Justin Martyr, quest. 137; Theophilus of Antioch lib. 1 ad Autolycum; and those who later lived in the East, Origen, lib. in Epist. ad Rom.; Chrysost. hom. 12 in 1 ad Corinth. and homil. 6 ad Coloss.; Basil lib. De Spiritu sancto, chap. 27; Nazianzen in his oration on holy baptism. I will also add the Fathers of the Latin Church, Tertullian, Lib. De carnis resurrectione, lib. 1 Contra Marc., and lib. De baptism; Cyprian epist. 72 ad Januarium; Arnobius in his Commentaries on Psalms IV, XXII, LXXXII, XC, CXXXII and CXXXIV; Optatus of Milevis lib. II, III, and VII Contra Parmenianum; Augustine lib. XV De Trinit., chap. 16, and lib. IV De symb., chap. 1, and tractate 44 in Joannem; Ambrose lib. 1 De sacramentis, chaps. 1 and 7; Jerome Dialog. contra Lucifer. I have liked to note these things a little more fully, so that it might become known to all with what piety and sincerity those Magdeburg rhapsodists are led, who dare to assert that these sacred rites of anointing were only of heretics, and not of catholic and apostolic men. B
*But some of them.* Therefore, the first and most holy mystery of our regeneration, which is baptism, the Devil attempted to undermine from every side through these Gnostics; when they corrupted the words of that form handed down by Christ, while others, and those following next, thought the very matter, that is, water, was to be totally neglected. The same diabolical stratagem is even now being attempted by later Hugnostics [Protestants], when through Brentius, Beza, and the like, he persuades that to use a certain form of words is magic; and that there is no other word of the sacraments than that which is expounded by the minister from the pulpit. But through Calvin he teaches that water is not entirely necessary: nor did Christ say concerning it: “Unless one is born again of water, etc.” But he learned this from Luther, who, being asked by his own whether it might be permitted to baptize with beer or milk, finally answered: “Whatever can be called a bath is suitable for baptism. If water is not present, since there is beer or milk in necessity, or whatever you may have: there is nothing in this.” You have here, therefore, the impieties of the ancient Gnostics reborn in the latest: so always like unto himself is Satan, the father of all lies. D
*Others refusing all these things.* That seducers of men progress for the worse, and those who wallow in filth become much filthier by the day, is clearly indicated by this class of Gnostics, who reject the ceremonies, the water, and the words of holy baptism at the same time as unworthy, as if they would signify their invisible mysteries. They indeed are those whom Epiphanius calls Archontics, Theodoret and Nicetas call Ascodrugi and Ascodrupitae, to whom Euthymius adds the Paulicians. For these men denied that divine mysteries and spiritual gifts were to be signified and commemorated by visible things; and that incorporeal things were to be signified by sensible and corporeal ones: consequently, they did not admit the use of baptism or other visible sacraments. Against these Nicetas and Euthymius argue most bitterly. Our own century groans with the same fecundity to sow error upon error among more recent Gnostics, lest they degenerate from such great fathers. For after they removed from the midst the holy oil with salt, saliva, the consecration of water, the profession of the symbol, the renunciations, and the exorcisms by which Satan is warded off: now they promise salvation to the infants of the faithful without baptism.
*Others there are who [deny the] dead.* Epiphanius explains the meaning of this place and acknowledges the emendation from the old codex.
Theodoret also mentions this matter among the Ascodrytae, but after death; Epiphanius, however, shows that they did it before. But I think both speak rightly and truthfully, since I find that Christians formerly used a double unction. The former, before death, concerning which St. James preaches A: "Let him call for the presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord," etc. The apostles had frequently anointed [men] with this same oil, Christ himself being without doubt the author, and had healed the sick, Mark vi; and that this application of oil holds the complete nature of a sacrament and possesses stupendous and marvelous effects, is asserted by Clement of Rome, lib. viii, *De constit. apost.*, cap. 35; Jerome in *Vita Hilarionis*; Augustine, lib. 2, *De visit. infir.*, cap. 4, and sermon 215 *De tempore*; Innocent I in his letter to Decentius of Gubbio; and Bernard in *Vita S. Malachiae*. The latter, after death, when the bodies of the saints, before they were delivered to burial, were anointed with oil in the hope, I think, of the resurrection; and this was customarily done to the dead. Clement of Alexandria testifies that the Sabres (if I may so call them) knew this, and Tertullian, that many [Christians]... prefer their own merchandise for the burial of Christians than the burning of their gods for the pagans. Older than all these, and a hearer of the apostles, Dionysius the Areopagite explains the form and end of that unction: "When," he says, "all have greeted [the deceased]," their body having been brought in, "the hierarch pours the oil upon the defunct [as he is laid out]." And after a few words: "The unction with oil formerly called the one to be baptized to the sacred contests. But now the poured oil signifies that he who is deceased has finished the same sacred contests, and so has been consummated."
C But what then? Are the Gnostics to be approved because they used either one or both of these unctions? If they had done so with equal faith and intent of mind as the Catholics, neither in this matter nor in any other would anyone have condemned them. But they proposed to themselves an impious end, as you have in Irenaeus; nor did they use the words that were fitting; and therefore, more in the manner of apes, as Cyprian writes concerning the Novatians, who, while they are not men, yet imitate human [activity], so when they were not in the Church, indeed were against the Church, yet they wanted to claim for themselves the truth and rites of the Catholic Church. By a like stratagem, the devil formerly, in the mysteries of idols, has been shown by Tertullian to have emulated the divine sacraments, so that he might subvert the truth. "He himself also baptizes some," he adds, "treating them as his believers and faithful: he promises the expiation of sins from the bath, and thus even now initiates them into Mithra: he marks [them] there on their foreheads, his soldiers, and celebrates an oblation of bread, and brings forward an image of the resurrection, and under the sword redeems the crown. What is more, he even establishes the high priest in a single marriage. He has also virgins, he has those who live in continence," etc. And lib. 1, *Ad uxorem*: "The priesthood of widowhood is celebrated among the [heathen] nations, for the sake of the devil's emulation. For the king of the age, the *pontifex maximus*, it is forbidden to marry again. How much does holiness please God, when the enemy even affects it, not indeed as a relative of any good, but so that he might affect the rulings of God the Lord with insult?" I shall omit what he wrote on this matter at the end of the book *De corona militis*, that I may append a few, but most grave, words from Justin Martyr: "The fables of the poets," he says, "were introduced by evil spirits, to deceive and seduce men. For having learned from the oracles of the prophets about the Christ who was to come, they caused certain things to be scattered about the many sons of Jupiter, hoping that those who hear these monstrous tales might believe no more in Christ than in the figments of the poets." And afterwards: "Demons, not ignorant of the prophetic predictions, [and] having understood them little..." they sought by error to distort them from our Christ to their own figments, etc. Many things that follow, though most elegant, I preferred to indicate rather than to include, so as not to burden these pages, which, however, no Christian shall read without great pleasure and profit.
*Superascendat*. We restore these nine words from an old codex: indeed we have expunged four, namely, *superascendant, super visibilia interiorum*.
Furthermore, from this and many following places, B it is established that the Blessed Irenaeus was a most constant champion of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. For although he does not institute a discussion about them *ex professo* in these books, but only refutes the heresies of the Gnostics, yet he remembers them all at least in passing, and teaches that they were instituted by Christ for the justice and salvation of men, and handed down by the apostles throughout the whole world, [and] religiously kept and administered; as it appears clearly from the points below.
He excellently defends baptism in this place, regarding its form, matter, rites, and effects, against the corruptions of the heretics. He affirms that this was predicted by the prophets, instituted by Christ, and commanded to the apostles, that they should baptize all nations, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and that it is absolutely necessary for salvation, lib. 3, cap. 19. He confirms that remission of sins is conferred by this, as is union with Christ, and incorruption, by the same [baptism] at the present time. He calls it spiritual circumcision, lib. iv, cap. 58. He asserts that it is also conferred on infants, lib. 1, cap. 39. He approves the customary rites of the catechism and exorcism, lib. 1, cap. 1, 9, 43 and 19.
He also acknowledges Confirmation, when he teaches that the Holy Spirit is given to the pious not through magical arts, as the wicked Simon Magus thought, but through the imposition of apostolic hands, lib. 1, cap. 20, and lib. iv, cap. 75. Furthermore, arguing against the foolish disciples of the Gnostic [heretics], because they thought themselves initiated and confirmed by mixing their oil with water, and using profane words, saying, "I am confirmed, and I am redeemed," etc., whereas the sacrament of confirmation is not administered by profane men, such as the Gnostics were; nor by those words: "In the name of the unknown Father," etc.: but by the successors of the apostles, and by words received from their constant and perpetual tradition.
He constantly and frequently declares that the bread of the Eucharist and the mixed chalice, through the words of invocation, truly become the body and blood of Christ, and that both are offered by Christ's ordination to the whole world, as the sacrifice of the New Testament, and that it is offered upon the altar by the hands of the priests, and confirms [this] with the words of the prophets and apostles, lib. iv, c. 32, 33, 34, 45, and lib. v, c. 2. He teaches that it was customary to observe it, in his letter to Victor, when it was sent to Polycarp by Anicetus. He explains the reasons for its institution and its marvelous fruits in lib. iv, c. 34, and lib. v, c. 2, and at the same time he does not omit the words of the preface of the canon and some prayers, in lib. 1, cap. 1 and 9, and lib. iv, cap. 34.
He approves the parts of Penance, that is, contrition, confession, and satisfaction, when first he discourses frequently about *exhomologesis*, that is, confession, both private and public, lib. 1, c. 9, and lib. iii, c. 4; [and] that the freeing of Lazarus from his bonds was a symbol of a sinner being freed from his sins by ecclesiastical pastors, lib. v, c. 13. He asserts contrition and satisfaction by the clearest examples of Adam and Eve, who, at the confusion of the sin committed, fled to the shadows, judging themselves unworthy of the sight of God, punishing their own bodies with biting and pricking fig leaves, and finally, of their own accord, undergoing the punishments of labors, weariness, sadness, and groans inflicted by God, lib. iii, c. 35,
A 36 and 37. He writes that by penance life is obtained for some, lib. i, c. 2. Finally, that through penance we can become sons of God from the greatest of sinners, and obtain the inheritance of incorruptibility, lib. iv, c. 80.
He defends the ordination of sacred men, writing that all the righteous (for only pious and approved men were previously assumed for sacred functions) have the priestly order; that the apostles were priests of the Lord, whom they always served at the altar; and that sacrifice is to be offered very often at the altar, book four, chapter twenty. Again, that sacrifices are offered in the Church by free men; that what the Church offers (namely, through the priests and others ministering at the altar) is considered a pure sacrifice before God, book four, chapters thirty-two, thirty-three, and thirty-four. That the Word of God receives the mixed cup and the bread (namely, through the mouth and ministry of the priests) so that they may become the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ, lib. v, cap. 2.
Matrimony, which the Greek author once and again calls a mystery (without doubt of Christ and the Church, as the Apostle speaks at 69), and which we Latins call a sacrament, he clearly affirms, book one, chapter one. He declares it instituted by God for the propagation of the human race, lib. iv, cap. 24, and lib. v, cap. 2. Furthermore, he sufficiently defends the indissoluble custom of man and woman, when he reproves the promiscuous and wandering lusts of the Gnostics as severely as he does holily, lib. i, cap. 1, 9, 20, 22, 24, 27, and 31.
Finally, he sufficiently affirms the catholic use of the anointing of the sick, when in this chapter he vindicates it from the various corruptions of the heretics. For he argues against certain ones who considered that it should be applied to the corpses of the dead, when nonetheless the apostles declare it to be proper to the sick, not the dead, Mark vi, James v. Although others anointed the sick, he judges them to be worthy of rebuke, because they used an impious form of words invented by themselves, and not one handed down by the Church; and finally, that others invented impious ends and effects for the same anointing, other than those which the apostles handed down, as is easily detected from this chapter. And so much for these matters.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 18.*
C Page 93. *The tradition of redemption for them turns out to be invisible and incomprehensible, etc.* Above, page 61, note 1, from the Dissertation of Jacob Rhenferd on the redemption of the Marcosians, I gave an explanation of the meaning of the word *apolutroseos* (redemption), by which it denotes a certain formula of praying, or giving thanks to God for redemption, which also occurs again and again in this chapter. But another notion of this word obtained among these heretics, in origin, if I am not mistaken, Jewish, which seems to have escaped Irenæus. Namely, what to the Kabbalists is called "intelligence," and "superior mother," receiving influx from the Father (that is, the Holy Spirit, concerning which see *Spicilegium Patrum*, tom. i, page 27), the same was called "redemption" by the same people, as is evident in *Cabbala Denudata* in the entry [Hebrew removed], where these things are read: [Hebrew removed] "redemption, liberation, is Binah," since it is the foundation of liberation, etc. But because they called this "redemption," or "divine intelligence," invisible and incomprehensible, and the mother of invisible incomprehensibilities, Irenæus related these aforesaid things less correctly to redemption taken in the former sense. For the rest, *auton* or *autois* should be read, as the very structure of the words and the ancient interpretation clearly teach.
Page 94. *If they were baptized into the baptism*, etc. The Marcosians seem to have quoted this from memory, and indeed from the Gospel of Mark, as correctly appeared to Gallasius, not Matthew, whose chapter xx Feuardentius marked in the margin of his edition. That this clause has crept into the text of the latter from the former is gathered not only from the fact that it is missing in the Latin Vulgate, and was therefore omitted by Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, and other Latin Fathers; but also from Origen's tome xvi, *Commentary on Matthew*, page 415, where he has it thus: *Answering, he said after, "You do not know what you are asking; are you able to drink the cup which I am about to drink? Or, as Mark wrote, Are you able to drink the cup which I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"* For what reason did it matter to call in St. Mark for aid, if both clauses had been read in the codex of St. Matthew by Origen? Added to this are the manuscript codices, which my most honored patron, Mr. D. Mill, carefully collated among the various readings of the New Testament, which it will be possible for everyone to see shortly.
*Mother of all.* Eusebius has "Mother of all," just as a little before, "Father of all." *Into Jesus.* "Into Jesus" is read in Eusebius. *A certain Hebrew.* Eusebius does not have "a certain," nor does the ancient interpreter read it. *To be struck.* So both in Epiphanius and in the editions of Eusebius. But as Valesius notes regarding the quoted passage of Eusebius, in his ms. codices—namely, of Cardinal Mazarin, the Medicean, Fuketian, and also Henry Savile’s, which is now preserved in the Bodleian Library, *kataplexai* exists.
Page 97. *Basema.* Setting aside the conjectures of Croius and others, and commentaries on the obscure "redemption" formulas, I will briefly mention the explanations handed down by the renowned Rhenferd in the above-cited Dissertation. Yet this first word is easy. For it is in Syriac [Syriac removed] by name. But for the quiescent *schwa*, an *e* has been inserted, and in Latin, *y*.
*Chamosse.* *Chamosi* in Nicetas’s *Thesaurus of the Orthodox Faith* ms. in the Bodleian Library: from [Hebrew removed] "he hid," whence [Hebrew removed] "hidden," Deut. xxxii, 34. And so the posterior formula has, "the name that is hidden."
*Baaropha.* In Nicetas: *Ba*, *auora*. But it is to be divided and read differently, *Baau* or *Baaropa*. In Syriac [Syriac removed] "in the life of the light," or as is rendered a little later in the other redemption formula: *In the lives of the light.*
*Mystadia.* In Nicetas, wrongly through *o*, *Mystadia*. But *dia* pertains to the following word, with which it is joined in the Latin text; *plota* truly is Chaldeo-Syrian or "anointing": since [Greek removed] is [Greek removed] in Greek, as Croius proved by a few examples on page 17, col. 2, next to the recent edition attached to this work.
*Rouada Kousta.* In Nicetas, worse, *Rouda Koustaba*. For the rest, *dia* being prefixed to these words, which was said just now to pertain here, *Ataproua* or rather *Daroua dakousta*, or *dakousa*, is that most accepted among the Syrians [Syriac removed] "Spirit of holiness," that is "of the holy." And hence it is read in the other formula, *dia Pneumatos agiou*, but in the interpretation of this one, *pneuma agathon* instead of *agion*.
*Babophor.* In Nicetas *pohor* (or *Bapohor*, if you refer *pa* from the preceding word *koustaba* here). For the rest, since this word is rendered *en somati*, but in the other redemption it is said *eis lutrosin*, perhaps according to the former it should be read *bapaphorakh* (which approaches the reading of Nicetas) according to the latter *baphorakh* or *baphouraphan*, so that it may be plain that *kha* from the following word *kalachthoi* is to be drawn back here.
*Kalachthoi.* That *kai* pertains to the preceding word I just noted; but that *pa* truly or *pa ouena* should be read in its place from the Latin text and interpretation of this is plain. That it means *ebasileusen* through the Greek is patent. Similarly, it is read in Revelation xii, 7, [text removed].
*Into angelic redemption.* Clement in *Extracts from the Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 793, col. 1, B: "In the imposition of hands they say at the end: Into redem..."
redemption which is angelic, that is, that of which the angels have been made participants." See more in the same place.
*The name of the restoration.* Rhenferius A loves to read *the names of the restoration*, as a little before, "they add certain Hebrew names." By "names of the restoration" he understands "words of restoration," a new formula of redemption, since redemption is nothing else than restoration to integrity, as he proves from Leviticus chapter xxv. Therefore, according to his opinion, I have punctuated the text differently, and I have begun a new period from "name."
*Messia.* That is, "Christ." And thus the interpretation of this formula has: "I do not divide the Spirit of Christ," etc. But the remaining words, *Oubaraph*, etc., depart entirely from the interpretation of this formula and agree more with the response of the initiated that Irenæus reports after these things. Whence I suspect that the Hebrew words of the redemption formula itself soon fell out of Irenæus’ text, so much so that both Epiphanius and the old interpreter had a mutilated copy, or that Irenæus did not use a complete B codex of the redemption formulas and responses.
*Oubaraph.* By this word seems to be expressed that which is in the response of the initiated: "And I redeem."
*Napheampsai.* From Epiphanius, *Heresy* 36, of the Heracleonites, where he repeats the same words, it is gathered that the last syllable *man* should be joined with the following word, and it should be replaced by *napheampsai* or *napheampsa*. Although this reading also seems to be corrupt and born from *neph* or *naph*, according to the Greek "of my soul." But these, "from this age," do not appear in the Syriac formula, which would be expressed in Greek letters thus: *men alema ana*.
*Chaodala.* Epiphanius in the cited place has better: *Maugalia*. But for this, in order to respond to these: "And of all things from him," it should be read: *Ou men chol de, ne ou men chol de*.
*Mosomed aea.* The interpretation has, "in the name of Iao," which in Syriac is [Syriac characters], *Basoum* and *Iao*. Whence *aea* was placed in place of *Iao*, and at the beginning of this word the letter *beta* was changed into *mu*, on account of similarity.
*Axara.* *Na* belongs to the following word. For *aphra* perhaps one should read *bachaphoura*, Syriac [Syriac characters] *in redemption*, or, as the interpretation has, *into redemption*. Indeed, another word seems to have fallen out here, perhaps the root itself, by which *he redeemed* was expressed.
*Tauoa.* The last syllable of the preceding word being brought here, and *oua* being rejected, the word *vaya* or *vayn* easily arises, [Hebrew characters] *his soul*, as the interpretation has.
*Iesou Nazaria.* Everyone sees that Jesus the Nazarene is denoted. In the interpretation, however, it is read: "In Christ the living one."
*Mortuos.* I fear that the interpreter, whether *teleutontas* or whatever else Irenæus’ word might have been, translated "the dead" less correctly, when he should have rendered it "the dying" D rather. For Epiphanius 70 clearly indicates that these rites were performed by the Heracleonites, about whom there is talk here, very close to death. Indeed, even regarding the Catholics, pseudo-Dionysius writes in *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 7: "When all have saluted him, the body of the deceased having been brought, the pontiff pours oil upon the sleeping one," that is, "the pontiff pours oil upon the deceased." And after other things: "The anointing with oil previously called the one to be baptized to sacred contests. Now, however, the poured oil signifies that he who has died has finished the same sacred contests, and thus has been perfected." Those things which Fevardentius discourses on here concerning the apostolic rite of anointing the sick for the recovery of health and other such sacred rites and sacraments are alien to the purpose.
*Page 97. "Ego ios.* The Greek words which follow are taken from Epiphanius *Heresy* 36, of the Heracleonites; so that it is evident that these are they of whom Irenæus speaks in this place. In those things, however, which precede, Epiphanius did not indeed strictly preserve the same tenor and order of words (for he did not mention Irenæus by name in this heresy), but he nevertheless reads his traces in such a way that we can infer from thence the Greek words of Irenæus himself, which would fill the empty space, which seem to have been such: "Others are those who redeem the dying (or 'those passing away') at the point of the end of the departure, casting oil and water upon their heads, or the aforementioned ointment with water, and with the aforementioned invocations, that they might become ungraspable and invisible to the Principalities and Powers, into the passing over invisibly (it is read *invisibly* in Epiphanius) the inner man of them; as the body of these is left behind in the creation, but the soul is moving towards the Demiurge. And they are enjoined, having arrived at the Powers, to say these things after death."
Annotations of Fr. Fevardentius on Chapter 19
*Page 98. Since we hold.* To the former and the following heresies, he constantly opposes the better parts of the Symbol, which he calls the *Rule of Faith*, especially concerning the unity of God, his omnipotence, and the creation of all things, by the same work joining the Word and the Holy Spirit to the Father in the production and administration of the world, so that their operation is one and inseparable, of whom we believe the will to be one, says Augustine.
*But by his Word and Spirit.* Attributing the work of creation and of the governance of this world equally to the Holy Spirit, as well as to the Father and the Son, he sufficiently teaches that he is of one will, power, and divinity with them; and therefore the Magdeburg centuriators are convicted of impious calumny against this B. martyr, when they write in favor of the Arians, Macedonians, and Eunomians that Irenæus never spoke of the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
*He who the world.* With the old codex we have deleted *one*.
*He who the God of Abraham.* Not only inept, but also clearly impious was the gentile Valentinus, who wished to conclude from this place that only the Father is the true God of Israel, whom the patriarchs recognized and worshipped, and not the Son and the Spirit: since to these three, as we were saying, he here attributes the creation and administration of the whole world as to one true God; but the figments of the Gnostics about the Propatôr, Bythus, Sige, and the Æons are excluded from godhead alone, not the Son or the Holy Spirit.
*But by a bad opinion they change it.* Thus also the blessed Jerome in his *Commentary on the Book of Daniel*, in book VI of *Ezekiel*, and in III of *Hosea*, teaches that every heresy is idolatry, formerly designated by idols which either the Jews or the gentiles worshipped: since heretics transform the true God into an idol by the figments of their own errors, just as in this time the Calvinists imagine God for themselves as an author of sins, and who creates the greater part of mankind by design in order to damn them, that he could not constitute two bodies in the same place, or one in two at the same time, etc. Certainly neither the prophets, nor the apostles, nor the martyrs, nor the holy Fathers recognized or taught such a God. Concerning these see above chapter 12, note 14.
From Jo. Ernest Grabe's annotations on Chapter 19
*Page 98. The plasm of God.* That is, the flesh, which the heretics denied would rise again in order that it might live forever. Against whom he argues at length in book V, and among other things he has these words, consonant with the present ones, at the end of chapter 5: "They contradict their own salvation, deeming it impossible that God, raising up their bodies, can grant them to persevere forever." Whence chapter 6 proceeds: "But God will be glorified in his plasm, that is, the flesh, about which after a little he says, that..."
and that she, too, was the mother of others (Irenaeus says "of all") A. To her favor he appended that he had descended from heaven so that he might rescue her from the bonds by which she was held; and that he might be the author of salvation to those who believed in him, etc. In which we perceive how most wicked a slave of debauchery and glory Simon was, the parent of all heretics.
Stesichorus. He was a lyric poet born in the 37th Olympiad, who is said to have written a vituperation of Helen, and on account of that to have been blinded, and again, because of a palinode, to have recovered his sight through the work of Castor and Pollux. Tertullian B mentions this event, saying: "Helen, as destructive to the eyes of Stesichorus as she was to Priam, whom he also blinded on account of the reproach of his poem, and then illuminated again, for the satisfaction of praise." Horace touches upon this fable in his 17th Epode, Lucian in the second book of his *True History*, and Philostratus in the sixth book of his *Life of Apollonius*.
"So that he might assume her as the primary one." We have proposed that this should be read thus from an ancient codex, as Tertullian C also indicates: "That this is the lost sheep, to which the highest Father descended, that is to say Simon, and, she being first recovered and brought back, I know not whether on his shoulders or in his arms, from then on he looked toward the salvation of men." We have deleted "and punishment."
71 Page 100. "But not according to just works." We have noted at chapter 4 of this book that the Simonians and Valentinians held this heresy, that man is saved not by good works but by faith alone. We add the Eunomians, and indeed the pseudo-apostles, of whom the Apostle so frequently and gravely complains, to have been imbued with the same error, as the blessed Augustine teaches, *De Hæres.* ch. 54 and *De fide et operibus* ch. 14, so that from that point D the Lutherans and Calvinists may consider among themselves whom they have as the earlier proponents of their dogmas.
"They use exorcisms and incantations." That exorcisms, that is, adjurations and imprecations which bind with the fear of religion, were used even by magicians and those far from Christ, is clear from the sacred writings. That the Apostles found a certain man casting out demons who did not belong to their company, and that many impious men would say to the supreme judge: "In your name we have cast out demons"; and indeed that the demoniac pontiff adjusted the Lord with a very powerful exorcism, the Gospels report. And even that the devil himself said to Christ, *'Oρκίζω σε*, "I adjure you by God, that you do not torment me." What wonder, then, if his slave, for wicked impostures, evoked demons with adjurations?
"And love charms." We have noted something about these in chapter 9. Theodoret explains the rest that pertains to this place thus: "Those who belonged to the sect of Simon, gave themselves audaciously to every debauchery and intemperance, and used every kind of incantation and trickery, devising certain love charms and enticements, etc."
Furthermore, *agogima* he translates above as "enticements, that is, potions." *Agogiai* are also called "procurements, delights." *Paredroi* properly are "assessors, counselors, and auxiliaries." For unclean spirits stood by these impostors, who helped them to dare and undertake anything at all against piety. *Paregon* however, although it may signify not one thing, in this place I think it signifies superfluous things. *Oniropompoi*, a compound word from *oneiron*, which is sleep and dream, and *pempo*, "I conduct a procession, I display, I boast": since they boasted and triumphed about their dreams as if they were divine oracles.
"Also the image." We will refer to the disputation concerning images in chapter 24 of this book.
"They also have the word." We have deleted "vocabula."
A That heretics ought to be called neither Catholics nor even Christians, but should be named after the founder of their sect, is an opinion held not only by Irenaeus, but also by Justin Martyr in these words: "They are distinguished by names, denominated from certain persons, as each was the author of some new doctrine. Of these some are called Marcionites, others Valentinians, others Basilidians, others Saturnians, and others by another name, each from the first inventor of his dogma." Lactantius also writes of the same: "They, entangled in demonic deceits, have lost the divine name and worship through imprudence. For when they are called Phrygians, or Novatians, or Valentinians, or Marcionites, or Anthropians, or any others, they have ceased to be Christians, since they have lost the name of Christ and taken on human and external names." Previously, Tertullian also wrote: "What have heretics, he says, to do with Christians? If they are heretics, they cannot be Christians." Cyprian, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and other subsequent Fathers also pursue and confirm these things, so much so that even emperors, by their own laws, have forbidden heretics to usurp the name of Christian. See Law 6, *De haeresibus*. Let those who call these men and their brethren [Christians], and attribute to them the handsome title of "reformed religion," see how they can truly be Catholics themselves.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 21
Page 100. *His successor.* Because Eusebius elegantly describes the origin, dogmas, and ruined morals of this heresiarch, it seemed good to add his words. "Menander," he says, "who succeeded Simon Magus, by the enormity of his wicked morals, rendered himself no less base than his predecessor, as if [he were] a bulwark of diabolical mischief. He was also a Samaritan: when he had reached the highest pinnacle of imposture, so as to compete easily with his master, he ennobled himself with greater prodigies; and he preached that the Savior was sent down from heaven B from invisible aeons for the salvation and preservation of men, and taught that no one could deliver himself from the dominion of the angels who had fashioned the world unless he were first instructed by the magical experience handed down by him, and washed with the baptism which he was accustomed to impart. Those who were deemed worthy of this would obtain perpetual immortality in this life and would no longer undergo death; but remaining forever in the same place, they would never be subject to old age or any destruction." These things the reader may certainly easily see in the writings of Irenaeus. Thus far Eusebius, who also adds, from Justin's *Apology* 2, that he seduced most people primarily at Antioch, lib. 4, hist., cap. 20.
*And that they can no longer die.* Tertullian, taking up this impudent promise with deserved stinging criticism, on the contrary pronounces death, the end of all questions and the judgment of the entire human race, to be a debt of nature. This is what the voice of God has stipulated, this is what everything that is born has pledged, so that even now the stupidity of Epicurus—denying that this debt pertains to us—might not overwhelm us: but that the madness of the Samaritan heretic Menander, who says that death not only does not pertain to his own, but does not even reach them, might be spat upon; seeing that in this he claims to have been sent by a celestial and secret power, to make those who have put on his baptism immortal, incorruptible, and immediately partakers of the resurrection.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 22
Page 100. *From these Saturninus.* Epiphanius and Theodoret call him "Saturnilus." Furthermore, though Irenaeus says he originated from Antioch, which is near Daphne, he distinguishes it from other cities of the same name, of which Stephanus narrates there were twelve: so that he may point out that the devil especially directed the organs of his impiety there, where the preaching of the apostles had been received with greater fervor of spirit. C For there, through the ministry of Paul, Barnabas, and several other famous men, the Church had made such great growth that they were there first called Christians. Peter presided over that Church for seven years; afterwards Evodius; then that illustrious Ignatius "received the grace of the pontificate through the right hand of the great Peter," says Theodoret.
*But seven years.* In chapter 20 of this book, he attributes this error also to Simon; in chapter 21, to Menander: with whom Tertullian, Epiphanius, Theodoret, and Philastrius agree. But there is a disputation against him below in book 3, chapters 2, 3, 11, 12, etc.
*For that immediately.* We have expunged "eo statu qui."
*And our likeness.* The word "nostram" is suspect in this place, for the reason that Epiphanius wrote that it had been omitted by the fictitious angels of Saturninus: so that, clearly, the error might appear plausible, as if some others had made man, but he was an image of another.
*As a worm wiggles.* *Exapizein* signifies "to leap." But Theodoret [says] more openly: "But when the figuration could not rise, but crept like a worm, the divine power, having pity, sent in a spark of life." Epiphanius: "When man had been made, and because of his impotence they could not complete him, he lay there, and rolled himself upon the earth like a crawling worm," etc. Tertullian: "lay crawling upon the earth," etc.
*Moreover the unbegotten Savior.* We have removed "ignotum," as the old codex teaches, and with Tertullian and Epiphanius in agreement, because this impostor denied that Christ was truly born and became man: but [claimed he was] begotten and suffered only by a phantasm, or, as is added here, a putative, appearing man.
Page 101. *But to marry and procreate.* It is a wonder that almost all the Gnostics D not only condemned honorable matrimony, but, by execrating it, called it the work of Satan, while they openly professed promiscuous intercourse and nefarious lusts. "But," says Theodoret, "they waged war against the Creator of this universe; therefore, they feared lest his handiwork be increased through matrimony." Clement of Alexandria in *Stromata* book 3, and Tertullian in book 1 *Against Marcion*, and book 5 against the same—in whose section 38 he also calls nuptials a sacrament five times—dispute most acrimoniously against this error, as does Augustine in book 1 *De nuptiis et concupiscentia*, six times; and in the single book *De bono conjugali* against Jovinian, ten times. Let the modern Gnostics see, therefore, where they are going, and whose parents of their dogmas they have, when they deny that matrimony is a sacrament instituted by God, so as to rank it among profane contracts, which they dissolve for lighter business.
*They abstain from living things.* Epiphanius illustrates this passage, and the correction added from an old codex, in this way: "To contract marriage and procreate, the same buffoon says is from Satan. Whence also many of them abstain from living things, so that by their feigned life they may entice others to their fraud." These are undoubtedly also meant by Blessed Clement of Rome: "Some reject nuptials, and also place meat and wine among abominable things: also they forbid marrying and bearing children, and the eating of certain foods, so that by this continence of theirs they may more easily prove the depravity of their opinion. Others among them teach that one must abstain from meats, not because they spare animals lacking reason, but because they believe them to have an individual soul partaking of reason, and that those who dare to kill them will pay the penalty of murder." This doctrine of demons, however, the Church has perpetually condemned with the Apostle, which nothing
A of a nature is unclean, nor anything created by Satan, but that all things were created by God, are blessed, and are very good. Observe, moreover, with what simulated piety these grievous wolves would harass the flock of Christ, and, as Clement of Rome says, [b] like foxes, would lay waste the vineyard of God.
*Perfecting a continence of this kind.* We have it so from the old codex; but we have deleted ‹perfecting a continence of this kind.›
*Notes of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 23.* Page 101. *Basilides.* Eusebius reports 81 that he originated in Alexandria, but that he established schools of his errors in Egypt during the reign of Hadrian; and at the same time, that Castor Agrippa, a most excellent writer, in a most valiant refutation, most openly exposed the subtle keenness of that man's sophistries. Furthermore, the same Eusebius 82 notes that he was a polygraph, as one who wrote twenty-four books of Commentaries on the Gospel, after Clement of Alexandria. Tertullian 83, a little more openly, set forth his heresies in these words: "Basilides says that the supreme God is named Abraxas; from whom Mind was created, which the Greeks call *nous*. Thence the Word, from that, Providence, Virtue, and Wisdom. From these, in turn, were created principalities and powers and angels. Thence, infinite editions and ejections of angels. From these same angels, three hundred and sixty-five heavens were instituted; and the world in honor of Abraxas, whose name holds this number calculated within itself." So also Epiphanius, Theodoret, and Nicetas.
*Then from the Word.* Clement of Alexandria, in books IV and V of the *Stromata*, writes that Basilides constituted many gods from these ravings, and that he even fashioned gods out of devils.
*Antitype.* We have deleted "of such a type" by the authority of the old codex. But "antitype" is the same as "similar and of the same form."
*Which also appears to us.* We have deleted "which appears to us" by the authority of the old codex, with Theodoret and Nicetas approving the emendation. For the former has, "this last heaven, which is visible to us." The latter, "which is perceptible to us." C
*The remaining gentes retreated.* We have expunged "the remaining [people] rushed," by the authority of the old codex. Epiphanius illustrates the passage: "Other nations also attacked this nation in war, and inflicted many evils upon it; because of the jealousy of other angels, since, being repelled as if held in contempt by him, they themselves also stirred up their own nations against the nation of Israel." Theodoret: "To the administration of the Jews having been allotted, but wishing to subject them to his own nations, other princes resisted." Tertullian 85: "Basilides places the latest of the angels, and those who made this world, as the God of the Jews: that is, the God of the Law and the prophets, whom he denies to be God, but calls an angel. To him, by lot, fell the seed of Abraham, and for that reason he transferred the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt into the land of Canaan. This one is more turbulent than the rest of the angels, and for that reason he frequently stirs up seditions and wars, and even sheds human blood."
*And innate.* Theodoret 86: "Seeing these things, he sent forth his own primogenial Mind, whom he also called Christ, that he might save those who were willing to believe." Nicetas concurs.
*Wherefore not having suffered.* Tertullian 87: "This one did not suffer among the Jews, but in his place Simon was crucified; whence one must not believe in him who was crucified, lest one confess to having believed in Simon." But Epiphanius is far more explicit: "A drama of a fable runs to us, asserting that Jesus did not suffer, but Simon of Cyrene. For since, while the Lord was being driven out of Jerusalem, as the series of the Gospel has it, they compelled a certain Simon to carry the cross: hence he discovered how to fashion the tragedy of his own wickedness. And him, he says, in that he was carrying the cross, he transformed into his own likeness, and delivered up Simon in his own place, that he might be crucified. When, however, he was being crucified, invisible Jesus stood opposite, mocking those who were crucifying Simon. But he himself departed to the heavens, with Simon delivered up to be crucified, and unharmed he proceeded to heaven. But truly Simon himself was crucified, and not Christ," etc. Nicetas, however, refutes this impiety thus: "If that Cyrenian suffered, who was that other one who rose from the dead? He showed the wounds which he had received on the cross to the apostles. Finally, when he ascended with his body into the heavens."
*But to the soul alone.* Tertullian 88: "He gravely impugns the resurrection of the flesh, denying the salvation of the body promised before."
Page 102. *But the prophecies.* Theodoret 89: "He also said that the prophecies were made by the angels; but that the law was given by the prince of the Jews."
*To have however.* Epiphanius 90: "But also from this, with every uncleanness taking its start, which took its beginning from Simon Magus, this error commanded its disciples to perfect all zeal for malice and impudence, and he teaches those men who have faith in him a certain manifold mixture of evil intent with women. Wherefore says the Apostle, on account of these and those similar to them, the wrath of God and just judgment is revealed upon those who hold back the truth in injustice. For on account of this cause, namely of pleasure, many fall into heresy, when they find a place for licentiously perfecting their own pleasure in base operations."
*But they also use magic.* Theodoret 91 explains this passage, with emendation, from an old codex thus: "But furthermore these also, just as those who follow the sect of Menander and Simon, use incantations and conjuring tricks and impostures of every kind." Epiphanius 92, however: "Nay, even that impostor did not cease to be addicted to magical arts and curiosities." And so for "images" we have substituted "magic."
*That a savior is Caulaucau.* Theodoret 93: "They also name a savior and Lord Caulaucau." Damascene on Nicolaus of Antioch 94: "He introduced into the world certain barbarous names, such as Caulacauchus and Protonicus, and many others." Epiphanius: "Others glorify *Kaulaukau*, calling this a certain prince, attempting to deceive the unskilled through the terrors of men, and the feigned barbarous appellation of a name." After a few words: "But who of the readers will not laugh at Caulaucau? Because the expressions that are properly said in Hebrew, and correctly expounded in Greek, and now among those who know Greek are manifest, and having nothing oblique; they themselves into the effigies of idols, and into forms, and unsubstantial principalities; and, so to speak, they form the sculptures of statues, dispersing error among the simple through imagination, for the sowing of their own base and fabulous art. For Caulaucau is written in Isaiah 95, and is a certain expression in the twelfth vision, where he says *thlipsin epi thlipsin, elpida ep' elpida, hoti mikron eti mikron prosdekhou*. That is: 'Affliction upon affliction, hope upon hope, wait yet a little, yet a little.'" For so the Septuagint, whom he imitates, rendered these Hebrew words in Greek. Which from word to word the Sanctuary has come to: "Command command, command command; line upon line, line upon line; a little there, a little there." Common translation: "Manda remanda, manda remanda, expecta reexpecta, expecta reexpecta; modicum ibi, modicum ibi." Moreover, by those words Isaiah describes the impiety of the Jews, by which of the prophets
A voices and threats they were met with scoffing and mimicry, and were received with contempt and derision. Or, as others prefer, he argues against the sloth and ignorance of the people, who, like children, had to be taught step by step, receiving individual divine precepts each day, as infants are accustomed to be instructed, whose grasp is very meager. But these impostors inculcated upon the people words unknown to themselves, or at least to the unlearned, as if they contained great mysteries.
*Unknown.* We have deleted *known*, upon the authority of an old manuscript, and we read *ought* instead of *it is necessary*.
*Wherefore also prepared.* Tertullian: "He denies that martyrdoms should be undergone." Epiphanius: "Again, he asserts that one ought not undergo martyrdom. For he who undergoes martyrdom will be found destitute of reward, as he sustains the martyrdom for the sake of Him who made man. For he sustains martyrdom for the sake of the crucified Simon, etc."
*And the Jews indeed.* Epiphanius: "But even if he and his associates are questioned, they say that they are no longer Jews themselves; yet they are not yet made Christians, but always deny it, while silently having faith in themselves and showing it to no one," etc.
*But not many.* Epiphanius: "He commands, moreover, that these things be revealed to no one, but kept in silence among themselves, regarding the Father and His mystery. But to one in a thousand to reveal it, and to two in ten thousand." Theodoret: "These, however, they say are ineffable, and cannot be grasped or comprehended by all, except by one in a thousand."
*Of the three hundred.* This passage has been imitated thus by Theodoret: "He says, moreover, that the prince of them is Abraxas; for the calculation of the name signifies the number three hundred sixty-five." Damascenus has the same. Augustine, indeed, dwells longer on the calculation of the parts, writing thus: "Basilides said there are three hundred sixty-five heavens, which number includes the days of the year. Whence he even commends it as if it were a holy name, which is 'Αβράξας: the letters of which name, according to Greek calculation, complete the same number. For there are seven: alpha, beta, rho, alpha, xi, alpha, sigma, that is, one, and two, and one hundred and one, and sixty and one, and two hundred, which amount in total to three hundred sixty-five." Epiphanius’ more prolix discussion, in which he also names Irenaeus, comes to the same thing. Furthermore, the blessed Jerome asserts that "Mithras," under the same number of other letters, is a name among the heathen, which Basilides calls by the portentous name "Abraxas."
Moreover, Baronius, a most learned and well-read man, in the appendix to the second volume of his *Annales*, contending from the inscriptions of a certain gem unearthed from ruins, argues that it should rather be read ABRACAX, or ABRASAX, rather than ABRAXAS; and that the same served in place of the supreme God to Basilides, whose images he exhibited in place of an amulet, which were clearly monstrous, as is apparent from that which is contained in the gem; and consequently that they were with full right condemned by Irenaeus. For he reads in this chapter of Irenaeus: "They use images, moreover"; and he does not follow the emendation of the old manuscript, nor that of Epiphanius and Theodoret, but his own opinion.
**From the annotations of Jo. Er. Grabe on chapter 23.**
*Page 102. As also the world is a name [for] Caulacau.* The text here is certainly mutilated or corrupt, and hence it is difficult to elicit the genuine sense. Theodoret accepted these things as if "Caulacau" were the name of the Savior. For he writes thus in the cited passage: "They call the Savior and Lord Caulacauan (read: Caulacaun)." Epiphanius also says, in *Heresies* 25, 3, concerning the Nicolaitans, that by the title "Caulacau" they name "a certain prince." But B *as far as can be conjectured from the words of Irenaeus, though faulty, the name Caulacau*, which properly signifies "line upon line," taken from Isaiah xxviii, 10, was attributed by the Basilidians not to the Savior himself, but to the world, because the world appeared to them as a kind of double line, through which the Savior descends and ascends.
**Annotations of Fr. Feuardent in chapter 24.**
*Page 103. Carpocrates.* Theodoret reports that he was an Alexandrian by race; Tertullian that he was a magician and an impure fornicator; but that all other heretics surpassed him in the baseness of his morals; seeing that he drew out obscenities from the opinion of Simon, Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, and Nicolaus, and constructed a sect from thence, which he named that of the Gnostics, as Epiphanius is witness.
*By circulation.* Theodoret: "He said that the Lord Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary, just as other men; but that He was distinguished by virtue, as one who possessed a pure soul and was mindful of His former association with the Unbegotten." Epiphanius, also acknowledging the corrections applied from an old manuscript: "Since indeed," he says, "he possessed a soul stronger than other men and remembered those things which were seen by it from above, when it was also C in the circumference of that unknown Father, they were sent down," Carpocrates was saying, "virtues from the same Father into his soul, by which, being mindful of the things seen by it, and strengthened by power, he might escape the angels who are the fabricators of the world," etc. For "circulation," we have substituted "circumlation": as soon, for "in the fabricators of the world," [we read] "as the fabricators of the world."
*And those things which.* Epiphanius: "Nay, even similar souls to him, having reached equality with him, were in the same manner liberated, and flew upwards to the unknown Father," etc. Damascenus: "But if anyone should perform things similar to Jesus; he said that he was His equal."
*But they say the soul of Jesus.* Epiphanius transcribed this passage up to the middle part of this chapter, in the same words, in *Against Heresies* 27, which I do not like to cite lest I burden the pages. But by his authority, and the consensus of the old manuscript, for "possession," we have substituted "punishments," and for "they were," "they were human beings."
*Deemed worthy.* Thus the old codex reads: the interpreter of Epiphanius, "made worthy by the same virtue." Therefore we have deleted "deemed worthy."
*For magical arts.* Eusebius expresses this sentiment thus: "These decided that the magical prestidigitations of Simon should not be brought forward from the hidden, as he did, but now in the open by right; and they ennobled themselves not only by love-philtres curiously elaborated by them, and by certain demons, who injected wicked dreams into their minds, and who stood by them as assistants, but also by other not dissimilar trifles, as if they were matters of almost the greatest moment and weight."
*Who also themselves for detraction.* Epiphanius: "Moreover, they are suborned and produced by Satan, to the reproach and scandal of the Church of God. For they have attached to themselves the surname of Christians, in order that the nations may be offended through them, and may turn away from the utility and true preaching of the holy Church of God, because of their wicked deeds and incomparable baseness, and so that the nations, constantly observing their wicked works, may suppose that the holy Churches of God are also like them and may turn away, as I have said, their ears from the doctrine of God and of the truth," etc. Eusebius also complains of the same in book four of his *History*, chapter seven, and long before these, Justin Martyr, in the *Dialogue with Trypho*, most seriously of all.
*Page 104. If not anticipating.* Theodoret recounts these things more clearly: "When they had admitted Pythagorean transmigrations from bodies..."
and although they admitted transmigrations into bodies, which it was said was connected to them by Pythagoras, they did not admit it. For Pythagoras said that souls that had sinned were sent into bodies so that they might pay the penalties and be duly expiated. For they say that souls are sent into bodies so that they may act out every kind of lust and wantonness; those, therefore, which they have fulfilled in one descent, do not require another mission; but those which have sinned little are sent twice, and thrice, and more often, until they have fulfilled all kinds of vices. A And thus it is certain that they instituted these women as presbyters and deaconesses: for so these pseudoprophets spread their virus more widely; and they corrupted both sexes through the ministry of unchaste women. Epiphanius 17 and Augustine 74 have also mentioned this Marcellina. Jerome has compiled a catalogue of this kind of beast, which I wish to add here: "Simon Magus founded the heresy, aided by the help of the harlot Helena; Nicolaus of Antioch, the inventor of all uncleanness, led dances of women; Marcion sent a woman ahead to Rome, who would prepare souls to be deceived; Apelles had Philumene as a companion of his doctrines; Montanus, the preacher of an unclean spirit, corrupted many churches through Prisca and Maximilla, noble and wealthy women, first with gold, then polluted them with heresy. Arius, so that he might deceive the world, first deceived the sister of the emperor. Donatus, through Africa, so that he might pollute all the unfortunate with his foul waters, was aided by the wealth of Lucilla 18. In Hispania, Agape [led] Elpidius; a woman led a man, the blind led the blind into the pit, and she had as her successor Priscillian, to whom Galla, joined to another and a neighboring heresy, left the heir." B
"And there are those which are called cities according to us." The seven [vowels], which we have added from an old codex, Epiphanius acknowledges, and explains the meaning much more openly. "Their books possess this," he says, "so that if anyone endowed with prudence reads, he might marvel, and be stunned and not believe that these things are done thus by men, not only to those who inhabit the city with us, but even to those who dwell with beasts and similar cattle—I would almost say, which dogs and swine do—they dare to do. For they say it is necessary to use all these things thoroughly, so that, the souls not having departed with any work left undone, they might for that reason return into the body again to do those things which they did not do." C
"On account of it." An old codex suggests that it should be read, "on account of the fact that something is wanting to liberty."
"Since with the adversary." Tertullian discusses this passage of the Gospel both most extensively and most brilliantly in his book *De anima*, against this opinion of Carpocrates.
"But let it be." We have expunged [this] thus, by the authority of an old codex, Epiphanius also approving of it.
"And if indeed these things are done." With a preface worthy of praise, Theodoret transcribed these things from Irenaeus 19 up to the words, "but others from them signify."
19. Page 105. And certain images.
Augustine 19: "It is handed down that a certain Marcellina was a member of the sect of Simon, who worshipped images of Jesus, and Paul, and Homer, and Pythagoras, by adoring [them] and offering incense." Theodoret 19: "Those who were of the sect of Simon, having constructed a statue of him in the figure of Jupiter, and of Helena in the likeness of Minerva, used to offer incense to them and make libations, and worship them as gods." Epiphanius 20: "They have images painted in color, some even of gold, and silver, and other material, which they indeed say are images of Jesus, and that they were made under Pilate; they have them, however, in secret. And moreover, those of certain philosophers, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and others, with which they also place other images of Jesus, and having placed them, they adore [them], and perform the mysteries of the Gentiles. But who nourishes the customs of the Gentiles more than sacrifice and other things?"
"But others from them." Epiphanius: D "Furthermore, the Carpocratians insert and strike a seal by cautery, or a razor, or an awl, into the right lower ear of those who have been deceived by them." I believe they used these external symbols and burnings, so that at the first encounter they might recognize the followers of the same faction, communicate their councils, and mingle in promiscuous intercourse. In these things, however, they did not recede from the customs of various nations, which Tertullian mentions in his book *De velandis virginibus*, narrating that the Garamantes were adorned with feathers, the Barbarians with tufts, the Athenians with cicadas, the Germans with braids, and the Britons with tattoos. Epiphanius 18 also records that there existed a sign among the Gnostics of men to women, and of women to men; in extending the hand for a salutation, namely, a certain titillation of touch beneath the palm, by this showing that he who approached was of the same religion. From this, therefore, mutual recognition having been accepted, they are immediately turned to feasting. Where they have drunk and stirred up their veins, they turn themselves to madness, and the husband, indeed, yielding his wife to another, says to her: "Arise, perform the act of love with the brother," etc. Finally, those tattoos were signs of obedience and perpetual servitude, by which they gave their names to that sect as though by a sacrament, from which it was never permitted to depart. Thus, a long time ago, for a Hebrew servant who, by the benefit of the seventh year, did not wish to go out free, preferring servitude to liberty, the law commanded that the ear be pierced at the door 17. Furthermore, the Gnostics were certainly acting as precursors of Antichrist, whom the holy revelation of John predicts will mark his own on the right hand and forehead 16. But whether the more recent ones are better than those ancient ones, let those judge who have explored their customs better.
Whence also Marcellina. As they have used the apostolate of pious women for the preparation of food and for privately instructing the conventicles of infidel women, remote from all suspicion of foulness, and other pious offices, you hear, therefore, from the Fathers very many and most just reasons by which Irenaeus, being moved, reproves the images of the Gnostics: since they offered incense and sacrifices to them in the manner of the Gentiles, and as living gods, they worshipped them with supreme honor, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Then, they mixed the idols of the profane and impious with them, equating them to Christ our God and Savior. Finally, while they kept them in secret, when it was permitted to [do so] openly before the pagans, each one will easily persuade himself that they were monstrous and shameful; especially since they represented such a Christ in those figures as they happened to believe him to be according to their portentous opinions of mind.
The Magdeburgenses, therefore, and Gallasius, who from this passage of Irenaeus contend that at that time there was no use of images of Christ and the apostles in the Church, and that it cannot be proven by the testimonies or examples of the ancients; they labor either under the crudest ignorance, or certainly they strive to impose upon everyone with the most impudent lie. With not dissimilar impiety and ignorance, Beza cried out openly at the public colloquy of Montbéliard: "That the ancient Church was devoid of pictures." Furthermore, "That the primitive Church had no use of images for three hundred years." He burst forth again into these horrific and execrable words, even with Lutherans standing by: "I confess that I detest with my soul the image of the Crucified, and therefore I cannot bear it," etc. I, however, on the contrary, with most evident and valid assertions [show] that what they first assert is false, and [that] in the age of Christ and the apostles, a pious and pure…
A public use of holy images among Christians existed.
1. Nicodemus, that man who first came to Jesus by night, and who later took down His body, mangled by the tortures of the Passion, from the cross, with his own hands fashioned an image of the Crucified for himself, and before his death entrusted it to Gamaliel to be kept, and he to James; James to Simeon; and he to Zacchaeus, who succeeded him; and so it was preserved thereafter, until the Jews in the city of Berytus in Syria renewed all the shameful outrages of the Lord’s Passion upon it. Regarding the many miracles that subsequently followed, the great Athanasius taught in a most elegant book 1260 years ago; and the universal Nicene synod, with the suffrage of all the Fathers, accepted it as perfect eight hundred years ago.
2. While Christ still walked in pilgrimage with the apostles, when He had healed that woman who suffered from a flow of blood, she erected in Caesarea Philippi, as a memorial of the benefit she had received, an "image of bronze publicly, which Eusebius B saw still standing there, and at the same time [he saw] others of Peter and Paul being religiously preserved by Christians." Indeed, historians testify that Eusebius, being very near [in time], is certain that those statues of Christ and the woman with the issue of blood remained until the time of Julian the Apostate; who, as befitted the grandfather of the Iconoclasts, had declared war upon the images of Christ and the saints just as he had upon the Christian faith.
3. Added to this is the constitution of the apostles themselves, the substance of which is this: "Περὶ τοῦ μὴ πλανάσθαι τοὺς σωζομένους εἰς τὰ εἴδωλα, ἀλλὰ ἀντεικονίζειν τὴν θεανδρίπου ἄχραντον, χειροποίητον στήλην τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ τῶν αὐτοῦ θεραπόντων ἀντικρὺ τῶν εἰδώλων καὶ Ἰουδαίων, etc." That is, "that those who are saved ought not to err concerning idols; but instead of them, to erect an uncontaminated image of the true God and man, our Savior Jesus Christ, and of His servants, fashioned by hands, against the idols and the Jews," etc. You have three things clearly noted here. First, that images are to be fashioned by the hands of Christ the Lord and His servants; C second, a strict prohibition of idols; third, that images of Christ and the saints are to be placed in opposition to the idol-mania of the Gentiles and the superstition of the Jews. That this apostolic canon is genuine, and not recent, one or two affirm in a corner—but nearly countless Fathers, who gathered in the public theater of the whole world eight hundred years ago, at the later Nicene synod, [affirm it]. Relying on this same canon, Basil the Great, 1270 years ago, asserted that "the use of images emanated from the apostles"; and at the same time, the still more ancient Eusebius confirms that it came down from the elders; and Pamphilus the martyr, who was superior to both, testifies that he found this constitution of the apostles, along with many others, in the library of Origen.
4. Damascenus, Evagrius, and Nicephorus subjoin a narrative taken from the archives of the city of Edessa, regarding king Abgar, otherwise Augarus, who, moved by the fame of Christ’s cures, sent Ananias the courier to Him to seek the gift of health. But since the matter did not succeed for the king according to his wishes, in order to show satisfaction in some part for the desire he was burning with, he sent an excellent painter, who might bring back the face of Christ accurately drawn. But indeed, the painter could not finish the work owing to the radiance of His countenance; the Savior asked for a linen cloth, and on it sent D the image of His face expressed to the king. Leo, a Constantinopolitan lector, testifies that he saw this still in his own time at Edessa, not without the veneration of the people. Nicephorus further adds that the king of the Persians at the same time received figures of Christ and His Mother. Moreover, he affirms more than once that the blessed Luke the Evangelist painted images of the blessed Virgin, whom he had known by personal sight, and at the same time [images] of the blessed Peter and Paul, which were still being preserved in Constantinople in the age of the empress Pulcheria. Finally, who, if he has even greeted venerable antiquity from the threshold, does not know that the sign and figure of the Lord’s cross, and the use of it, was most frequent among the apostles and all Christians? Dionysius the Areopagite mentions it eight times in his single book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*. Nicodemus mentions it three times in his *History of the Passion and Resurrection of the Savior*. Abdias recounts in eighteen places that the apostles performed various miracles by the expression of the same. Justin, in his *Dialogue*, from various figures of the Old Testament, and at the end of *Apology 2*, accurately teaches that it is inscribed in the orders of all created things. Who is now unaware of the brilliant words of Ignatius, Martial, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Lactantius, and Athanasius concerning the representation of the cross? It is therefore most evident that the use of sacred images existed in the age of Christ and the apostles.
The second head of the false assertion, by which they say that the use of images cannot be confirmed by the examples of the old Church nor by the testimonies of the ancient Fathers, proceeds from the workshop of Calvin; he did not blush to write that for five hundred years after Christ, while religion still flourished and more sincere doctrine prevailed, Christian temples were void of images; than which lie nothing more impudent can be said. For indeed, Augustine wrote 1100 years ago in several places that even pagans saw Peter and Paul depicted together with Christ; and that the noble deed of Abraham spontaneously sacrificing his son was so sung in many tongues, and painted in so many places, that it struck the ears and eyes of those who pretended otherwise. Moreover, he says that, Adam and Eve having covered their shame with leaves upon the entry of sin, pictures of them were displayed. The same man, in most clear words, advises that one should humbly embrace and suppliantly venerate the figure of the Lord's cross and the image of the man suffering thereon, affixed there for the remembrance of the crucified Lord our God and the excitement of the praying faith. The same man, finally, in a sermon given to his people when the martyrdom of blessed Stephen was being undergone, says: "His Passion is singular and full of many miracles; we have heard this today not only when it was read from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, but we have also seen it with our eyes." By which he clearly signifies not only that the histories of the holy martyrs were accustomed to be read publicly in temples; but that they were graphically depicted and expressed in the walls, and were thus subjected to the eyes of the faithful.
Paulinus also approaches, to whom so many letters of Augustine and Jerome exist. He extols Severus, "because in the place of human refreshment, that is, in the baptistery, he had painted the effigy of blessed Martin, so that to those laying aside the oldness of the earthly image in the font, the effigy of the celestial soul might occur for imitation." Moreover, he adds these verses to him, which he took care to have inscribed to the image of the Crucified erected in that place: "Behold the crown of the Lord standing above the cross of Christ, Promising high rewards to the hard labor; take up the cross, if you wish to take away the crown, And is tinged with the blood shed by the Lord;" And to other images of the cross at the entrance of the basilica: "The high cross of the crown-bearing Lord is circled by a ring, And is touched, dyed by the blood shed by the Lord; And the doves that sit above the celestial sign, Declare to the simple the kingdoms of the Father of God.
A Damasus, at that age, also gathering up the deeds of the supreme pontiffs, narrates that Hilary, who had preceded him by a long time, had made a confession of John the Baptist, in gold and silver; and likewise an image of the cross.
Jerome also narrates that Paula, with great ardor of piety, climbed the mount of Calvary, and prostrated herself before the cross, worshipping it as if she saw the Lord hanging there.
Ambrose preached that the cross erected in the church is like a mast in a ship, because it is kept unharmed amidst the shipwrecks of the age.
I cannot overlook the excellent Christian poet Prudentius, who, in verses, sings of the images expressing the contests of the martyrs placed in the temples, when he would prostrate himself at the tomb of the holy martyr Cassian:
I raised my face to heaven; before me stood The painted image of the martyr, with colors poured. Bearing a thousand blows, limbs all lacerated, Presenting skin broken with tiny punctures. Countless boys around, a miserable sight, Were piercing his limbs with small styli. The consulted verger says: "What you behold, stranger, Is not an empty or old wives' fable; The painting relates history, which, delivered in books, Shows the true faith of ancient time," etc.
Before all these, Lactantius, in these very choice verses (which both Gyraldus and ancient copies prove to be genuine), teaches with what piety the image of Christ hanging from the cross, publicly erected in temples, is to be contemplated, when he introduces Christ speaking thus:
Whoever you are, who enter the middle of the temple's threshold, Stop a little, and, unoffending one, for your crime Look at me, store me in your mind, keep me in your heart, etc.
And a little after the middle:
Behold hands fixed with nails, and drawn-out arms, And the huge wound in the side, behold from it the bloody Swelling, and the pierced feet, and the blood-stained limbs. Bend the knee, and worship the venerable sign of the cross, Weeping, and wet with innocent blood the ground, With mouth open in humility, pour forth rising tears, etc.
Finally, Tertullian, a man of the apostolic times, manifests that even then the use of images was public and in sacred assemblies, writing that even on the holy chalices themselves there were engraved images of Christ, as the Good Shepherd carrying back the stray sheep on His shoulders.
Thus far we have heard, refuting the impudent lie of Calvin, the Latin Fathers; let us now add, if it pleases, that the Greeks of the same age might be convicted on every side. During the reign of Theodosius, blessed Theodoretus, bishop of Cyrus, wrote of Simeon Stylites, who was ennobled by such fame of sanctity, that the Romans, B even in the vestibules of all workshops and in the porticoes, placed his images, believing that they provided a certain security and guardianship to their affairs.
And he himself is that same Simeon who, before the times of Theodoretus, in a letter to the emperor Justin, had complained most gravely about the Samaritans, who had raged with an unspeakable crime against the image of Christ our Lord and His Mother.
I shall add the most beautiful testimony of Leontius, bishop of Neapolis. "Just as Jacob," he says, "receiving the garment of Joseph from his sons, stained with blood, with tears kissed it, thinking that he had Joseph in his hands; so also we, holding the image of Christ, or of an apostle, or of a martyr, seem to ourselves in our mind to embrace Christ Himself, or the martyr."
Basil the Great, before all these, is himself a witness that "he had received the histories of the images of the holy prophets, apostles, and martyrs in all the churches throughout the East, and had honored them openly, as it had been handed down from the apostles."
His brother Gregory of Nyssa "used to look not infrequently at the figure of Christ's passion with tears, so effectively did the painting place the history before [his] eyes."
Not inferior to these is Chrysostom, who both narrates and praises that many had encompassed the image of the blessed Meletius on rings, cups, phials, walls of chambers, and other places, so that they might behold the form of the most holy man everywhere. Nay, and he does not hide that he "had loved an image of [Meletius] fashioned out of wax, full of piety."
Athanasius teaches that every honor rendered to images is referred to the prototype.
Finally, Eusebius, superior to all these, reports that the emperor Constantine, inflamed with such ardor of divine love, even had Daniel with the lions in the middle of the forum of the city of Constantinople, carved in bronze and shining with golden laminæ; and at the very entrance of the palace C on a huge panel, had the sign of the saving passion of Christ, finished with precious stones of every kind and much gold, elaborately wrought, and had it set up. Therefore it is proven that by the most excellent and so many Fathers of the Latin and Greek Church, who were distant from Christ’s ascension no further than four hundred years, under whom a more sincere worship of God, even by the confession of adversaries, "still flourished," the use of images was both sacred and public among Christians then, and from their time onward. Those, therefore, who oppose it, ought to be held as supporters of the Manichaeans, Julian the Apostate, the most impure Mahomet, the tyranny of the Turks, and the Jews, rather than as assertors of Christian piety and truth.
But so that the Calvinists and Beza might remain condemned even by their own judgment, in place of a conclusion I add these things. Beza, as is reported in the Acts of the colloquy of Montbéliard, pages 393 and 400, granted that the use of painting and sculpture in representing sacred histories (among which no Christian will deny that the passion of Christ is to be commemorated) is in itself indifferent. Then [he granted] that Paulinus, bishop of Nola, introduced the custom of painting walls with simple zeal, and that he instituted images with such good counsel (that indeed, as we heard a little before from the same man, in sacred places) that no one could reproach or find fault with his effort. "Furthermore," the same Beza says, "we have never disapproved of not only paintings but also sculptures; the use of which is great, not only in representing sacred histories but also in civil matters. But as to images, whether painted or sculpted, we reject their use." And afterward (page 421): "The description of God proposed in Daniel and Isaiah, if it be painted, I grant that it is indifferent." Finally, damning himself and his followers, the iconoclasts, he published a book in which he represents the images of very many heretics prominently depicted; and he speaks with them as if they were still living, and professes that he derives from thence a huge consolation of mind. Therefore, at the very least, the same [consolation] D can be derived from the image of the suffering Christ, from the apostle...
A of the icons of the martyrs and other saints, no reasonable person of sound mind will deny.
*Notes of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 25.* Page 105. *Cerinthus then.* That he was the first who long devoted himself to philosophy in Egypt, is the testimony of Theodoret, and that afterwards at Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Antioch he frequently withstood the apostles themselves; and finally that in Asia he propagated his impiety far and wide, Epiphanius writes. Cyril of Jerusalem calls Cerinthus the ravager of the Church. Eusebius reports that he had boasted of revelations, as if they were dictated to him by angels, which he put forth. Philastrius adds that he asserted that Christ had not yet risen from the dead. Augustine [notes] the necessity of observing the Mosaic law, feasts, victims, and Jewish sacrifices. Dionysius of Alexandria, book II *On Promises*, teaches that this man also dreamt of a future earthly kingdom of Christ, inasmuch as he indulged the enticements of the body and the flesh above all; and led by the desire for those things, he asserted that a blessed life would exist in the satisfaction of the belly and those parts which pertain to lust. *And ignoring him.* Theodoret acknowledges an emendation from an old codex, and expresses the meaning of this passage thus: "He taught that there is indeed one God of the universe, but that he is not the creator of the world, but rather certain separate powers, completely ignorant of him." And so we have replaced "him" for "that [one]," so that "God" might follow "God." *For it is impossible.* Tertullian presses Marcion, who wallowed in the same mire, with this very sharp dilemma, desiring a reason why he did not believe the Son of God was born of a Virgin: "It is necessary," he says, "that you should have considered birth as either impossible or unworthy of God. But nothing is impossible for God, except what He does not will. Let us therefore consider whether He willed to be born (since if He willed it, He could, and He was born)." And after a few words: "Most wicked of men, who excuse the destroyers of God: whatever is unworthy of God is profitable to me. I am safe, if I am not ashamed of my Lord. He who is ashamed of me, he says, I also will be ashamed of him. I find no other materials for shame, which might prove me well impudent and happily foolish through the contempt of blushes. The Son of God was born; it is absolutely credible because it is absurd. And He was buried, and rose again; it is certain because it is impossible." Note, however, that heretics have always thought it the safest asylum to shout that what they refuse to believe is impossible for God. *And that he was Joseph, etc.* Tertullian refutes him of this error too: "Cerinthus, he says, holds Christ to be a mere man without divinity." And in the book *On the Flesh of Christ*: "This opinion can fit Ebion, who constitutes Jesus as a mere man." This Ignatius also had noted in his Epistle to the Philadelphians. Eusebius in book three of his *History* and Jerome in his *Catalogue*, after Irenaeus, book I, chapter 3, testify that the Blessed John wrote his Gospel against the blasphemies of these men. *And after baptism.* Epiphanius is clearer: "But from on high, from the supreme God, after Jesus had become an adult, born from the seed of Joseph and Mary, Christ descended into him, that is, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove at the Jordan, and revealed to him, and through him to posterity, the unknown Father. And therefore, after the power from on high came into him, he performed wonders; and where B he himself suffered, that which had come from above, [namely] that it had flown back up from Jesus."
From this, however, it is manifest that these ancient monsters tore Christ into different persons, of which one was heavenly and impassible, the other passible and earthly: a thing which the Nestorians were later born to introduce. Beza also restores this in the present age with all his might, writing that there are two hypostatic unions in Christ; Calvin also affirming that the Word assumed the person of a mediator. Irenaeus refutes these heresies in book III, chapters 18, 19, 20, 21. Epiphanius adds to the above that the Cerinthians used the Gospel according to Matthew in part, not in whole; but rejected Paul because he did not obey circumcision. And that these are those who were called by the same Paul pseudo-apostles, deceitful workers, who transform themselves into the apostles of Christ.
*Notes of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 26.* Page 105. *But those who are called Ebionites.* As far as the name of this Ebion pertains, Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Theodoret rightly thought that it signified "needy" and "beggarly" in the Hebrew language; since indeed [Ebion] signifies "poor" and "very poor" to the Hebrews. That he had preached not only at Rome and in Asia, and propagated the roots of thorny shoots, from the region of Nabathae, Paneas, Moabitis, and Cocaba in the land of Basanitis; but also that he had been in Cyprus, Epiphanius is witness; and at the same time, from the abomination of the Samaritans, the wickedness of the Jews, the opinion of the Ossaeans and Nazarenes, and the form of the Cerinthians and the impiety of the Carpocratians, under the name of Christians, he had composed a C horrible and pernicious monster of dogma. *But those things which are.* Tertullian: "Ebion constituted Jesus as a mere man, and only from the seed of David, that is, not even the Son of God; holding him to be clearly more glorious than the prophets, so that in some things he is said to have been an angel." Epiphanius: "Ebion first determined that Christ was from the seed of a man, that is, of Joseph himself," etc. Eusebius: "They judged him to be simple, ordinary, and a mere man, born of the intercourse and conjunction of Joseph the husband with his wife Mary; but because of the progress he had made in virtue, they judged him a just man; but a mere man nonetheless." He adds later again that Ebion preached that Christ was indeed the son of David, but not of God; and that he was justified by his own works. Some also of the same sect (as the ministers of heretics never agree with themselves) admitted that Christ was born of the Virgin from the Holy Spirit; but that he did not exist before he became man. The Samosatenians and Photinians later stirred up this impiety, as Augustine reports in the book *On Heresies*, chapter 91. And in this age the Servetians and their followers have stumbled into the same; of which error they say the Calvinists are their partners and patrons. Irenaeus argues against this heresy in book III, chapters 30 and 31. *They are circumcised.* Whoever at that time professed himself a Jew by circumcision and other ceremonies was first of all immune from the double persecution. From the former, of the Romans, because the emperors had granted to the Jews to live according to ancestral rite. From the latter, of the Jews, who did not rise up against them as followers of the same observance. But those who believed in Christ, having abandoned Judaism, were so vexed by the tyranny of both, that very many hesitated to confess that Jesus was the Christ, lest they should endure the persecution of those who, driven by the furies of the spirit of the impostor, did not cease to kill and persecute the confessors of his D name.
A who was the ninth in the city, came to Rome; whom Marcion followed, and having added augmentations to the crime, he began to blaspheme against God the Father, the Creator, more impudently and abruptly than the rest.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 29.*
Page 106. *But Marcion succeeding him.* Eusebius recognizes the corrections of this opinion from an old codex. Philastrius writes that this man came to Ephesus, and was there convicted by the disciples of John, and being driven out from there fled to Rome; and there our Irenaeus testifies that he met Polycarp, and was called by him the firstborn of Satan. But that he was still alive when Justin Martyr was sharpening his pen against him, Justin himself indicates in his Second Apology. Moreover, since Tertullian, some centuries before Epiphanius, graphically depicted his origin, country, downfall, pride, luxury, hypocrisy, and death in five books, we shall not linger in recounting these things further. I will only add Origen, Book 1 against Marcion, where he testifies that he invented three gods, namely, the God of the Jews, the God of the Christians, and the God of the Gentiles. In addition, two Christs, one of whom appeared in the time of Tiberius, the other promised by the Creator; though otherwise he claimed to posit only two gods, one the author of good, the other of evil things.
*Dissolving the prophets and the law.* This was common to him with the Simonians, Basilidians, and Saturnians, as is clear from the above. The same Epiphanius and Augustine attribute this to the Manichaeans; Euthymius and Nicetas to the Bogomiles, Audeans, and Euchites, or Satanians; Antoninus to the Albigensians; Lindanus and Prateolus to the modern Anabaptists. Irenaeus refutes this heresy in book four, chapter twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-seven, thirty, thirty-one, and elsewhere passim; and after him, Epiphanius against the sixty-sixth heresy. Finally, Augustine in two books *Against the Adversaries of the Law*, and thirty-three *Against Faustus*. Epiphanius adds only that his frauds had become so prevalent that, in his own time, he had followers in Rome, and in Italy, and in Egypt, and in Palestine, and in Arabia, and in Syria, in Cyprus, and in the Thebaid, and even in Persia, and in many other places. Moreover, by the authority of Eusebius, and of our old codex, for *adimplevit* we have restored *adampliavit*, and for *impurate blasphematus* we have put *impudorate blasphemans*; and soon for *Jesum autem qui est a Deo Patre* we have put *Jesum autem ab eo Patre qui est*.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 28.*
Page 105. *And Cerdon.* We have taken care to append the whole of this chapter, which Eusebius transcribed from Irenaeus, now rendered into Latin with a new translation. Tertullian recounts a much longer catalog of his blasphemies, namely that he rejected the law and the prophets, renounced God the Creator, said that Christ did not come in the substance of flesh, but in a phantasm alone; and that he did not suffer at all, but as if he had suffered; and that he was not born of a Virgin. But he also denied the resurrection of bodies, and accepted only the Gospel of Luke, and not even that in its entirety. He admitted neither all of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, nor the whole of them; and he rejected the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse of John as if they were false. Moreover, Irenaeus, noting his inconsistency in book 3, chapter 4, says that he often came into the Church, and by doing penance, would sometimes teach secretly, and sometimes be caught in the things he taught wrongly, until at last he was removed from the communion of the Christians. And that he received his poison not only from Simon Magus, but also from Saturninus; and that he imparted the same to his disciple Marcion, like an asp to a viper, as Epiphanius teaches against heresy 41.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabius on chap. 28.*
*Let them worship Jerusalem, as if it were the house of God.* That which Irenaeus reproves in the judaizing Ebionites, he reproves in the Jews themselves. The apostle Barnabas in his Catholic Epistle, c. 16: "Wretched wanderers, they did not place their hope in God himself who created them, but in the temple, as if it were the house of God."
Page 105. *Exelthōn entautha klēron.* S. Cyprian seems to have transcribed this passage, along with the beginning of the following chapter, though Irenaeus’s name is silent, in Epistle 74 to Pompeius: "Whose [Marcion's] teacher, Cerdon, came to Rome under the bishop Hyginus at that time..."
*Taking away whatever.* Tertullian frequently refutes this sacrilegious audacity, as in the book *On the Flesh of Christ*: "By these counsels, Marcion dared to delete so many original instruments of Christ, lest his flesh be proven true. By what authority, I pray you? If you are a prophet, foretell something; if an apostle, preach publicly; if apostolic, feel with the apostles; if you are only a Christian, believe what has been handed down." And in the book *On Prescription*: "Marcion used a knife, not a pen, openly and publicly; since he composes the slaughter of the Scriptures to suit his subject matter." The same is also rebuked in books 2, 4, and 5 which he wrote against his heresies. Hence Cyril of Jerusalem 11: "Marcion, being refuted by those things which are in the New Testament concerning the old law, dared to excise those testimonies, and leave without testimonies Him who was being announced as the subject of the sermon of faith; which he also repeats in Catechesis 16."
*Truly receiving the mouth of the devil.* Not because of a desire to curse, but on account of the execrable blasphemies he vomited against heaven and the whole order of the saints, Irenaeus adorns Marcion with this worthy epithet.
He was indeed a tool of the devil and of the serpent, whom the Apocalypse describes as making war in heaven and against those who dwell therein. For to condemn the holy patriarchs, the prophets, and all the just, whom Christ redeemed with His holy blood, and to save any of the impious whatsoever—is this not to mix heaven with earth, or rather, the garden of paradise with hell?
We shall argue against this separately. From this passage Eusebius concludes that Irenaeus, in a certain book published separately, refuted Marcion himself from Marcion’s own writings. Furthermore, he refutes the errors concerning two gods later in book II, chapters 3 and 10, and in almost the whole of book III. He refutes the notion that the work of the world is unworthy of God in book II, chapter 3. He proves that Abraham was saved in book IV, chapter 18. The quibble that Christ introduced a dissolution of the Law he refutes in book IV, chapter 27, and Clement of Alexandria does so in *Stromata* II. That other most illustrious leaders of the Church—Justin the Martyr, Dionysius of Corinth, Theophilus of Antioch, Philip of Gortyna, Modestus, Melito, and Apollinarius—fought against this monstrous beast with the utmost diligence in their writings, is attested by Eusebius in book IV of his *History*, chapters 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27. It is also evident from Clement’s *Stromata* II that the Marcionites taught that the fear of God, arising from the Law, was an evil thing; according to Tertullian, that God is the author of sins; and that in man after the fall, free will is not left; which three heresies are being wickedly revived in this time by the Calvinists.
[Annotationes Fr. Feuardentii in cap. 30] Pag. 106. *Nunc autem et necessario.* The order and sense sufficiently indicate that this chapter should not have been separated from the previous one. Moreover, it is not Irenaeus alone who here teaches that all heretics are disciples of Simon Magus, even if they do not admit it; but also Clement (both of them), Cyril, Epiphanius, Philastrius, Augustine, and others in various places. As an example: Because Eusebius transcribed these things to the very end, we have added his Greek words here, rendered into Latin.
Pag. 107. *Qui vocantur continentes.* These are they who, from the Greek terms, are called Encratites, because they believed that one must abstain altogether from marriage, wine, and meat, as though they were in their nature evil. Likewise the Hydroparastae, because they judged that in the preparation of the Eucharist, only water should be used. These same are the Tatiani, concerning whom the following chapter speaks, which should have been attached continuously to this one, had I not feared bringing a certain confusion upon readers from so many permutations of chapters. Moreover, Epiphanius, *Contra Haereses* 61, which is of the Apostolici, writes that they held the same view as the Encratites, Marcionites, and Saturninians, namely, that those who did not live in celibacy could not be saved; which Ignatius in his *Epist. ad Philipp.*, Clement in his *Stromata*, Augustine in his book *De bono conjugali*, and other Catholic Fathers refute in many places.
[Annotationes Fr. Feuardentii in cap. 31] Pag. 107. *Tatianum quodam.* Eusebius consecutively transcribes this whole chapter, whose words also include emendations from an ancient manuscript. It will not be useless to have added what other ecclesiastical writers have handed down concerning this Tatian. First, Clement of Alexandria in his *Stromata* asserts that he originated from Syria. Then, Jerome bears witness that he acquired no small glory for himself through the art of rhetoric. But regarding his confession that he had been a participant in the mysteries of the idols, let us hear: "When I saw these things," he says, "and I had come to know by experience that the cults of the gods everywhere were established by effeminate and androgynous people; likewise, that among the Romans the Latial Jupiter was appeased with human gore and blood shed through homicide; and that the Diana not far from Megalopolis rejoiced in similar things, and that here and there I discovered another demon to be the author of such crimes; I was led to inquire how I might finally overcome them. And while I was carefully looking around, it happened to me to fall upon certain barbarian books, much older than the philosophy of the Greeks, if you look at their antiquity; and more august, if you look at their errors. These I credited, because their style was not embellished, nor was there any affectation of the writers, and their discourse was nowhere obscure; as well as because of the foreknowledge of future events, the greatness of the promises, and because they established that there is one monarch of all things." Thus far he. But that he moved to Rome, and became a follower of the blessed Justin, and flourished in the Church as long as he did not depart from his side, but labored excellently and for a long time to propagate the faith and to defend against the barkings of the Cynic Crescens and the calumnies of the heathens, all are in agreement. Furthermore, Eusebius adds that he left to posterity the same *dià tessarōn*, that is, the work of the four Gospels, and a great number of books, among which that one is celebrated by many, as if with a full mouth, which he published against the Gentiles. But nothing is blessed in every respect. For when Justin had fulfilled his martyrdom, as if a blind man deprived of his guide, says Epiphanius, he fell into precipices. Having departed from Rome, he betook himself to the East, where he scattered various heresies. He used mysteries similarly in imitation of the holy Church, with this one exception, that he used only water; and thence asserts Theodoret, the superstition of the Hydroparastae arose. We have corrected the "doctrina constituta, non quasdam invisibiles" and replaced it with "doctrinæ constituit, Æonas quosdam invisibiles."
Adæ autem saluti. Although Gallasius rejects the booklet *On the Penance of Adam*, it is necessary that he did penance for his sins, since he is saved. Epiphanius says he was also afflicted with no ordinary castigation and was driven from the region of paradise into exile, so that he might be mindful of the good life recalled into memory through penance. Concerning this heresy, Tertullian in the latter part of his book *De praescriptione*, Epiphanius *Contra haereses* 46, and most fully our own Irenaeus here in book I, chapters 34, 35, 37, and 39 argue, confirming that he is saved by these arguments: first, because the opinion of the Tatiani, being contrary, would be unheard of and new; second, because God did not wish to curse Adam or Eve, but only the earth and the serpent; third, because they soon condemned themselves to the fruits of penance; fourth, because it behooved Christ, the good shepherd, to seek and save this first sheep of His that had wandered; lastly, so that the devil might not boast against God that he would remain undefeated with his first spoils.
Moreover, the Tatiani, condemning marriages, denied that matrimony was a sacrament instituted and approved by God; which the Hugnostici also do today. Furthermore, they said that the Eucharist could be performed with water alone; a point which Beza also approves, writing in his Epistles that the Supper should be administered with only unfermented wine, or beer, or finally water, wherever wine is lacking.
[Annotationes Fr. Feuardentii in cap. 32] *Multas nuptias.* As the furies of his insane lust...
were sated, and the lovers of such licentiousness were enticed by its allurements, he introduced this variety of wives. Epiphanius also holds the Ebionites guilty of the same shamelessness, because, if anyone wanted, he could put aside his former marriage and join himself to others, even up to a second or third marriage. Tertullian also reproves Hermogenes for being constantly given to lust. That the more recent men, with great heat of spirit, imitate the impurity of these ancient Gnostics in such a way that their offspring might not depart a nail’s breadth from their fathers, is clearly shown—to begin with the very head himself, Luther—by these words of his, published in the books of his *Table Talk* by his pupil and table-companion, A Henricus Petrus Rebenstock, minister of Eschersheim: "I had once concluded with myself while a bachelor that, if I had to die unexpectedly, or even in my deathbed, a girl should be brought for me to marry; to whom I would have bequeathed as a testimony two silver cups." Indicating his own impurity, he said again: "I would rather have been a pimp than have sacrificed Christ for 15 years." Inviting others also to every kind of lewdness, he said: "Whoever can drive away Satanic thoughts with other thoughts, such as those about a beautiful girl, I advise him to do this." And he incited others to every kind of intemperance not only in private conversations but also in public sermons and writings, by his own example and by these words: "As it is not in my power that I am not a man, so it is not in my own right that I should be without a woman. Again, as it is not in your hand that you are not a woman, so neither is it in you to live without a man. For it is not a free choice or counsel; but a thing necessary by nature, that the male should be joined to the female, and the female to the male. This is as necessary as to eat, to drink, to purge, to blow one’s nose, and to be intent on sleep and vigils." Pray, what Nicolaitan, what Carpocratian, what glutton, what adulterer, what corruptor of youth could arise more vile and pestilential than this man? Did he not also bring in many marriages at once with the Basilians, when (as is written in the aforementioned *Table Talk*) he considers the concubinages of the Landgrave of Hesse and other princes to be marriages? He calls the most adulterous concubine of Frederick, Duke of Saxony, a "secret wife." He says that it should rather have been allowed to the King of the English, Henry, to take another wife in addition, instead of putting away the former one; and by the example of the Jews (add to this, the Turks) to have two wives at once. And again, in a sermon on marriage, delivered at Wittenberg in 1522, and printed there in the seventh volume of his Works in 1557, he says regarding a husband who has a somewhat surly wife: "Here it is appropriate that the husband should say: If you will not, another woman wants to. If the mistress will not, let the maid come. If she then refuses, put her away and in place of Vashti, substitute Esther, after the example of King Ahasuerus." Is this not to restore pagan polygamy entirely, and to revoke the impurities of the old Gnostics from Orcus?
D As to how much lewdness and depravation of good morals this (if it pleases the infernal regions) "repurified" Gospel has followed in Germany and wherever it has been admitted, Melanchthon made this more than sufficiently manifest, writing in a certain epistle that it was lawful for a man to take at least two wives at once; Bucer, from a monk, married a third time; Ochino and Beza asserting polygamy in public writings; Hetzer the Anabaptist keeping thirteen at once, and Bucoldius of the same flour taking fifteen; and the Genevans, finally, after the Turkish manner, loosening the bond of matrimony with A many [causes], and so often dissolving it, even while the first wife is alive, so that it is lawful to take a second, third, sixth, twelfth, and twentieth (if fate should have it so). Who then will deny that the ancient Gnostics are reborn in these novelties? The lascivious morals and discourses of the Calvinists we have related in our Commentaries on the Epistle of the blessed Apostle Jude, in the appropriate place. *Hæc curare.* This is what the old codex says; we have however expunged "hoc comparare."
B Adnotations of Fr. Feuardent in chap. 33. *Pag. 107. Super hos autem.* He now subdues the confused sects of the Gnostics, which are divided among themselves; and he enumerates their ravings about Barbelo, the unnamed father, Ennoia, Autogenes, Harmogenes, the Tree, and other monstrosities rather than names. Following this passage, Jerome, in his epistle to Theodora, praises the distinguished piety of her husband Lucinius, because, when the Basilidean heresies were laying waste to the Spains, he by no means accepted the Armagil, Barbelon, Abraxas, C Balsamum, and the ridiculous Lensibora, and other such prodigies rather than names; which, to excite the minds of the ignorant and of weak women, they impudently boasted were drawn as if from Hebrew sources. The same man, again, in Comm. on chapter 3 of Amos, subjoining these things, says: "And the Iberian absurdities are wondered at in the Balsam and Barbelo."
*Velut a terra fungi.* Explaining this place, Epiphanius mentions Irenaeus by name thus: "The differences of the Gnostics are ten in number, in one plague of their own dreaming, and in conjugations, and in ogdoads, and in the aeons of males and females, alternately and equally struck. For at one time, all these sprang up from the earth like mushrooms, and like the growths of abominable and foul-smelling herbs, and thorny grass, and like the lair of many scorpions, all grew into life at one time. And as I said before, like mushrooms, they appeared under one touch by their deformity, as has already been said of them by the holy Irenaeus; for they were contemporaries." The kinds of mushrooms, moreover, according to Pliny, are many, whose origin is from the earth and the slime of trees, which he also enumerates among those things which are eaten dangerously, on account of their great kinship with poisons. Regarding whose poison, see among others Nicander in *Alexipharmaca*. But these swarms of heretics are rightly compared to them, since, like mushrooms, they spring up rashly and suddenly, and produce either no fruit, or a useless one, or a most pernicious one.
*Quidam eorum Eonem.* Theodoret transcribes these things almost word for word: "From the seeds of Valentinus," he says, "there sprang up the execrable sect of the Barbeliots, or Borborians, or Naasenes, or Stratiotics, or those who are called Phemionites. For they posited a certain Aeon, alien from destruction, dwelling in a virginal spirit, whom they name Barbeloth; and Barbeloth, they say, asked from him Foreknowledge. And when she had proceeded with it, and then asked again, Incorruptibility proceeded, then Eternal Life. And they say that Barbeloth, struggling, conceived and brought forth Light. They say that she, anointed with the perfection of the spirit, was named Christ," etc.
How great a source of lewdness and depravation of good morals this (if it pleases the infernal regions) "repurified" Gospel was in Germany and wherever it was admitted, Melanchthon... [the rest of the text describes: Melanchthon thought it lawful for a man to have two wives at the same time; Bucer, a former monk, was thrice married; Ochino and Beza asserted polygamy in their writings; Hetzer the Anabaptist kept thirteen, and Bucoldius of the same ilk took fifteen; the Genevans treated the marriage bond with great levity.]
A that the Mother, the Father, and the Daughter were extended; and that it germinated from man and knowledge, as a tree. They also name this "knowledge." But now they say that from the first angel was produced the Holy Spirit, whom they also called Wisdom and Pronycus. They say that she, being a lustful spouse, gave birth to a work in which there was ignorance and arrogance. They call this work Protarchon, that is, the first prince, and they say that he is the maker of creatures. Furthermore, they say that he, having engaged with arrogance, engendered wickedness and its parts. These things, therefore, I have set forth summarily, passing over the prolixity of their fiction. But who is so wretched as to even utter with his tongue their mysteries? For they exceed all wicked reasoning, and finally all execrable thought, which are performed by them as if they were divine. For this reason they are nicknamed Borborians. B "But they say hence." Thus we have restored it from an old manuscript; before it was, "for it is said hence."
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 35.*
Pag. 107. "For some of them." Theodoret, in his *Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium*, book 1, cap. 13, imposes upon them the name of Barbeliotes, that is to say Borborians, or Nasseni, or Stratiotici, or Phibionites. For so it must be read from Epiphanius, *Haer.* 35, § 2, instead of *Phibionitis*, as they erroneously printed in Theodoret. For the similarity of the letters *phi* and *mu* caused a mistake for the scribe, so that he hallucinated in this word.
"But this Ennoea... to have requested Prognosis." Less correctly, therefore, does Theodoret attribute this request to Barbelo, which Irenaeus ascribes to Ennoea, that is, the thought of the ineffable Father, who desires to manifest himself to Barbelo.
Pag. 108. "He asserted," etc. Unless conjecture deceives me, Irenaeus wrote *διϊσχυρίζετο*. For so the ancient Glossaries have for "I assert," *διϊσχυρίζομαι*. And indeed that verb has this meaning; but it does nothing for the present matter. Therefore, it must be taken in another sense, which Suidas provides in his Lexicon, for *ἀμφιβάλλομαι*, "I doubt," or "I am in suspense." For uncertainly, according to the opinion of the heretics, this Sophia was hovering, not knowing whither to turn herself, that she might find a spouse. Hence, she was at one time extended—namely, into the upper regions (just as above, page 11, line 8), the Valentinians, the sons of the Gnostics, said their Sophia was *ἐκτεινομένην* (stretched out) *ἐπὶ τῷ πρόσθεν*—and at other times she looked toward the lower parts, etc.
<> A the heretics fashioned this fiction. For as Homer describes gods who are envious, ambitious, emulous, and contending among themselves, so the Gnostics wished the same to be posited regarding their celestial powers and gods. And this, forsooth, was most worthy of their illustrious cognition and sublime light.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 34.*
Pag. 108. "To call the first man." *To be invoked* is in the old manuscript; whence I suspect *to call* is to be made, since Theodoret also seems to indicate this against the Sethians, where in a few, but clearer words, he emulates this whole chapter. "The Sethians," he says, "whom some name either Ophiani or Ophitae, call man the God of all, again naming him the Light himself; but the comprehension of his mind they call the Son of man, and the second man. And after him to be the Holy Spirit; but below them, four elements: water, darkness, the abyss, chaos; but they call the Spirit feminine, and they say that he is carried above the B elements, and that he loved the first and second man, the form of the Spirit, and produced the light, which they call Christ."
*From the annotations of N. Gallasius on chapter 34.*
Pag. 109. "Jaldabaoth." As those things are fabricated by insane and impious men, so it was necessary that the strange and obscure names be posited by them, to excite admiration and to terrify the unlearned mob. But these names, that they might have more of admiration and carry a greater semblance of sanctity, were for the most part derived from the Hebrew or Syriac language. As this name Jaldabaoth, as far as one can conjecture, is composed of *ialad*, "I bring forth," "I generate," and *Aboth*, which signify "begotten by the Fathers." This elegant name was first bestowed on that son. Jao is one of the names of God, with only the letter *Aleph* added to *Iah*. Likewise Adoneus from *Adon*, and Elæus from *Elohe*. These names are names of God in the Scriptures. Sabaoth is a note of meaning for "armies." As God is called Sabaoth, that is, of the armies. For *Tsebaoth* signifies "the armies" to the Hebrews. Oreus seems to be derived from *Or*, which signifies "light," as if one should say, "the lucid and splendid one." Astapheus signifies "the overflowing one," from the verb *Schalaph*: whence *Scheteph*, i. e., "an inundation": as if "extending his power far and wide." What he subsequently appends are remarkable ravings, which tend to the imitation of the poets.
A fifth of the *Elorum*, who is also called *Adoneus*; in the sixth, however, some say *Jaldabaoth* is there, others *Elilæum*; others even constitute a seventh heaven, in which they place *Sabaoth*; others deny this, and pronounce that *Jaldabaoth* is in the seventh; and in the eighth, that which is called *Barbelo*. They report, moreover, that *Sabaoth* has the form of an ass, others of a pig, etc. Theodoret: "They have assigned names to the aforementioned sons, using the Hebrew language, which it is superfluous to mention." Since, however, they abused these to stir up the ignorant vulgar, as if they contained greater sacraments of holiness, I did not wish to omit their origin and interpretation. *Jaldabaoth* is composed of *ialad*, which means to beget, to bear, to generate, and to be born, and the plural noun *Aboth*, which means fathers; hence *Jaldabaoth*, that is, "he who generated fathers"; or *nmn*, that is, begotten by fathers, "son of fathers." *Iao* is a corruption of the name of God *Iehovah*, with only the letter *o* added to the *m*; it is made *Iao*, concerning which we remarked above. *Adoneus* from *Adon*, which is "Lord." *Eloæus* from *Alha*, from which comes *Eleha*, that is, "gods," or "God," a judge, an angel. *Sabaoth* from the root *Saba*, which is "exit," "end," "determined time," from which the feminine plural *Sabaoth* is "armies." *Oreus* is derived from *Or*, which can be both a noun and a verb, signifying to light and to shine; hence *Oreus*, that is, "shining." *Astapheus* from the verb B *Schataph*, which is "to wash," "to cleanse," whence the name *Scheteph*, that is, "inundation."
Having done these things, Theodoret says: "They say that others, when in the beginning they had stirred up sedition—he who was indeed the grandfather of these, and the great-grandfather of those, and the great-great-grandfather of others—being anxious in mind, fixed his thought upon the filth of matter, and generated from it the son *Ophiomorphon*, or 'serpent-formed'." Tertullian adds: "Again that *Jaldabaoth*, converted into indignation, produced from himself a power, and the likeness of a serpent," etc. Thus, on the authority of the ancient codex and Theodoret, we have substituted "filth" for "the face of matter."
p. 110. This is the very same as *Nun*. This was the peculiar heresy of the Ophites, concerning which Tertullian wrote more abundantly at the end of his book *De Præscriptionibus*, Clement of Alexandria in the 7th *Stromata*, Epiphanius against heresies 27, Philastrius, Augustine, Theodoret, and Damascenus. C Whence the exulting. Theodoret: "Then the father of *Ophiomorphos*, boasting, said: 'I am God and Father, and no one is superior to me'; but the mother, bearing it with difficulty, exclaimed: 'Do not lie, for there is a Father of all superior to you, the first man, the son of man.'" When the father of the serpent had heard these words, he said: "Come, let us make man in our image." Indeed, they add many other things, which are both full of impiety and have nothing of pleasantness. Epiphanius also touches upon this passage against heresies 25.
At to seduce. So the old codex; but we have deleted "at to be led."
But six Virtues. Tertullian: "They say that those Virtues, and the lower angels, made man; and because he had been instituted by weaker and mediocre virtues, he lay like a worm crawling. But the *Aeon*, from whom *Jaldabaoth* had proceeded, moved by envy, cast into the lying man a certain spark, by which, having been excited, he might possess wisdom and be able to understand higher things." Epiphanius: "Seven sons generated by him, or ages, or gods, or angels (for they are called by various names among them), according to the form of their father *Jaldabaoth*, had formed man," etc.
But their mother. Tertullian: "They say *Jaldabaoth*, moved into indignation, turned himself, and added to himself the power and likeness of a serpent; D and that this had been that power in paradise, that is, that this had been the serpent, whom Eve had believed as if he were the Son of God. He plucked, they say, from the fruit of the tree, and thus contributed to the human race the knowledge of good and evil."
Eating however. These eighteen words we have restored from the old codex, with the approval of Epiphanius and Theodoret.
But also the serpent. Epiphanius: "They say that *Jaldabaoth* did not wish to commemorate the supernal Mother, nor the supernal Father to men. But afterwards the serpent brought both knowledge and taught the man and woman all knowledge of supernal mysteries. Wherefore the Father, that is *Jaldabaoth*, being angry, cast him out of heaven, and hence they call the serpent 'king of heaven'; and they possess the portion of the serpent, and nothing else."
p. 111. Michael and Samuel. Theodoret: "But they call that *Ophiomorphos* Michael and Samana." The old codex has *Samael*; which perhaps should be retained, and not without reason, as one may judge that those diligent cultivators of magic abused the magic names of spirits, among which these two names are not the last. Since they say that from the ancient Hebrew fathers they received that seven angels preside over the seven planets, from which Michael presides over Mercury, or according to others the sun, and the eastern wind; but Samael, otherwise Zamael, who perhaps is the same as this Samael, dominates over Mars. Among the evil spirits, they also constitute four most powerful kings, according to the four parts of the world, and the first of them is Urieus, and called by the Hebrews Samael, and they think he reigns in the East. They again pray in common through the synagogues (in the interpretation of Genebrard) thus: "Do not record the accusation of Samuel; remember, however, the defense of Michael": by which they judge that they regard this Samuel, whom they oppose to Michael, in the place of an evil angel.
What is also written above concerning Norea, as if she were a daughter of Adam, is obscure. Epiphanius indeed against heresy 26 hands down something concerning Noria, whom others have said was the wife of Noah, and not of Seth. Moreover, Vincent in the *Speculum*, Antoninus in the *Summa*, Nauclerus in *Generatio*, Bergomas in the *Supplementum*, and Werner in the *Fasciculus* write that Calmana was born with Cain, and Delbora with Abel, who after his slaughter married Seth. Comestor in *Hist. scholast.* affirms that Methodius the martyr received and handed this down by revelation.
That Abraham chose. Epiphanius: "And this *Jaldabaoth*, they say, is the God of the Jews; but it is not so, far be it: but God Almighty, who is the God of the Jews, and of the Christians, and of all, is about to judge them, and no *Jaldabaoth* exists at all, according to their insane fable. Theodoret: They also divide the prophets, and attribute them, as they will, to the seven sons."
But Jesus. So the old codex, but the printed editions had "all things however."
p. 112. And this greatest error. Theodoret: "But they say that Jesus is another besides Christ; and that he indeed, who is God, was born from a Virgin, but that Christ descended from the heavens upon him. But they say that the apostles also erred, thinking the Savior's flesh had risen."
After the deposition. Thus the old codex indicated it should be read; the printed editions had "after the passion."
Like the Lernæan hydra. They report that the Lernæan serpent-hydra existed in the Lernæan marsh near Argos, which some say had a hundred heads, but others only eight, of which one was immortal. But they relate that Hercules struggled with this monster for much time, because, one head having been cut off, many would sprout again. Concerning which see Hesiod in *Theogonia*, and Plato.
VARIOUS NOTES. In the *Sophist*. Athanasius, comparing the Arians, as Irenaeus does the Gnostics, to this monster: "The heretic, he says, as the thing itself demonstrates, possesses a mind which is utterly depraved and corrupt in every way toward impiety. For, observe, the Arians are refuted everywhere, yet they can by no means blush; but just as in the fables of the heathens the celebrated hydra, once the former serpents had been removed, struggled stubbornly with new shoots of snakes against the one who was cutting off its snakes, just so these execrable men, with a heathen spirit, being cast down by the things objected to them, find other things; they invent Jewish and foolish controversies, so that they may declare themselves the more to be enemies and opponents of Christ." The Great Basil also has an elegant adaptation of the same fable at the very end of his book *On True Virginity*.
*Some say even that.* Theodoret: "Some say that the serpent itself had intimacy with Wisdom, and as if with a God who was an adversary, it deceived Adam while warring against the Creator, and gave knowledge, and for this reason the serpent was said to be the most prudent of all: and that the winding position of our intestines imitates the body of a serpent." Epiphanius also touched upon this against heresy 37.
*From the Annotations of John Ernst Grabe on chapter 34.*
*Others.* Theodoret calls them "Sethians" in book 1 of *Heretical Fables*, chapter 14, and testifies that they are called "Ophians" or "Ophites" by some; contrary to Epiphanius, who distinguishes the Sethians from the Ophites, and lists their heresy separately—theirs at number 37, the others at number 39.
*Nor have they moved them, acting petulantly even to the abysses.* That is, they could not move the waters, even if it itself, with petulant motion, descended to the depths.
*It has acted.* In Greek, as I gather from an ancient Glossary, *ἐμηχανήσατο*, "it has devised."
*Against the working Father.* That is, against the Father Ialdabaoth, while it taught Adam and Eve the knowledge of the superior divinities, to whom Ialdabaoth is inferior, as Epiphanius in heresy 37 and Theodoret explain.
*While he was killing his brother Abel, etc.* Among so many fools' sayings of the heretics, this is truly the most certain, which St. Clement also has in his *Epistle to the Corinthians*, 5, after having mentioned the "unjust and impious zeal": "By which also death entered into the world." Whence, having related the history of Cain and Abel, he adds: "See, brothers, zeal and envy brought about fratricide."
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 35.*
Page 112. *But others.* Theodoret: "But others, whom they call Cainites, even say that Cain was liberated by the supreme authority; yet Esau, Core, and the Sodomites, and all others of that sort, they confess to be their kin, and that they were held in hatred by the Creator, but received no harm from him; for Wisdom took away from them what it had in them." They even say that Judas the betrayer alone of all the apostles possessed this knowledge, and for that reason brought about the mystery of the betrayal. And they bring forward his gospel, which they composed. Things consonant with these are what Epiphanius writes against heresy 38; therefore we have not thought it necessary to repeat them. At such madness of the Gnostics themselves, I cannot but be astonished that the father of lies should have poured such mists of errors into the minds of men who have once given their name to Christ, so that they confound heaven with earth, while they justify the wicked, save the reprobate; they consign Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and the rest of the band of blessed ones to the underworld; but those who are hateful to God, to angels, and to men, they sigh after, admire, and adore.
Newer Gnostics seem to me to labor under the same blindness, as if begotten from the same egg; they carry up to heaven, and declare as blessed and true servants of God, Aerius, Vigilantius, Novatus, Donatus, Eunomius, Jovinian, Berengar, the Felicinians, Albigenses, Waldensians, and Hussites, who are condemned by the judgment of the whole world. Against these, on the other hand, they vex, lacerate, and reject the most holy and ancient disciples and successors of the apostles with many reproaches. For to Luther, the great and divinely-eloquent Dionysius the Areopagite, disciple of Paul and apostle of the Gauls, "talks much of the divine names, of the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchy; but they are mere fabrications." The most holy and learned Jerome, to the same apostate: "He is nothing at all. He wrote nothing good, he is not to be numbered among the doctors of the Church, because he was a heretic. He treats of nothing concerning Christ except that he uses the name. Nor does he speak of faith, hope, and charity, nor of the works of faith." He adds finally, indicating how truly he was affected with Cainite and Carpocratian spirit toward such a holy man: "I hate no one among the writers as I do him; he wrote so much about fasts, foods, and virginity." The books of the most eloquent and pious Chrysostom, in the Gnostic judgment of Luther, "are merely chaos and a bag of words, without substance. The author is seditious and garrulous." Gregory Nazianzen, nicknamed "The Theologian," receives the same censure: "Occupied with his poetry, he wrote nothing sincere concerning God." Nor did this degenerate son spare his very subtle and philosopher and theologian father, Augustine, saying: "Many of Augustine's books are nothing." Such and many more grave blasphemies, and more insults against the most select servants of God and the holy leaders of the Church of Christ, the new Gnostics have not been ashamed to spew out.
Moreover, they have arrived at such madness that they have deleted from the calendar of Christians the names of the holy apostles, martyrs, angels, the Virgin Mary, and even the Epiphany, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of Jesus Christ, and the most holy Trinity, and in their place and order they have substituted and placed Antiochus, Caesars, Holofernes, Pharaohs, and those who have been most justly delivered to the death penalty by the sentence of the magistrate for blasphemies, errors, and stirred-up riots—the idlers. But of these elsewhere.
*Now I have also collected.* Epiphanius: "But they also fabricate other writings in the same way against the womb, which they call *Hystera*, and they call that *Hystera* the creator of this whole mass of heaven and earth. And they say that others cannot be saved unless they have passed through all things, just as Carpocrates also says. For each one of them, for this reason of course, doing nefarious things and performing foul actions, and committing whatever sins, invokes the name of an angel for each one, both those who are angels and those who are falsely called angels by them, and attributes to each one of them a certain nefarious work of sins on earth, referring the proper action to the name of the angel he wishes." Expunged from the printed copies [the text] "can be gathered." *To speak by the angel's name.* By authority of an old codex we have deleted [the text] "to speak the angel's name."
Page 113. *O, angel.* Thus it is absolutely to be read, as is gathered from Epiphanius as well as Nicetas' *Orthodoxy*. But if these [heretics] are justly to be execrated, because they attributed their obscenities to the purest angels as their authors, how much more so are the Calvinists and Bezians, who write and preach that God, the best and greatest, is the author of David's adultery, Absalom's incest, and Judas' betrayal, rather than [the author] of the conversion of Paul and the confession of Peter.
*Which by them.* It was earlier "since by them." *The reason:* they further signify why he investigated and wrote these clearly monstrous fables so studiously and laboriously.
A *Their delight.* That is, they glory and triumph in these trifles, or rather, in these execrable and detestable blasphemies, of which they ought to be deeply ashamed and embarrassed. Unless, contrary to the faith of all the manuscripts, you prefer to read, *Their detection*, etc., which reading one might perhaps not rashly confirm from that which is read above in c. 19: “Since there is a detection against all heretics,” etc., and presently in the Preface to the second book: “What the detection and overthrow of their opinion is”; and again in the Preface to the fifth book: “Of the detection and overthrow of false knowledge.” *He has no longer labored.* What if we were to read, “they no longer labor,” so that it might agree with these, “seeing that it is a beast”?
From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on ch. 35.
Page 112. *Others besides.* They are called *Kaialvoi* by Epiphanius (Heresy 38); by Theodoret (Book 1 of *Heretical Fables*, ch. 15), *Kaialoi*. Whence it is clear that before these, in ch. 1, page 193, for *Kaviolai* should be read *Kaialoi*, as Cotelerius noticed before me in his Notes to vol. I of the *Monumenta Ecclesiæ Græcæ*, col. 770, B.
VARIOUS NOTES ON THE SECOND BOOK OF SAINT IRENAEUS
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on the preface to the second book.*
Page 115. *Preface of the second book.* That this most holy martyr took great care that these books should not be corrupted by the customary arts of heretics, and that there should be no need for them to have arguments or titles added, is most evident, both from the adjuration prefixed at the beginning of the work to the scribes, and from the prefaces placed at the beginning of each of the books, in which he briefly summarizes what he had proposed in the former and what he was about to declare in the next. Moreover, the chapters, or sections, of this second book are different and more numerous in our old exemplar than in all the printed editions, which sometimes agree more, and sometimes less; on which account it seemed better to warn the reader here than to change anything, as we shall indicate in their proper places as the occasion arises. Furthermore, after he has led the monstrous opinions of the Gnostics, like pernicious monsters, from their lairs into the open field in the previous book, he most fiercely pursues them individually in this second; which he both slays as if with their own blade by their own tenets, and at the same time indicates what each of them has drawn from the ditches of the philosophers; whence the book will perhaps appear a little obscure to one who is unacquainted with ancient philosophy, and indeed with the Gnostic ravings, which Divine Providence has for the most part abolished. We, however, will take care that, not without some fruit, the same and similar heretical genius and the frauds of Satan may be unmasked and made plain to all, for the fair and benevolent reader.
*Who are of Valentinus.* That is, the followers and disciples of Valentinus; just as elsewhere frequently "who are of Simon," "who are of Marcion," etc., instead of "the Simonians and the Marcionites": let it suffice to have noted this once.
*We have gone through it minutely.* Jacques Billius, a man most learned in Greek and Latin, and a most faithful and learned interpreter of Gregory Nazianzen, Damascenus, Isidorus of Pelusium, and the first ten and act chapters of the first book of Irenaeus, wrote three books which, after his death, were brought to light under the name of *Sacred Observations*. In these, he skillfully examined, happily explained, and with great fidelity corrected very many passages of this most holy martyr's books. Relying, therefore, on his diligence and study (which let it suffice to have said once), we shall do our best to amend these same and many others, starting from this one which we have marked. *To recount*, he says, he used a new manner, and one entirely unusual for the Latins, which the Greeks call *ἐξελέγχειν*, that is, to recount. B
*And because it is not of the lastness.* In the first chapter of the first book, he related that they consider the Demiurge, that is, the Creator of this world, to be now the fruit of emptiness, now of some extremity.
*What the detection is.* From this place, and from the first words of the Preface into the fourth book, and the last clause of the same book, and then from the beginning of the fifth book, it appears that the most true inscription of these books is that which Eusebius puts in the fifth book of his *History*, ch. 7, in these words: *Ἐλέγχου καὶ ἀνατροπῆς τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως βιβλία πέντε*, that is, not to depart from the ancient interpreter, *Five books of the detection and overthrow of the knowledge falsely so called*. And certainly, the apostolic man seems to have taken it from the words of the Apostle in I Timothy, by which he warns that the *ἀντιθέσεις τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως* are to be avoided. Furthermore, I would think that Eusebius also looked to this in the very first preface of his *Ecclesiastical History*, where he retains almost the same words as are found in this title, while he proposes that he will speak about those who suffered in the name of Christ, and who overthrew false opinions in their writings. We have noted some things about these at the beginning of this work.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on ch. 1.*
Page 116. *From the first and greatest.* He calls it the "first and greatest" chapter, because it is the summit of this discourse, namely that God is unique; which is concluded in this chapter, some things having been premised concerning His immensity. Since those fanatical men used to constitute as many gods as they dreamed there were Aeons and Angels, and as many affections and passions inherent in them, as Clement of Alexandria acutely apprehended in *Stromateis* book V, which will appear more fully from what follows.
*Since God is alone.* The exclusive term *alone*, even if repeated here five times, does not separate the Son or the Holy Spirit from the Father, the Creator of all, as the new Arians babble; since there is one will, power, and divinity of the three, as will be said more fully below: but it only excludes the fictitious Aeons, Bythos, Patricos, Matricos, and Angels, from whom those scoundrels used to fable that all things were made. This same argument concerning divine immensity is treated by Dionysius in his book *On the Divine Names*, ch. 9; Athanasius in *Against the Partisans of Sabellius*; Nazianzen in his *First Apology*; Augustine in book one of his *Confessions*, ch. 5; in his book of *Meditations*, ch. 29 and 30; Damascenus in book one, ch. 8, etc.
82 *And He alone containing all things.* He means that God eminently and excellently comprehends all the perfections of all created things in Himself: which Dionysius also taught before him in these words: C “Since... D
A it behooved us to believe the substance of the Divinity to be more full, should the number [of gods] be appropriate?” Valentinus is more honest and liberal, who dared to conceive of two at once, Bythos and Sige, while he poured forth a swarming of divinities up to 30 Aeons, as if it were a choral dance of Aeons. Nor are things much unlike this read, concerning the unity of God, in Philo, Athenagoras, Lactantius, and Damascenus, which Thomas Aquinas seems to have gathered learnedly in his book *Contra Gentes*, book 1, chapter 43.
*It will contain both.* By the authority of an old codex, we have deleted “water will be contained.”
*They will be contained.* We have expunged “for they were contained and were circumscribed”: a little later also, for “inciting,” we substituted “falling away,” and for “sometimes,” [we put] “at some time,” by the authority of the same old codex.
*And since these things stand thus.* This is the third argument, by which he shows that there is one God from the one world and its administration through providence. The same argument, but more prolix and openly, Lactantius pursues after Philo (book 1, chapter 3), having also employed evident examples of a single commander in an army, and a single soul in a body. Cyprian, in his tract *De Idolorum Vanitate*, proves the divine monarchy from the king of the bees and the leader of the flock.
*But who concerning the angels.* Here the old codex signals chapter 2. Indeed, he shows that the world was created neither by angels, as Simon, Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, and Carpocrates said (book 1, chapters 20, 21, 22, 23, 24), nor by some other virtue separated far and distant from the supreme God, as he wrote that Marcion and Cerinthus desired (book 1, chapters 25, 29). Furthermore, Lactantius reviews and refutes the various opinions of the philosophers B concerning the origin of the world in his book *De Ira Dei*, chapter 10.
*How much more to God?* For “how much less,” according to the custom of the Greeks.
*Afterwards.* This is a dilemma that vehemently presses them, the one horn of which you have at the beginning of the second chapter, and therefore I think the section of the old codex agrees more; but I did not wish to change it, lest I should cause trouble for those accustomed to these sections.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 1 of book 2.* *The beginning.*
᾿Αρχή
was doubtless in the Greek, which word denotes here not “a beginning,” but “the principle of things,” from which they depend.Which, indeed, they call *Proonta* and *Proarchen*. See above, book 1, chapter 1, from the beginning. However, from this place and the beginning of chapter 3 of this book, where our author names “*Proarchen* and Bythos of the Valentinians, and the good God of Marcion,” it is not vainly concluded that Marcion indeed called that supreme Being, which he fashioned above the Creator of the world, “God”; but that the Valentinians abstained from this name. Whence Elias Cretensis, in his Commentary on Gregory of Nazianzus, oration 25, reviewing the various names of heretics dreaming about Bythos and Sige, writes among other things: “Some of them used to say Bythos was God, others that Silence was God, as Simon and Marcion.” As if these alone had usurped the title of God.
*With the Pleroma.* I do not know what came into Feuardentius’s mind, that in his edition he not only began a new period from these words: “With the Pleroma” (along with Erasmus and Gallas), but made it another plane, or a new section of this chapter, even C though a semicolon alone distinguishes them. By which very fact it came to pass that both the preceding and the subsequent parts hardly have a perfect sense, and mere darkness is poured out for the reader.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 2.* *But if in his.* This is the other horn of the aforementioned dilemma, by which he proves from very many absurdities following on every side that the world neither ought to have been, nor could have been, fashioned by any other than the one and true God: which he also confirmed by domestic examples.
*The framer.* By the authority of the old codex we deleted “framer” [plural]: and a little before, we set down “will be” for “were.”
A Just as in the case of a king. He confirms that the world was created by God, taking an example from a king, to whose praise or blame the success of every army and war over which he presides is referred. The next line, “the condition of this state,” is taken to mean the whole creation, the created thing, this universe. For it is frequently used in this way in these books, as in chapter 6, the “fire is numbered in the condition,” that is, among created things; and chapter 56, “there are in the heavens spiritual conditions,” that is, creatures.
*So therefore.* He concludes that God alone is the creator of the world; not the angels, as the Gnostics maintained: a belief which they had drunk, like other heresies, from the hollows of the philosophers. For the opinion that the angels were the creators of our bodies and of animals was held by Plato and Porphyry, whom Augustine refutes very sharply on this matter in *De civitate Dei*, ch. 16. The same author also mentions, from Philastrius, that the Proclianites and Seleucians thought the angels were the creators of souls. But in question 21, Book II of *Questions on Exodus*, he asserts that the angels cannot be called the creators of animals, just as they are not the creators of crops or trees, or of whatever else grows on the earth. He also discusses this more fully in Book III of *De Trinitate*, chapters 8 and 9; our Irenæus also does so in Book V, chapter 37.
*They assimilate to men.* He asserts that the divine power surpasses all created forces whatsoever, and does not imitate the way of craftsmen in its works: for it has need of no instruments, has no assistant, and finally has no subject matter, for the production of anything whatsoever. Regarding these, Justin Martyr also discourses in this way against Aristotle: “We know there is a limit prescribed by God for nature and art; but if God is not subject to a prescription, but does ‘whatever he wills’ without any limit preventing him from doing what he wills: is he not exempt from necessity and the subjects of creation?” Athenagoras also thinks those who compare human and divine power, and craftsmen and God, among themselves, are most insultingly disposed toward God. C Theophilus of Antioch believes that God’s power is made known from this, that from the things which do not exist, he makes what he wills, as he pleases. “For the things which are impossible among men are held to be possible with God,” etc.
*The substance of quality.* The old codex taught that it should be read this way, instead of “equality”; as also a little above, “ignoring the Father,” instead of “the Father.”
*For this is proper to God, preeminence.* The argument is taken from divine excellence and all-sufficiency. He who by his own nature is most sufficient for all things has no need of the help or industry of anyone else to create whatever he wills. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is of this kind, as the Scriptures say: “You do not need my goods; the earth is mine; God is not served by human hands, needing anything.” Therefore, etc. Or thus: God was sufficient by his co-eternal and consubstantial Word and his Spirit to create all things, as the voices of the prophets and apostles ring out: Gen. 1, Ps. 32 and 137, John 1, Heb. 1. He therefore needed no one else but himself.
*And without him was made nothing.* Thus he also puts an end to this thought in Book III, chapters 8 and 11, and not infrequently elsewhere; which Tertullian in his books *Against Hermogenes*, *Against Praxeas*, *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*, and the fifth book *Against Marcion*; Cyprian in Book II *Against the Jews*, ch. 3; Augustine, Jerome, and the Vulgate edition; and among the Greeks, Origen, Nazianzen, and Cyril of Alexandria, not unwillingly follow; although the passage seems to require different pointing by Chrysostom and Theophylact, to whom our Irenæus himself, having used both ways of reading in Book III, chapter 11, speaks in contradiction.
*Which world is according to us.* Greek phrasing, such as Acts 17, “according to us.” And in Nazianzen, “our inhabitable earth.” So too it is said immediately after, “all things that are according to us,” that is, these earthly and visible things.
*From the annotations of Fr. Grabius in ch. 2.* Page 118. *So that he who began to know him, might become man.* A man’s regeneration indeed comes to pass through the knowledge of God; but by what reasoning one who begins to know God should first be created and exist as a man, this is not grasped.
*He says.* But where Scripture says in Genesis, “that God made by his Word all things that are according to us,” I answer that Irenæus perhaps looked to the first words of Moses, soon cited by him: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” For certain of the most ancient Fathers have understood “In the beginning” mystically as the “Word” or “Son of God,” concerning whom see the commentators on Genesis, and add what I have brought forward in Vol. I of the *Spicilegium Patrum of the second century*, page 132. Or Irenæus also took that saying of Moses, “God said,” in the creation of things, as if God produced all things by his substantial Word, existing from eternity in the Father, but then, as it were, proceeding outwardly. How, among others, Tertullian philosophized in his book *Against Praxeas*, ch. 5, writing thus: “As soon as God willed to bring forth into their substances and species those things which he had arranged within himself with his Wisdom, Reason, and Discourse, he brought forth the Word himself first, so that through him all things might exist.” Whence he soon cites the words of Genesis, where God said: “Let there be light,” etc.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent in ch. 3.* Page 118. *Since, however, this God.* He concludes from the foregoing, and from Paul’s new testimony, that God, the creator of the world, is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: and that the fables fashioned by them concerning Bythus, the Pleroma, the Æons, and many gods, cannot stand at all. But the impure dog Servetus, and the Gentilians who came from him, the new Arians and Samosatenians, wish by their barking to persuade that Irenæus in this place, and in a few other similar ones, despoils the Son of God of all divinity, and professes that only the Father is the true God. But they, wretched and blind men three and four times over, do not attend to the fact that the chief aim of this blessed Father is to refute entirely the Æons, Bythoses, Propatores, and the filth of the world, from which they feigned that Christ was born and sent, fashioned by the Valentinians: but on the contrary, he proves that he is the true Son of that Father who is called, and is, the God of Israel, distinct indeed from him in the manner of person, but of the same nature and dominion as he.
*He therefore begins to be unstable.* The old codex begins the third chapter from this place, and perhaps more conveniently, as the arguments prefixed to the chapters might fit this section better. He concludes, however, that that Bythus, about whom he wrote that they had invented so many things in Book I, chapters 2, 3, and 19, along with the Pleroma, are mere dreams. Then he affirms at greater length that he did not create this world without God’s knowledge, since he foreknows all things and embraces them with his mind; nor can it be considered, without blasphemy, the fruit of his slips and ignorance. He also calls Bythus “unstable,” that is, a figment so weak and a dream so vain that it can stand in no way, and can be supported by no arguments.
Page 119. *Nor will they have any cause to return.* Hellenism, *αἰτίαν οὐκ ἔξουσιν ἀποδοῦναι*, “nor will they be able to provide and assign a cause”; as *ἔχω εἰπεῖν*, “I can say.”
*But if he was foreknowing.* He asserts that the same God eventually perfected this world, whom he had conceived in his mind from eternity by foreknowledge.
*But either eternal.* He teaches by this dilemma that, whether they say the world is eternal or temporal, that which they maintained is always false: that it was indeed from one…
A conceived in the mind, but created by another ; thus constituting from that point two gods and different fabricators of the world.
*It is worthy.* It was also a blasphemy of the Marcionites that the work of the world was unworthy of God. "For contracting their nostrils," says Tertullian, "they turn [themselves] to the destruction of the Creator. It is, they say, a grand work, and a world worthy of God! But when you laugh at even the most minute animals, which the greatest craftsman augmented with diligence in [their] talents or strengths, thus teaching that magnitude is proven in mediocrity, just as virtue is in infirmity; imitate, if you can, the buildings of the bee, the stables of the ant, the nets of the spider, the threads of the silkworm; endure, if you can, the very beasts of your bed and mat, the poisons of the blister beetle, the darts of the fly, the trumpet and lance of the gnat. What will the greater things be, when you are either aided or harmed by such small ones, so that you would not despise the Creator even in small things?" etc. This heresy, after Irenæus and Tertullian, is pilloried everywhere by Clement of Alexandria in *Strom.* books 1 and 4. Origen also, in his second homily on various [subjects], and Rufinus, the author of the *Exposition of the Symbol* under Cyprian, number it among the insanities of the Manichæans, because they denied that God was the creator of the world, in order to refer its creation to the devil.
*Emanations.* We have expunged "of the emanation" [from the text], with the authority of an old manuscript.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 3.* Page 118. *Father.* In our Greek and Latin Vulgate manuscripts of the New Testament it is read: *Kai Patēr pantōn*, "and the Father of all"; just as Firmilian also cited this passage of the Apostle in epistle 75 among those of Cyprian. But in the manuscript of Irenæus, both the copula *kai* and the word *pantōn* seem to have been missing, because he alleged the words of St. Paul without both [of them], not only here, but also in book IV, chapter 37 (for I warn in the notes there that the other passage, in book IV, c. 52, is corrupt). And I do not conclude from this that "of all" was read by our author, because he accepted that God was called Father here in respect to Jesus Christ. And the copula *kai* is also absent from the Syriac and Ethiopic versions, and likewise in Chrysostom in his commentary on this passage; but I know of no one, except Irenæus, who has omitted the word "of all." Although in the parallel passage, 1 Cor. viii, 6, the Apostle himself omitted it, simply placing: *Heis Theos ho Patēr, ex hou ta panta*. "One God the Father, of whom are all things."
*To us.* In our Greek manuscripts it is *hēmin*. But besides Irenæus, in this and other previously mentioned places, Firmilian in the cited epistle, Hilary in his commentary on this passage, and the scholiast in Jerome have it; although Jerome himself in his commentary does not acknowledge either of these, just as it is also missing in the Alexandrian manuscript and others, which the most learned Dr. Mill, who must never be named by me without a preface of honor, lists in his edition of the New Testament.
*Greater than the Pleroma.* Thus correctly the editions of Erasmus and the manuscripts of Vossius and Mercator. But it pleased Gallasius to change *majus* to *magis*; and Feuardentius has retained this reading, and Billius in the cited place keenly defends it, having rejected the other entirely. "For Irenæus wants," he says, "that Vacuum [the Void], which the Valentinians introduced, to be even more foolish and absurd than that Pleroma [which] he had already refuted," in the chapter, namely, of this book. Which things were said by him entirely gratis. For what Irenæus says has been shown or demonstrated is this: the vacuum, namely, [which was] fabricated by the Valentinians, is greater than the Pleroma itself. For so it is above in chapter 1, page 107, column 1: "For when there is, according to them, also some other thing, which they say is indeed outside the Pleroma, into which they also opine that the superior erring virtue descended (see lib. 1, cap. 1, 7), it is necessary in every way that the Pleroma be contained, or that it contain that which is outside," etc. But truly that which contains is greater than that which is contained, as he says a little before on page 106. B Therefore, that it was said by Irenæus in this place to be greater than the Pleroma of the Valentinians, there is no doubt. There is added to this that a new period is to be begun from the word *instabilis*, as I shall presently say: for any one can see that this [word], when torn away, makes the reading *magis* unable to stand.
Page 119. *But in the present*, etc. Irenæus had said that the supreme God, who had conceived the idea of the world in his mind, had brought its structure to effect. Fearing, however, that his stubborn adversaries would not admit this consequence, but would proceed to attribute the idea to one God and the creation of the world to another, he attacks them also by another way, and urges that, by whomever the world might eventually be created, if nevertheless it was formed according to an idea in the mind of the supreme God, with him being present or foreknowing it, the creature must entirely be held to be good, or everything which is cast as a reproach upon it must redound upon the supreme God himself.
*From the annotations of Nicolaus Gallasius on chapter 3.* Page 119. *But [God] either conceived the eternal world in his mind, according to those heretics, or a temporal one*: both of which are incredible. In order to understand this passage, which is otherwise obscure and perplexing, join the previous judgment, to which the last part of this must be referred. For Irenæus teaches that the heretics cannot be helped by this dilemma. For whether they say the world is eternal or temporal, in both ways what they assert is false and incredible: that it was conceived by one in the mind, but [was] made by another. For thus it would follow that there are two gods, two creators, to one of whom, as the architect, the design or idea would be attributed; to the other, the formation. Therefore in whatever way they might accept it, whether the world is eternal, as they themselves affirmed, or temporal, as Scripture teaches, in neither way does their dogma stand, but it is absurd and impious. Wherefore he concludes that one God, the Father of all things, as he conceived it in his own mind, so at that time which he had determined, aided by the help of no one, brought forth this world.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 4.* *Instable.* All the printed manuscripts (in the argument of this chapter) and the Vatican manuscript with them read *subtilis*. But, since it could hardly be said what this expression meant, some thought that the interpreter had rendered the word *astocholon* word for word. Others thought it should be read: *Solubile est Pleroma* [The Pleroma is soluble]. But when an old manuscript had, among the summaries of the chapters placed at the beginning of the book, *Invisibilis est Pleroma* [The Pleroma is invisible], but here *insitabilis*, I thought it should be read *instabile*. It is added that chapter 3 of this book has: "*Instabilis* therefore, who is according to them Bythos; and that which is the Pleroma of this"; and in the Preface to this book he calls it "invisible Pleroma"; and within chapter 5, "Pleroma empty, undisposed, and dark."
Page 119. *Therefore the cause.* He concludes that the workmanship of the world is to be ascribed to God alone: that the Pleroma, Bythos, Sige, and the Vacuum, which he had taught in book 1, chapters 1 and 5, that the Valentinians had confixed, along with their professors, were vain and empty. Furthermore, they had taken these fables from Orpheus and Hesiod, who, as is in Theophilus and Lactantius, handed down that the prime principle of all things is Chaos, which they call Bythos, Deep, Eon, Proarche, and Propator. Augustine, however, in the book *On Genesis against the Manichæans*, does not deny that the world was made from that rude matter which the Greeks call *chaos*; but he understands this very thing to have been created by God from nothing in these words of Moses: "But the earth was inform [formless]," etc.
*It must be invented.* Moreover, whence this vacuity? We have inserted these five small words from an old manuscript, by which the dilemma is proven far more evidently, by which he proves that the Vacuum which they were inventing, whether they say it was emitted by the Father or generated by itself, is entirely empty and fictitious.
*There will therefore be necessity.* About this Grecism, and many similar ones, it has been spoken above.
A *Antiquius autem.* The old codex makes this the beginning of the fourth chapter, but in my judgment, less conveniently. A *Ptolemæi et Heracleonis.* He calls this Ptolemy in the preface to the first book "a flower of the school of Valentinus"; and he mentions him again at the end of the first chapter, as well as in chapter 40 of this second book. Epiphanius transcribed a sufficiently long letter of his, though teeming with the poisons of his own heresy, against the Ptolemaeans. Tertullian writes that Heracleon held views equal to those of Valentinus, but that because of a certain novelty of expression, he seemed to wish to hold different ones; Clement of Alexandria asserts in *Strom.* IV that he wrote more things subsequently. Epiphanius counts the heresies of this sect in the 30th place, and deals with them in a specific disputation. *Nam necessitas est.* We have deleted three dots, so that we might include five lines in parentheses, because the sense seemed absolutely to demand it; and we have closed the sentence with a question mark. *Sustinens.* We have deleted *subsistens*, following the authority of the old codex. B *Et velut maculam.* We have expunged *vel maculam*; soon also we substituted *percipere* for *perficere*. *Ad perfectum.* We have added eight words: we have deleted four, *aut quem factum dicunt*. *Solvetur autem.* He dissolves their figments concerning the Void and the shadow of the Pleroma, from the fact that within the Father and the Creator of this world nothing can be empty, formless, erroneous, or dark: since even by their own admission, the light is most clear.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 4.* Page 119. *Aporia*. So also shortly after the beginning of chapter 6 of this book: "But what if he had not wept, and had not laughed, and their mother had been *aporiata* [in doubt]?" Furthermore, *aporiali*, in Greek called *ἀπορούμενοι* or *διαπορούμενοι*, i. e., "perplexed," just as above on page 20, line 16, he rendered *ἀπορίαν* as *consternationem* [dismay]; and on page 21, line 22, *διηπόρει* as *consternabatur* [was dismayed]. C *Nam necessitas est.* Feuardentius rightly enclosed these words in parentheses, but extended it too much up to *in tunica maculam*; seeing that it properly ends at the words: *non secundum localem sententiam*. Irenaeus repeats in this parenthesis the absurdity to which he had already led the heretics above in chapter 1: namely, if Bythus or the Pleroma did not embrace all things within itself, but were contained on the outside by some other, this one would be greater than it; which fact he says the adversaries must necessarily admit, as being alien to any appearance of truth; or it must be said that *intus* and *extra* should not be taken in a "local" sense, but in an "intellectual" comprehension. Yet Irenaeus objects the latter to the heretics as a second absurdity, and one used improperly, and shows from their own assertions about Jesus, the Savior of the mother Achamoth, that it is repugnant, in the following chapter. D Page 120. *Solvetur.* He dissolves their figments concerning the Void and the shadow of the Pleroma, from the fact that within the Father and the Creator of this world nothing can be empty, formless, erroneous, and dark; since even by their own admission the light is most clear. FEUARD. However, he should have omitted four words, *et conditorem hujus mundi*, because Irenaeus’ argumentation strikes only the Father and the Pleroma, from which the heretics made the Creator of this world distinct.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 5.* Page 120. *Adversus eos igitur.* Throughout this entire chapter he shows that the Valentinians falsely and ridiculously fashion a God for themselves out of the Father, whom they made a slave of necessity; and Christ Jesus, whom they called ignorant; and at the same time the blessed angels, who, it followed from their proposals, were worse than even brute beasts.
Qui est extra Pleroma. We have added two words, *est Pleroma*, on the authority of the old codex. A *Et reliqua omnia.* By a new dilemma he compels them either to admit that eternal and celestial things are temporal and earthly, which manifestly conflicts with itself: or that the Pleroma is to be rejected, and that Christ is the cause of their ignorance, and that he must be said to have been in great ignorance. Page 121. *Sic enim dicunt, etc.* Namely, as he recited under the beginning of the first chapter of the first book. We have added *cum formasset*, and deleted *eum formasse*, on the authority of the old codex. B *Et iterum.* The old codex begins the sixth chapter here, and less conveniently. *Quam enim incusationem.* He shows that all those accusations which they instituted by name against the Demiurge recur against the one parent of this universe. *In posterioribus.* We have added these five words from the old codex. *Non decet autem.* And here the old codex constitutes the beginning of chapter 7, not sufficiently appositely. Furthermore, Irenaeus concludes that the Gnostics, by their ravings, subject God, the fountain of all liberty, to the most base necessity and servitude, as the heathens subject their Jove. Which impiety the Hugnostics now attempt to repair, chattering after Calvin and Beza, that God is in the place of necessity for them, and that he cannot revoke any of his decrees: C nor perform many other things, of which we have discoursed in our *Dialogues*. Furthermore, as to what is said in the upper line, *concedens sistere errorem*, Billius judges it to be set for *consistere et emergere*. In Greek *συνίστασθαι*: and later, *de poenitentia eradicare*, to be the same, which is to change one's mind, *ἐκ μεταβολῆς*. *Excideret.* We have deleted *excederet*: and soon *tattam* for *tantum*; and *pater* for *mater*, on the authority of the old codex, we have restored. *Homeric Jupiter.* The passage is from the first book of the *Iliad*, where the poet does not conceal that his Jove serves necessity and fate. "But in no way," says our Augustine, "does corruption violate our God, neither by will, nor by necessity, nor by any sudden chance, since he himself is God, and what he wills for himself is good, and he himself is the same good. Nor are you compelled to anything, because your will is not a greater power." D Page 122. *Quomodo autem et ignorabant.* He argues against the error, by which they said that the angels, the fabricators of the world, were utterly ignorant of God omnipotent; although indeed he might not be seen, because of his infinite eminence and incomprehensible majesty; yet he cannot be unknown, because of the most manifest effects of his omnipotence and providence. *Invisibilis quidem.* That the majesty of God cannot be seen by bodily lights, the Fathers have agreed with great consensus, both those who preceded and those who followed the age of this illustrious martyr. "If anyone should say," says Dionysius the Areopagite, "that divine apparitions occurred to certain of the saints without any medium, let him understand that the secret of God himself, whatever it may finally be, no one has ever seen, nor will they see. Furthermore, those divine apparitions [occurred] to holy men through signs most convenient to God, some sacred ones, and by visions accommodated to the manner and powers of those looking." The same holds similar ideas in the epistle to Gaius the monk. Moreover, the same person denies in the book *On Mystical Theology*, c. 1, that Moses saw God. Dionysius is subscribed to by Justin, who in his *Dialogue* frequently affirms that the Father of all was never seen by anyone. I omit the rest. *Ignotus autem.* That God is known to all by nature from his works, and by the Roman Emperor, having taken the example, he confirms a little later. The same thing, after other things no less accommodated to the matter, Theophilus of Antioch had used a little before Irenaeus: "As the soul," he says, "is not seen in the human body," [etc.]
but is known by the movement of the body: so neither can God be seen by human and corporeal eyes; but he is looked upon and apprehended through the providence by which he orders all things and through his own works. Just as if one were to see a ship equipped with its gear, sailing the sea, and putting into port, he certainly believes there is someone by whom it is steered who is in it as its pilot: so certainly no one is of such an abject spirit that he does not believe that God is the governor of all things, even though we do not attain to him with our carnal eyes. And a little after: "A terrestrial emperor is presumed to be, even though he is not seen by all, by one who turns his eyes to the laws and the administration of the empire. Moreover, he is known to exist if one casts his eyes upon powers and authorities, and also upon his images: and do you hesitate to know God from his power and his works?" And Dionysius the Areopagite, who surpassed both, rightly affirmed that the most orderly arrangement of created beings, as produced by him, bears before it certain images and likenesses of the divine exemplars, so that we might ascend to God according to our strength, and recognize him both apart from all things and in all things. B From this, however, Justin Martyr concludes in Apology 2, that Socrates, Heraclitus, and certain others who lived among the Greeks according to reason, had so known the one and true God by the guidance of nature that they could almost be called Christians. Tertullian also writes: "No one denies it, because no one is ignorant of what nature spontaneously suggests, that God is the creator of the universe." In the Apologeticus, moreover, and in the book *De testimonio animae*, he calls the rational soul naturally Christian. On this matter discourse Lactantius, lib. 1, cap. 3, and Augustine, *De spiritu et littera*, cap. 12, *Tractatus in Joannem* 106, *De civitate Dei*, lib. 8, cap. 6, and sermon 55 *de verbis Domini*.
*Quomodo dicunt*. The corrected codex has *quomodo Quieni*.
*Salvabantur homines*. By these words, the blessed martyr does not mean that the fathers from the foundation of the world until the advent of Christ flew straight C to heaven, to enjoy the open vision of God: since he teaches below that Christ's soul descended into the underworld, and for three days conversed with the souls of the dead, which were in the midst of the shadow of death. It remains, therefore, that he speaks of that kind of salvation which consists in the remission of sins, the overthrowing of Satan, and hope in the Christ who was to come: which he explains more clearly in book IV, chapter 30. Here too he does not obscurely, when he says: "They were being saved also from very wicked spirits, etc." For Augustine rightly contends in more than one place that the ancient fathers, who lived before the advent of Christ, were able to be cleansed and justified from sin through faith and the worship of one God, and of the future mediator, not only among the children of Israel, but also among the Gentiles, such as were Job and Melchizedek. *De gratia Christi contra Pelagianos*, lib. 2, cap. 24, and *De peccatorum meritis et remissione*, lib. 1, cap. 28 and 29.
*Judaei utque nunc*. That Christians, whether from the Gentiles or from the Jews, frequently cast out demons from the bodies of men in the age of Irenaeus, as testified by the most ample witnesses Tertullian, Justin, Theophilus, and Cyprian, is easily apparent to anyone: but the Jews, still obstinately addicted to Moses and rejecting Christ the Messiah, perhaps not so for everyone. But I find not only here Irenaeus, but also most grave authors asserting this. For Justin addresses the archisynagogus Trypho with his company thus: "If you adjure demons by all the names of your kings, prophets, patriarchs, and just men, there will none be found who is contumacious: but if any of you adjure them by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, perhaps they would obey. D Yet your exorcists use this art, just as the Gentiles do, by applying incenses and ligatures." Thus he. There is added Josephus, who confirms that a Jew named Eleazar, in the presence of the emperor Vespasian, his sons, the tribunes, and the entire Roman army at once, had cured those who were vexed by demons, using the formulas of exorcisms which King Solomon had once issued: to which it is thought that Christ the Lord also looked when he said to the Jews: "If I in Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?" But the Gospel dissolves every mode, in which it is openly written that the apostles found a certain man who did not belong to the Christian fraternity, who nevertheless cast out demons in the name of Christ. By these things it is rendered more credible to me, what the brother Petrus Galatinus reports from the Jerusalem Talmud: that in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, a certain Jew, who had swallowed something deadly, was soon cured by another, lib. VIII *De arcanis fidei*, cap. 5.
*Noluerint*. We have expunged *voluerint* from the old codex.
*Ex Jo. Ern. Grabii adnotationibus in cap. 5.* Page 120. *Adversus eos igitur*. Irenaeus repeats the dilemma, by which he had vexed the Valentinians and Marcionites, and teaches that they necessarily run into absurd proposals, whether they say the world was founded outside the Pleroma and under the good God, or within the Pleroma and the sphere of the good God by the Demiurge or by angels; moreover, while they said that creatures within the Pleroma were the fruits of ignorance, they sprinkle the entire Pleroma with the stain of ignorance and ascribe the cause of this ignorance to Christ himself, if indeed he made the Mother of all things, Achamoth to wit, devoid of knowledge. On which occasion he incidentally blocks the escape of the adversaries, already mentioned in the preceding chapter, namely that "intra" and "extra" Pleroma are said not by reason of local subsistence, but of "cognition" and "ignorance," and he strongly overthrows them by their own assertions concerning Jesus the Saviour, who was sent to communicate the form of knowledge to the Mother, having gone out extra Pleroma. After this, he attacks the enemies of truth with a new dilemma, concluding from the accusation brought against the creatures made within the Pleroma, that the supreme God must be said to be either weaker than the Demiurge or subject to necessity, if, without his concession or approval, creatures with such great imperfection had been produced within his sphere. Then finally he pursues more lengthily the argument which the title exhibits, demonstrating that the angels, by whom the heretics pretended the world was created, were not ignorant of God.
*Et reliqua omnia*, etc. By a new dilemma he compels them either to admit that eternal and celestial things are temporal and terrestrial, which manifests itself as contradictory; or that the Pleroma must be reprobated, (and) that Christ is to be said to have been the cause of their ignorance and in great ignorance. FEUARD. But I do not find the first member of this dilemma in the words of Irenaeus: nor do I see how, it standing, the collection proceeds. Moreover, Feuardentius was troubled by the word "eternal," which is either to be deleted entirely or changed into another. For the heretics did not say that cholic things were eternal; rather, they argued clearly on the contrary: *To choikon adynaton soterias metachein...* Choicum is impossible to receive salvation; for they say it is not capable of salvation, as we read in book 1, cap. 1, page 30, line 4. It is added that soon p. 123, col. 1, line 12, Irenaeus writes: "For whatever accusation they make... concerning those things which were made material and temporal, it will recur to the Father." Thus I conjecture it should be read: *Et reliqua omnia, quaecunque sunt conditionis* (that is, whatever things are of condition).
produced by creation), which accuse, as if they were temporal, and earthly (instead of eternal) and choic A etc., just as in chap. 7, p. 128, col. 2, line 3 (chap. 8, line 3) he joins "earthly and choic." Page 121. *These however against all,* etc. He understands the followers of Saturninus, Basilides, Carpocrates, and other Gnostics, as is evident from chap. 56 of this book, where he likewise writes: "How much then we have said again against those who say that the Father of the universe comprehends all things, etc., and against those who are of Saturninus, and of Basilides and of Carpocrates, and the rest of the Gnostics, who say the same things similarly, the same shall be said." *For what accusation.* He shows all those accusations which they instituted by name against the Demiurge, and against the God, the parent of this universe, [the one] to have recourse. FEUARD. He ought to have said, "to have recourse against God the Pro-Father of the heretics." *First God.* We have deleted "first." *If however it is pleasant.* This is the beginning of the eighth chapter in the old codex, to which is prefixed that summary which is found therein below. Page 123. *Honored.* The printed codices had "dishonored." *Similar.* We have expunged "similar," an author [found in] an old codex. *And without this however.* He proves it not to be likely that so many and such various creatures are the ideas of a few and fictitious Aeons, since they also said that the Aeons are equal and concordant: but these inferior things for the most part are opposed to one another, and inflict mutual slaughter. Again, it would be necessary for certain Aeons to be by nature evil, wild, earthly, and reprobate, and conversely; since they did not deny that such men live upon the earth. Page 194. *And some indeed.* Eleven words "innocence." *Since indeed just as,* etc. Just as B we restored from an old codex: we deleted "only" for "as if" or "like" used here, and I think it was written in Greek ὥσπερ ἐν κοιλίᾳ Πληρώματος ("as in the belly of the Pleroma"). Page 122. *Universal apostasy.* That is, from every great sin which separates a man from God. Thus book v, chap. 21: "He (the devil) ruled over man through apostasy." And chap. 29: "And there were six hundred years of Noah, under whom was the flood on account of apostasy." *Of our Lord.* Of Jesus Christ, to wit, to whom although all things are subjected, though they have not seen him, and that the angels are subjected to the rule of God the Father, Irenaeus gathers, although they cannot behold him. *Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 6.* *How immense.* (These are the words of the argument of the chapter.) These portentous figments about the ideas or images of the Aeons, the Pleroma, Nus, and Monogenes, which he had written that the Gnostics with great impudence inculcated in book 1, chap. 1, he refutes in this whole chapter: proving that there is a single maker of all things, who without the aid of any other power, disposed this world. But these ravings, he clearly asserts below in chap. 19, were fabricated from Platonic ideas: to which Tertullian subscribes in the book *De anima*: "In the Platonic ideas, the heretical seeds of the Gnostics shine forth, which he calls the sacraments of heretical ideas." Justin also, superior to both, after he showed that Plato battles with himself, adds: "Having obtained the writings of Moses, Plato, after he did not ponder as he ought (the interpreter Gelenius omitted the negation), thought there was a certain older C form separate from this, which is perceived by sense, which he was also accustomed to call the exemplar of things." And a little later: "In the same manner concerning the earth, heaven, man, he seems to have fallen into error, for he thinks that there are ideas of these too." And not only to these three most ancient Fathers, but also to Ambrose book iv *De fide*, chap. 3, and book I *Hexaem.*, chap. 1 and 2; Nazianzen *orat.* 2 *de theologia*; August. book LXXX *Quest.*, q. 46, and Cyril book *In Julianum*, it is clear that the constitution of ideas was not pleasing; nor let our people think that only Lucian of Samosata insects them. But how great was the struggle about them among the supreme philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and those who subsequently were their assertors and deniers, and by what reasons they imitate these and those; not a few are reported by the most keen proponents of the same, Jo. Franciscus Picus in book v of *Examen vanitatis gentium et veritatis Christianae*, chap. 15, and F. Franciscus Venetus Minor, book *De harmonia mundi*, in the five chapters of the second canticle. Page 122. *But to be images.* He proves it to be mere raving that they reported with such arrogance, namely that the Savior cultivated the Pleroma through certain ideas and likenesses, even with the Father being ignorant of it: since it is repugnant for anything to consist outside the perfect Fullness (which they call Pleroma): or D if anything was, that it perished so suddenly. Furthermore, he teaches that it is blasphemous to attribute ignorance to the Only-Begotten of God. *And eternal fire.* Since the eternal fire, and consequently Gehenna itself, is the idea of no Aeon; the theory of ideas constituted by them is false. Nor are they the ideas of the Pleroma of angels, since they are diverse in species and innumerable; but the Aeons are only thirty, and of the same lot and form. Finally, since the progression of ideas would result in infinity, one must stop and rest in the one and true God the Creator. *For first.* The old codex begins the ninth chapter with this sentence; to which it adds the same argument which is found herein below. *For what they are.* The printed codices had, "For as they are." *From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chap. 6.* Page 123. *The extreme of confusion, not having a proper substance.* This passage tormented me for a long time, nor could I elicit a sense corresponding to the proposition from it, until I noticed that the interpreter had poorly preserved two Greek genitives in Latin, which were to be rendered by ablatives in this way: "by extreme confusion," which clearly was in shadow and void, "not having a proper substance," before distinct matters arose in it through the passions of the mother Achamoth. Concerning which see above page 21. Page 124. *Ten thousand,* etc. These words of Daniel are had in Greek in S. Clement's *Epist. ad Corinth.*, chap. 34: "For the Scripture says: Ten thousand times ten thousand stood by him, and thousands of thousands ministered unto him." And so also in Gregory Nyssen, *homil.* 8, in *Ecclesiasten*, and Cyril of Alexandria, *epistola in Symbolum*. But in that one, which now under the name of the LXX interpreters from the Latin version is read conveniently in the archetype in inverted order: "Thousands of thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood by him." Confer about the various citation of this passage the notes of Cotelerius on the cited epistle of Clement. *And the condition remains entire in the image of the Pleroma,* etc. What the sense of these words may be, is somewhat difficult to state. However, it seems that Irenaeus, from the fact that the images of the many angels of the Pleroma are the innumerable angels of the Creator, infers that it is not at all necessary that the remaining creatures should represent the said angels of the Pleroma; but that "the entire condition," which clearly "is according to us," as Irenaeus loves to speak elsewhere, that is, all visible creatures, is reserved "to express the image of the Pleroma"; which nevertheless they cannot refer to, from the thirty Aeons not following, i.e., not equaling, "the multiform condition, or variety of creatures." *Bythus of them from whence it had a form,* etc. For the heretics feigned that the Demiurge had formed the creatures according to the idea, which Bythus, [the] preformed...
and had conceived in his mind, as Irenæus speaks above in chapter 3.
A *Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 7.* Page 125. *If however these things.* He shows that these lower things are not the shadows of supernal things, since those are corporeal and pass away immediately, while these are truly spiritual and everlasting; but neither do the things which are above shadow forth those which are seen below. He also openly convicts below, in chapter 19, that their fictitious Bythus is not the Pleroma of all, nor does any Pleroma exist outside God the Father. For those dreams the Gnostics borrowed from the insane opinions of Democritus and Epicurus, playing the fool with the same vanity as they, with only the nomenclatures changed. For what they called atoms and void, these have termed Pleroma and Vacuum, or, as it pleases Irenæus, things that are, and that which is not. Whoever desires more on these matters should consult Plutarch, Book 1, Chapter 5, and Book 2, Chapter 1, *On the Opinions of the Philosophers*; Laertius on Epicurus; the Lucretian Velleius of Cicero; and among our own, Augustine, Epistle 6. His first argument, however, is: Shadows are not, except of corporeal and opaque things. Aeons, according to their opinion, are spiritual; therefore they have neither shadows nor ideas here. Furthermore, Aeons are eternal; a shadow is a most fleeting thing, etc.
*Can obscure nothing.* Greek phrasing, for "to shed no darkness upon," *τὰ πνευματικὰ μηδενὶ ἐπισκοτεῖν δύναται*.
*And they do not pass away.* We add these seven words from an ancient codex.
*If indeed.* We have deleted "who," as we have soon put "aut" instead of "ut": then "prætermittant" for "permittant"; and "circumscribatur" for "circumscriptura." But he proves in this place that outside God the Father of all, no Pleroma, no ages, nor any angels can exist.
*Or it will take on a shadow.* That is, it will neither be possible for a vacuum B or a shadow to exist. Thus chapter 16: *And these things indeed it can speak of in men*; Greek, *ἐνέχεται*.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 8.* Page 125. *But false.* That he had called vacuum and its shadow, in chapters 3 and 4 of this book, empty fictions, he here confirms again: and below in Book IV, chapter 38, asserting that with God there is nothing empty. But I would suppose that they invented these things so that they might deprave these words of Moses: *The earth was void and empty;* by which he teaches only that the mass of the earth was as yet empty, un-aspectable, and inform at that time, since it did not yet possess that adornment which it afterward received.
*But these also [of the] vacuum.* He plays on the ambiguity of the word *κενόν*, which at the beginning of the chapter signifies "vacuum," but here "foolish" and "inane."
Page 126. *Since.* This is the beginning of chapter 10 in the old codex, to which the same argument is prefixed, which is within the same.
*And the Lord this Father.* Namely, Matt. ch. v, 16: *Let them glorify your Father who is in heaven.* 45: *That you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.* Matt. ch. vi, 9: *Our Father, who art in heaven,* etc.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 9.* Page 126. *Now however it suffices.* Having distributed men into four classes, by the consensus and faith of them all, he proves that the one and only true God is the maker of all things. The first, which I think reaches up to Moses, he asserts to have celebrated the one Creator by the tradition and doctrine of Adam. For even as that gross and immense idolatry, they affirm—Clement, Cyril, Epiphanius—only to have begun after the flood, namely in the fourteenth generation of men: so by faith in the promise the first man C taught his descendants the true God in words and examples, to whom the Hebrews constantly affirm that victims were slaughtered with blood. The great Athanasius supports this more than once, when he confirms that Abel, as he had learned from his father, offered to God of the firstborn, in his epistle, *That the Nicene synod, etc.*, and in *All things have been delivered to me, etc.*. The second class Irenæus includes those who, by the pedagogy of the Law and the oracles of the prophets, from Moses down to Christ, recognized and adored the true God, as he explains more fully in the last chapter of this, and in the eleventh of the second book. The third, he commemorates the heathens, who from the very disposition of the world recognized the one Deity, of whom it was spoken in chapters 1 and 5 of this. The last, the Church already expanded through the whole world, with unanimous voice, asserts most evidently the thesis proposed.
*Testimony.* We have deleted "testimonies," and added "of all ancient codices," and soon for "sentientibus" we have replaced "consentientibus."
*From the tradition of the first-formed.* And a little later: *This he received from the tradition of the apostles.* From which it is seen how great is the authority and force of the holy traditions, which he here constantly opposes to all heretics, even for the assertion of the highest heads of the whole Christian religion. But we shall discourse on these things copiously in chapter 3 of the second book.
*Hymning.* Thus he almost always renders the Greek word *ὑμνοῦσι* or *ὑμνολογοῦσι*, for "by hymns they celebrate, they praise."
*For the condition itself.* I do not doubt that Irenæus is alluding to these words of Paul: *For the invisible things of God, from the creature D (Irenæus in his own manner calls it "condition") of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also and divinity, etc.* For, as the Wise Man also says: *By the greatness and beauty of the creature, the Creator can be seen.* Hence Augustine writes elegantly: "If anyone hears, all these things say: We did not make ourselves, but He made us who abides unto eternity. The heaven, the earth, and all things that are in them, say to me from every side, that I may love thee; nor do they cease to tell all that they are inexcusable. I asked the earth, and whatever is in it; I asked the sea, the abysses, and the reptiles, and they answered: We are not your God; seek above us. I asked the stable airs, etc.; I asked the heaven, the sun, the moon, and the stars, etc.; they answered and cried with a great voice: We are not your God, but He whom your God made. I asked the mass of the world: Tell me if you are my God, or not? I am not, it said; but through Him I am. Above me seek Him who made and rules me." The interrogation of creatures is the profound consideration of them, because all things cry out, God made us, etc. Nor can I pass over what is told that the great Anthony replied to someone who was persuading him to have leisure for books: "My book," he said, "is the nature of things created by God: which, as often as it pleases my mind, supplies the books of God Himself for reading." Therefore it is aptly said here by Irenæus, that the creature shows the Creator, the workmanship the workman, and the world its maker and ruler.
*Disposed.* The printed codices read *deposited*.
*Worse than the heathens.* He not only says, but proves, that the ministers of the heretics make their listeners worse than the heathens; which, that it is most true of those who in this time have risen as heretics through Europe, I prove evidently and solidly, let benevolent readers judge with fair minds. Lest, therefore, anyone doubt this very thing, which this apostolic man contends here, even that it has happened to the Gnostics of this latest age—that is, the Lutherans and Calvinists—I show it by the mutual testimonies of the ministers about themselves. For by the judgment of Calvin, *Last Admonition against Julian*.
A Lutherans are brute men, who possess not even a drop of genuine shame, nor do they greatly care for the judgment of God or of angels; they are full of furious impulse, trifling levity, blind stubbornness, canine depravity, diabolical pride, savage, stripped of all humanity, giddy; Cyclopes, a proud faction of Giants, barkers, phrenetic, impudent, beasts. The same [author], in his book against Heshusius, calls the Lutherans wicked men, rabid, slaves of Satan, whom the devil has fascinated in a horrible way. Item, dogs, scoundrels, and impure spirits. Of Beza, Heshusius, a Lutheran minister, says: he, with his own, is Polyphemus, an ape, a high-booted and big-hatted ass, a dog in a bath, the greatest of asses, a sophist, an impudent scoundrel, an impudent sycophant, a beast, a ghost, a biped ass, a clown, a monster mixed from the species of apes and wild asses, a carnivorous animal, a Cyclops, raging and worthy to hang from a linden tree. Bullinger, in *Repetition concerning the Eucharist*, calls Brentius, a disciple of Luther, a Calydonian boar, who uproots the vineyard of the Lord. Sturnius, in his *Palinodia* to Lucas Osiander, holds him for a Gaius Caligula and a grandson of Ulysses. Joannes a Lasco complains that he experienced the Baltic Lutherans as B much more cruel and inhuman than Turks. Erasmus, in *Defense of the Diatribe*, writes that Luther could not be satiated by any abuse, that he was madder than Orestes, crazed with hatred, drunk with self-love. Schlusselburgius, from the writings of the Calvinists, reports that these call the Lutheran doctrine a human fabrication, a gross delirium suggested by the devil, an absurd and monstrous dogma, the excrement of Satan, of which even Satan himself would be ashamed. But they shout that the Lutherans are heretics, asses, blinded by the devil's incantation, moved by Satan's spirit, and devils. Jezler, a Sacramentarian, in his book *On the Perpetuity of the Eucharistic War*, page 95, confesses that the proponents of his sect everywhere call the Lutherans Anthropophagi, blood-drinkers, Thyesteans, Christ-killers, bread-worshippers, worshippers of an impanated God, deniers of the redemption wrought by Christ, etc. Are they not, then, far worse than heathens?
But let the same Jezler say what kind of people the Calvinists and Sacramentarians are, according to the censure of Luther and his followers: When these things, he says, reached the ears of the Lutherans, they sent forth far harsher words against their adversaries, asserting that they are liars, forgers, destroyers of the sacrament, corrupters of the testament of Christ, possessed by demons; besieged from every side by devils, behind and before, above and below, within and without, martyrs of the devil; to be numbered with the Nestorians, Arians, Turks, and the worst of all mortals that the earth has ever sustained. Luther himself, in his *Disputations on the Eucharist*, calls these same Sacramentarians sows, dogs, idolaters, irrational asses, cutthroats, ghosts of the devil, wretched Swermers, insane and phrenetic fools, a brood of vipers, murderers of souls, enemies of the Son of God, D thieves of bodies and souls, ravenous wolves, hellish mastiffs, German Turks, even worse than the Turks themselves, diabolical and hellish wolves, sent and possessed by Satan, putting the devil in the place of God, making Christ of less account than Arius and Mahomet, and whom the devil guides against Christ and goads with spurs. Beza, another prelate of these, is called by Schlusselburgius an atheist, a beast, a trifler, an impudent brawling lawyer, an incarnate devil, Beelzebub; by Heshusius, a prostituted whore; by Daniel Hoffmann, a conjurer, a slanderer, a man of no conscience, a blasphemous caviler, a perverse and detestable violator of the divine Word. Schlusselburgius again affirms that the Calvinistic spirit is the spirit of darkness, that Satan speaks through the Calvinists as through his own organs, that Beza composed his *Creophagia* at the devil's dictation; and finally, that Calvinism, Arianism, and Mahometanism are brothers, sisters, and three pairs of breeches of the same cloth. By Georgio Richen, a Rostochian minister, the Sacramentarians are devils damned to eternal hell. Zarnovius deems the same to be antichrists, deceivers of the world, who make the Lord of glory a stage-player, enemies of the Son of God, deluded by Satan, sons of Balaam, and Mahometans. Joannes Schutz, in the Preface to his book of *Causes*, says: Sacramentarianism is a certain cesspool into which many heresies flow, the final wrath of Satan, which, stirred by furies, he exercises against Christ and His Church. Whoever follows the side of the Sacramentarians, he adds, is an open and perjured enemy of God, and has forgotten the faith which he gave in the baptism of Christ, etc. It is manifest, therefore, by the manifold judgment of the Lutheran ministers, that the Sacramentarians utterly surpass all the impiety of the heathens.
What, moreover, of the fact that each of these heresiarchs openly declares that their own hearers, disciples, and followers have, from the time they accepted this new Gospel, turned out worse than all pagans and Turks? Luther indeed clearly indicates how much, after a few years, the Wittenbergers had progressed from his Gospel: From the Gospel, namely the Lutheran, men have become so unrestrained that whatever they please, they may do. They are not terrified by hell, etc. Under the pope, the name of Christ remained; but our ingratitude and security will merit that Christ will not be named, and that word will be fulfilled: *When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith?* In the whole parish of Wittenberg, there is only one rustic who exhorts his family to the Word of God and the catechism. All the rest go straight to the devil. Likewise, in the *Table Talk* collected by his host Aurifaber, he complains that his disciples are for the most part Epicureans; and that they seek this in sermons, that they may have good days; that they are called "reformed," when in reality they seem to be rather incarnate demons; that it is hard to find such contumacious people among pagans, Jews, Turks, or other infidels, among whom all honesty, and whatever virtue there is, has perished, and no account of any sin is held, etc. But who would not believe Luther concerning his own disciples and listeners? Spangembergius, himself a familiar of Luther, testifies that his Lutherans are men so wild that they no longer even wish to acknowledge God, nor have any regard for Him; but do whatever the devil and the flesh have persuaded them. Furthermore, while they testify so constantly about themselves and their own followers, who would not believe?
But Calvin, perhaps, confirms that the professors of his doctrine and his disciples are somewhat better. No, indeed; he compares them with those damned in hell and with demons, prescribing to them that, as they are about to receive the supper, they should seriously profess that they are fit for no good; but that they are prone to every evil, and are perpetual breakers and contemners of divine precepts; which is indeed the characteristic of devils and the damned. Furthermore, he writes about himself and his fellow-ministers, satellites, elders, and deacons: *We look at Christ with eyes of flesh, from which it follows that nothing glorious appears in Him. By our foul sense, we pervert whatever is in Him, and His doctrine. We seize upon many false things, which beget contempt for the Gospel.* And again, *Experience itself teaches us that we are utterly turned away from God, full of and infected by his hatred, and[...]*
[...]* A obscure our Gospel with perverse inventions. And again, that he himself might be reckoned a prophet, he thus prophesied in the Preface of his Catechism, regarding the corrupt character, barbarity, and atheism of his followers, to his ministers in East Friesland: "I am so anxious about posterity that I scarcely dare to think of it. For unless God miraculously helps from heaven, I foresee that extreme barbarity is impending over the world." And would that our children, not long hence, may feel this to have been a true prophecy rather than a conjecture, etc. That these things are only too true, the Catholic religion, trampled in every way by the Calvinists in France, Switzerland, Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Belgium, openly testifies. We have thus proven, from witnesses that are neither suspect nor doubtful, but from the most certain fruits of the ministers' writings, that not only the earlier Gnostics, as the holy martyr Irenaeus affirms, but also these latest ones, are worse than the heathens, and make their disciples such as they are.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 10. Pag. 128. *And who say of themselves.* He rightly gathers from what precedes that the opinions of these men, in their own absurdity and impiety, surpass the paradoxes of the heathens, however much they might peddle the idea that they know all things; since above the true God, no other is to be sought, nor do his works point to any other; whatever they may dream about Achamoth. *Manifestly nothing.* We have deleted "it is manifest," just as shortly after we have substituted "parabolas" for "parables," and a little further down "greater" for "more." *But because of the parables.* He means that the proofs of the Gnostics, taken from the parables of the lost sheep, the laborers, the lost drachma, the hidden leaven, and other evangelical parables, of which he speaks in book I, chapters 1, 13, 15, and 17, are of no weight, since they can be twisted into many and contrary meanings; and therefore they ought not to be introduced into contentions, since they are not rules of certain truth, as is more openly said in chapter 46 of this book. It is, therefore, very far from the case that they can prove from these that another God is to be sought above the Creator.
*But every question.* He refutes what they importunately urged: *Seek, and you shall find [* Matth. VII, 7; Luc. XI, 9]*; so as to persuade [others] to investigate another God than the true and Creator: of which it shall be spoken in chapter 18 of this book. *These, however.* This is the beginning of chapter 11 in the old codex, in which the adverb "twice" is missing; it has the same lengthy inscription as before, which appears a little later.
Pag. 127. *Used his will and power as a substance.* Greek, *τῇ οἰκείᾳ βουλήσει οὐσιώσει χρησάμενος*, that is, "by his sole will and power for all created things." *For what they say.* He argues that their figments about the mother Achamoth and the production of matter ought rather to be mocked and hissed at than refuted by grave disputation; since it is certain that all things were created by one and true God.
Ex Jo. Ern. Grabe's annotations on chap. 10. Pag. 126. *They fabricated another God.* He argues against both the Valentinians and the Marcionites under the general name of heretics for the same crime, and Origen, in his Commentary on Psalm XIV, vol. I, edit. Huetii, p. 50, gravely reproves them because they produce an unknown God from obscure Scriptures, in the following words: *Αἱ Γραφαὶ αὐτοῦ μεγάλαι μὲν καὶ πεπληρωμέναι νοημάτων εἰσὶν ἀποῤῥήτων καὶ μυστικῶν καὶ δυσθεωρήτων, σφόδρα δὲ καὶ δυσδιήγητοί εἰσι, καὶ αἴτιαι δοκοῦσι τοῦ τὰς ἀπαιδεύτους πλανάσθαι τῶν ἑτεροδόξων ψυχὰς, ἀπερισκέπτως καὶ μετὰ προπετείας, κατηγορούντων τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐξ ὧν οὐ νοοῦσι Γραφῶν, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐκπιπτόντων ἐπὶ ἀναπλασμὸν ἄλλου Θεοῦ.* "His (God's) Scriptures are indeed great and filled with ineffable and mystical and very difficult thoughts, but they are also very hard to interpret, and they seem to be the causes of the souls of the uneducated among the heterodox going astray, [who], thoughtlessly and with rashness, accuse God from the Scriptures which they do not understand, and because of this fall into the fabrication of another God." His (God's) Scriptures abound with great and arcane sentences, obscure and of most difficult consideration, but they also have a most difficult explanation, and appear to have been the handle for error B to the uneducated minds of the heterodox, who inconsiderately and petulantly accuse God from those things in the Scriptures which they do not understand, and thence fall into fabricating another God. *Baptism of truth.* Perhaps they thus designated the baptism of John, in which Jesus was baptized, in opposition to the typical and carnal baptisms of the Jews, of which [he speaks in] Hebr. IX, 10.
Pag. 127. *Used his will and power as substance.* Greek, *τῇ οἰκείᾳ βουλήσει (καὶ δυνάμει) οὐσιώσει χρησάμενος*, that is, "by his sole will and power for all created things." FEUARD. ex Bill., lib. *Observ. sacr.*, cap. 53. But I explain it more clearly: "used his sole will and power in place of substance," or matter, from which he might form creatures. Compare the following chapter.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 11. Pag. 117. *For they attribute.* He contends that even that matter from which all things were formed was created by God, against those who, like the Gnostics, thought it had proceeded from Achamoth, or [thought it] co-eternal with God, like Hermogenes, whom Tertullian amazingly agitated and crushed in a single book after Irenaeus. He launched a most bitter war against Marcion as well, because, together with the Valentinians, he opined that matter was never born (libr. *Præscript.* and lib. V *Contra Marc.*). Augustine is the witness (from the book *De hæres.*) that the Seleucians and Hermians later recalled the same error from Orcus. *Since men.* Lactantius, lib. II, cap. 9, refutes Cicero and others who said that God could do nothing except from subject and prepared matter; moreover, [he argues] that it is not probable that the matter of things was made by God, because in this way they would reduce the omnipotent God to the weakness of men, granting him nothing other than the role of a craftsman. And he rightly condemns this comparison of theirs: as when a carpenter is about to build something, he does not make the material himself, but uses that which is ready, and the sculptor likewise with wax, etc. But no, responds Lactantius, it was not appropriate. For God would be of lesser power if he made what is man's from what is ready, etc. Furthermore, that God created matter, the first and formless from which the rest were later founded, from the beginning of things, after Irenaeus testifies Athanasius (lib. *De incarnatione Verbi*, and *serm.* 3 *contra Arian.*), Eusebius (lib. VII *De præparat. evang.*, cap. 8), Ambrose (lib. I *Hexaem.*), Nyssenus (lib. *De opificio hominis*, cap. 23), Aug. (lib. *De Genesi ad litt.*, cap. 14; lib. *Contra Faustum*, cap. 14, and libr. XII *Confess.*, c. 4).
89 From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chap. 11. Pag. 127. *Since men.* Here Irenaeus, if I am not mistaken, was imitated by Theodoret (lib. V *Hæret. fabul.*), where he expounded the summary of Catholic doctrine against them in chapter 5, writing thus: *Ἐπεὶδὴ γὰρ πᾶσα τέχνη παρὰ ἀνθρώποις ὕλης ὑποκειμένης προσδεῖται, καὶ κεραμευτικὴ μὲν πηλοῦ, οἰκοδομικὴ δὲ λίθων καὶ πλίνθων, ξύλων δὲ ἡ τεκτονικὴ καὶ ναυπηγική, καὶ ἐρίων ἡ ὑφαντική, καὶ ἡ σκυτοτομικὴ δὲ δερμάτων, καὶ ζωγραφία καὶ γυψοποιητικὴ χρωμάτων, καὶ συλλήβδην εἰπεῖν, ἑκάστη τέχνη τῶν προσφόρων ὑλῶν· ὑπέλαβον οἱ ἀνόητοι καὶ τὸν Θεὸν μὴ δύνασθαι ὕλης δίχα δημιουργεῖν, καὶ οὐ συνεῖδον ὅσον ἀνθρώπου καὶ Θεοῦ τὸ διάφορον, καὶ ὡς οὐχ οἷόν τε τὴν εἰκόνα πάντα ἔχειν ὅσα τὸ ἀρχέτυπον, καὶ ὅτι ἄνθρωπος μὲν, ὡς εἰκὼν, ἐξ ὄντων δημιουργεῖ, Θεὸς δὲ καὶ ἐξ ὄντων καὶ μὴ ὄντων.* "For since every art among men stands in need of subject matter—pottery of clay, building of stones and bricks, carpentry and shipbuilding of timber, weaving of wool, shoemaking of leather, and painting and plaster D work of colors, and to speak collectively, every art [stands in need] of appropriate materials—the foolish considered that even God was unable to create without matter, and they did not perceive how great is the difference between man and God, and how it is not possible for the image to have everything that the archetype has, and that man, as an image, creates from things that are, but God [creates even] from things that are and things that are not." For since every art among men requires subject matter, and the carpenter’s and ships’ [crafts] require wood, and the mason’s stones and bricks, and the weaving’s wool, and the cobbler’s leather, and the art of painting and plastering requires colors, and, to speak once for all, single arts [require] convenient material; the foolish thought that God also could not create without matter, nor did they understand how great is the difference between God and men,
and that it is impossible for the image to possess everything that the archetype has, and that while man, as an image, creates from things that exist, God truly creates both from things that exist and from things that do not exist.»
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 12
P. 127. *Believing, however.* A Here he refutes especially Carpocrates and his followers, who, as he noted in book 1, c. 24, said that the world and all things that are in it were made by angels. Furthermore, although Epiphanius, disputing against the heresy of Samosatenus, admits that Scripture nowhere indicates the time when the angels were created, it is nonetheless entirely certain from the same [Scripture] that they were created, not creators, since Job, David, and the companions of Daniel count them among created things and invite them to praise their Creator. Hence also Lactantius writes: “God begat many ministers of his works, whom the Greeks call angels,” etc. Athanasius also discusses these matters in his 3rd sermon against the Arians.
*Rolling.* We have deleted *of his will*, by the authority of the old codex, even though the Vatican codex has it thus, along with the printed ones.
*Like Aesop’s dog.* Epiphanius uses this same fable against the Cerdonians: “There happened,” he says, “to them the proverb of the dog which, intent upon a shadow, did not keep what it held in its mouth, and looking into the water, and thinking the shadow of the water to be greater than the food it carried in its mouth, with open mouth it lost also that which it had. So also these, when they have found the way, and wish to pursue a shadow arisen from their suspicions, lost the very food which, so to speak, was bestowed upon them by God: but they also drew destruction upon themselves.” B We, too, can rightly use this against the Gnostics of this time, who, gaping after shadows and metonyms, miss the use of the true body of Christ. Nor did Luther write without cause regarding such Sacramentarians: “Satan in the world is undoubtedly the author for them of undermining and overturning this sacrament of the Eucharist; contending clearly, with the egg drunk, to leave us only the shells. That is, to take away the body and blood of Christ from the bread and wine, so that beyond the simple bread made by the baker, nothing remains.”
*But since.* The beginning is chapter 12 in the old codex with the argument marked therein.
*As calumniators.* It was previously “and calumniators.” The Vatican codex [reads]: “and bringing forward a question,” etc., as he reads it a little later.
*We have judged these things well.* He decides to urge them with two kinds of arguments: the first, with frequent and sharp interrogations regarding the reasoning of their figments, which, since they could not solve, they are forced to the goal of refutation; which he performs excellently in the following chapters, up to 36; the second, with very clear and firm testimonies of the Scriptures, with which he fights afterward.
From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on chapter 12
Pag. 127. *Teaching, moreover, and bestowing of himself.* C Christ both taught by the Word, and by his merits bestowed upon us “the power to become children of God,” which in the Old Testament was neither so clearly revealed, nor given to the faithful in the way it was in the New Covenant. For the Jews were called "gods" because they were created by God and because they had received the Spirit of God, but [it was a spirit] of servitude and fear; we, however, [have received] one of liberty and love. Whence John Chrysostom, homil. 14 on the Epistle to the Romans, chapter viii, considering these words of the Apostle: “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption,” having instituted a comparison between the Jews and the Christians, says among other things: “They indeed were called sons, yet as servants; but we, having become as free men, received adoption, and await heaven.... They did all things led by the fear of punishment, but we [are led] by the desire and love of the Spirit.” D Yet truly, we, having been made free, received adoption, and we look for heaven.... They did all things led by the fear of punishment, but we by the desire and love of the Spirit. But anyone who no longer lives under the fear [as a] pedagogue, but chooses virtue for its own sake, is a son of God, as Origen writes in book 1 Against Celsus. But there is no place here to speak of these things at greater length.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 13
Pag. 128. *In the first place.* The old codex agrees in the numbering of this chapter and in the argument. Moreover, he shows that the thirty years of the Lord’s age in no way support their fiction concerning the *triacontad*—that is, the thirty Aeons—which he described in book 1, chapters 1 and 14. He reports below (chapter 19) that this superstitious application of numbers was excerpted from the Pythagoreans. Tertullian mocks these ravings in his own manner: “This will be that Pleroma of the Aeons, the fullness of the trigenary divinity. Meanwhile, the entire fecundity fails in the trigenary number; the force, the power, and the genital libido of the Aeons are castrated, as if there were not still such a great coagulation of numbers remaining, and no other [reason] for the name from the pedagogue. For why not fifty, and hundred [Aeons] also begotten?” etc.
*Of thirty years.* Cyril of Jerusalem thus crushes this argument of the Gnostics: “Behold the trifles and ravings of the commentators. Whence have you the proof of the thirty aeons? Since, says Valentinus, it is written that Jesus was baptized as being of thirty years. And what kind of demonstration is this? Is it therefore, because he divided five loaves among five thousand, that there are five gods? Because he had twelve disciples, must there be twelve gods?” etc.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 14
Pag. 128. *For since.* In this and the next chapter he dissolves the fables about the triacontad, the conjugations, and Sophia, which he had recounted in book 1, chapter 1. Moreover, [he refutes] the trifles about the emission of *Ennoea*, or *Sige*; which, as it is equally impossible for Thought and Silence to exist by themselves, as for water to exist without moisture, or a stone without hardness.
*This, however, not enumerated.* They attribute the twentieth place to Sophia in that enumeration of the Aeons which is adumbrated in chapter 1. Afterward they say she went astray from that Fullness which is called Pleroma; either, therefore, the trigenary Pleroma is incomplete, or Sophia did not go astray.
*And twenty-nine.* The printed codices had “and twenty-eight.”
*And what again Nun and Alethia.* We add *Nun* in our judgment, since the second conjugation was thus fashioned by them; and a little later Irenaeus joins both. This emission, however, he proves impossible from the fact that *Siges*, that is, of Silence, there is no action; and the operations of the mind are immanent. A little later we read: “from the united” (instead of “united”) by the authority of the old codex.
*To both they are exorbitant.* We have deleted “to both they are exorbitant.”
*And this being so.* He proves that the emissions of the Aeons are not distinct, since they assert that two Aeons perpetually cohere to each other.
*And when these things are said.* The beginning of the fourteenth chapter is in the old codex with the epigraph that is held a little before, and, in my judgment, somewhat more conveniently.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 15
Pag. 128. *For concerning the passion.* He proves that those thirty conjugations of Aeons are not distinct, because Thought cannot be joined from Propator, nor Mind from Truth, nor Word from Life. He attacks again the primigenial octonad, and the dodecad, and the triacontad. *Again the remaining.* We have expunged “I will leave behind.” *Just as a hen.* Tertullian [refutes] such—
old wives' tales with equal derision: “Sophia,” he says, “in grief, alone of herself, without the work of a spouse, conceived, and brings forth a female.” Do you wonder at these things? Even a hen is permitted to bring forth of itself, and they say that even among vultures only the females bring forth, and yet [they do so] without a male, as a mother. He could have added that mares conceive by the wind in Cappadocia, as Augustine reports; and in Spain by the river Tagus, if Homer, Varro, Columella, Pliny, and Justinus write the truth. We have, however, substituted *gallinæ* for *gallina* (of a hen).
Page 129. *Post demum.* He shows that the Aeons of the octonad are absolutely incompossible and incompatible in the same Pleroma; since Sermon (Sermo) and Silence (Silentium) cannot stand together; just as light and darkness cannot exist at the same time.
*Si autem Endiatheton Logon.* Billius in Greek: *ἐὰν δὲ ἐνδιάθετον Λόγον εἴπωσιν*. That is: “But if they say an indwelling Sermon.” B The Greeks oppose to this *προφορικόν*, that is, as the interpreter translates in chapter 16, “emissible Word”; or as chapter 49, “Word of emission”; or finally, as chapter 16, “prolative,” etc. Irenaeus therefore intends that even Silence is internal, if the Logos is interior; and that for that reason neither can be called emitted.
*Emissiones.* We have expunged “of emission.”
*Secundum autem id.* He shows that more than thirty Aeons are to be counted, if the conjugations ordered by them are true. For if Monogenes emitted Horus, and afterwards also Christ and the Holy Spirit and Soter proceeded, there are now 34 Aeons in the Pleroma, not 30 only.
*Emissum enim.* The beginning is chapter 15 in the ancient codex with the argument placed above; but what he refutes here is found in book 1, chapter 4.
*Hoc enim manifestum.* A proverbial hyperbole, very frequent in sacred and profane writers, by which they signify a thing most clear and evident to all. Eusebius, *Contra Hieroclem*: *ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ τυφλῷ φασὶ δῆλον*. “But they say it is clear even to a blind man.” Plato also uses the same in the *Sophist*, Homer in the eighth *Odyssey*, Quintilian in the twelfth book, Erasmus in the *Chiliads*.
*Si plus fuerit.* The printed codices had *cipsius fuerit*.
*Quærant igitur.* Chapter 16 is marked here in the ancient codices with the following argument, but less conveniently.
*Ex Jo. Ern. Grabii adnotationibus in cap. 15.* Page 129. *Hæc enim consumptibilia sunt invicem.* The antithesis of Silence and Word is familiar to all. Thus Gregory Nazianzen in *carm.* 12, to the bishops: *Θύσω καὶ σιγὴν, ὡς τοπάροιθε λόγον*. And *orat.* 14, p. 216: *Οἱ τοῦ λόγου τοσαύτης ἐσμὲν σιγῆς μεστοί*. Compare Pearson’s *Vindiciae* of the epistles of St. Ignatius, part II, chapter 4.
*Non est Endiathetos.* The heretics therefore established their fictitious *λόγον προφορικόν* (prolative word); but the Catholics rightly denied it of the true Word, the Son of God. Thus Clement of Alexandria, book V *Stromat.*, p. 547: *Ὁ γὰρ τοῦ Πατρὸς τῶν ὅλων Λόγος· οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ προφορικός, σοφία δὲ καὶ χρηστότης φανερωτάτη τοῦ Θεοῦ*. “For the Word of the Father of all is not this [word] which is uttered, but the manifested wisdom and goodness of God.” D And Cyril of Jerusalem, *catech.* 4 of the illuminands: *Πίστευε ὅτι ἑνὸς Θεοῦ μονογενὴς εἷς ἐστιν Υἱὸς πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων Θεὸς Λόγος, οὐ προφορητικὸς εἰς ἀέρα διαχεόμενος, οὐδὲ λόγοις ἀνυποστάτοις ἐξομοιούμενος*. “Believe that there is one Son, only-begotten of one God, God the Word before all ages, not prolative, dispersed into the air, nor assimilated to unsubstantial words.” For such a Word does not at all befit the nature of God, as John Philoponus observed in book VI *De mundi creatione*, chapter 4, writing: *Οὐ γὰρ προφορικὸν λόγον, τὸν ἅμα τῷ προελθεῖν λυόμενον, τῷ Θεῷ περιάπτειν θεμιτὸν. Neque enim prolativum verbum, quod simul ut profertur resolvitur, Deo accommodare fas est.* [“For it is not lawful to ascribe to God a prolative word, which is dissolved as soon as it is uttered.”]
Whom they also call Soter. Our author entirely passed over this surname of Horus in book 1, cap. 1, § 3 and 5, where he systematically enumerates his six appellations; whence in the notes there I have added it from this passage. Nevertheless, a suspicion enters my mind, lest perhaps the Greek text of Irenaeus here be corrupted, or not correctly read by the interpreter, through the words *σταυρόν* [cross], which appears in the said place among the other surnames of Horus, and *σωτῆρα* [savior] being swapped with one another; which, through an abbreviation of this kind, *σρ*, and thence a single letter *α* being put for *υ* or being misread, could easily have occurred. Let the judgment on this conjecture rest with the reader.
*Adnotationes Fr. Feuardentii in cap. 16.* Page 129. *Et ipsum quidem.* He proves the idle speculation to be vain, that Depth and Thought produced Mind; since thought itself, however hidden and secret, is rather emitted from the mind; as is also Enthymesis, which he calls Intention elsewhere, and Counsel, and other affections of the soul. He then shows it is impious to ascribe human affections, motions, and perturbations to God. Lactantius does the same in his book *De ira Dei*, chapters 15 and 16, which the author of the *Responsiones ad quaestiones orthodoxorum*, in Justin Martyr, quests. 36 and 51, had also done before.
*Cap. 12. Nus enim est ipsum.* Tertullian in his book *De anima*, on the *Nu*, or mind, says: “By *Nous* among the Greeks we understand nothing else than the suggestion of the soul, innate, implanted, and natively its own, by which it acts, by which it knows, etc.”
*Et fons universi sensus.* The printed codices [read] *et fons universis*.
*Non capit igitur.* A Greek phrase which he uses not infrequently, as a little later: *Et hæc quidem in hominibus capit dici*. “And these things can indeed be said of men.” Often also Tertullian, who wrote in Latin on the controversy, imitates the word *ἐνδέχεται* in such a way, as in the book *De resurrectione carn.*, book 1, and V *Contra Marcionem*: *corpus animale capit dici*, that is, it receives this nomenclature, it is worthy of this name.
Page 130. *Incogitatu.* We have expunged *incogitate*, as we have soon restored *sensu manente* [with the sense remaining] for *sensu a mente* [sense from the mind].
*Prima enim motio.* The beginning is chapter 17 in the old codex with the following epigraph.
*Hæc est autem Enthymesis.* He further teaches that Enthymesis, or thought and intention, since it is almost the same as *Ennoea*, that is, sensation and counsel, and is produced by *Nu*, that is, the mind, is not sent forth outside the Pleroma. Therefore, the various emissions of the Aeons cannot stand.
*Et hæc quidem.* Various affections of the souls, and successive and alternating prolations, are rightly and truly affirmed of men: that it befalls God to be subject to these, is impious.
*Deum autem.* The printed codices [read] *Deinde autem*, and a little later we have deleted *Patrem* and restored *Patris*.
*Si autem Scripturas.* A notable passage where he teaches that human passions do not fall into God; and therefore that the Gnostics are disgracefully hallucinating when they subject Him to these. On this matter, let Cyril of Jerusalem, *catech.* 8, be read.
*Et simplex.* He affirms that God is altogether simple, that is, lacking in all composition, whether from matter and form, or from genus and difference, or from being (ens), its modes and passions, or from subject and accident; that is, lacking both physical and metaphysical [composition]; which, after Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria in book 1 *Paedagogi*, chapter 8, Origen in book VI *Contra Celsum*, Augustine in book VI *De Trinitat.*, chapters 6 and 7, and all the scholastics confirm more broadly. Furthermore, *Ὁμοιόχωλον* is...
A suspected by Feuardentius to have been the word in the Greek, though to me it seems that God is rather called *ὁμοιομερής* by Irenaeus, as the part of Him, if one is to be spoken of, and the whole are absolutely the same. *Sensus*. This was *Νοῦς* in the Greek, here and frequently hereafter, as is gathered from chapter 18, page 138, column 1, line 26, and other places, especially from book 1, chapter 6, where in this very sentence this term *νοῦς* is rendered by the interpreter as "total sense." *Sensuabilitas*. The word *νόησις* seems to have been used by Irenaeus.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 17. Page 131. *Si enim sensum*. He shows that those *προβολαί*, that is, emissions, projections, or productions, which he had enumerated at the beginning of chapter 91 of the first book, by no means apply to God, since He is not subject to partitions, nor does He emit the Logos or Word in such a way that He is separated from Himself by any disjunction of nature. Thus also had other most holy martyrs taught concerning the Son of God. Ignatius: B "Who is His Word, not spoken, but substantial; for it is not a sound of articulate speech, but a generated substance of divine efficacy." That is: "He is the Word of Him (the Father) Himself, not prolate, but substantial: for it is not the voice of articulate locution, but a generated substance of divine efficacy." Justin: "We understand the Son as having proceeded from the Father, just as light shines forth from light. For by this image are signified both coeternity, and identity of essence, and a birth devoid of passion." And a little later: "For it does not shine forth by decision, or efflux, or division, but proceeds from the essence itself, without any passion." And Tatian, a not unworthy disciple at times of the same: "The Word generated from the Father is spoken, 'not according to excision,' not by avulsion, C seeing that He never abandons the Begetter." Tertullian adds in *Contra Praxean*: "God brought forth the Word, as the root brings forth the fruit, and the fountain the river, and the sun the ray; nor is the shoot distinguished from the root, nor the river from the fountain, nor the ray from the sun, just as the Word is not distinguished from God." That Origen thought the same in this matter as the Valentinians, some have long desired; but that they are false is clearly evidenced by many of his writings that have been brought forward.
Pamphilus the martyr, or rather Eusebius, in an *Apologia* for the same. We deliberately pass over countless testimonies of the Fathers of this kind, by which the recent Arians are convicted along with the Gnostics.
*Emittentem radios*. We removed *emittente*; and a little later we proposed that *dicant* should be read for *dicent* from an ancient codex.
*Si autem non emissum*. He demonstrates that the Logos is not emitted outside the Father, with reasoning taken from the definition of emission. Next, if He is emitted within the Father, He could neither be ignorant of the Father, nor be subject to the passions of diminution; which, however, was affirmed by them. Moreover, *quemadmodum* is used for *quomodo*, as he uses it most frequently elsewhere.
*Jam igitur*. The beginning is chapter 18 in the old codex, which more conveniently displays the argument attached to the following chapter, the earlier sentences of which should not be separated from this, except by two points. For the rest, we read *ignorabunt* for *ignorabant*; and later, *similitudine* for *similitudinem*; finally, *incidet* for *incidit*, on the authority of the old codex. D
From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 17. Page 131. *Emissio enim.... manifestatio*. Hence the Holy Fathers sometimes explain the mission of the Son and Holy Spirit through manifestation. And no Christian ought to understand the mission of either the Son or the Holy Spirit as having taken place locally; but by that name of mission, let us understand the work of an imparted manifestation, says Fulgentius, book II *Ad Monimum*, chapter 6, and likewise in the work on the Holy Trinity, vol. VI of the works of Chrysostom, from the edition of Fronto Ducaeus, page 58: *Τί οὖν βούλεται τὸ, ἀπεστάλη; ἀντὶ τοῦ, διὰ σαρκὸς ἔλαμψεν. Ἡ γὰρ ἀποστολὴ οὐ τὴν ἀπὸ τόπων εἰς τόπους μετάβασιν σημαίνει, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐκ τῆς ἀοράτου θεότητος εἰς ἐμφανή παρουσίαν.* "What then is meant by the words, 'He was sent'? It is as if one said, 'He has been seen,' appearing to us in the flesh. For that embassy does not signify any transition from place to place, but from an invisible deity into a visible presence."
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 18. Page 131. *Quemadmodum*. He confirms again that passions, ignorance, vacuum, and emissions do not fall upon God the Father, because these are proper to mortals; while the generation of the divine Word is far removed from the prolation of human words; also that the life of God is not something other than His mind and essence. He finally brings in the conflicts by which they fought among themselves in the manner of all heretics, and perished as if by mutual slaughters.
*Sensus emissione*. We removed *sensu emissionis*, and a little later, for *conjuncti sunt in primo*, we restored *convicti sunt in primo libro*.
*Sed quoniam*. Having refuted the first conjugation and emission of the Aeons, by which they trifled that Bythus and Sige had emitted Nous and Aletheia; now he refutes the second, showing that the passions imagined by them do not fall upon God, but are appropriate only to men; and that the Logos was not emitted from Nous in such a way as they blathered. The beginning of the nineteenth chapter is established here by the manuscript codex with the argument placed below.
Page 132. *Et suo verbo*. We restored *et suo verbo* from the printed codices; a little later also *præponere* for *præparare*.
*Peccaverunt autem*. He asserts that Zoe, that is, the life of God, is not to be placed in the sixth position in the Pleroma, but rather in the first; nor is it to be imagined as having been emitted outside of God, since He Himself is His own life. Next, under the name of God, all His perfections are meant, such as incorruption, truth, wisdom, goodness, etc., which, since they are in reality God Himself, are altogether signified and comprehended. Finally, concerning the most senseless of men
A thinking that either mind, or truth, or the Word of God at some time lacked life. Concerning her: The beginning of the following, twentieth chapter, with its epigraph, is established here by the old codex. By this, however, he overthrows that emission, whereby they said that twelve Aeons had come forth through the conjunction of Man and the Church. And he does this out of the mutual fights and dissensions of the Gnostic ministers, [who are] consistent neither in this matter with themselves, nor with the truth itself. This same thing is to be observed in the Gnostics of this age, as we have noted more than once above. I only add here that the Tigurines, in their apologetic Preface to the reformed German Churches, reproach the Lutherans because they do not at all agree among themselves concerning original sin, justification, free will, the Gospel, the law, Christ’s descent into hell, His person, ceremonies, the election of the children of God to eternal life, and many other articles of the Christian faith. Nor do they reproach them without cause, since there are among them some Lutherans who are "soft," as the Leunenses, Lipsenses, and Wirtembergenses [are], and others who are "rigid," as the Mansfeldenses, Tubingenses, and Illyricani. Furthermore, among them are the Antinomians, Osiandrini, Majorists, Flacciani, Substantiarii, Accidentarii, and Ubiquitarians; who have not been able, by any conferences as yet, by any edicts of princes, by any exiles, or, finally, by any writings, to coalesce into concord. Those same Tigurines, at the end of the *Orthodox Consensus*, cite thirty opinions from the works of Luther concerning the Eucharist alone, by which they prove that he shamefully disagrees with the things which he himself wrote and taught elsewhere. And that the testimony of these men might not be suspected as that of adversaries, [they cite] another, Osiander the Lutheran, in the confutation of a certain writing of Melancthon, who voluntarily confesses that there are twenty discrepant opinions among the Confessionalists alone, concerning the single article of justification. B And lest the Calvinists flatter themselves, as if they were in fine agreement among themselves, at the beginning of our *Dialogues* we proved that the Anglicans openly disagree with the Genevans in at least fifteen heads of religion; C furthermore, that Calvin and Beza openly fight with themselves in more than a hundred places. It is manifest to all that, concerning this single sentence of Christ: "This is my body" 99, there are eighty different interpretations among them; nor will they ever be able to deny that Vermigli disagreed with Beza at the Colloquy of Poissy. Certainly, regarding the baptizing of illegitimate children and the using of the names of the Trinity and of the consubstantial persons, the Poles and Genevans decree contrary and fighting [doctrines]. Regarding the omnipotence of God, the Heidelbergers and Sabauds think otherwise. Regarding Christ's descent into hell, the limbo of the ancient Fathers, and the term *substantially* in needing to be admitted, the Tigurines and Genevans do not agree. And to what end are so many different confessions of faith—like the Tigurine, Genevan, Bezan, Gallican, Belgic, [and] Anglican—being forged and reforged daily, if there is but one faith and religion among them? How many reproaches do the Puritans and the pseudo-bishops heap upon themselves and slander each other in England? etc. Whoever desires more concerning these things can consult Staphylus, the tables of Lindanus, Jurgiewic in his book *On the War of the Fifth Gospel*, and the *Ministromachia* collected by Rescius. Content with these few things, we have shown that the Hugnostics now fight and contend among themselves in asserting their paradoxes no less than their parents, the Gnostics, once disagreed among themselves.
They fight against one another. We have noted elsewhere the mutual fights of heretics, [how they] willingly prepare trophies for the Catholic Church, and [how] the right faith is illustrated and confirmed by their conflicts. For since most heresies arise from the incautious avoidance and pursuit of another heresy, as is apparent in the case of Arius, who, out of hatred for those who confuse the persons of Sabellius, fell into a distraction of nature; and Eutyches, who—fleeing the error of Nestorius—fell into a confusion of natures; D hence it happens that, while they sometimes excel in talent, eloquence, and skill in languages, in that part where they impugn the adverse heresy and follow the orthodox faith, they render excellent and most useful service to the Church. Vigilius the martyr explains this abundantly in the second and fourth books *Against Eutyches*; and not rarely does our Irenaeus [do so]. *Generations of intentions.* We added these four words from an old codex, [and] we expunged *of generation*.
92 From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 18. Page 132. *The carrying forth of the word of men*, etc. This also applies to these heretics, which Origen says of others in *Commentary on John*, vol. 1, page 24: «οἰόμενοι προφοράν πατρικὴν, οἱονεὶ ἐν συλλαβαῖς κειμένην εἶναι τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ», that is, "thinking that the Son of God is a paternal utterance, as if placed in syllables." *They transfer it to the eternal Word of God, and the beginning of utterance*, etc. Irenaeus's sentiment regarding the eternity of the Son of God, having no beginning, which is diametrically opposed to the Arian heresy, is to be well noted. Nay, rather God Himself, since He is the Word. Here Irenaeus openly establishes the *co-essential* [consubstantial] nature of the Word or Son of God, and alludes to John 1:1.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 19. Page 133. *Much more probably.* Because he had called the Gnostics bad thieves in the previous chapter, he uncovers their thefts from the writings of the thirteen philosophers most extensively, in which, nevertheless, he declares that many more things were handed down more rightly than in the books of the heretics. Tertullian does both frequently: in his book *Against Hermogenes*, when he calls the philosophers the "patriarchs of the heretics"; and in the book of *Prescriptions*, [when he says] that heresies are suborned by philosophy, thence [come] the Aeons, and I know not what forms, and the trinity of man according to Valentinus, had been Platonic. Thence came Marcion’s God of tranquility from the Stoics. And that the soul seems to perish is observed from the Epicureans. And that the resurrection of the flesh is denied is taken from the school of all the philosophers. And where matter is made equal with God, it is the discipline of Zeno. And where there is an allegation regarding a fiery God, Heraclitus enters in. Among the heretics and philosophers they wallow in the same errors, they entangle the faith in retractions. And a little later the same most ancient theologian writes thus: "What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem? What between the academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians? Our instruction is from the portico of Solomon," etc. The same again elsewhere: "Depart from the ethnic, heretic; return to him his own senses, because neither is he instructed from yours. Why do you lean on a blind guide, if you see? Why are you clothed by the naked, if you have put on Christ? Why do you use a foreign shield, if you are armed by the Apostle?", etc. By no means, however, should it be thought that Irenaeus or any other holy and ancient theologians prohibit or condemn philosophical studies; since they themselves were the most learned and acute philosophers, and knew well that the liberal disciplines are necessary and most convenient for the disquisition and treatment of other things; but they argue against and vituperate this in them, that they abused those arts to subvert and oppress the truth, which they ought to have defended and propagated. Thus also Paul severely rebukes those "who hold the truth of God in injustice, and when they knew God, did not glorify Him as God," etc. Furthermore, Clement in *Stromata*, Basil in his letter to his nephews, and Jerome in his letter to Magnus, intensely recommend philosophical and humanistic studies. *Antiphanes.* Suidas refers to several of that name, but he does not attribute the description of the *Theogonia* to any of them. It is necessary, therefore, that this poet either be this Antiphanes...
A, whose epigrams exist in the *Florilegium* of Planudes, and whose frequent opinions are in Athenaeus and Stobaeus; and who, it is said, was born in the 90th Olympiad, wrote 365 comedies, or 290 as others wish, was victorious thirteen times, and died in Chios, aged... [if one were to give] such credit, one should read Hesiod, which Epiphanius seems to indicate regarding Valentinus, speaking thus: "Imitator of the Hesiodic *Theogonia*, who, as he deceived the world with the fabulous poetry of the Gentiles, so too Valentinus wished to deceive the world by transmuting other names into other things, having Hesiod as the founder of his opinion." That Hesiod certainly asserted after Orpheus that chaos was the principle of all things, is proved quite copiously from his own words by Eugubinus in book 1, chapter 10, *De perenni philosophia*. Lactantius writes: "Homer could give us nothing that pertains to the truth. Hesiod could have, but yet he gave nothing; not taking his starting point from God the Creator, but from chaos; since he should have first explained whence, when, and how chaos itself began to be," etc. *Pleroma, of the Mother*. Printed codices, *Pleroma-tis*.
*Thales*. He was one of those seven wise men who flourished in Greece at the same time, that is, in the year of the world 3366, if we believe the computation of the Hebrews; or 5035 if that of Theophilus of Alexandria, in the 43rd Olympiad, at which time the Jews, Jerusalem having been overthrown, were led captive into Babylon. That he taught the same thing concerning the principles of things as Irenaeus has here, Justin, Eusebius, and Lactantius have written with great consensus, book 1, chapter 5; August. VIII *De civitate Dei*, chapter 2. Plutarch brings forward the conjectures of Thales in his *Placita*, that moisture is the nourishment of all living things, and that nourishment does not consist without moisture, nay, he even thought the stars themselves were nourished by the humors of the Ocean. I, for one, would think that either by some tradition, or by the reading of the books of Moses, or at any rate by the Sibylline oracles, they held certain notions concerning the creation of things, of which it is written: "The Spirit was borne over the waters"; and: "Let the waters bring forth the reptile."
*Homer*. He obtained that name from his blindness, when he was previously called Melesigenes. To indicate his homeland is labor-intensive, since seven cities of Greece contend for him. The Colophonians say he was their own citizen, the Chians claim him for themselves, the Salaminians demand him, the Smyrneans confirm he was theirs. There exists a distich on this matter, this one in Gellius: Ἑπτὰ πόλεις διερίζουσι περὶ ῥίζαν Ὁμήρου Σμύρνα, Ρόδος, Κολοφών, Σαλαμίν, Χιός, Ἄργος, Ἀθῆναι. That is: Seven cities contend for the lineage of famous Homer, Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamin, Chios, Argos, Athens.
They agree much less on his age, since Clement of Alexandria reports nine conflicting opinions on this matter in the first book of the *Stromata*. Moreover, his opinion regarding the Ocean sea, besides the aforementioned authors, is also reported by Theophilus of Antioch, book II *Ad Autolycum*, and Athenagoras in his *Apology for the Christians*; where also following Orpheus in this matter, he affirms that he lived no more than 400 years before his own time.
*Anaximander*. He was a student of Thales, and of the same homeland, who, once he had departed, in order to establish a sect under his own name, philosophized much more absurdly; namely, that the infinite itself is the cause of the generation and corruption of all things. "For from it," he says, "the heavens were separated, and the other infinite worlds," and many other things, which Plutarch and Laertius have described more fully; and from the sacred writers, Eusebius and Justin in his B *Oration to the Greeks*; Augustine, book VIII *De civitate Dei*, chapter 2.
*Anaxagoras*. He was a Clazomenian, a student of Anaximenes, and the teacher of Socrates and Euripides, [living] in the 70th Olympiad, when Xerxes crossed into Greece; most famous for his family, his wealth, and his philosophy. He taught, however, that the sun was a glowing iron, larger than the Peloponnese, and that this universe was composed of small bodies of similar parts in such a way that gold consists of most minute shavings; and that living creatures flowed first from moisture, heat, and earth, and afterward were born from one another, males from the right, females from the left, as Laertius writes, to whom, after Aristotle, Justin Martyr also assents in his *Oration to the Greeks*. But why he should be named an atheist by Irenaeus, I have hesitated a little, because older codices do not agree, and because he taught that a divine Mind had composed all things, which an atheist would not have said. But the things which Laertius adds solve the knot, namely, that he himself was accused of impiety by Cleon because he said that the sun was a glowing plate, or as Augustine likes it, a burning stone, and not God: and therefore, "because he venerated not the sun, but the Creator of the sun," adds Eusebius, "it lacked little but that he should have been overwhelmed with stones by the Athenians." To these is added Plutarch, who caused Euripides to recount that he, fearing the Areopagites, dared not deny the gods of the gentiles himself, but presented Sisyphus and Anaxagoras as doing so. Lucian also says in his *Timon* that Jupiter hurled thunderbolts at the head of Anaxagoras because he had persuaded his friends that in no way did they exist, the ones who were called gods. Add to these Velleius in Cicero's *De natura deorum*, referring to the opinion of Anaxagoras in these words: "Anaxagoras was the first of all to describe the essence of things, and to say that the world was designed and brought to completion by the power and reason of an infinite Mind"; finally, Plato in the *Cratylus*, judging him to be just and pious because Anaxagoras taught that the Mind had created all things from itself, omnipotent. Therefore, Anaxagoras is called an atheist not by the judgment of Irenaeus, but by that of certain ethnic rivals.
C 93 *Page 134. However, this.* Irenaeus refutes the Gnostics, because, after the philosophers, they said that the fabricator of the world made the world itself out of subject matter: which Theophilus of Antioch had also done before him, for that reason condemning the Platonists; and at the same time Justin, accusing Plato by name, asserting that he did not call God *poiētēn*, that is, a maker, but *dēmiourgon*, that is, a crafter, who would have had the faculty of crafting from matter. Following these, Tertullian, with the whole force of his speech, overwhelms Hermogenes who embraced the same opinion, affirming that matter was unknown to the prophets, to the apostles, and even to Christ himself. To these is added Eusebius, having brought forth the opinions of Dionysius of Alexandria, Origen, and Maximus, pronouncing that they are not without sin who subject primordial matter to God for the fabrication of the whole. Conversely, however, nothing is heard more frequently [now] among the schools of theologians than that God created all things from unformed corporeal matter; and to this opinion Dionysius the Areopagite, Tatian, Lactantius, Augustine, and Theodoret are carried with hands and feet. They will be easily reconciled, however, if you perceive that that matter is not co-eternal with God, nor ingenerate, as Hermogenes wanted with the philosophers, nor born from the invention of the erring Aeon Achamoth, as you might say with the Gnostics; but was created at some time by God the Best and Greatest out of nothing, and from thence, by the addition of forms, all things were crafted by the same: which Irenaeus indicates not obscurely in chapters 10 and 11 of this book. *Those who are from the Porch.* Zeno, the prince of these, had given the name of the Zenonians to the beginning of the sect; but when in D...
A ancient texts in which the argument is laid out below, they more frequently met to discuss matters in the porch, which the Greeks call *stoa*, the Stoic sect was named. That this lasted down to the times of the Apostle Paul is certain from the Book of Acts, when they set themselves against his discourse concerning the resurrection in Athens. Among their paradoxes, Laertius reports that they taught one God, and him Mind, and Fate, and Jove, whom they would also call by various other names; and that he maintained parts penetrating all things, and for this reason he was called *Aia* [Jove] by the Greeks, because his empire is distended in the ether; *Hera* [Juno] indeed, because of the air; *Hephaestus*, because of artificial fire; *Poseidon*, B because of moisture; *Demeter*, because of the earth. Eusebius subscribes to Laertius in *Praeparatio Evangelica*, bk. XIV, ch. 6, and bk. XV, ch. 14. Epiphanius, against the fifth heresy, discourses against this fatal necessity of theirs, to which they even wanted to subject God; and long before him, Justin Martyr in *Apology* 4, and below, Irenaeus, more than once.
*Not from Hesiod.* Hesiod, in the book which is entitled *Works and Days*, models Pandora as the first woman of all, fashioned by the art of Vulcan but by the command of Jove; whom the individual gods adorned with their own gifts—Pallas with wisdom, Venus with beauty, Apollo with music, Mercury with eloquence—and hence she was called Pandora, as if she were the gift of all, either given by all or endowed with every kind of thing. Nazianzen elegantly adapts the interpretation of this fable against women who adorn themselves too ambitiously. Fulgentius also touches upon it in the second book of his *Mythologies*. *Pandoron*, so we have restored from an ancient text; we have expunged *Pandoram*.
C *From the Cynics.* The followers of Antisthenes were called by this name, either from the Cynosarges gymnasium, or from the canine bite with which they spared neither gods nor men; or, as others wish, because they did not hesitate to copulate in public like dogs, as Laertius reports of Crates and Hipparchia, who also writes that Diogenes asserted that women ought to be common, and that it is nothing inherently wicked to taste any animal, nor unjust to feed upon human flesh. Nazianzen also touches upon the gluttony of Diogenes and the opinion of Crates concerning the community of marriages. Augustine also confirms in *De nuptiis et concupiscentia*, ch. 22, that they were called Cynics from the filthiness of their impudence, by which they resisted natural shame, whom he also calls patrons of lust in book IV *Contra Julianum Pelag.* Furthermore, Irenaeus reported the filthiness of the Gnostics in book I, ch. 1, 8, 9, 20, 23, 24, and 32.
*And minutiloquium.* An ancient text has *multiloquium* [loquaciousness] and subtlety. That Aristotle wanted faith to be held in his assertions by all on account of his subtlety, and that, being over-confident in his eloquence, he had declared war on all other philosophers, Justin had also noted before Irenaeus. (In *Oratio ad Graecos*). Nazianzen also complains that the wicked artifice of Aristotle's arts and the illusions of Platonic eloquence, D like the plagues of Egypt, have crept into the Church (in his *Oratio on the moderation to be observed in disputes*). Theodore the presbyter also condemns the heretic Severus because he would acknowledge as a most excellent theologian only him who had skillfully exercised himself in Aristotelian categories and the remaining equipment of the philosophers external to Christ.
*From the Pythagoreans.* Before Irenaeus, Justin says: “Pythagoras the Samian, son of Mnesarchus, considers the principle to be numbers and measures, and the concinnity of these, and the elements composed from both: furthermore, unity and the infinite dyad.” Laertius writes most extensively about these things.
*Page 135. We shall say indeed.* This is the beginning of chapter 22.
*But in vain, and as it happens.* Billius observes that this way of speaking is frequent in this author, to which these Greek words correspond: *εἰκῇ δὲ καὶ ὡς ἔτυχε*. A little later, by the same man's judgment, we have replaced *Ainon* for *Eonon*.
And just as it was in danger of perishing. A similar expression is in Jonah 1:4, “and the ship was in danger of being broken,” *καὶ πλοῖον ἐκινδύνευσε τοῦ συντριβῆναι*. In Hebrew, “the ship devised to be broken,” that is, there was danger that it might be broken. So too Quintilian, *periclitatur rumpi* [it is in danger of being burst].
*Page 136. Their twelve gods.* Lactantius treats of these briefly in book I, ch. 15, and Augustine followed him in *De Civitate Dei*, from Varro. By Cicero those who belong to the major nations, called *Consentes* in imitation of the Roman republic (to which Romulus had appointed twelve fathers), are mentioned. Ennius enumerates them in these verses: Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercurius, Jove, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo. They also joined them through concocted marriages, just as the Gnostics later did their Aeons, so that they might agree in this way: Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Venus, Mercury and Minerva, etc. For they feigned that there were many other gods as ministers and popular deities, as Lactantius reports in book I, chapters three and five.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 19.*
*Page 135. Antiphanes in the Theogonia.* Without doubt, this is the Antiphanes whose *Aphrodites gonai* [Births of Aphrodite] are cited by Athenaeus on page 487 and 666 ff.
*The old... and useless.* Similarly, against other heretics, the followers of inveterate and useless Jewish fables, S. Ignatius writes in his *Epistle to the Magnesians*, § 8: “Be not deceived by strange doctrines, nor by old fables which are useless” (*Μὴ πλανάσθε ταῖς ἑτεροδοξίαις, μηδὲ μυθεύμασι παλαιοῖς ἀνωφελέσιν οὖσι*).
*To Epicurus.* Laertius writes in book X *De vitis philosophorum* that Epicurus was born in the third year of the 109th Olympiad, seven years after the death of Plato, and that, having read the books of Democritus, he afterwards devoted himself to philosophy and published books *On Atoms*. “He wrote also,” adds Laertius, “infinite volumes, so that he surpassed everyone in their multitude; among which he considers the best to be those *On Atoms and Void*.” To Laertius subscribe Justin (*Orat. ad Graecos*) and Augustine (book VIII *De civit. Dei*, ch. 5). Democritus, whom Irenaeus subjoins, conceived of principles, atoms, and the void, and that infinite worlds were subject to generation and corruption. He also believed that atoms infinite in size and number are carried in the whole, rotate, and thus generate all concretions. Aristotle reports in *De generatione* that Leucippus had asserted [these things] before Democritus. But Plato, again, that matter is said, etc. Apuleius in book I *De doctrina Platonis*: “Plato thought there were three beginnings of things, God and matter, and the forms of things, which he also calls ideas.” Cyril in *Contra Julianum*, before the middle: “And again, the clever and famous Plato determines that there are three principles of all things: God, and matter, and form; and he says that God is the maker; matter is the underlying [substrate]; and form is the pattern of each of the things that are generated.” Again, that wise Plato and most famous for the preaching of all three principles of the universe
A Pythagoras: the one, indeed, is finite, odd; the other, infinite, even. Since, therefore, according to the opinion of the Pythagoreans, the even and the infinite coincide, and the infinite exists in sensible things, it necessarily follows that sensible things have their origin from the even, and insensible things from the odd.
“From another [part] indeed of the substitution are the beginnings; but another of sensation and substance.” Feuardentius passed over this very difficult passage with a dry foot, and brought no light to these most obscure words. Whether I can bring any, I shall attempt. By “sensation” and “substance,” it seems to me that “matter” is designated; but by “substitution,” the “form” of things. For, with no word intervening, it follows: “From which first [principles] they say all things are perfect, just as a statue [is made] from bronze and formation.” And it is evident that matter was called “sensation” and “substance” therein, because it is sensible and subsistent; but whence the name of “form” given to “substitution”? It might perhaps occur to someone considering this matter that the interpreter said “substance” for οὐσία, and “substitution” for ὑπόστασις; and that the name of ὑπόστασις was given to form because it gives being to a thing, as the scholastics say, and makes the thing properly subsist. Nor indeed, as Alexander writes in Book II of Aristotle’s *De Anima*, can matter itself have subsistence by itself, since as yet there is no form in it. But this conjecture is hindered by the fact that the interpreter always expressed ὑπόστασις with the word “substance,” and that in Book V, chapter 36, he rendered these words: *οὐχ ἡ ὑπόστασις, οὐδὲ ἡ οὐσία τῆς κτίσεως ἐξαφανίζεται* as: “For neither substance nor matter of creation is exterminated.” Therefore, in this place it was easy to translate οὐσία and ὑπόστασις into Latin thus, nor was it necessary to use the obscure word “substitution.” B Another conjecture is therefore needed. An old Glossary provides it, which, upon inspection, I found to be “substitution” =ὑποκατάστασις; and thence the suspicion arises that in the Greek text, in place of “substance,” the word ὑποστάσεως, and in place of “substitution,” the word ὑποκαταστάσεως existed, so that Irenæus, or the sect of the Pythagoreans, played [upon the words] through paronomasia. But the forms of material sublunary things were perhaps called by the Pythagoreans by the name of ὑποκατάστασις because these appeared to them as representations of the supreme καταστάσεις, that is, of forms or ideas. For these are synonyms, and consequently Galen says in his book *De Crisibus* that Hippocrates called the *καταστάσεις* of diseases “as it were their ideas.” If anyone offers better [interpretations], I shall gladly accept them, setting these aside.
“From which first.” That is, matter and form, as the first principles of things.
“But this [they did] among those who are outside the Pleroma.” For all these inferior things are composed of matter and form.
“But they said the beginnings of sensation, into which, etc.” The text in this place is corrupt, and seems to be corrected thus: “But they said the beginnings of sensation, in so far as” (in Greek *τὸ ὅσον* for *εἰς ὅν* [into which]; for both words occur in some manuscripts abbreviated in nearly the same way) “the intelligent sense” (having omitted *est*; in Greek, *διάνοια συνιεῖσα*) “of that which was first assumed, seeks as far as it is exhausted” (for *defatigatas*) “until it concurs into one and indivisible.” C But “exhausted” was put by the interpreter for *καταπεπονημένη* or *κεκοπωμένη*, as if he had forgotten that he had rendered the preceding Greek word *διάνοια* in the Latin masculine gender. Moreover, these pronouncements of the Pythagoreans appear to correspond to those hypotheses of the heretics, by which they deduced the origin of matter from the rash investigation of the first Father, and the disorderly Enthymesis, or intention of comprehending His magnitude, with which Sophia laboured, cast out of the Pleroma, and yet received back, nevertheless leaving behind her that perverse intention D.
A Mad men used to imagine, as is read at length in book 1, chapter 1, that the Creator of the world and the creatures founded by Him proceeded from her.
*Page 135. Novelties of words.* I am in doubt whether the interpreter put "novelties of words" from the Greek *kainophōnias* [novel-sounding], or from the old Latin version of the Bible according to custom. They who abundantly confirm this, after Tertullian *De praescriptione haereticorum*, ch. 16, are Ambrosiaster in his Commentary on I Timothy vi, Augustine in Tractate 97 on John, and other Latins. Yet regarding the Greek text of both St. Paul and Irenaeus, there could appear to be doubt. For there were Greek Fathers who read *kainophōnias*, and among them Chrysostom, concerning whom Oecumenius and Theophylact both write on this passage of Paul: "The blessed John said 'recent exhortations' (*neōteras paraineseis*) for 'novelties of words' (*kainophōnias*), writing *kai* with the diphthong *ai*, as it seems." But the blessed John said "recent exhortations" reading, it seems, *kainophōnias* with the diphthong *ai* in the first part. And although in the cited passage in our printed copies of Chrysostom we read *kenophōnias* [empty-sounding], yet that he wrote or read *kainophōnias* is plainly confirmed, beyond the cited authors, by the fact that in the parallel passage to II Timothy, ch. ii, v. 16, he expressed *kainophōnias* both in the text and in the Commentary. It could happen, therefore, that St. Irenaeus also read and wrote it this way. Whatever, indeed, is to be decided about Irenaeus, I think that all who have compared this passage with the other at Colossians ii, 8: "See that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit" (*kenēs apatēs*), will grant that the genuine reading in the epistle of the blessed Apostle is *kenophōnias* [empty speech], which we recognize in the vulgar Greek copies after Clement of Alexandria (in the passage soon to be cited) and after Oecumenius and Theophylact. Where, although in the Alexandrian codex *kainēs* is read again, it is clear that this was done by the error of a scribe; from which, and from the passage cited above, there is no doubt for me that a variant reading has arisen.
*Of false knowledge.* I think that Irenaeus retained here the apostolic phrase "of falsely named knowledge" (*pseudōnymou gnōseōs*), which he expressed otherwise in the very title of this work, 95 although the ancient interpretation has not "of falsely named" but "of false knowledge," as if it had been *pseudous* [false] in the Greek. Confer the Prefaces of books IV and V. Moreover, the observation of Clement of Alexandria in *Stromata*, book 1, page 385, is worthy of note, where, having cited the words of the Apostle, he adds: "Being reproved by this word, they who are from the heresies abolish the Epistles to Timothy." "Since the heretics are refuted by this word, they abolish the Epistles to Timothy." This is established concerning Marcion from Tertullian, book V against this archheretic, at the end, and Epiphanius, *Hares.* 42. And it is no wonder: for the prophecy of the Apostle I Tim. iv, 1 sqq. was openly striking him.
C *Of those who have been made in the fall, having had their substance from the Aeons.* But, you will say, Soter, or Jesus, had his substance from all the Aeons; Christ took his origin from the Monogenes of the Propator; but Sophia alone, holding the last place among the thirty Aeons, was made in the fall, and sustained the punishment of the inquiry of the unknown Father: how therefore are all these Aeons, and the Monogenes himself, said to have been made in the fall? They provide the answer, which is read above, page 10 (8): "Which (the passion with which Sophia laboured) had begun in those things which are towards Nus and Aletheia; but it derived into this Aeon, that is, Sophia." Confer below, chapter 24. And thus Nus, with the remaining Aeons, were in a certain way participants of this passion or fall.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 20.* *Page 136. Let us return.* The beginning is chapter 23 in the old codex with the argument placed below. A He further urges with frequent questionings of the Gnostics, that they should render an account of the emissions of the Aeons, their numbers, images, and partitions; that, even from the lack of these, being confounded, they might fall silent; or, inventing more absurd things, might be hissed off. "And twelve hours in the day." We have added these eleven voices from the old codex. "First and archegonos." He asks B why they constituted only eight Aeons in the principal conjugation and emission of the Pleroma, neither more nor fewer; when the number three, five, and seven do not lack their mysteries? Then, why also did there not proceed from the conjugation of Logos and Zoe neither more nor fewer than ten? Finally, how does it happen that Anthropos and Ecclesia gave birth to only twelve? Not being able to bring forward justifications or solid proofs for these, he concludes they are plainly old wives’ deliriums.
*Who are of the condition.* By this name here, and in the following, very frequently, he understands all species created below and visible. So also Tertullian, *lib. De resur. carn.:* "The impious worship the condition itself against the Creator." *The rhythmisation is apt.* Augustine discourses more on this name in *Musica*, books 1 and v: but I think here Irenaeus means to signify by that word only that superstitious enumeration of the Aeons and their emission. *They will declare, or shall descend into him.* So we read from the old codex. We have deleted "they shall declare" and "shall descend." And a little later, "of such figures" instead of "figure."
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 21.* *Page 137. But if to no one.* The so frequent Pleroma of the Gnostics, from their own disposition, overturns itself, forcing them toward the immense ideas of ideas: at once he refutes Basilides' 365 heavens and the commentaries which he had recounted in book 1, chapters 22 and 23, as if through a lattice, piously concluding at length that it is far safer and healthier to remain in the confession of one and sole God, than to construct such swarms of impieties. *Perfected to be. Printed codices, "to have been perfected."* *As Basilides suffered.* That is, what happened to Basilides. *Since.* How great is the number of celestial spheres, philosophers and theologians little agree among themselves. Chrysostom wishes one; Origen two; Damascenus does not doubt there are three; Augustine is witness that some constituted four, others seven, many eight, *De Genesi*, book XII, ch. 30; it seemed to Ptolemy and Alfraganus to add a ninth; Alphonsus, Lignerius, and Regiomontanus, moved by experience and reason, add a tenth; now theologians with great confidence connect an eleventh to these; which they call the empyrean heaven, from the brightness of light. Aristotle approaches closer to the Gnostics, who in *Metaphysices* XII, 47, or 55, admitted that the celestial orbs are moved by themselves, and admitted as many movers. We meanwhile, while they shall be reconciled, following Augustine, let us strive to arrive rather there. *In some one.* In Greek, *ereidein ton noun*, that is, to settle and fix the mind.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 22.* *Page 137. Indeed this which.* The old codex teaches that it should be read thus; for which reason we have removed "or that which." Furthermore, the beginning of this chapter is part of the preceding dilemma. And therefore it should not have been separated from the above, as the old codex and the epigraph placed above indicate. But it includes what the Valentinians, Catholics; followers of Basilides, Valentinians; and to both in turn, others were objecting. He investigates then, whether they are united or divided; participants of the same substance or of another; at the same time or different; of the same form or different; simple or composite.
emitted were those confected Aeons; refuting all parts of the responses by the same work. A
Page 138. *Perseverant. Ejus igitur.* All the printed codices had *perseverant ejus*. Therefore, we restored *quæ sunt secundum*, etc.
*Hujus rei.* He indicates that he undertook this task of writing against the Gnostics, without a doubt, by the prayers and exhortation of some pious and catholic pastor; of which matter he also makes mention in the preface to the first book, and more openly at the beginning of the fifth book.
*Et quoniam.* Here chapter 24 is marked in the old codex.
*Quæritur igitur.* He now presses the Gnostics with frequent and acute interrogations; and since they cannot solve them, he rightly concludes that the fictions, whatever they might fabricate concerning the Bythos, the Pleroma, and the conjunctions of the Aeons, are empty and to be hissed away. Moreover, we have restored *utrum* for *verum*; and *partiliter* for *pariter* by the authority of the old codex.
*Jam igitur.* The old codex marks C. 25 with its epigraph.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 23.
Page 138. *Si autem velut.* From the birth, succession, age, substance, and passions of the Aeons, he gathers that they are fictitious; therefore, these being omitted, one must return to the one beginning of all things.
*Juvenius.* Νεώτερον, more recent, later. He makes use of comparatives of this sort not rarely, as above, chapter 19: *Novius aliquid*. And in the next chapter: *Juvenior aliquis*. And chapter 33: *Qui est deterior*. To a Greek man writing in Latin, these things are easily pardoned: although even in Columella, book 9, chapter 11, one may read *Juvenius examen*.
From J. E. Grabe’s annotations on chapter 23.
Pag. 138. *Velut a lumine... velut a facula faculæ.* By the same similitude, Justin Martyr illustrated the generation of the Son of God from the Father in his *Dialogue with Trypho the Jew*, page 284 and page 358, and he was imitated not only by the pseudo-Justin in the *Exposition of the Faith*, page 380, but also by his genuine disciple Tatian C in the *Oration to the Greeks*, page 145, and Athenagoras in his *Supplication for the Christians*, page 27. Whence the Nicene Fathers determined nothing new when they said the Son of God was "God from God, Light from Light." With merit, too, they added ὁμοούσιον ("consubstantial") to the Father, just as our Irenaeus, from the fact that Aeons are said to be from the Logos as lights kindled from a light, gathered that "they are of the same substance as the principle of their emission."
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 24.
Page 138. *Labes igitur ejus.* He convicts as impious and insane those ravings concerning the stain of ignorance produced by the first Father, when ignorance cannot fall upon Him; and at the same time those [concerning] the younger Aeon, falsely attributed by them to passion and perplexity; since God is devoid of passions of this kind, and His Word, and Wisdom, as God is; but rather they themselves, together with their fictitious Mother, are plunged into the depth of ignorance, and are convicted of blasphemy by their own words.
Page 139. *Et si quis stellas dicat eos.* By the authority of the old codex, we have expunged *quas stellas dicant*. The sense, however, is: Even if they should call their Aeons stars, they will nonetheless be of the same genus of substance, and thus all [will be] either passible or impassible, luminous or obscure.
*Si autem impium.* He argues against them for impiety, because they subject God the Father of all to passions and annoyances, a blasphemy which the Patripassians attempted to introduce; from whom in our own century Luther did not shrink, when in his book *De Conciliis* he reports that he had dealings with certain Nestorians, because they asserted against himself that the divinity of Christ (which is not other than the Father) could not suffer. Luther therefore wanted it to be capable of suffering, which clearly reeks of Gnostic impiety.
*Si omnes erant.* We have expunged *erant*, by authority of the old codex. D
*Sed Nus Pater.* Lactantius, book 1, cap. 5, proves that God is and is called pure mind, even by the pagans, from this passage of Cicero: "Nor can the God who is understood by us be understood in any other way than as a certain mind, unattached and free, segregated from all mortal concretion, sensing and moving all things."
*Non igitur jam Logos.* Epiphanius says that Origen later embraced this error, by which they contended that the Son of God was ignorant of the Father, having cited his words; for which, however, the martyr Pamphilus, or Eusebius, tries to exonerate him in his *Apology*, and says that this virus was poured into his works by sycophants, so that they might obscure the fame of so great a man, or spread their own heresies more widely.
*Non capit igitur.* Οὐκ ἐνδέχεται, that is, it cannot be. As also in chapter 7 of this book: "it will take/possess a shadow." And chapter 16: "In men it can be said." And elsewhere not rarely.
*Cum sit a tali.* We have deleted *at illi*, by authority of the old codex.
*Præter has autem.* This is the beginning of chapter 26, in the old codex, with its argument.
Page 140. *Quacunque.* We have expunged *quandocunque*.
*In quem capiunt.* The old codex [says] *in quæ*; with which the Greek context of the first epistle of Peter also agrees, εἰς ἃ; and thus all the other Greeks read. We embrace and explain both readings [found in] our commentaries on the first Epistle of Peter, whence this testimony was taken.
*Et quemadmodum.* Almost always for *quomodo*. But he teaches that this emission of the Aeons’ ignorance, which they sought from the history of one born blind, is truly raving and foolish. Moreover, that they are altogether perverted and blinded who attribute the cause of evil and the slothful ignorance of men to the divine will.
*Inineusabilis erat, qui non poterat.* So the old codex; the printed [editions] had *inexcusabilis erat, quoniam*.
*Per emissionem.* The printed codices [had] *permissionem*.
From J. E. Grabe’s annotations on chapter 24.
Page 139. *Quomodo a sole radios.* Tertullian, in his *Against Praxean*, chapter 8, poured himself into the same similitude among others, to declare the generation of the Son from God the Father: "Nor would I hesitate to call the Son both the shoot of the root, and the river of the fountain, and the ray of the sun," etc.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 25.
Page 141. *Quomodo autem.* He shows that divine wisdom is in no way exposed to ignorance, or to subtractions, or to passions, since these are in conflict with one another; nor can Its *Enthymesis*, which the interpreter of Irenaeus calls "excogitation" or "intention," be separated from It. Of this *Enthymesis* you have [mention] above, book 1, chapter 1, and book 2, chapters 10 and 11, and frequently below.
*Sophiam passam Æonem.* So the old codex; the printed [editions], *Sophiam passam Æonem*.
*Quomodo autem.* Chapter 28 is marked in the old codex with the summary which is transcribed below. He teaches, truly, that a good intention, or, as Tertullian speaks, "excogitation," cannot stand simultaneously with a wicked one in the same mind and toward the same object. Item, that it cannot consist apart from the intellect. Therefore, that all which they have babbled concerning the *Enthymesis* is utterly raving and impossible. We have restored *ipsa autem* for *ipsum autem*: since it is argued concerning the *Enthymesis*, which, since it is an accident, cannot exist in act unless in a subject.
*Esset passibile.* The printed codices [had] *est et passibile*; and a little later for *dictus, discens* we have restored [the reading] by the authority of the old codex.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 26.
Page 141. *Quemadmodum igitur.* He proves that the *Enthymesis*, that is, the cogitation or intention, does not receive the separated τὰ πάθη (passions). Then he discusses why
Christ said to the apostles: "Seek and ye shall find," A of which I have spoken above, and hereafter also more abundantly in chapters 28 and 53. *Quod suasi sint.* Thus in the ancient codex: in the printed editions, "eo quod ipsa sint." *Quemadmodum.* Three times in this chapter, and frequently elsewhere, he uses this word for "how" or "in what way."
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 27.* Page 141. *Quemadmodum.* The context itself, along with the old codex, which lacks the word "enim" (for), indicates quite clearly that these words should be connected to the preceding ones. He [Irenæus] contends that that younger Æon could not have suffered what they imagined, if it were of spiritual substance; for it would have dwelt only among its peers. *Assueta.* We have removed "assumpta" on the authority of the ancient codices, just as a little later we have restored "emissus" for "emissum." *Apud comicum Menandrum.* Laertius is the authority that he was trained as a comic poet by Theophrastus in the 114th Olympiad; Suidas adds that he was sharp-minded, but cross-eyed, and possessed by an insane love for women; Apollodorus reports that he published eighty plays and one hundred and five comedies; Eusebius and Porphyry call him a notorious thief of ancient poets, for which reason he was admonished by Aristophanes. Justin and Clement of Alexandria interweave many things from his writings into their own.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 28.* Page 141. *Super hæc quoque.* He proves the fictitiousness and impossibility of the Æon’s passion; since even they, inquiring so impiously and vainly about the Father of all, profess that they themselves are perfected, not that they suffer. *Quærite et invenietis.* The heretics boasted of this passage quite ambitiously, and from thence contended that not everything pertaining to salutary doctrine had been disclosed by the apostles and the Church; so that whatever any one of them might later have dreamed up, he might hawk as having been investigated and found according to the Lord’s prescription. Regarding this, we have annotated in the first chapter of book 1. B *In passionem recidisse.* By that Æon, whom in the first chapter of book 1 the Gnostics said had been cast into such straits and consternations that, abandoned by the supernal light and broken by *anopia*, that is, despair, he exclaimed: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death," and, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" they were unquestionably speaking of Christ the Lord. This is clearly indicated by the Scriptures they adduced in this regard, which no one ever dared to say applied to anyone but Christ: they indicate both this and what was delivered in the twenty-fifth chapter of this book, where they call that Æon the Mind of the Father, and Sophia, and Monogenes. Rightly, therefore, did we note before that the later Gnostics borrowed those horrendous terms from these predecessors, with which they blaspheme that Christ sometimes suffered the flames of hell and the torments of despairing and damned men.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on Chapter 28.* Page 141. *In passionem dicunt recidisse.* By the Æon whom the heretics taught had fallen into such straits, they did not intend Christ the Lord—as Feuardentius indeed seems to wish—but their own fictitious Sophia, distinct both from the invented Christ of the heretics and from the true Christ of the Catholics. See book 1, chapter 1, § 2 and 3.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 29.* Page 142. *Vesana.* Printed copies have "vesania." *Dicentes se esse conceptum.* Clearly this is a satanic ambition, by which they claimed that their own lineage was derived from those celestial Æons. Nor is it strange or unusual for heretics, since their parent Simon peddled himself under the name of God, and Montanus as the Holy Spirit. Manichæus called himself the apostle of Christ; Novatus called his followers "the Pure." With the same arrogance, the Gnostics of our own time display themselves and their heresiarchs with ambitious titles; they dictate that others are second Elijahs, Baptists and precursors of the Lord, fifth evangelists, second Pauls, Gideons, prophets, reformers, and the delights of the Holy Spirit. For John Aurifaber, in the book of the *Table Talk* of his teacher Luther, calls him the man of God, the prophet of Germany, the third Elijah, the greatest doctor of the whole Church, the only C theologian of theologians, the most truthful and divine interpreter of Scripture, the holy Luther, powerful in word and deed, promised long ago to the Church by God through the mouth of Paul and Huss. The same person, again, perversely preferring this furious apostate and incestuous heresiarch not only to all the holy Fathers, martyrs, evangelists, and the twelve apostles, but even to the angels, with truly diabolical impudence extols him in these two verses: "Christ holds the first place, keep thou the second, Paul. But Luther holds the places nearest after those." Another collector of Luther’s *Table Talk*, Heinrich Petrus Rebenstock, reports that Luther himself often said of himself: "I am Isaiah, Philipp Melanchthon is Jeremiah." And furthermore, that he predicted of the ultimate blindness and madness of his followers: "We suffer a paroxysm; our own will oppress us even unto the exhalation of the soul. Then they will worship our excrement," etc. Truly, the lies and damnable heresies of Luther, which the Germans, Danes, Swedes, Hungarians, etc., now venerate and worship, are dung, or rather, filthier and more putrid than any dung. *Et consternationem infecit.* That is, he brought it in, or struck it. Gr., *apopian enepoiēsen*. For he speaks of the affections into which that wretched Æon fell.
*Annotations of the same on Chapter 30.* Page 142. *Qualis est.* He shows that all the fables they told concerning the seed, both of themselves and of the angels, are most empty, since they are injurious to the blessed angels and contumelious to God the Creator, and finally, they can be confirmed by no proof. *Qui sunt erga Salvatorem.* Thus in the ancient codex; but the printed ones say: "qui sunt. Ergo Salvatorem," etc. *Ignorasse fabricatorem.* Marcion tore asunder the divine unity; Sabellius confounded the Trinity of Hypostases; the Anthropomorphites undermined its simplicity; since Alard, the Sacramentarians detract from its omnipotence; the Novatians from its mercy; the Arians and Eunomians from its equality; but that anything should escape the eyes of the divine majesty, or that God should suffer from ignorance—beyond these people, I do not know if anyone of such a lost mind has ever existed as to think it. That even the pagans shrank from such sacrilege is clear from the famous lines of Philemon, Menander, and Euripides, which Justin Martyr inserted into his book *On Monarchy*. Dionysius the Areopagite seems to dispute this impiety in the entire seventh chapter of the book *On the Divine Names*. Theophilus of Antioch also gathers various testimonies of philosophers, comic poets, and tragedians on this matter in the second book *To Autolycus*; Irenæus pursues the same most vehemently in the following chapters. *Cum sit.* We have deleted "sint," and shortly after, for "exsistentes," we have placed "exsistens" on the authority of the ancient codex.
*Annotations of the same on Chapter 31.* Page 142. *Demiurgum autem.* Contrary to all reason, they affirmed that the Demiurge, that is, the Creator of this universe, was ignorant of certain things; of which they themselves claimed to have knowledge, attributing to themselves things far greater than to God Almighty.
A Since this substance is the same, the assertion that the soul is of the same substance as the Creator of the world was a heresy of the Manichaeans and the Priscillianists, as may be gathered from the anathemas of the Council of Braga; and you see that it had been drawn from the sink of these Gnostics. For although the Fathers have sometimes differed in very serious disputes regarding the origin of the soul, as is evident from the writings of Tertullian, Apollinaris, Arnobius, Lucifer, Tatian, Origen, and Augustine, it is acknowledged by all that none of them subscribed to the Gnostic opinion.
*On souls.* We have expunged "of the soul," and presently, for "God," we have restored "God" [as] the author or the ancient codex [demands].
*Furthermore.* This is the beginning of chapter twenty-nine in the old codex.
*Page 143. From ignorance and blemish.* We have deleted "of ignorance," and shortly after, for "formation," we have restored "by formation."
*Annotations of the same on chapter 52.*
*Page 143. For if.* From the propositions of the Gnostics it follows that darkness is more useful than light, and that those things were for the sake of the offspring's perfection and utility which had been dangerous for the mother; which is truly ridiculous. Those things which are refuted here were described and recounted at length in book 1, chapter 1.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 33.*
*Page 143. Furthermore.* With four questions proposed, and just as many answers added according to their way of thinking, he proves to be false those things which they fabricated concerning their Mother and her image, concerning the images of the angels, the Demiurge, and the emission of the imperfect spiritual [being]; and he teaches that it follows from these that that seed ought not to bear the likeness of the angels, but of souls.
*Page 143. More laboriously.* That is, more efficiently and aptly for accomplishing things.
*In it.* Thus the old codex; the printed [editions], however, [read] "it." Regarding the character and figure of souls, it will be argued later, namely in chapter 63.
*From the annotations of Jo. Er. Grabe on chapter 33.*
*Page 143. Its descent into men is therefore superfluous.* For the heretics attributed this to that seed for this purpose, namely that it might be injected into the souls of men, that it might be B "formed there and grow, and be made ready for the reception of perfect reason," just as was said in chapter 34. But these things are only appropriate for the earliest, infantile age; for when that seed had passed that stage, since it had already long ago been sent forth from the Mother, it was considered futile to say that it was sent down into the souls of men.
*More laboriously.* That is, more efficiently and aptly for accomplishing things.
*On animals.* "Animals," understand [as] men, in Greek *psychikous*, not "animals."
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 34.*
*Page 143. Moreover further.* This is the beginning of chapter 30 in the old codex, with its own heading. He condemns those fables concerning the seed and conception which he had recounted around the middle of the first chapter of book 1.
*Who were beggars in the ways.* Similar to this is that [saying] of Tertullian: "The greater part of believers [are] simple, imprudent, and idiots." Also [that] of Minucius Felix in the *Octavius*: "The greater and better part of you are in need, are cold, are working for [a living], are famished, and God suffers [it]," etc.
*Page 144. Not many wise among you.* These are words of the Apostle, 1 Cor. 1, which he cites a little differently than either the Vulgate edition has or the Greek context, *hoti ou polloi sophoi kata sarka* [that not many are wise according to the flesh], and thus Chrysostom and Theodoret read from the Greeks, and Ambrose and Primasius from the Latins; but Irenaeus has rendered the sense.
D For it is not fitting. Clearly an elegant proverb, used with almost the same sense as that which is in Virgil:
...And from one crime, learn all.
*From the annotations of Jo. Er. Grabe on chapter 34.*
*Page 144. For it is not fitting.* Here this [saying] of Athenagoras in his *Legation for the Christians* (before the middle of page 13, Paris edition) fits: "These things, then, are [but] small things from great, and few from many, so that we may not trouble you further. For even those testing honey and wine, by a small portion of the whole judge the whole, if it is good." And we have reported these few things from many, so that we would not be too troublesome to you. For those who examine honey or wine also judge the whole from a small part of it.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 35.*
*Page 144. But just as.* We have established this sentiment, torn from the end of chapter 34, as the beginning of 35. He asserts, indeed, that it is not permitted to constitute another God above the Creator of this universe, nor to divide the one Christ in person into many: which he had said above, book 1, chapter 1, that they attempted. Moreover, Billius writes concerning the beginning of this chapter: "For me there is no doubt but that, for 'greatest,' 'mostly' should be substituted. For what was in the Greek *synektika* [comprehensive], the interpreter, persistent in words, rendered 'greatly comprehensive'; I, 'of chief and greatest weight.' For thus the sense is clearer." I leave these [matters] to be discussed by the judgment of those more acute.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 36.*
*Page 144. For that.* Chapter 32 begins in the old codex with its own epigraph. He demonstrates, however, that the proofs by which they asserted the passions and anguishes of the twelfth Aeon were empty and futile, and that they could not be confirmed by the apostasy and defection of Judas. Finally, by various antitheses, he shows that the passion of our Lord had nothing in common or akin to the fabled passion of the Aeon. Which things, however, are refuted here, you have [in] book 1, chapter 1, shortly after the beginning; and [in] book 2, chapters 25, 26, 27, 28.
*For one year.* In this also seems to have been the opinion of Tertullian [in] book *Against the Jews*, chapter 8, and book *Against Marcion*, chapter 15, which Eusebius also notes in his *Chronicle*. Lactantius [in] book iv, chapter 10, embraces the same opinion; [also] Julius Africanus [in] his book *On Time*, in Jerome's *Commentary on Daniel*; Clement of Alexandria [in] book 1 of the *Stromata*; Paulus Orosius [in] book vii, chapter ten; to whom Augustine seems to accede [in] book XVIII *On the City of God*, chapter 54, and book xxII, chapter 15, although he defends the contrary [in] book 11 *On Christian Doctrine*, chapter twenty-eight. But indeed, Irenaeus refutes this Gnostic error so sharply in chapter 38 and 39 of this book that he seems to incline toward another [view]. Regarding this matter there wrote before me most learned and diligent men: Pamelius in his *Paradoxes of Tertullian*, and Benedict Pererius in his *Commentary on the eleventh chapter of Daniel*. Let the studious reader consult them.
*Page 145. But neither.* We have expunged "which," and later for "that which is in the invisible" we have restored "neither in similar things," [as] the author's old codex.
*But our Lord endured the passion.* That is, he not only came spontaneously and confidently to the passion, and offered himself to the Jews to be taken, to be bound, to be scourged, and finally to be crucified; but also, by that tolerance of pains unheard of to the whole world, he merited all glory and exaltation for the man assumed, and eternal justice and salvation for the human race. Cyprian the martyr [speaks of] these fruits of the passion of Christ after Irenaeus.
A he wills to have given to Pandora, Irenaeus applies to these heretics, and that he attributed to Mercury also the "deceitful words and a thievish character," to seduce the foolish of mankind, that they might believe their figments.
Pelops. Pindar recalls Pelops in Olympian Ode 1, and among the Latin poets, Ovid sings in harmony with Irenaeus in Book VI of the *Metamorphoses*, 407, 408: *The gods are said to have joined the limbs* *soon hewn by his father's hands...*
*Notes of Fr. Feuardentius on Ch. 38.* Page 146. *But because.* The old codex marks this as the thirty-fifth chapter, with an epigraph annexed thereto. Irenaeus proves that those thirty Aeons, on whose discovery they plumed themselves so much, neither stand anywhere, nor are they represented by the thirtieth year in which Christ approached the baptism of John. But the passage of Isaiah, by which they wrongly strove to prove that the Lord suffered in the twelfth month from his baptism, he religiously explains concerning the time of the evangelical law and grace, and the day of final judgment, which subsequently Jerome and Cyril have imitated in the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah. These things which are refuted here, he narrated in Book I, Chapter 1, where we have also noted something concerning Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. *To proclaim the year.* Since the Septuagint wrote *kadalein*, and our old codex contains *vocare* (to call), we substituted this very word *provocate* (call forth). And thus Cyprian reads in Book II, *Adversus Judaeos*, ch. 10. *Very many.* We have expunged «Pleroma.» Page 147. *All time.* Printed codices say «of all time.»
*From the annotations of Jo. Er. Grabe on Ch. 38.* Page 146. *Otherwise they will be distinguishing the first itself, etc.* For if there are only thirty Aeons of the Pleroma, the Savior, who is numbered beyond these thirty, will not be in the Pleroma; which Irenaeus thinks is indecorous for them. Compare above, page 129, col. 1. *Day of retribution... judgment.* So also Theodoret expounds *hēmeran antapodoseōs* (day of recompense) as *tēs kriseōs tēn hēmeran* (the day of judgment).
*Notes of Fr. Feuardentius on Ch. 39.* Page 147. *But it is greatly to be wondered at.* The old codex marks this as the thirty-sixth chapter with its own argument, which would certainly fit better here, since he proves with open testimonies that Christ taught for more than one or two years. Furthermore, "it is greatly to be wondered at" is a locution similar to "it is possible to see." *Those who are reborn through him to God, infants.* By the name of rebirth, according to the Dominical and apostolic phrase, he understands baptism, openly confirming the tradition of the apostles concerning the baptism of infant children, against the impiety of the Anabaptists. B Dionysius the Areopagite had asserted this same thing before Irenaeus in the last chapter of *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*; Clement in Book VI of the *Constitutions*, ch. 15; the author of the *Questions to the Orthodox* among the works of Justin Martyr, question 56; after Irenaeus, Origen in ch. vi to the Romans; Cyprian, epistle to Fidus; Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catechesis mystagogica* 1; Nazianzen, oration on the *Holy Laver*; Basil, *Exhortation to Baptism*; Chrysostom, homily *to the neophytes*; Jerome, epistle to Laeta; Augustine, Theodoret, etc.
Page 148. *But since.* Philo enumerates the ages of man somewhat differently from Hippocrates: The nature of man, he says, has seven times, which they call ages: Infant, boy, adolescent, and the rest. The infant is until he puts forth teeth within the seventh year; the boy, up to the excretion of seed, to the doubled seventh year; the adolescent, up to
barbæ hirsutiem, ad annum ter septimum; vir A Plutarchus in his booklet against the Stoics: "neither through a dream," nor "by any means." Chrysostom against the Jews: "nor as in a dream." Irenæus, however, indicates that the heretic Ptolemy did not in any way touch upon apostolic doctrine.
"Fifty years." Chrysostom reads: "forty years." Theophylact, however, attributes this to the madness of the Jews, because they compared a man who was almost thirty-three years old to a fifty-year-old. From which it is sufficiently clear that Irenæus’s argument, taken from this passage, is very weak.
"For it is unreasonable." Indeed, even though it was said with the indulgence of the most holy martyr, the Jews lied about him far more atrociously: inasmuch as he was called gluttonous, a wine-bibber, a seducer, a blasphemer, and that he cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, etc. And hence it is evident that Irenæus proves nothing from this passage.
"Homer the poet." The passage is from *Iliad* A, where he depicts the gods as having taken counsel and seated themselves in order after the single combat of Menelaus and Paris.
"But also about that woman." The old codex marks this here as chapter 37.
"Eleven." We have deleted "twelve" from the old codex.
Page 149. "Satan." We have expunged "Sanalas."
"Of their business." Thus the old codex; the printed copies have "negation of the Æons."
"For the name Jesus." For it is plainly Hebrew, not Greek, signifying, according to Epiphanius, a physician, a healer, and a savior. Therefore Cyril of Jerusalem also writes: "Jesus among the Hebrews signifies savior; in the Greek tongue, however, it signifies a physician; since he is both the physician of bodies and the healer of souls." Concerning the number, moreover, which arises from the letters of His name, the Venerable Bede says: "Of this most holy name Jesus, not only the etymology, but also the very number which is comprised by the letters, exhales the mysteries of our perpetual salvation. For it is written in Greek with six letters: ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, the numerical values of which are x, and viii, and cc, and lxx, and ccc, and cc, which together make cccclxxxviii, which number truly increases the figure of the resurrection. For the eighth number in sacred letters pertains to the glory of the resurrection; because the Lord rose on the eighth day, that is, after the seventh day of the Sabbath. And we ourselves, after the six ages of the century, and the seventh day of the Sabbath of souls, which is now meanwhile passed in another life, shall rise as if in the eighth time." They also report that the Sibyl of Cumae remembered the letters and number of this name. Furthermore, Constantine the Great in the Oration which Eusebius appended to the books about his life, and then Augustine in his 19th book *De Civitate Dei*, chapter 23, report an oracle of the Erythræan Sibyl concerning Christ, composed in acrostic verses, so that at the beginnings of the initial letters these words are elegantly read: ἸΗΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΕΙΣΤΟΣ ΘΕΟΥ ΥΙΟΣ ΣΩΤΗΡ. JESUS CHRISTUS DEI FILIUS SALVATOR. Concerning the numbers, however, and the power of the elements of names of this kind, it has been said above.
ccclxxxviii. Thus the old manuscript codex; the printed copy has "Dat. xxxviii."
C From the annotations of Nicolaus Gallasius on chapter 41.
Page 149 seqq. Irenæus shows that the heretics are mistaken, and that they most impudently impose upon themselves and others, when they deduce their calculation from the letters of the name ἸΗΣΟΥΣ. For that is entirely vacuous, and can stand by no logic, because this name is not Greek, but Hebrew. But in declaring the origin of this name, and its proper signification, whose authorities Irenæus followed, I do not know at all. For it is sufficiently conspicuous, and all learned men admit, that it is deduced from *Jascha*, whence *yasha*, which signifies "he saved"; which the interpretation of the angel Gabriel himself clearly demonstrates. For when he commands that this name be imposed upon Christ, he subjoins the reason:
A *for he himself shall save his people from their sins.* Whoever, therefore, draws [the name] from *iesch* rather than from [the Hebrew], must argue with the angel, that is, with God himself, by whose command the angel spoke in this way. Yet, Irenaeus says absolutely nothing concerning this origin or meaning. And certainly, it seems that in this term, as in others, he followed some ancient Hebrew Kabbalah. For what affinity does the name *Jesu* have with the name of heaven, *scham* with *esch*? By what reasoning can it be proven that the earth, which is called by the name *arets*, is also contained in the same name *Jesu*? Among whom also *Sura Usser* is said, I do not know. Indeed, some traces of the name *Arets* appear, but inverted and repeated; but I have heard that no one has read or written them thus. When I was in doubt about these things, I consulted learned men, those experienced in both Hebrew and Chaldean letters; they judged that it either arose from some unknown Kabbalah, or proceeded from ignorance and the corruption of the language. The same is true of the name *Sion*, of which he shortly after says that it is contained in the name *Jesu*. They believe the "half-letters" to be *yod* and *vau*, not that they are imperfect, but that they are smaller and shorter than all the others; and many Hebrews conjecture that all the remaining letters were also made from these. For there is no letter that cannot be built and fashioned from these two. And therefore the first ten letters, from *aleph* to *yod*, are said to be the principal ones, because the rest were formed from them, or in their likeness. The name *Barneth*, which he attributes to God, seems to be derived from *Bara*, that is, "he created."
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 41.
Page 149. But these in no way communicate. The scope of Irenaeus in this chapter is to show that the Gnostics hallucinate basely and shamelessly impose upon others, B since they strove to confirm their fictions from the syllables, letters, and numbers corresponding to the Greek name *Iesous*; because that name is Hebrew, whose Hebrew letters do not agree with the Greek letters, nor with their number; and this I think is the one thing to be chiefly considered and learned in this chapter.
Furthermore, what he writes concerning the Hebrew letters, origin, and meaning of the name *Jesu*—namely, that it consists of four letters and a half, and signifies heaven—I do not sufficiently grasp. For it is most certain that *Jesu* is Hebrew, derived from *iascha*, which is "he saved," and is thus written with four letters, which make the number 386. For by arithmetic calculation, *yod* holds 10, *schin* 300, *vau* 6, *aiin* 70. But *Iesous* in the Greek calculation returns 888; seeing that *iota*, 10; *eta*, 8; *sigma*, 200; *omicron*, 70; *upsilon*, 400; *sigma*, 200. But so that it signifies the Lord of heaven and earth, it is necessary to write it, in the manner of the ancients, by three letters and by *notaricon*, that is, to gather full words from individual letters in such a way that *yod*, which is the first letter of the Tetragrammaton *YHWH*, which the LXX render "Lord" or "Kyrios," may express "Lord" to us. Then, [with] *schin* [as] the first letter of the word *scham*, which signifies "heaven." Finally, *vau* [as] the beginning, which is "and earth"; so that the three letters of that name, *yod*, *schin*, *vau*, C when reduced together by *notaricon*, indicate the Lord of heaven and earth.
But I do not sufficiently see how the name *Sion* is contained in the name *Jesu*. Also, in no idiom is earth called *Sura Usser* or *Usser*. It is therefore necessary that Irenaeus either drew these from some Kabbalah hitherto unknown to me, or—which is more probable to me—that he was deceived by certain Jewish rabbis whom he may have consulted, as he seems to intimate at the beginning of the chapter, when he writes: "As the learned among them say." For because of their hatred toward Christ, they and we, who are accounted by his name, are accustomed to fabricate many things, and boldly obtrude them, by which they might obscure our faith; which you may easily gather from the places of Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, [and] Ezra, which were audaciously sacrilegiously truncated and mutilated by them, as Justin Martyr proves and convicts in his *Dialogue*.
Furthermore, the method of gathering integral names from individual letters, which the authors of the Kabbalah follow, is also found in the Sibylline Oracles, lib. 11:
God fashioned the tetragrammaton ADAM Who was the first, and who by name completes The dawn, the west, the south, and the freezing North.
This is explained more clearly in Cyprian, in his treatise on the mountains Sinai and Sion, and in Augustine, tract. 9 and 10 on John. East is called by the Greeks *anatolē*, west *dysis*, north *arktos*, south *mesēmbria*: if you join together the initial letters of these words, you will make the name A A A M. Cyprian assigns the reason for this, that the Lord gathered the earth in his fist from the four corners of the world, and fashioned man from all the slime of the earth: but I do not dispute this matter.
Page 150. *Of their episemon*. *Episēmon* properly signifies the navel of a shield, a mark, a sign, a stain: D but in these places it is taken for a numerical mark which indicates six.
*And a half-letter*. He calls *yod* a half-letter, because it is shorter and smaller than the others; and most Hebrews think that all the others were made from it.
*Sion*. The codex is entirely ignorant of this word; nor does it easily appear what he wants for himself in this place.
*Therefore it falls*. The reading of the old codex is somewhat different in this way: "Therefore the number of the calculation falls, which is MDCCCLXXXVIII, and in all," etc.
*Older ones*. Eusebius asserts, moved by various conjectures after Irenaeus, that the Hebrew letters preceded all the rest in invention and use. He makes Adam and his son Seth the inventors of them, as of all other arts. Josephus bears witness that the sons of Seth wrote the disciplines of celestial matters on columns. Augustine, Origen, Tertullian do not doubt that Enoch afterward committed certain prophecies to writing. Comestor and Joannes Cassianus (Collation VIII, chap. 21) attribute books on magic and necromantic arts to Cham the son of Noah. Constantine the Great read the oracles ascribed to the Erythraean Sibyl in his *Oration to the Assembly of the Saints* for the confirmation of his faith. No one knows that all these lived many centuries after Cadmus, the king of the Phoenicians, Palamedes, Simonides, and Carmenta, whom they want to be the inventors of other letters.
*Indeed ten*. Those ten are from *aleph* to *yod*; and therefore they are called primary and principal, because the rest were formed from them and in their likeness: and the digits of numbers are calculated from them.
*According to the sequence*. That is, from left to right in the manner of the Greeks and Latins. For the Hebrews write in that way when they express their own voices in foreign characters; or others writing something Hebrew from them, as is told of Pilate, who, when he was composing the title of the cross of Christ, arranged the Hebrew letters in the Latin manner.
*Barneth*. The old codex [says] *Baruch*, which signifies "blessed" to Philo, Jerome, and Pagninus; *Barneh* is a Chaldaic word of the same meaning. In the Vatican codex, the adverb "Hebraice" is missing.
*For from the law*. This is the beginning of chapter 39 in the old codex.
A with the argument that was affixed to it above, and much more conveniently, in my judgment. *And the height*. All the printed codices had hitherto desired these six words. *Hæc ante*. Included in the codices are "Hæc autem"; then ‹ significativam › for ‹ significantiam ›; and a little later we restored ‹ reliqui › for ‹ reliquis ›.
*Calamiscos*. *Calamiscos* signifies, among other things, a small reed and a pipe: and because those three canes, emanating from the middle stem of the Mosaic candlestick, had the form of these, he here calls them by the Greek word *calamiscous*.
*Smyrna*. *Smyrna* is a small shrub of Arabia, from whose incised bark a certain thick liquor flows, which is called *stacte* by physicians. See Dioscorides bk. I, c. 78; Theophrastus bk. [IX] De hist. plant.; Pliny bk. XII, ch. 15 and 16.
*Ireos*. *Iris* signifies many things: but here it is a sweetly smelling and aromatic herb; of which Dioscorides bk. I; Theophrastus De hist. plant.; Pliny bk. XXI, B ch. 7.
*Cinamomi*. The name *cinamomi* or *cinnamomi* is divided into many parts, which you may note by reading. Here it appears to be a species of shrub of scent, concerning which see Pliny bk. XII, ch. 19; Theophrastus bk. IX, ch. 47; Dioscorides bk. I. Now it is called *cinamomum* because in the manner of a cane, it has thin and rolled reeds, of an ash or black color, which when broken yield a visible scent; and indeed the thin is dear, but the thick is vile and despised.
*Calamisci*. In Exodus XXX the Septuagint reads *calamou euodous*, that is, fragrant reeds. *Calamus* therefore, from which comes *calamiscus*, is a shrub in Arabia, India, and Syria, growing near Mount Lebanon, similar in appearance to a reed, with the taste of cassia, soft to the touch; and when it is broken, it fills the place with a most sweet odor. See Pliny bk. XII, ch. 20 and others.
*De stacte*. *Stacte* is called by the Greeks a certain juice, or tear, emanating from the incised bark of myrrh, of which above. Consult Pliny, bk. XII, ch. 6 and 14; Dioscorides, bk. I, ch. 75 and 78. Regarding it, Rabbi David writes thus in the book of *Roots*: "They say that *Nataph* is *Zari*, that is to say a drop or *stacte*; so called, because it drips from the trees of *Ketaph*, as our rabbis (of blessed memory) have said. *Zari* is nothing else but the juice which drips from the trees of *Ketaph*, and is commonly called balsam." Concerning the origin of balsam, its irrigation, and its death, if you desire more, consult Peter Martyr, bk. III, *De legatione Babylonica*.
*Et ungula*. Rabbi Solomon in chapter XXX of Exodus, with Paulus Fagius as interpreter, thinks it is the root of the cane, smooth and pure, in the manner of a nail (*unguis*). To Rabbi David in the same place, it is an aroma which in the *Mischnach* (so they call the Talmudic text) is called *Zipporen*, that is *onyx* or *unguis*, and it is smooth and shining, as a nail. Propertius: *Et cronico nares murrheus ungat onyx.*
To me it seems more likely, and more convenient to this place, that it is what Dioscorides says about *onycha*, or *ungula*, bk. I, ch. 10: "*Onyx*, he says, is the 'nail' of a shellfish, similar to that of the purple-fish, found in India in the [odoriferous] lakes. Wherefore it also perfumes, as the shellfish feed on the spikenard." That is: "The nail of the shellfish is a shell, not unlike that which covers the purple-fish, which is found in the lakes of India. Therefore it also exhales an odor, because the shellfish feed on spikenard." See also Pliny bk. XXXII, ch. 10.
*Et galbano*. Galbanum among other things is the liquor of a certain plant, similar to fennel, growing in Syria, frequent among physicians. Dioscorides bk. I, ch. 7; Theophrastus bk. IX *De hist. plantarum*, ch. 1 and 7; Pliny bk. XII, ch. 25 and 48, C bk. XXIV, ch. 5 and 13. Concerning this, Virgil: *Hinc jam galbaneos suadebo incendere odores.* And Lucanus: *Hic ebulum stridet, peregrinaque galbana sudant.* Regarding it, Rabbi Kimhi also says in c. 30 of Exod.: "Galbanum is an aroma, the odor of which is heavy, and it is the juice of a tree which is found in the cities of Greece, and it is like black honey, and in the Arabic language it is called *Miah*."
*Et hedyosmo*. *Hēdyosmon*, sweet odor, is called mint; of which Luke XI, *apodec̄toute to hēdyosmon*, that is, you tithe and give out of mint. Dioscorides calls it *hēdyosmon agrion*, wild mint - herb. See Pliny bk. XIX, ch. 8, and others.
*Et thure*. *Thus*, or *tus*, a name now common, is most fitting for sacred fumigations with burnt fires, and has long been used. Ovid, XIV *Metam.*, v. 128: *Templa tibi statuam; solvam tibi thuris honores.* And Tibullus bk. I, eleg. 3, v. 34: *Redderet antiquo menstrua thura Lari.*
Further, just as the fumigations of incense or *thus* were frequent in the sacred rites of the Hebrews by divine command, so the blessing of the same, and its use in the sacred rites of Christians, is religiously observed from the tradition of the Apostles and the highest consensus of the Greek and Latin Churches, as can be seen from Rupert, bk. I *De divinis offic.*, ch. 29 and 36, and bk. VI, ch. 31 and 32; Stephen of Autun, bk. *De sacramento altar.*, ch. 12; Germanus of Constantinople in *Rerum ecclesiast. cons.*; Augustine, serm. 98 *de tempore*; Tertullian, bk. *De coron. mil.*; Dionysius the Areopagite, bk. *Eccl. hier.*, ch. 3; James the brother of the Lord in his *Liturgy*; canon 3 or 4 of the Apostles. If besides these authors you desire others, and [want to see] this rite accurately and diligently proven, consult the book which 101, [D] against the anatomy of the mass, the man in reading sacred authors comparable to few, D. Jacobus Faber, the doctor theologian, my preceptor always to be observed, has edited; hence I think you will be abundantly satisfied. Furthermore, since the Gnostics could not twist the species, quantities, and mixtures of all these incense-offerings toward the confirmation of their own dogmas, which would have been most necessary; Irenaeus shrewdly concludes that they had foolishly and stupidly brought in certain other rites of the old law, to assert what delusions they might.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 41.* Page 149. *Jesus*... is of two and a half letters. It must be known that the ancients said *Jesu*, and in Hebrew *[Hebrew word]* for *Jesua*: thence I think the Greek writing *Iesous* arose. For from *Josua* we would say *Jesuas*. This being posited, when he says that this name is of two and a half letters, what else are we to think but that through the half, he meant the letter *ioth* itself? Indeed, the character of this letter is such that it barely reaches to half of other letters; and certainly if it is compared with them, it can rightly be held as a half-letter. *Drusius* said these things in *Centuria 1 Miscellaneorum*, ch. 44, where he also said the same things about the interpretation of the name *Jesu*, by which it is handed down to signify "the Lord who contains heaven and earth," which Feuardentius [also said].
Page 150. *And called priestly*. In Greek perhaps *hierourgikai*, or a similar word existed, which usage of Hebrew letters in the sacred codex of the Bible there is, which the interpreter wrongly translated as *sacerdotales* (priestly). *They are indeed ten in number*. I conjecture it should be read as *XXII indeed*, etc., which is the number of letters known among the Hebrews. *But each of them is written by fifteen, with the last letter joined to the first*. What these things mean [for themselves]...
I have long and much pondered, but I could not devise it. The text is indeed corrupt, as the Vossian codex indicates, the different reading of which I have noted. It has two and a half letters. A final 7 is accepted for the half letter П.
Page 151. *And of Hedyosmos*. Note that Irenæus did not read regarding Exod. XXX, 34, *galbanum of hedyosmos*, as it now exists in the LXX version, but *galbanum, hedyosmos*; so that according to this reading the sacred incense, just like the sacred ointment, consists of five mixtures.
**Annotations by Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 42.**
Page 151. *For, however*. The old codex marks this as chapter 40. He contends that the Gnostics can assert nothing of their own dreams from the number five, however frequently it may occur in sacred things.
*The very structure of the cross*. You have here a representation of the figure of the cross, and thus a speculation on its image, which Augustine often and gladly imitates, in those words of the Apostle: *That you may be able to comprehend what is the length, and breadth, and height, and depth, to know also the supereminent charity of Christ*. Moving to the mystery of the cross, he says: *that in the breadth is accepted the transverse wood, on which the hands are extended, on account of the significance of works; in length from that place to the ground, where the whole crucified body is seen to stand, which signifies to persist; in height from that same transverse wood upward, towards which it looms at the head, on account of the expectation of heavenly things; in depth, however, that part of the wood which lies fixed in the hidden parts of the earth*. This Augustine writes in epistle 112, chapter 12, epistle 119, chapter 41, and epistle 120, chapter 26; by which we see that the consideration of the image of the Crucified was far dearer to the most holy Fathers than to the neoteric Gnostics.
It must be observed, furthermore, that five extremities or ends are here openly attributed to the Lord’s cross: and concerning the four, it is evident to all; but concerning the fifth, where the body is said to rest, it is not so. For it is not clearly said whether it rested on the feet as on a footstool, or if it sat in a manner on the middle part of the body. Truly, Gregory of Tours in explicit words speaks of the board (others call it a footstool) on which the feet were supported and fixed, in his *stipite erecto*, saying: *The hole is manifest: but upon this board, as if for a standing man, the feet were sacredly fixed*. Justin Martyr seems to have expressed similar things in his *Dialogue*; Tertullian in his third book *Against Marcion*, chapters 18 and 19; and the Venerable Bede in his *Collectanea*, affirming that the same cross was constructed from four kinds of different woods: by the fourth, he undoubtedly understands that footstool. Finally, this is strongly confirmed by the most ancient images of the cross of our Lord preserved in temples, which we have seen in many places, even in the same year that we write these things, 1595, with the stated footstool, on which the feet were still distinct and separate, fixed by two nails; namely, at Verdun, in the greater and most ancient seat, one; and in the monastery, which goes by the name of St. Paul, another. At Trier we saw of the same form in the greater temple, two; in the church of the Blessed Virgin, three; of St. Simeon, two; of St. Paulinus, one; and of St. Mary, another. At Koblenz, in different temples, three. At Cologne, also, there are many images of the same form, that is, with feet disjoined, and nailed with two nails to a board placed beneath; in the supreme temple, three; at St. Severin, three; at St. Cunibert, three; at St. Gereon, one; at St. Ursula, one; at St. Mary of the Capitol, one; in the cemetery of St. George, one; at the Indulgences, one; at St. Maurice, one; at the Poor Clares, one; in a certain hospice, one; and we have heard that many such are preserved in other sacred places: by these, our superior conjecture is not moderately strengthened.
That Christ was surely fixed to the cross by four nails, it seems to me can be gathered not only from the historical narrative of the invention of the holy cross, but also from the most certain testimonies of the Fathers. For Cyprian says in his sermon *On the Passion*, using the plural number: *With nails boring the sacred feet*. And the above-praised bishop of Tours explicitly writes: *The reason that there were four nails of the Lord is this: two are fixed in the palms, and two in the soles*. The same opinion is also held in book 1, chapter 10 of the *Revelations* of St. Bridget, which the supreme pontiffs have also approved.
Page 152. *Each table*. There have been different opinions of the Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins as to how many precepts should be placed in each table. Josephus and Philo, whom Irenæus imitates here, place five in each. From the Greeks, Origen, Procopius, and Hesychius, narrating chapter XX of Exodus, and Clement of Alexandria in *Stromata* VI, count four in the former and six in the latter, which Ambrose supports from the Latins. By almost all Latins, Augustine’s partition is highly approved, by which he establishes only three in the first, by which the worship of God is explained; and seven in the other, by which the love of one's neighbor is commanded.
*For who would concede*. He contends that neither days, nor months, nor the passing years signified by the Pleroma are to be understood as invented by him: and therefore the arguments taken from these conclude nothing at all. *Præfinitive* [Defined beforehand]; this is from the old codex; we have deleted "præfinitione" [by definition].
*But furthermore*. Chapter 44 is marked in the old codex with this heading: *Concerning the Amen and the ninety-nine sheep, of which one perished and was found*. Furthermore, we have substituted "sinistra" for "sinistram" [left] from the above, by which they chatter that certain things are from the right, but others indeed from the left, produced from the Mother Achamoth.
**From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 42.**
Page 151. *The very structure of the cross*, etc. Irenæus seems to have received these things from Justin Martyr, seeing that in his *Dialogue with Trypho*, page 318, he described the cross in these words: "There is an upright post from which the highest part is raised into a horn (a vertex to which the title or cause of death is attached), when the other wood is fitted to it, and on both sides it appears as horns joined to one horn (a transverse wood, which acts as if the arms of the cross), and that which is fixed in the middle, as a horn itself, is also prominent, upon which those being crucified are carried." Which last words Scaliger translated into Latin in his *Animadversions upon Eusebius*, p. 118, as follows: "And that which is fixed in the middle post, it also stands out like a horn, upon which those who are bound to the cross sit and are carried." Whence he comments further on the structure and parts of the cross: against which, however, Fuller disputes in book IV of his *Sacred Miscellanies*, chapter 12, proving at length from the very collation of Justin Martyr and Irenæus, that that upon which they are said to sit, who undergo the punishment, is not distinct from the footstool, upon which the feet were accustomed to be rested and fixed.
Page 152. *It had five columns*. Only four are mentioned for the columns of the veil, Exod. XXVI, 32, by which the holy of holies was distinguished from the sanctuary; but ibid., verse 37, "five" columns are mentioned before which was hung the veil, which at the entrance...
of the tabernacle was. Irenæus therefore, for this, accepted A a lapse of memory.
Altitude. Irenæus ought to have placed "length" or "breadth," both of which were of five cubits, as is described in the places cited above; but the altitude was of three cubits.
102 The relief of the left hand. It was troublesome for me [regarding] this relief of the left hand, and it is not easy to interpret it as 'the right.' Unless I am deceived by a conjecture, "levamen" here is called from *levare*, that is, to pierce or carry away by theft; in which meaning this verb is used especially by Gallic writers, such as Irenæus also was, and truly it is similar. Thus Sidonius Apollinaris, lib. VII, epist. 2, writes: *Levat divitem conjugem pauper adamatus*, that is, he carries her off by theft. On which passage the most learned Savaro, commenting, alludes to many things from Gregory of Tours and others. What if, therefore, we interpret "the relief of the left hand" as that which has been taken away from the right to the left hand, and therefore lost? The entire context seems to admit this exposition well, and it is confirmed not a little by the fact that in "right" are opposed "the sheep, which did not perish, but remained in the fold," not seized by a thieving hand, or lost.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chap. 43. Pag. 155. *If anyone, however.* He dissolves the arguments by preoccupation; which could be objected by these: and he teaches from numbers, letters, and syllables alone, that one should not pronounce rashly upon divine matters; since it is uncertain and superstitious. And of the apostles. Printed codes [have] "nor of the apostles." *But which vary.* This is the beginning of chap. 42, in the old codices. *For not infect.* A grave sentiment, by which he compares man with the Son of God, because he was made; that is, brought forth from nothing, whereas he had not been before: but this one was not made, since he is *homoousios* and co-eternal with the Father. These things later other holy Fathers concluded more openly in the Nicene synod against the blasphemies of Arius, as is clear from the Symbol. Athanasius also says: *The Son is from the Father alone, οὐ ποιητός, οὐ κτιστός, not made, not created.* C He pursues the matter more fully and accurately in orations 2 and 3 against the Arians: as also Basil, lib. II Contra Eunomium. Augustine, sermon 193: *The Word of God can in no wise be called made or created, through whom all things were made,* etc. *Proper.* We have expunged "proximum"; and in the last line, for "ignarum," we have restored "ignarus" according to the authority of the old codices.
From Jo. Er. Grabe’s annotations on chap. 43. Pag. 153. *Number XX.* What the number XX signifies, I cannot tell, and from this I suspect that either XXX should be read, or no number at all. But the manuscript codices fail us here.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chap. 44. Pag. 158. *For he is not transible.* Thus I read, for "transibilis es," both because the end of the preceding chapter, as also the inscription of this one, clearly teaches it: and soon it is written, "he is indeterminabilis," etc. He hands down, moreover, that it is a manifest insanity to lift one's mind above God the creator of this world, so that one might seek what is greater and higher than him: since he is so immense and by nature infinite, that he cannot be grasped by any intellect according to his dignity. For indeed *he dwells in light inaccessible*, 1 Tim. VI, 16.
Annotations of the same on chap. 45. Pag. 154. *Better therefore.* He does not patronize the ignorance of the unskilled, but resists the ostentation and arrogance of the Gnostics, who, inflated by a vain persuasion of an encyclopedia of all disciplines, behaved insolently D toward the simple. Similar things are written by August., serm. 20, on the words of the Apostle: *Better is faithful ignorance than rash knowledge.* And Hieron.: *It is better to be ignorant of something than to learn with danger.* Nazianzenus prefers to be ignorant rather than more curious than is right; and too timid rather than too bold. Lactantius, lib. III, chapter 15, gravely pursues after Tully and Seneca the corrupted morals of some who thought they had ascended to the peaks of human disciplines. *Better therefore it is.* Such sentiments are memorable in Augustine and many others; as lib. V Confess., cap. 4: *Unhappy is the man who knows all things, but knows not thee. But blessed is he who knows thee, even if he is ignorant of those things.* And lib. Medit., cap. 5: *To be wise apart from thee is to be foolish; but to know thee is to know perfectly.* Furthermore, at the end of the preceding sentiment we read, *præstiterit*, from the old codex, with "præceperit" removed. *Which quickens man.* Rightly he attributes spiritual life, that is, the justification of man, to charity; not to faith alone, just as the Centuriators impute to him. *For what.* The old codex marks chap. 43 with the epigraph which is inscribed to this chapter 45. But we propose to read from the old codex: *Quid enim si super hos*, with "super" expunged; and a little later, *Aut iterum si quis* for "cur." *For none of these things at all.* He teaches learnedly and piously that all things are governed by the providence and counsel of God, against Gnostic and Epicurean perfidy; and that nothing either escapes his knowledge or happens in the world against his will: *since it reaches from end to end mightily, and disposes all things sweetly*. This Justin Martyr also confirms from this, that we do not pray to God in vain concerning human affairs. And the blessed Areopagite writes: *The Deity looks upon all things with providence and miraculous goodness*, lib. De divinis nom., cap. 12. Remaining things can be seen in Theophilus Ant., Lactantius, Augustine, etc. *Or counts the sand.* By these four proverbs he elegantly shows that their endeavors are no less vain and ridiculous than if they were to try to empty the sea with a scallop, to search out the weight of the mountains, to measure the breath of the wind, to weigh fire, and to recall the day that has passed. For similar to the above are these, from which the sacred Letters do not shrink. Pag. 155. *Struck by lightning.* He desires to express the Greek word ἐμβρόντητος. He uses a similar proverbial word later in chap. 55.
Annotations of the same on chap. 46. Pag. 155. *But the sense.* More conveniently this first sentence would be joined to the preceding chapter, as the old codex indicates with its argument. *They are, however.* Chapter 44 in the old codex [has] the same epigraph which is affixed to chap. 43 above. It is to be observed how honorably he thinks of the sacred Letters, which he attentively reads, and to which he directs others as to a fountain, so that they may drink in universal piety. By the study and energy of these, Justin Martyr and Tatian were moved, having bid farewell in the same century to all sects of philosophers, so that they could consecrate themselves to the dogmas of Christ. Theophilus urges Autolycus to consult the oracles of the same, if he wishes to escape punishments and obtain perpetual goods. He finally confirms more than once that they are the most ancient and true of all writings, lib. II and III to the same Autolycus. *Placed are.* So the old codex; we have deleted [the word] and soon we have not prefixed the negation "non" to "ambiguis." *He absolves without danger.* To absolve parables, in Greek ἀπολύειν, to dissolve, to explain. *Opposing themselves.* Old codex: *Tantæ videbuntur veritates pugnantes semet invicem.*
A And so, according to this reasoning. He teaches again that the certain and constant rule of our faith is not to be sought from parables, but in open Scriptures, which can only be twisted into various and diverse meanings through struggle.
*Nothing.* We have expunged "nulli"; later, for "ab eo," we have restored "ad eum" from an old codex.
*Since therefore.* He does not wish all Scriptures to be so open and obvious to anyone that there is no obscurity in them, since he frequently affirms this elsewhere; but that they declare so clearly and constantly that one and only God is the creator and ruler of the world, that no one who attends to them can be ignorant. For what is clearer than this: *Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God* (Deut. VI, 4)? And: *Thou shalt not have strange gods before me* (Exod. XX, 5; Deut. V, 7)? And six hundred others such as these.
*Because, indeed.* The old codex marks Chapter 45 with the summary that is attributed above to chapter 44.
*In the very diction, "neither."* The old codex lacks these three little words; the things which he refutes here, he reviewed partly in chapter 1 of book 1, and partly in chapters 16, 17, and 23.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent in chapter 47.
Page 156. *Having therefore a rule.* He teaches that one should not be occupied with vain and curious questions about Bythus, Propatore, and the Aeons, since Scripture perfectly and constantly affirms that there is one true God, who made and administers all things. Furthermore, for "exercere" (to exercise), we read "exerceri" (to be exercised) from the old codex.
*Which most manifestly.* Thus the old codex; the printed copies [lack] "which" most manifestly.
B *If, however, of all.* He most rightly asserts that the holy scriptures, as having proceeded from the Word of God and His Spirit, are perfect in every respect, and therefore should be adhered to with great reverence: but he no less piously proves that they abound in such mysteries that revelation is needed for their understanding, since the cloud upon our mind is so great that we stumble frequently at things that are before our feet, as he confirms with the examples proposed. Those, therefore, are wrong in every way who clamor that the holy Scriptures are so clear, open, and accessible to everyone, that it is permitted to any person, with unwashed feet and hands, to approach them to be handled. "The divine reason," says Tertullian (Lib. de resurrect. carn.), "is in the marrow, not in the surface, and is often an emulator of the manifest: nor could heresies exist if the Scriptures could not also be understood wrongly." Augustine also, in many places, does not doubt that it is provided for through obscure Scriptures (Lib. II *De doct. Chr.*, cap. 6) to tame pride by labor, and to recall the intellect from boredom, to which things easily investigated usually become cheap. And in *Contra Adimantum*, chap. 17: "Sometimes divine authority itself is set forth openly in the Scriptures, sometimes however it is hidden, so that the reader may be instructed by the manifest, and exercised by the obscure." I cannot fail to note in this place that this matter is treated more fully and most elegantly by Procopius of Gaza, in his Preface to Isaiah, which John Curterius, whose soul may enjoy peace, once gave me to look over in Latin, and who has now published the whole Commentary for the benefit of the Church.
C *Indeed by the Word of God and the Spirit.* When he asserts that the Holy Spirit, along with the Son of God, is the author of the holy Scriptures, he plainly acknowledges Him to be God by nature, omniscient, and omnipotent. What follows a little later: *It is not to be wondered at if in spiritual and heavenly things, and those which have to be revealed, we suffer this,* etc., contains a double Hellenism. The former, "have to be revealed," for "have need of revelation; or, are revealed in their own time;" the latter, "we suffer this," for "this happens to us by usage."
*What indeed.* Regarding the increases and floodings of the Nile, Plutarch examines the same in *Lib. IV De plac. philosoph.*, as does Pliny, *Lib. V, cap. 9*. Diodorus reports eight, of which he approves only the last one, in his book *Euterpe*, whom Strabo in book XVII thinks is babbling in these matters. Concerning from where the Nile begins to rise, nor that the causes of its increase can be found, Seneca wrote most correctly, *Lib. V Natur. quæst.*
*But also of the flying ones.* He understands this concerning the departure of swallows, which Pliny thinks seek nearer places and follow the sunny recesses of the mountains, where he asserts they have often been found plucked and featherless, *Lib. X, cap. 24*. The Lord upbraids the Hebrews for their stupidity, by which they did not heed His judgments, having proposed the storks, the turtledoves, the cranes, and the swallows, which sagaciously know the appointed times of their departure and neither anticipate nor pass them by, Jerem. VIII, 7.
*What however can we.* Plutarch, reporting five diverse opinions on the flux and reflux of the Ocean, sufficiently hints at how coldly the philosophers solved the knot of the matter. Pliny attributes those to the sun and moon, *Lib. II, cap. 97*, which also pleased Aristotle, *Lib. II Meteor.* The holy Scriptures ascribe all these things to divine providence, which stirs up the wonderful upsurges of the sea and troubles the deep, and the sound of its waves (Psal. XCI, 4; LXIV, 8). The remaining examples which are subjoined seem to be taken from the book of Job, chapter XXXVII.
D *If therefore also in things.* The old codex marks chapter 46. He collects, however, that not only the words of the holy Scriptures, their dialects, phrases, and various figures of speech are obscure, but also the things that are contained and signified in them: which Origen also approves after Irenaeus, *Lib. VII Contra Celsum*; Ambrose, epistle 44; Jerome, epistle to Paulinus; Augustine, *Lib. XII Confessionum*, cap. 5, *Lib. XI*, cap. 2, and epistle 3 and 119. This same thing also bears witness against the ministers of the heresiarchs, who disagree among themselves with so many commentaries, against their own boasting regarding the perspicuity of both Testaments.
Page 157. *For faith always.* That faith remains even in the future life, not only Irenaeus affirms here, but also Tertullian in these words (Lib. de Pat.): "Tongues, sciences, prophecies are exhausted; faith, hope, charity remain," etc. Remember that faith involves two things: first, that obscurity which the scholastic Fathers called "the latency of the object"; second, that unshakable certainty which repels all doubt far away: these authors rightly wish this latter condition to remain in blessed spirits; the former, however, not at all. Or it remains in regard to the habit and ornament, not in regard to act and exercise.
*If therefore according to.* The old codex marks chapter 47. *And without danger.* The old codex had these four words, which all the printed copies lacked.
*Before.* Origen, in *Lib. De principiis*, testifies that the pagans exercised the Christians with this question: If the world began in time, what was God doing before the world was made? For to call the nature of God idle is at once idle and absurd, or to think that goodness at some time did nothing, and omnipotence at some time did not exercise power, etc. Later he concludes that He made other invisible worlds before He created this visible one: which completely rejects the Talmudic fables of the Jews. For they write therein that God occupied Himself in building various worlds; and when He had created them, He immediately destroyed them, and then rebuilt them, until He had learned to make this world which we now have (Talmud, trac. 4, distinct. 5). Augustine (Lib. XI Confess., cap. 12) judges more correctly, treating the question as...
A a ridiculous commitment, or rather one to be eluded, as he replied to someone proposing it: "He was preparing hell for those who investigate such high things." Yet it can seriously be said: the supreme goodness and power of God could never have been idle by ceasing. For the Divinity, existing outside every place, dwelling within Itself, perpetually blessed in the contemplation of Itself, was working through the eternal and immutable operation of intellect and will; and beholding the world which He conceived in His mind, pondering it with His intelligence, and determining with His will, He resolved to create it in the opportune time, and indeed created it when He willed, etc.
*Apotelestos*. That is, absolute in all numbers and perfect, as far, indeed, as relates to the species (which pertain solely to His essence). Hence, moreover, Aristotle and Pliny desired it to be called *kosmos* by the Greeks, that is, an ornament.
*Cogitare*. Chapter 48 in the old codex has: "But these things"; chapter 49 in the old codex: "But God"; it is chapter 50 in the old codex.
*Labis fructum*. Billius in Greek: *ὑστερήματος καρπὸν καὶ ἀγνοίας προβολὴν ἀποφαίνεσθαι*, that is, the offspring of ignorance, or produced from ignorance. For he recounted that they thought this in book one, chapter one. A little later, "he begins to say," can truly be said.
*Aliud enim est*. I believe he means that one thing is the internal word, which is conceived and held by the mind alone: another is the external, which is brought forth and emitted by the mouth. Hence Lactantius writes (lib. IV, c. 9): "The Greeks say *Logos* more aptly than we say Word (*Verbum*). For *Logos* signifies both discourse and reason." And Jerome says that *Logos* for the Greeks signifies word, speech, discourse, reason, mode, calculation: sometimes also used for a book, from the verb *legō*, which is "I say" or "I collect." A little later, for "that he thinks," we have substituted "he thinks" from the old codex; finally, for "on account of the spiritual," we substituted "through the spiritual" from the old codex.
*Non de semel, sed per partes*. In Greek, *οὐκ εἰς ἅπαξ, καθάπαξ, νεὶ ἀφ᾽ ἅπαξ*, he seems to have read, that is, not at one time, not all things at once. In French, *tout en un coup*.
From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 47. Page 158. "And what of these thing which are beyond him to announce?" Thus Hilary says at the end of Psalm LXVII, 20, that the deep and infinite sea of his own nature exceeds the mind of human opinion, so that we cannot grasp by following with our sense either what is outside it or what is within it. Irenæus truly understood by "those things which are beyond the Ocean," the worlds which are after Him, which Clement of Rome mentions in the *Epistle to the Corinthians*, § 20. On which passage Cotelerius noted many things, citing among others our Irenæus.
Page 157. *Velocitati enim sensus hominum*, etc. Cyril has this again in *Catech.* 6, page 46: "The mind thinks most swiftly; but the tongue requires words and much narration of intermediate topics. For the intellect, indeed, D perceives a great throng of stars; but when one wishes to narrate each one singly, what indeed is the morning star, what the evening star, and what each *per se*, it requires many words," etc. The mind indeed thinks most swiftly; but the tongue requires many words and much enumeration of intermediate discourses. For the eye comprehends the numerous choir of stars at once; but if one wishes to narrate them singly, what is Lucifer, what Vesper, and what each one is, there is need of a long account.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 48. Page 157. *Deus autem*. He does not repeat this sentiment only once. But he wills in this chapter [to show] that God, since He is a spiritual, infinite, and supercelestial substance, is altogether simple and composed by no reasoning, which has also been noted above. And those who B separated the Ennoea, Nus, and Logos—that is, His mind, thought, and Word—from Him at one moment, and joined them the next, and ascribed diverse emissions to them, to subject Him to composition, which is impious and insane.
*Qui ergo dicit*. The old codex marks chapter 51 with this argument: "Demonstration that Nus is Logos, and Logos is Nus; and Nus Himself is the father of all."
*Generationem ejus*. From the old codex, we have restored *enarrabit* ("he shall declare") for *enarravit* ("he declared"); *hominum* ("of men") for *hominis* ("of man"); and *nobis ipsis* ("to us ourselves") for *vobis ipsis* ("to you yourselves"). Furthermore, Athanasius to Epictetus, Alexander to Alexander of Constantinople, and many others refer this testimony of Isaiah to the eternal and ineffable generation of Christ; others to the temporal, by which He was born without a man, from the most holy Virgin. Jerome most wisely [speaks] to both with these words: "For it must either be understood of the Divinity, because it is impossible to know the mysteries of the divine nativity: or of the birth from the Virgin, which can with difficulty be explained." Very many things regarding this matter are related by Eusebius in book five of *Demonstration*, cap. 4; Ephrem in the book against those who wish to scrutinize the nature of the Son of God; Nazianzen in *Orat. 3 de theologia*; Basil in *Orat. de martyre Mamante*; Hilary in book II *De Trinitate*. Finally, Ambrose says in the book *De fide ad Gratianum*: "For me it is impossible to know the secret of this generation. The mind fails, the voice is silent, not mine alone, but also that of the angels. It is permitted to know that the Son was born; it is not permitted to discuss how He was born. To deny that is not permitted to me, to seek it is fear."
Page 158. *Irrationabiliter*. The old codex marks chapter 52 with this epigraph: "How the Lord grants certain things to the Father, and what the cause is C on account of which He says the hour is known by no one else, except the Father alone."
*De die autem illa*. Of this we will speak in the next chapter.
*Si quis itaque*. He represses the impudent temerity of the Gnostics in scrutinizing the eternal generation of the Word with as great a weight of arguments and opinions as he can, by which they also should be deterred who audaciously discuss, gather, and define concerning the same [subject], relying not on the Scriptures, but on Aristotelian reasonings, which it would be better to adore in Christian silence. With far greater religion the prelates of more ancient and sincere theology approached this sacred mountain. "About the supersubstantial and most secret Deity," says Dionys. Areopag., "one must not presume to say or to think anything otherwise than as the sacred oracles have piously and most chastely handed down to us." And the expositor of the Creed in Cyprian: "How the Father begat the Son, do not discuss, nor insert yourself too curiously into the mystery of this depth; lest perchance, while you scrutinize the brightness of inaccessible light too pertinaciously, you lose the slight view which has been granted to mortals by divine gift." And, to reduce many things to a few, Clement *epist. 1 ad Jacobum*; Justin in *Dial.*; Chrysostom, *hom. 4 in Matthæum*; Cyril, *libr. 1 Thesauri*, cap. 5; Venantius in the *Symbolum*, after this Irenæus of ours, all consistently affirm that this mystery is unviewable and incomprehensible even to angelic minds: which some leaden and truly *skoteinoi* ("dark") little men believe they have explored and explained for themselves.
Annotations of the same on chapter 49. Page 158. *Non ergo magnum*. He concludes that it is neither of genius nor of a recondite mystery to attribute human emissions to God; [he affirms] that the matter of all things was created by God; and that many things are to be commended to divine wisdom. Furthermore, we have restored many things from the old codex, which (as always elsewhere) we have enclosed in quotation marks. Moreover, in this place, I could neither omit nor deny that Philip Melanchthon was branded by Schlusselburg, and other Lutherans (Lib. II *Theol. Calv.*, art. 6).
because, in the Mysnian corpus of doctrine, page 310, he attempted to repair the most foolish dreams against the eternal generation of the Son of God, writing that He was born of the thought of the Father. The Church, they say, cannot tolerate this opinion as an article of faith: 1. Because no manifest testimony of Scripture is held for this matter. 2. Because it is a dream not only of foolish reason and philosophy, but even of the ancient heretics. 3. Because in the primitive Church this error was most gravely condemned, as appears from Irenæus. 4. Because it does not depart far from the impious speculation of Samosatenus and Servetus, who said that the Word of the Father was a vanishing thought. 5. From this follow many impious things. For if the thought of the Father is a separate B *hypostasis*, why not also of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? 6. If you separate His substantial thoughts from the person of the Father, what will remain in the person, except an empty name? 7. Human reason cannot state with certainty how a gnat or a flea is generated: what temerity is it, therefore, to state this concerning the eternal Son of God? So far they, and not badly. And would that they thus examined their own Luther as diligently and faithfully as the rest of the errors of this same Philip according to the rule of the most holy antiquity and the balance of the primitive Church: for thus they would cleanse both themselves and countless others from most filthy heresies, and deliver them from eternal punishments, which are certainly prepared for all heretics and schismatics.
*Hunc quasi ipsi*. Thus the old codex; the printed copies had: *hunc quasi ipsum obstetricaverint primi, et generationis ejus*, etc.
*Fantasmari*. This passage has tormented many up to this point, with some suspecting that *fastos mori* or *factos morti* should be read: I think now that the genuine reading has been restored from the old codex: *Neque nos fantasmari oportet ex opinionibus propriis*: for this is how the old translator endeavored to render the Greek *φαντάζεσθαι*. We have expunged *fastos mori*, for the benefit of all.
*Suppedaneum*. Cyprian also reads this way, lib. 41 *Adversus Judæos*, chapter twenty-six, Gr. *ὑποπόδιον*.
*Et divisiones*. We have expunged *divisio nos*.
*Post deinde*. What he refutes here concerning numbers, letters, and syllables, he recounted in the first book, chapters ten and eleven. He shows, moreover, that there is no testimony in the Scriptures by which they can affirm their figments through letters, syllables, or numbers derived from these. A little later, *est autem quando*, etc., is said in a Greek phrase for *interdum autem*.
*Etenim si quis exquirat*. Some have thought that, by these words, the blessed Irenæus simply attributed ignorance to Christ the Lord, who certainly would have rather been to be pardoned if he had uttered this less cautiously—in the heat of refuting the impiety of the Gnostics, who boasted that they knew more than the Fathers, the apostles, the prophets, and even Christ Himself—than to be attacked so wantonly and odiously. But to me, a far different thing seems the case. For indeed, how could he attribute ignorance to Christ now, who in the preceding sections so often held the Gnostics guilty of impiety for subjecting the Sophia and the Monogenes to the passions of the Father's ignorance? Or how would he here envelop with the shadows of nescience Him whom he so fervently, and in every place, inculcates as God of gods and Lord of all, altogether equal and coeternal to the Father, more than Solomon and Jonah, the judge of the living and the dead?
Therefore, he only means to refer the knowledge of the final day, about which it is treated, to the Father: just as he openly professes that He received His works, His life, and indeed His very deity from Him by the same eternal generation; so that He may teach us sobriety, and we may not blush to leave the labyrinths of difficult questions to God. Whoever, with a mind not turned aside by any passions of error, weighs the previous writings of Irenæus with the present ones, will judge with me that this was his intention.
*Cæterum*, the opinion by which Marcus is seen to have wished that the hour and day of judgment escaped Christ just as it escaped the angels, the Arians once twisted, so that they might assert Him to be a creature, and not at all *homoousios* with the Father, just as Athanasius and Hilary 66 report. Photinus also, according to Vigil the martyr, denies that Christ is God, because he admitted that He was ignorant of the day of judgment. Isidore reports that certain heretics, called Agnoitae from this, were named because they imputed the ignorance of the day of judgment to Christ. But lest the later ones depart a finger's breadth from the earlier Gnostics, our age reads that the Calvinists have progressed to such a degree of impiety that they attribute to Christ Jesus, God and man, our Savior, the ignorance of many things. For Brentius 67 wishes that He matured not only in body, but also in mind. Osiander calls the simpleton Faber an idiot 68. Rodolphus Gualtherus 69 subjects Him to the common ignorance of men. Molineus 70 blathers that He did not have all knowledge from the beginning (as the papists dream) but by degrees; Gallasius, in his *Annotations* on this place of Irenæus, did not blush to write that He was ignorant so that He might learn Himself, and be educated in the manner of men.
Is not this that *ῥᾳδιούργημα*, that is, the fallacious and invented comment of the Gnostics, by which they dreamt that Christ had learned the alphabet under the rod of a teacher, as Irenæus reported in book 1, chapter 17? But it is better to finish these viperous progenies with those arrows with which Hilary C formerly finished the Arians: "Is it credible," he says, "that He is ignorant of something out of all things, who is the author for all things to what they are and will be? If all things are through Christ, and in Christ, and thus through Him, how would all things not also be in His knowledge?" Christ is not ignorant of human thoughts, not only those excited by present movement, but even those to be stirred by the instinct of future will, the Gospel testifying: *Jesus knew from the beginning who were those not believing, and who would be the one to betray Him 71*.
Of Him we remember it is written: *All things were created through Him and in Him, and He is before all 72*. And that: *Because it has pleased [God] that all fullness should dwell in Him, and all things to be reconciled in Him 73*. Will Christ be present, and is He to be understood as being held by the ignorance of the day of His own advent? Is it His day, according to the Apostle 74, and is He to be understood as being bound by the ignorance of it? Of the human nature, which they define He acts, they know, and the condition of things to be done follows the condition of the will for acting; but truly God born, who is in Himself and through Himself, does not know? Paul, the doctor of the Gentiles, does not suffer this profession of impious error among us, so that the Only-begotten God should be imagined to be ignorant of anything; he says: *In Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden 75*.
To these words of Hilary I add the most grave judgment of Augustine 76: "I would in no way," he says, "have believed that ignorance was in that infant, in whom the Word was made flesh, so that He might dwell in us: nor have I suspected in the infant Christ the infirmity of His own soul, which we see in infants."
Let those superior to the two Latins in the age of the Greeks, and not inferior in piety or doctrine, approach. Justin the Martyr writes openly 77: *προσάπτειν τῷ Χριστῷ ἄγνοιαν, ἐστὶν ἀσεβές*, "To attribute ignorance to Christ is impious." And Clement of Alexandria: "Christ, just now regenerated, is already perfect."
Or, which is most absurd, does he lack anything? But if it is so, it was necessary that he should learn something. But that he, being God, should have learned nothing is consistent. Lib. Pædag., ch. 6 and 11.
It remains, therefore, that we believe with blessed Peter, in Clement's Recognitions, that Christ professed not to know the day and the hour, in order to recall everything to the Father. Or with Hilary, in the sense that he spoke as he had said before that he had come down to discover the clamor of Sodom and Gomorrah. Or with Augustine and Basil, we understand that because he was usefully concealing this from the disciples, he said he was ignorant, because he would not confer upon men to hear the time of judgment at that moment, whom he was causing to be ignorant by concealing it. Jerome attests in his Commentary on Matthew 24 that the clause, "nor the Son," had been added in certain Latin exemplars, and that the Greek, especially that of Pierius and Adamantius, did not have it; for which reason it perhaps casts no light suspicion upon many that it might have been added by the Arians. Furthermore, against the Lutherans who defend this error, I oppose Luther himself, who responded to M. Stifel when he asked about this: "Christ also, according to his humanity, well knew the time of judgment. But he ought to be ignorant in order to reveal it to men, since he was not sent for that purpose." Rebenstock reports this in Vol. I of the *Colloquies*, page 50. Against the Calvinists, I opposed their own Calvin in the 4th dialogue.
Notes by the same on ch. 50. Page 159. *Let us return.* The ancient codex marks chapter 53 here, with this argument: *On the nature of the soul.* But what it refutes, he reviewed in the first book, not far from the middle of the first chapter. He transmits, however, that the things which were prattled about the Mother returning into the Pleroma and the animal Demiurge are mere figments. *But the souls of the just.* He teaches that the souls of the just are not saved because they are spiritual substances—for then all would be saved by equal right, and none would be adjudged to eternal fires. But they will be saved on account of faith, justice, and just works: which, since they have labored with bodies and through their own bodies, it is necessary that they themselves also be saved, the Son of God saying: "Those who have done good will proceed to the resurrection of life." Therefore, he errs, as Augustine piously teaches, who thinks that when the Lord comes to judgment, a man is not judged according to his works, who already through age could use the free choice of his will. For Scripture says: "Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that works evil: but glory and honor and peace to everyone who works good." "Each one will receive of his own body, according to what he has done, whether good or evil," etc. These things, I ask, let the assertors of faith alone diligently observe.
*But the departure is superfluous.* Billius: "In this place, it cannot be avoided for me that for 'departure' (*discessio*), we must substitute 'descent' (*descensio*, κάθοδος)." For Irenæus desires this: If salvation is obtained for human souls not on account of virtue but on account of substance, there is no need for anyone to take up faith: nay, there was no cause for why Christ should descend to earth: since even without faith, and without the descent of Christ, all souls would have obtained salvation, since they are of one and the same substance: all, etc. Below there is much that is so sickly that it can scarcely be healed without the aid of a better exemplar.
Notes by the same on ch. 51. Page 160. *For because.* He shows that the bodies of the just are about to participate in the same place of refreshment as the souls, for the reason that they also participated in the works of justice. The same argument is followed by Tertullian, in a looser, but more vehement style: "While our flesh," he says, "is accounted the minister and handmaid of the soul, A a companion and coheir is found; if the soul, why not also the eternal?" etc. Furthermore, Cyril of Jerusalem opens up the use of this place with these words in Cathechism 4: "I advise you to treat this body modestly: and recognize that with your body you will rise to judgment." B *Will emerge.* So the old codex; we expunge, "and whole," which we have deleted.
Notes by the same on ch. 52. Page 160. *But they.* The old codex has chapter 54 with this epigraph: "Since according to their discourse, when souls are saved, it is necessary that bodies participate in salvation." But those things which he argues in this chapter are had in book 1, chapter 1. *What however is.* It is chapter 55 in the old codex with the argument of chapter 51. *What then any longer.* It is the beginning of chapter 36 in the old codex with the argument of chapter 52. *To whom.* We have deleted, "and," C an addition of the old codex, with the consensus of the context of the Scriptures: so that around the beginning of the chapter we have replaced, "the first thing," for "when."
Notes by the same on ch. 53. Page 160. *And in general.* It seems to me that only this prior sentence is to be separated from the rest of the preceding chapter. *Concerning those who are reported in fables as giants.* That there were giants is agreed upon among all sacred and profane authors: but because there is great dissension concerning their origin and stature, it was pleasing to note these things, having repeated them a little further back. The Theogony of Hesiod tells fables that they were born from the blood of Uranus sprinkled upon the earth, when his son Saturn had cut off his private parts; to which Diodorus assents in his fourth book. That men did not have fathers of the same, he reports, the book published under the name of Enoch, and for that reason, as rightly judged by the prudent to be supposititious, Augustine teaches in *De civit. Dei*, book 15, ch. 23. Therefore, according to the canonical Scriptures, the same author adds, there is no doubt that there were many giants before the flood, citizens of the earthly society of men. Nor is it to be wondered at that they could be born from the children of Seth, since D the Creator wished to show that not only the beauties but also the magnitudes of bodies are not to be held in great esteem by the wise. And in Quest. 4 on Genesis, he writes that it is easily believed that great and strong men could be born of women, because even after the flood such were found, and because some bodies of men and women existed in their own age in an incredible manner huge. To these Cyril adds that by that deformity of face and monstrous vastness of body, divine wrath punished the sins of men. Theodoret, hearing the divine Scripture saying about Enoch that he was descended from the giants; and that Og had an iron bed of nine cubits in length and four in breadth; and the scouts likewise reporting that they were like locusts in the sight of them, and the Lord saying: "They have delivered the Amorite, whose height was as the cedar, and who was strong as the oak": he rightly opines that Josephus erred, when he writes that there existed some pergrande men, who because of their magnitudes and forms, in no way near other men, were admirable beyond measure to the rest, in the fifth book of his *Antiquities*. Other Hebrews think they were called "Nephilim," that is, "the falling," because men fell, oppressed by fear at the sight of them: or because they fell in the flood (which Berosus rightly asserts was sent because of their execrable and nefarious lusts), so that Job says of them in ch. xxvi: "Giants groan under the waters"; or because they fell in great ruin on account of the height of their stature. And these things concerning their origin and stature. Furthermore, profane writers narrate that their attempt was to heap up three greatest mountains, Olympus, Ossa, and Pelion, hoping that in this way...
A they would easily prepare a path for themselves, by which they might escape to the celestial heights, wage war upon the powers above, and cast Jupiter down from heaven: but that upon a thunderbolt being launched, they themselves perished. Hence arose the proverb: Γιγάντων ἀπόνοια, the arrogance of the Giants, applied to those who rashly attempt things that should not be attempted, aiming at piety, justice, and equity against God, which always turns back upon them with unfortunate results. Therefore, Irenæus quite appositely says that the Gnostics, and subsequently all heretics who are rebels against God, rejoice in their error and glory in it only when they have committed an insult against the Church. Origen, Homily 7 on Numbers, and Jerome on Isaiah xxiv.
*Vana* (Vain). Thus for *vani* we have substituted the reading of the ancient codex.
*Elleborum* (Hellebore). Pliny and Dioscorides note two kinds of hellebore: the white, by which vomitings are induced, and the stomach and upper belly are purged; and the black, by which the lower bowels are washed out. It was believed by the ancients that both are an effective remedy against melancholy and for easing the ailments of the head and mind; and hence those who were deranged and unstable in their senses were said to have *ἐλλεβόρου δεῖσθαι*, that is, to have need of hellebore.
106 *Heliorem enim.* Cap. 57 marks the ancient codex, by whose authority we have deleted *melior*.
Pag. 161. *Ab operibus itaque.* With the best of rights he argues that they are not only inferior to the Demiurge, but not even worthy to loosen the strap of the apostles' sandals, since their dogma was supported in no way either by purity of life or by the working of miracles. Tertullian afterwards confutes them in the same manner: "Let them prove," he says, "that they are new apostles, and let them produce the same signs. I wish, therefore, to bring forward their virtues, except that I recognize their greatest virtue, by which they imitate the apostles in a perverse way. For those [the apostles] used to make the living from the dead; these make the dead from the living." In this way also Augustine addresses the Manichaeans: "Thus, neither does the antiquity of the authority of the Scriptures, nor the power of miracles, nor the health of morals, nor the truth of reason vindicate you: depart C confounded, and return confessing," etc. Regarding the miracles of the later Gnostics, it seemed sufficient to add only what Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote in the year of our Lord 1526, in his *Diatribe on Free Will*: "The Apostles," he says, "since they shook off vipers, healed the sick, raised the dead, and by the laying on of hands gave the gifts of tongues; so at last belief was granted—and it was even then barely granted—to them when they taught paradoxes. Now, when they bring forward things almost more paradoxical according to common opinion, not one of them has yet existed who has been able to heal even a lame horse." On these, see again cap. 56.
*Eduxerunt.* We have deleted *adduxerunt* according to the ancient codex.
*Annotations of the same on cap. 54.*
Pag. 161. *Erant enim.* Cap. 58 has the ancient codex; those things which he refutes here, he had already reviewed in Book 1, cap. 1. He mocks them wittily, because they boasted that they were a spiritual conception of those Æons who had contributed to the formation of Pandora, supra cap. 57, D when they were rather rejected abortions, useful or advantageous for nothing at all.
*Matri.* We have deleted *matris*, and below, for *si*, we have restored *sic*, according to the ancient codex.
*Sic autem et hi.* He mocks them because they said they were women who could ascend to their male angels above the Demiurge, that is, the God who created this world.
*Si autem contenderint.* With a dilemma he proves that Bythos created absolutely nothing of earthly or celestial things; but that only God the Almighty did so. Meanwhile, both here and a little earlier, seven orders of angels are enumerated: to which if you add the cherubim and seraphim, you will find nine.
*Annotations of the same on cap. 55.*
Pag. 162. *Quoniam autem.* Cap. 59 marks the ancient codex. He teaches, however, that spiritual creatures, such as the nine orders of angels, and innumerable other blessed spirits (Apoc. VII), exist in the heavens, and that Paul in his rapture heard celestial mysteries; furthermore, that all those things are subject to the Creator, or Demiurge. And therefore, one should not look for another arrangement or fullness of spiritual things above him. Or if there were any, Paul would undoubtedly have been caught up and admitted to the contemplation of it.
*Jam et ipse subjectus Salvatori, ut dicunt.* We read thus with the ancient codex. We have deleted, however, *subjectis salvationi dicunt*.
*Et hæc cum interior homo.* In the Greek manner it is said *et hæc*, for *idque*.
Pag. 165. *Et vere est.* He confirms that the Demiurge, who created the celestial spirits and celestial bodies, is not an animal being: nor are the Gnostics spiritual, endowed with a power greater than others, seeing that they could not even fashion a fly or a gnat.
*Si autem animalis.* Cap. 60 has the ancient codex.
*Qui nullius operationis.* That is, it is not in their power to perform anything. In Greek, *οὐδενὸς ἔργου κύριοί εἰσι*. So also below: "Et est substantia hominum voluntas ejus," for "Sola ipsius voluntate homines in ortum producti sunt." BILLIUS.
*Hic est qui.* Ancient codex: "Hic qui est."
*Quem prophetæ præconiant.* *Κηρύττουσιν*, they preach. For so *κηρύξ*, that is, a herald, is derived from the verb *κηρύττω*, I preach, I herald. Furthermore, Valentinus the Gentile proved himself far more base and wicked than the ancient Gnostics, when he tried to steal from this passage of Irenæus a divinity coeternal and unitary with the Father for the Son of God. For here it is only asserted that there is a single God, the creator of all things, the author of both Testaments, who became known to all through Christ. Yet it is so far from being the case that the divinity of the Son is weakened; that on the contrary, it is evidently and constantly confirmed, since it is proven from Paul that all things were made and arranged through him, as through the power and wisdom of the Father; and it is preached in the clearest words that he always coexisted with the same Father: by which it is effected that the Son is God eternal and consubstantial in nature with the Father. For the power and wisdom of the Father is not an accident to him, which happened in time; but God himself, to whom, according to Augustine, it is not one thing to know, to be able, and to understand, than to be. Moreover, the word *solus* (alone), repeated a few times, excludes the fictitious Æons, Bythos, Achamoth, etc., not the Son or the Holy Spirit, as is obvious to any reader.
*Annotations of the same on cap. 56.*
Pag. 163. *Destructis itaque.* Cap. 61 marks the ancient codex. Furthermore, this most elegant *ἀνακεφαλαίωσις* (recapitulation) touches upon nearly all the things which he has argued diffusely throughout this whole second book, specifically against the Valentinians; confirming that the same arguments can be said against the remaining heretics also.
Pag. 164. *Avertes et confundes.* We have deleted *avertens et confundens*, according to the ancient codex.
*Nec enim cæcis.* There is no slight dispute among theologians as to whether heretics can sometimes perform true miracles, which Irenæus clearly denies here. The author of the *Questions* attributed to Justin, Question 100, openly denies that divine grace operates through those gifts in living or dead heretics. Clement of Rome, *Recog.* lib. 3, makes the Apostle Peter respond thus to Simon Magus, who was displaying his sorceries: "As the magicians misled Pharaoh, so did they oppose Moses by the art of the demons."
A And so to me. But true miracles are always beneficial to men, and take place while the infirm are being healed: false ones, however, are merely for show, like barking after brazen dogs. The adversary, moreover, cannot perform miracles that are beneficial to men, except, perhaps, at the very end of the world. Augustine rebukes the Manichaeans: "You do not perform the miracles which, if you did perform them, we would be on guard against even within ourselves, through the Lord who instructs us and says: 'Many pseudo-Christs shall arise, and shall show signs and wonders'."
They report that some have attempted to produce miracles so that they might verify their errors: but with God rejecting their impiety and exposing their councils, these have been turned to the confusion and destruction of their authors; just like the ministers of Baal, and the magicians of Pharaoh, and the sons of Sceva, as is recorded in the scriptures. For Simon Magus, attempting to ascend into the heavens, was dashed to the ground in such a way that, his legs broken, he could no longer walk. Polychronius, in the presence of the Synod in Trullo held at Constantinople, promising to resurrect a dead man, when he had attempted it in vain for many hours, was hissed at by all. Manes, having promised that he could restore to health the son of the king of the Persians who was struck by a lethal disease, upon the death of the same, paid the heavy, yet deserved, price. The Arians could not relieve the son of the Emperor Valens who was lying sick with a grave illness. Cirola, the pseudo-bishop of these same Arians, having lured a man with 50 gold pieces to feign blindness and publicly ask to be healed by him, when he attempted to do so, to the great disgrace of himself and the other Arians, he blinded him completely. Another Arian bishop attempted a similar deed with equal fraud, induced by the command of King Leovigild, but with the same result, ignominious to the heretics, but a laughingstock to the pious.
Those who defend the opposing view maintain that Tertullian feels as they do in his book *Against Marcion*: where he denies that the mere appearance of miracles served as testimony for Christ through proofs of power, which he also himself later deposed: "For," he says, "in declaring that many would come and would show signs, and would perform great miracles, he demonstrates the rash faith in signs and miracles, which is easiest of all even among pseudo-Christs." Nor do they think it a small argument justifying their cause, which Sozomen in book 1, cap. 14, and Socrates in book VII, cap. 17 and 18, have handed down in their histories regarding the miracles of certain Novatians. And they do not consider it more absurd that heretics, who dissent from us only in a few articles, can perform true miracles, than the Jews, whom it is established—from Josephus, book VIII *Antiquities*, cap. 2, and Irenaeus, book II, cap. 5—cured those vexed by demons. They also contend not lightly that Augustine stands on their side, in his book II *On the Sermon of the Lord on the Mount*, cap. 40, and most extensively of all in his book *LXXXIII Questions*, q. 79. But as to whom one should rather adhere, let the Church pronounce. See annotations on chapter 8 of the first book.
But that the resurrection. Tertullian explains more clearly: "They twist the resurrection of the dead, which was clearly announced, into an imaginary meaning, asserting that death itself must be understood spiritually. For they say this is not a discord of body and soul, but ignorance of God, through which a man being dead to God has lain in error no less than in a sepulcher. And therefore that resurrection is to be vindicated, by which one, having attained the truth, is revived and made alive to God, and with the death of ignorance dispelled, has erupted as if from the sepulcher of the old man. By this device, finally, they are also accustomed to deceive our people in conversations, as if they themselves admitted the resurrection. 'Woe,' they say, 'to him who has not resurrected in this flesh.' They silently mean, however: 'Woe to him who, while he is in this flesh, has not known heretical mysteries'; for this is the resurrection among them."
Let us join these modern examples to the ancient ones, so that we may observe the same divine judgment against these same frauds of the devil and his ministers. Lindanus and Surius write that Luther wished to recall to life a certain Wilhelm Nesenus who had been submerged in the river Elbe: but all in vain. Fredericus Staphylus reports that he himself was present with that same Luther in 1545, when he attempted to heal by exorcisms, which he had fabricated himself, a demon-possessed girl brought to him from Misnia to Wittenberg. The demon, however, not wishing to depart, drove Luther into such straits that a way had to be opened for him by force, so that he might save himself and his followers by fleeing from the vestry. Bredembachius also testifies with Surius that the ministers of Lutheran doctrine at Augsburg, in the year 1563, attempted to drive a demon out of the body of a certain girl, the daughter of the Augsburg citizen Michael Rossimannus, in confirmation of their word; but with the same disgrace and lack of success as their master. And that we may subject the Calvinists to the Lutherans, Hieronymus Bolsecus writes in his *Life of Calvin* that the same Calvin persuaded a certain Burlarus of Oste with a considerable sum of money to feign death, so that he might be resurrected by Calvin by pre-arrangement: but by divine retribution, when it was attempted, he was found dead, and the heresiarch was deluded in his hope. Turrianus is a very learned and grave author regarding a similar thing which happened 107 in Poland to a certain needy Matthew, who, in the hope of gain, induced by a minister into the same simulation, breathed out his unhappy spirit in the very attempt; finally, Genebrardus reports that another minister in the town of Picardy, Chalnico (in French, Chargny), threw and drowned a man possessed by a demon, enclosed in a sack, into the river Isara, when he could not force the evil spirit from him: which resulted in the perpetual ignominy of the Calvinists. It is clear, therefore, that heretics neither illuminate the blind, nor cast demons out of bodies.
B Furthermore, although one may have observed, "Great is the communion between heretics and evil spirits," we have noted in the first chapter of the first book: here it only pleases me to add what Tertullian has: "The commercial dealings of heretics with magicians are also known, as well as with charlatans, with astrologers, with philosophers dedicated to curiosity. To such an extent that the quality of faith can be estimated from the type of conversation: doctrine is the index of discipline, etc."
Page 165. *Nihil esset*. We have expunged 'esse'; and soon after, for 'opinioni' we restored 'opinione', on the authority of an old manuscript.
From Jo. Er. Grabius's annotations on chapter 56. Page 164. *Ea quæ sunt extra veritatem transferentes ad characterem suæ doctrinæ*. In Greek: *τα έξω τῆς ἀληθείας μεταενέγκαντες εἰς χαρακτῆρα διδασκαλίας ἑαυτῶν*. He understands by "those things which are outside the truth," mathematical or other philosophical hypotheses alien to Christian doctrine, as is clear regarding the Basilidians from the previous page 99, col. 2, line 7 (page 102, col. 2, l. 18), etc. So also shortly after, on the following page, he says: "Those things which are of the truth, that is, those which pertain to sacred doctrine, or are sought from the Holy Scriptures."
*Draconis*. Irenaeus understood the Antichrist who is to come in the mentioned place in the Apocalypse, whom other Fathers later followed.
Page 165. *Non solum qui mœchatur*, etc. Twin C
A *is not the number to be told.* Hellenism, for “the number of graces cannot be begun.”
VARIOUS NOTES
The author taught this not only in Justin Martyr’s 2nd *Apology*, page 62 seq., for the Christians, but also in Basilides the heresiarch’s twenty-second book of *Commentaries on the Gospel*, of which see the words in tome 1 of the *Spicilegium of the Heretics of the second century*, page 40.*Without cause.* From this passage and book IV, chapter 31, one might perhaps have gathered that Irenaeus read the *eikē* in Matthew 5:21, which some think crept into the sacred New Testament codex from the Latin version, in which it is gathered from his writings to have been read already in Cyprian’s time. However, this argument is resisted by the fact that our author writes in book I, chapter 27: “The Lord commanded, instead of 'Thou shalt not kill,' not even to be angry.” Whence also in other places this word “without cause” could seem to have been inserted by a translator or some scribe into the Latin Irenaeus. But hardly anything certain can be affirmed beyond mere rashness, nor is this the place to say more on this matter.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 57.* Page 165. *Eversion* (The first word of the argument). We have expanded to “Conversion” by the authority of the ancient codex. But the things refuted in this chapter, he had recited in book I, chapter 24, speaking of the followers of Carpocrates: and likewise in chapter 35, concerning the Ophites and the Cainites. He shows, moreover, that the ancient Gnostics labored most zealously to defile themselves with every kind of lust, but bestowed no effort on the fine arts, or liberal arts, or mechanical ones, or even on virtues.
*They call.* We have deleted “call” by the authority of the ancient codex. *Not Jesus.* The ancient codex lacks the negation, but reads affirmatively: “They boast of Jesus as master;” for the blessed martyr laments that such wretched monsters lie hidden under a blessed name.
*Nor by angelic invocations.* Namely, of the malignant spirits, whom the Simonians, Marcionites, Carpocratians, and other sorcerers summoned for help to practice their illusions. Furthermore, we demonstrated that good angels, as patrons before God, are to be piously invoked in the *Appendix against Heresies*, under the title “Angel,” and in the *Commentary on the Book of Esther*, in the digression on prayer, art. 6.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 58.* Page 167. *Concerning the body.* The ancient codex marks it as chapter 62. Moreover, the metempsychosis which he failed to mention here was asserted by Simon Magus, Carpocrates, and their followers, as he wrote in book one, chapters twenty and twenty-four. Furthermore, Lactantius reports that this transmigration of souls was accepted from the Pythagoreans and Stoics. Since they feared that argument of the Epicureans B by which they concluded that it was necessary for souls to perish with the bodies, because they are born with the bodies, they said that souls are not born, but rather insinuated into bodies, and from these migrate into others and others. Nicetas subscribes to Lactantius in book one of the *Thesaurus of Orthodoxy*, chapter four. This assertion is also manifest in Plato’s *Phaedo*. Justin Martyr, in his *Dialogue*, reports that the Jews had finally fallen into this error. And not without reason; for in the Talmud, order four, treatise two, they affirm that the soul of Abel migrated into Seth, and this later into Moses. Jerome also thinks that those Jews who opined Christ to be either Jeremiah, or Elias, etc., were held by the same error; and accordingly that Herod himself, thinking him to be John, whom he had beheaded, etc. That view is indeed refuted at length also by Lucian, in several places, especially in *The Rooster*. By ecclesiastical writers after Irenaeus, it is refuted by Tertullian in his *Apology* and book *On the Soul*; by Tatian in his *Oration against the Greeks*; by Clement of Alexandria in book four of the *Stromata*; by Origen in book one *Against Celsus*; by Lactantius in book III, chapter 18, and book VII, chapter 25; by Jerome *Against Ruffinus*; by Augustine in book X *On the City of God*, chapter 30; by Cyril of Alexandria in book VI *Against Julian*.
*But they boast.* By a collation of their works with the works of Our Lord Jesus Christ, he refutes their perverse boasting, and proves that they are more similar to Simon Magus, a most abandoned scoundrel, than to the Lord, to whom, however, they preferred themselves.
Page 16... *But to Simon Magus.* His illusions he touched upon in book I, chapter 20, but Abdias in book I of the *Apostolic History* and Clement of Rome in book III of the *Recognitions* described them more fully beforehand, so that Irenaeus seems to have gathered these things from them.
*If also the Lord.* Eusebius* also transcribed this whole passage, up to that point below: *Nor by angelic invocations*, etc. Furthermore, he enumerates the four charisms C of the Holy Spirit, in which the Church flourished at that time; many things, and notable ones, are read about these in the writers of that century and the following, which it will not be useless to touch upon in few words. Concerning the ejection of demons, Justin writes¹⁰: “The demons fear the power of the name of Christ, trembling, and today, adjured by the name of Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, they do what is commanded.” The same author again in his first *Apology*: “Many who were possessed throughout the whole world, and in this very city (Rome), many of our Christians, adjured by the name of Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate, healed: whom neither other adjurers, nor enchanters, nor exorcists could heal.” Tertullian also has beautiful things on this matter in chapter 25 of the *Apology*, which we intentionally omit.
The donation of prophecy—that it was possessed in the highest degree by Quadratus of Athens—is witnessed by Eusebius in book IV of his *History*. That revelations and visions concerning future things often happened to Polycarp and Cyprian¹¹, they themselves are sufficient witnesses for themselves. But also, Dionysius the Areopagite, in epistle 8, writes that a vision clearly marvelous happened to the Blessed Carpus. That one was raised from the dead in that century, Eusebius confirms by the testimony of Papias, book III of his *History*, chapter 39.
*They perform.* Namely, the virtues of healings, about which the Apostle writes in 1 Corinthians 12:10.
*They would become.* We have expunged “would become”; and immediately D we have replaced “as” with “as in” from the ancient codex.
*From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on chapter 58.* Page 167. *Let us subvert from this*, etc. By the same argument Clement of Alexandria subverts metempsychosis in his *Prophetic Eclogues*, § 17, writing: *’Eχρῆν γὰρ καὶ εἰδέναι ἡμᾶς ὅπου ἦμεν, εἰ προῆμεν.* “For it was necessary also for us to know where we were, if we had been before.”
*And especially coming to this.* This clause does not fit with what immediately precedes it, and therefore it seems it ought to be referred to that which follows: *that they might supply what was lacking, and not being turned around time and again about the same things perpetually, they might labor miserably*; so that the material in between, being placed as if in a parenthesis, is to be understood. For to that end the Carpocratians taught that souls come into other bodies, that the wickedness which is lacking, not having been perpetrated by them before, they might thereafter perform, and thus fully complete their quota.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 59.* Page 167. *To these things.* The ancient codex marks it as chapter 63. But what he asserts, that Plato first introduced *metempsychosis*, hardly convenes with Epiphanius and Lactantius, who write that Pythagoras, before Plato, asserted the same. Plutarch attributes this also to Empedocles, in his second treatise *On the Eating of Flesh*. That Mercury Trismegistus described emigrations of this kind in a poetic rite; and indeed that Zoroaster, more ancient than all these, taught the very same thing in the book whose title is *Magical Oracles of the Magi following Zoroaster*, is witnessed by Rhodiginus in book 18.
A Chapter 21. Therefore, understand that Plato was the first to introduce this same idea, whether among the Athenians or by newly devised arguments. We have restored "Athenian" for "approaching" based on the authority of an old codex. "They are made to drink of oblivion." Tertullian in his book *On the Soul*, chapter 15, and in book 1 of *Retractions*, chapter 4, and in book 6 of *On the Literal Meaning of Genesis*, chapters 9, 10, 11, and in book 10, chapter 4, most fiercely attacks this Platonic dream after Irenaeus, against Plato’s *anamnesis*. Finally, Lactantius also in book 7, chapter 22. Moreover, they call the river *Lethe*, because that which is *lethe* signifies oblivion. For it is, as the same Plato thought, the *palingenesia* or exit. Virgil sings of the same river in book 6 of the *Aeneid*; Macrobius explains the mythology of it in book 1 of *On the Dream of Scipio*. "And it escaped him, himself." A Grecism, for: "imprudently fell into another greater difficulty." For if "the cup of oblivion was drunk," this is again a Grecism, for: "the cup of oblivion was drunk." *The same commentator's notes on chapter 60.* Page 167. "Against them, however." He refutes their opinion, those who claimed that the human body itself is the cause of oblivion, whereas, on the contrary, sensitive memory is rather born and fostered by the organs and ministries of the same, as the remembrance of past things, which we know through the benefits of the eyes or ears, even in dreams, sufficiently proves. Finally, the prophets, when they were truly in the body, mindful of celestial visions, made them known to others as well. Therefore, our body is not the precise oblivion of things. Whoever requires a lengthy discussion on human memory should consult Augustine, book 10 of the *Confessions*, from chapter eight to the twentieth. "But at the same time." These two words, "would be taken from the eyes," which added nothing to the matter, we have deleted on the authority of the old codex, so that the reading might be more open and clear. *The same commentator's notes on chapter 61.* Page 168. "For it is not stronger." He proves from the effects of the soul that it dominates the body and has the role of an artisan, but the body that of an instrument. Hence Cyril of Jerusalem depicts the soul thus: "Recognize that the soul is of its own right, or free in its will, a most beautiful work of God, immortal according to the image of its maker." And concerning the making of the body, he adds in another description: "Since therefore the body does not sin by itself, but the soul sins through it; the body is a certain instrument of the soul, and as it were a garment and stole of the soul," etc. *Catechism 4*. "For the body." This is the beginning of chapter 65 in the old codex. The same Cyprian illustrates this passage: "The soul rests on the body as a workman on a hammer or anvil, in which he forms the idols of all shameful deeds, and whatever phantoms of lusts one may imagine are fabricated." You have more abundantly on this in Augustine, book 14 of *The City of God*, chapter 3. *The same commentator's notes on chapter 62.* C gie of the soul. But that the spirits departing from here remember what they did here, and from whom they departed, is asserted from the narrative of Lazarus and the rich man, and it is the constant opinion of the Fathers. Cyprian hands down that we expect a great number of our loved ones in heaven—parents, brothers, children—a copious crowd that we yearn for, secure in their safekeeping and still anxious for our own. Augustine, intending to console the widow Italica, dares to promise her that her husband will be very well known to her in heaven. Jerome piously thinks that we are lifted up against the hardness of death and its most cruel necessity by this solace, that we are soon to see those whom we grieve as absent; *Epistle to Theodora*. *From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 62.* Page 168. *Having a soul*. Note that Irenaeus attributes to reprobate men only a soul with the body, not a spirit. Concerning this matter, read book 5, chapter 8. In that account which is written about the rich man and Lazarus. Similarly Clement of Alexandria in *Excerpts from Theodotus* and the *Oriental Didascalia of the Valentinians*, page 792, col. 1: "But on the contrary, from Lazarus and the rich man, through their bodily members, the soul is shown to be corporeal." Tertullian also relies on the same argument in his book *On the Soul*, chapter 7. Page 168. "If therefore." Chapter 66 in the old codex notes: Furthermore, the transmigration of souls overturns the sense of this, from the fact that just as every individual is endowed with his own body, so also with his own soul: and in both all will rise again, so that they may receive, according to what they have done, whether good or evil. "But most fully." Chapter 67 in the old codex has: But what he hands down here, and in the next chapter, concerning the character and figure of souls that have already laid aside their bodies, must be referred to that inclination which they have to be one day rejoined with them: unless someone has wished to think that which Tertullian later said more openly: That the soul is not altogether devoid of material and corporeal composition, and therefore preserves the human image of that body which each one carried about, its bodily lines, and an airy and luminous color; in his book *On the Soul*, the chapter on... *From the annotations of Nicolaus Gallesius on chapter 65.* Page 168. "That souls have the shape of a man, so that they may even be recognized." When Irenaeus attributes a shape to the soul, it seems he also attributes something corporeal to them. For we cannot conceive of a shape or form except in those things which fall under sight. But spiritual creatures are not seen by us, nor can their shape be stated or thought by us. They have, indeed, their own hypostasis and essence, likewise qualities and accidents. But to imagine them as bodies, or to attribute to them those things which are attributed to bodies, is foreign to reason and absurd. Let us, therefore, weigh what Irenaeus means. His purpose is to show that a soul proper to each man was given by God, so that even after death the souls may be no less distinguished from others, and separated by their own peculiar marks, than when they were clothed in their bodies. Which is certainly true. For if the soul of Judas were not distinguished from the soul of Peter, the soul of Lazarus from the soul of Lazarus the rich glutton, the diverse condition of each would not be distinguished. If, however, departing from one body it migrated into another, as those fanatics claimed, it could be said to be the soul of this one no more than that one. Therefore, departing from this life, it will have its own character, so that it may be known even afterward as that of the one to whom it previously belonged. What Irenaeus therefore calls the "same character of the body"—let us not, however, think it is corporeal—but let us refer it to the whole person, that is, to the individual himself, by whose character the soul will be marked even after death. *Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 63.* Page 168. "For through these things." This very brief chapter comprises many things most worthy of observation from the superior evangelical account of Lazarus and the glutton. First, it is demonstrated by most certain examples—Abraham, Lazarus, and the glutton, who had already ceased to live here—that souls departing from the prisons of human bodies do not vanish, but persevere immortal in the other world. The same is confirmed by Justin Martyr in *Dialogue*, from the soul of Samuel, which conversed with King Saul after its migration from the body. To these he could have added the spirits of Moses and Elijah in the Transfiguration of the Lord; furthermore, the souls of Jeremiah and Onias, seen by Judas, the high priest and leader of the Jews, and the countless apparitions of spirits that later occurred to holy men after they had departed from here, by Eusebius, Nyssenus, Basil, Metaphrastes, Nicephorus, Theodoret.
A To those others, the supreme men, it is related: by whom the immortality of our souls is constantly asserted against the ancient and new Sadducees, Epicureans, and the Satanic slayers of souls.
I call "new Sadducees" the many Lutherans who, reading in Luther's commentaries: "The dead sleep in such a way that they know absolutely nothing, perceive nothing"; or, as Brentius, his comrade-in-arms, testifies: "as much among their cups as when sober in familiar conversations," they say: "The soul of man perishes at the same time as the body." I call "new Epicureans" the great crowd of the Calvinists, who, hearing daily from Calvin and his new ministers: "That all blessed spirits are dead, ghosts, and shadows, with whom we have no communion," openly exclaim, as Calvin himself reports: "Let us say that the soul is extinguished with the body, and at once purgatory will be done away with, along with the Mass and the Roman Pontiff." I call "new slayers of souls" the Anabaptists, eventually spawned from both Lutherans and Calvinists, who in the year of our Lord 1586 broadcast throughout Poland theses printed in Krakow, the tenth of which is: "We deny that any soul remains after death; but we say that this was devised by the Antichrist to stabilize his own worship through a feigned purgatory and the invocation of saints." One minister of these, Domanowski, in a public disputation held with a Father of the Society in Poland in the month of October 1589, publicly asserted that the soul perishes with the body; another, by the name of Budnaeus, asked what he thought about this matter, replied: "That the matter is dubious, and the case is still sub judice." Andreas Jurgiewicius—a man as diligent as he is learned—reports these things about his Poland in a booklet to which he gave the name, *The War of the Fifth Gospel*, ch. 10. Here, here indeed would Polycarp, our Irenaeus’ preceptor, rightfully exclaim with the best of all: "O good God, for what times have you preserved me, that I must suffer these things?" About these, again, book V, ch. 7. But I return to my notes.
Second, what I consider worthy of note is that souls departing from here do not pass from body to body, whether of men or of brutes, as the Simonians, Carpocratians, and others (of whom there is discussion here, and as we said a little earlier) thought along with the Pythagoreans and Platonists. C Third, that souls stripped of bodies retain the figure of a human being: that is (insofar as I piously judge), that they have sometimes appeared in the likeness of men; and are thus described through the Scriptures, so that in the narrative of Lazarus and the rich man, they are figured through anthropopathy with eyes, tongue, and fingers: although they are actually devoid of bodily organs, and use their spiritual faculties only for seeing and hearing, that is, for understanding.
Fourth, that souls of this kind in the other age know and discern one another, as the soul of the rich man knew those who had been Abraham's and Lazarus's, and was in turn recognized by the spirit of Abraham. We spoke of this at the end of the previous chapter.
Fifth, that they remember, and thus know well, what happens here; and the spirit of Abraham sufficiently indicated this, reporting that the rich man had received good things in the superior life, but Lazarus evil things, that is, adversities: furthermore, that the rich man's brothers have Moses and the prophets: furthermore, that the same rich man was mindful of his brothers, and by a certain affection, whether of convenience or of nature, interceded for them, that they might not come with him into the place of torments: furthermore, that the prophetic gift was in Abraham, assuring that neither the pious would ever come to the lot of the damned, nor the reprobate to the place of consolation.
Finally, that souls even before the final day, according to their works, are either of happiness or misery D assigned to receive a habitation, once they have departed from here. That all these things are worthy of the consideration of a Christian man, and especially a theologian, no one will deny.
*His notes on chapter 64.* Page 168. *If any, however.* Chapter 68, the old codex notes. It holds nothing absurd, in that throughout the whole chapter it contends that the rational soul endures by the benefit of God, and does not have life from itself: inasmuch as its immortal existence, like its essence, depends perpetually upon the divine will, which, as it produced it from nothing, could also reduce it to nothing if it seemed opportune: and in this sense I believe the stray opinions of Tatian and Arnobius, in his entire sixth book *Against the Gentiles*, regarding this matter are to be interpreted.
Page 169. *God alone is.* This teaches first, that God is absolutely immutable; then, that this is so very proper to Him that it does not fit any created thing at all: which Augustine also corroborates from what the Apostle writes concerning God: "Who alone has immortality" (1 Tim. vi, 16); that is, immutability (Book 1 *On the Trinity*, ch. 1, and book *Against Maximinus*, ch. 12). *Perseverance.* Billius notes that perseverance is accepted here for permanence and perpetuity: and not as in that place of the Gospel: "He who shall have persevered unto the end," etc. *Is participated.* We have expunged "it participated": then for "the souls receive," instead of "it receives and the souls," we have restored [it based on] the ancient codex.
*From the notes of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 64.* Page 169. *That they may be.* That is, that they may exist and endure for some time, as is evident from the preceding and consequent matter. *If you have been faithful in a little, etc.* These words, as though they were of the Savior himself, brought forward by Irenaeus, are not read this way in our Gospels; they are, however, referred to in almost the same way by the author of the 2nd epistle commonly ascribed to St. Clement of Rome, where the Greek sounds thus: "For the Lord says in the Gospel: If you have not kept the little, who will give you the great? For I say to you, that he who is faithful in the least, is also faithful in much." I conjecture that they were taken from the Gospel according to the Egyptians, because the author of that letter or homily also alleged other things from it, concerning which see *Spicilegium Patrum* of the 1st century, page 55. It happens that things twin to these are held in the Gospel of St. Luke, ch. xvi, 10 ff. And that this is consonant with those according to the Egyptians is not a wonder, if what I said in the said *Spicilegium*, page 32 ff., is true. I did not want, however, at that same place to refer these words, along with others, among the fragments of the Gospel according to the Egyptians, because the matter is uncertain, and it could have been that the pseudo-Clement, just like Irenaeus, cited them from an exemplar of St. Luke himself that was slightly altered. Whence I also pleased to indicate above at Luke xvi, 11. *The soul itself indeed is not life, etc.* This seems to have been described from Justin Martyr's *Dialogue with Trypho*, p. 221, where he says of the soul: "It does not live as being life, but as participating in life. But it is one thing for it to participate in something, and another for that which is participated in, since God wills it to live. The soul does not live because it is life; but because it is a participant of life. But it is one thing for a thing to participate, and another for that from which it participates. But the soul participates in life, as long as God wills it to live." *Prophetic discourse.* Again, he imitates the phrase of Justin M., *Apol. 2*, p. 95: "Through Moses, the prophetic spirit foretold."
*Notes of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 65.* Page 169. *Basilides.* Chapter 79, the old codex notes. The things which are refuted here, he had described in book 1, ch. 23, and book 1, ch. 21. Namely, from the declension of the first heaven is born a second; and from the second, a third; and...
thus consequently. For it would go on to infinity, which is manifestly absurd and insane. We have restored, moreover, from the ancient codex "second" for "secondly," and "that" for "it." Concerning the impieties of Basilides, read Eusebius, *Hist.*, bk. IV, ch. 7; Clement of Alexandria, *Strom.*, bks. III and IV; Tertullian, *De Praescriptione*; Irenaeus, bk. I, ch. 23; and Ignatius, *Epistle to the Trallians*.
From the annotations of Nicasius Gallasius on ch. 66. Page 14. *Eloe according to the Jewish usage.* The meaning of this word is clear. But in other matters, divination had to be used. In which affair I have employed the judgment of a most learned man, and one well-versed in these languages, B. B. Cornelius, Professor of the Hebrew language in this Genevan academy. It certainly seems to me that Irenaeus accepts the "Jewish language" as that genuine and incorrupt Hebrew in which the Old Testament is written: for it is so called by Ezra (Nehem. xiii, 24) and Isa. xxxvi, 11 and 13. But "Hebrew," as used everywhere by the evangelists, [refers] to the vulgar tongue which the people used, which was first Chaldean or Syrian, but was later called "Jerusalemite" when other languages—Syrian, Arabic, Persian, Greek, and Latin—had been used by it. As far, therefore, as concerns the other interpretation of the word *Eloe*, which he calls Hebrew, it is scarcely yet well established among Hebrew grammarians regarding the etymology of the name. Nor indeed will it be far-fetched if we derive it from [Hebrew], which means "to swear," with an imprecation inserted, of course. For in ancient times the name of God was used in making an oath such that even that formula was more used than others: "God do this to me, and add to it." And from this usage, which was even prescribed by law, it may seem that this name was so spoken. [Hebrew] is certainly amongst the Hebrews a consignificative term, which is attributed to one affirming, but [also] to one doubting, and it sounds perhaps [Hebrew], that is, "truly," "altogether," affirms. From this it could happen that either the heretics, investigating mysteries and realities in names, or even the Jews themselves in later times, when the Jerusalemite dialect was already flourishing, took the name *Eloe* for "verily," because God is truthful and a most bitter avenger of truth.
*Eloeuth*, that it might have the meaning which is designated here, must be explained from the idiom of the Arabs. Unless one might prefer the divine name among them to be from the Hebrew [Hebrew]. It can, however, be called a compound of the Arabic article *al*, which is "the," and from the pronoun *lah*, that is "to him"; as if it were "whose," implying "are all things," just as the Septuagint themselves, reading in Moses, Gen. xlix, 10, for [Hebrew], "his fetus," [Hebrew], "whose," understood nearly the same thing. For they have "to him for whom [they are] stored up" (all things). Unless you prefer to say that they wished in this way to designate by a common attribute of God the future Christ God. To this also seems to pertain what [is found in] Deut. xxxiii, 27, where God is called *Mehomab*, and in some places in the Psalms, that is, "habitation," and among the rabbis [Hebrew], that is, "place," which, as the Hebrews interpret it, he himself encompasses all things, as a place, and fills every place, yet is contained by nothing.
*Adonae* he calls "namable," because it is substituted by the Hebrews in place of the name "Jehovah," which they are not accustomed to name. The fact that he adds that it can also be explained as "admirable" has perhaps arisen from the fact that it is said by the angel in Jud. xiii, 18: "Why do you ask my name, which is admirable?"
But *Addonei*, by which he says "defining" is signified, may seem to be derived from [Hebrew] *Don*, which means "to decide," "to settle a dispute," or "to determine," and to be compounded with the name of God, who A establishes, settles, separates, and directs all things in order. But when he treats of dividing the water from the land, the authors of this interpretation can also be seen to have alluded to that [passage] of Job xxxviii, 6: "Upon what," that is, "are its bases fixed?" so that they accept God as the author of these bases, separating the earth from the waters, [Hebrew] *Adonai*, [and that it is] said from [Hebrew], that is, "basis."
*Sabaoth* with an *o*. Since there is no *o* [in the Hebrew text] amongst the Hebrews, it must be understood as a full *cholem* which corresponds to that pronunciation. But in order for *Sabaoth* to signify "voluntary," it is necessary that it be derived not from [Hebrew], but from [Hebrew], that is, "he longed for." Which root is most common in this very original [language] for the Chaldeans; but for the Hebrews, [it is found] in the derivatives themselves.
*Sabaoth*, "the first heaven." Certainly this name is nowhere found [as a name] for heaven. But because that distinguished and illustrious order of the stars is called in the Scriptures the "host," and the "militia of heaven," therefore it is likely that the heaven, B in which that infinite number of stars is located in splendid order, as in an army, was called *Sabaoth*, that is, "army." He calls it the "first heaven," however, not in relation to us, as the astrologers do, since other heavens are nearer to us: but the highest, by which all the rest are surpassed in height and magnitude.
*Jaoth*, "first," can be called simple, so that it may be from the Chaldean [Hebrew], or [Hebrew], that is, "congruity," "decency," "decorum," or a "manner well observed," as had been prescribed: and, as it is sometimes used adverbially, "very well," and "according to the prescribed manner." It can also be said to be a compound of [Hebrew], "congruent," and [Hebrew], that is, "sign," as if it were a "sign appropriately prescribed." But in order for it to signify "the flight of evils," it must be derived from [Hebrew], which signifies "to overflow," "to purge," that is, to remove what is evil and harmful.
These are the things which, aided by the perspicacity of that diligent and skilled man, I was able to conjecture concerning these names: which, if they do not satisfy the pious reader, will nevertheless somewhat excite his own skill for investigating the matter. Although it is enough to hold the principal scope of the author, who demonstrates that by the diverse names of one God, diverse gods are nevertheless not denoted. C
Notes of Fr. Feuardent on ch. 66. Page 170. *And the rest.* The ancient codex has "ch. 70"; but it refutes those things which he had recounted in the first book, ch. 22, 23, and 34. He shows, moreover, that the ancient prophets were inspired and sent by one and the same God; and that not on account of his various names, whether Hebrew or Greek, should many gods be assumed. Furthermore, because Nicetas Choniates expressed this chapter of Irenaeus in briefer and clearer words, I subjoin them: "Since those foolish men, ignorant of the interpretation of the divine names, have judged that Adonai, Eloi, and Sabaoth are diverse gods, I see that I will be doing a service D if I reveal to the unlearned and ignorant what each of these names sounds like to Greek and Latin ears. *Eloth*, therefore, they interpret as *Theos*, God; *Eloi*, however, *ho Theos mou*, my God; *El* also, if it be pronounced with a soft breathing, signifies *Theon*, God; if with a rough [breathing], *ischyron*, strong; *Adonai*, however, *Kyrion*, Lord. Furthermore, *Lord Sabaoth* sounds the same as *Kyrios dynameon*, Lord of powers; or *Kyrios stration*, Lord of hosts; *Saddai* furthermore *hikanon kai dynaton*, suitable and powerful. *Aia* moreover signifies *ton onta*, Him who is; which name was also considered ineffable by the Hebrews."
*We shall demonstrate.* We have deleted "we have demonstrated" from the ancient, or [other], codex.
*If, however, some.* The 71st and last chapter designates the ancient codex. The Vatican codex shortly after reads, "diverse of diction placed."
For what is said *Eloe* according to the Jewish usage...
it seems to me that Irenaeus accepts here the genuine and incorrupt language in which the Old Testament was written; since it is so called in Isa. xxxvi, IV Reg. xviii, and shortly before in Nehemiah, and not long after, he names the Hebrew language when he speaks of *Eloe*. Moreover, *Eloah*, or in Chaldean *Elaha*, is placed by St. Jerome in the third place among the ten names of God, and it signifies God; and by the transposition of letters in the cabala it is the same as *Ohel*, that is, tabernacle; and the more secretive [scholars] say that the name *Eloha* holds the same relationship to the name of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), which is the name of essence, as the moon does to the sun.
And *Elow Verum*. *Elohae* is the same as *Eloha*. But it could have come about that he took the name *Elohae* for *Verum* (Truth), because God is truthful and a severe avenger of truth, as Truth is often named in the sacred writings. Or certainly, he wished to play upon the word which truly and altogether signifies... B or meant to imply something else.
*Elloeuth*. *Elohut*, or *Elahut*, is common to the Rabbis and Chaldeans, and signifies properly godhead or divinity. But for it to have the meaning which is designated here, it is perhaps taken from the Arabic article "Al," that is, "the," and the pronoun "Lah," that is, "to him": as if it were, "he to whom," understand, "all things belong."
But as to what he says, *Adonai*. *Adonai*, to which St. Jerome assigns the seventh place among the divine names, signifies "my lords": from the singular *Adon*, that is, "lord, master." He asserts, however, that it signifies "nominable," perhaps because it is substituted by the Hebrews in place of the name "Jehovah," which they are not accustomed to name: and "wonderful," because the angel, referring to the divine majesty, said, Jud. xiii, 18: "Why do you ask my name, which is wonderful?"
Sometimes, however, because the letter delta is doubled. *Adonai*, by which he says "prelientem" (pre-eminent) is signified, perhaps from *Dudon*, which is to judge, and to settle disputes by judgment; and he composes it with the name of God: because He himself has pre-ordained, constituted, and decreed the place and order for all the elements and species of created things.
So that the water may not surge against it. Thus we have amended this passage, as the sense demanded: we have expunged "nec postea quam" (nor after that), which was in all the printed copies as well as the manuscripts, even the Vatican codices. Thus, in the line above, for "perlinientem" (pertaining), we have restored "praelinientem" (pre-eminent).
*Sabaoth*, with an omega. Jerome enumerates this as the fourth among the names of God: but Irenaeus understands *vau cholem*, with an omega, because the pronunciation of both is similar. It is known, even to those moderately versed in the holy language, that the name is *Tshebaoth*. C It signifies the plural, from the singular *tsaba*, which means "an army," "a host," or "a body of soldiers." Irenaeus, however, derived it from the root *tsabah*, which in Syriac mostly signifies "to will, to desire"; whence the Hebrew verbal *desiderium* (desire), *voluntas* (will); and even in the Chaldean language, or Syrian, *Zeva* and *Zove* signify "to be well-pleasing" and "to be agreeable."
As for example. We have expunged "ut" by the authority of an old codex.
"Manifests the first heaven." Because that distinguished and harmonious order of planets, stars, and celestial spheres, arranged according to their own orders, and illustrated by the splendor of the sun, like a king, is called an army and a host in the Holy Scriptures, Deut. xvii; IV Reg. xvi; Nehemiæ ix; Isa. xxiv and xxxiv; Jer. xix; Sophon. i; therefore, the firmament, in which we most clearly observe that excellent order, he could call *Sabaoth*, that is, "host." For the Hebrews call the fixed stars the "host"; whence they interpret the Lord of Hosts in one sense as the Lord of the stars.
In the same way also *Jaoth*. The Vatican codex [reads] *Jacob*. However, *Jaoth*, although it has a Hebrew ending of the plural number, comes nonetheless from the Babylonian root *Jae*, which signifies "beautiful," "specious," and "elegant"; and impersonally *Jeth*, "it is fitting, it is becoming, it is suitable." *Jauth*, however, is "beauty, elegance, grace"; and it is sometimes used adverbially for "fittingly, decorously, ornately, and well." But because it must be deduced according to Irenaeus so that it signifies "the fleeing of evils," that is, "to cleanse and to purge"; from *jua*, which the Hebrews designate for brooms: but this is to take away evil and harmful things, and to cast filth far away. I have communicated these things to most learned men, and if better things are brought forward, it will be to my benefit and that of those who are studious. In the meantime, it will suffice to observe this, that, as we have said, Irenaeus strives to demonstrate strongly that the diversity of names, whether Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, by which we name God, [signifies] His perfections, His properties, and the countless benefits towards us, but never to designate more than one God. Jerome, in his epistle to Marcella, explains divine names, but denies more gods. Dionysius the Areopagite, having enumerated thirty-two nomenclatures suitable to God, infers both the negation of names, and that all names of subsistence belong to the one God. Augustine, after he had invoked God with eighty epithets in chapter 29 of his book of *Meditations*, adds: "If books were to fill the whole world, thy inenarrable knowledge cannot be explained; since thou art truly unspeakable," etc.
VARIOUS NOTES ON THE THIRD BOOK OF SAINT IRENAEUS.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on the preface of the third book.
Page 173. *For the only truth.* Some Hermann Hamelmann, in a book he titled *On the Unanimous Consent of the Fathers Concerning Faith Alone Justifying*, wickedly twists these words; as also other words which are found further on in lib. iii, cap. 22, and lib. iv, cap. 13, by which he contends that Irenaeus supports those who, with naked and solitary faith, with all works excluded, constitute men righteous before God: not noticing, the impostor, how gravely this blessed martyr refutes this comment of Simon Magus in lib. i; and how frequently he teaches the necessity of pious works, in lib. ii, cap. 50; lib. iv, cap. 27, 32, and 49; and that a huge reward is stored up for them with God, lib. ii, cap. 56; lib. iv, cap. 28 and 34. For who does not see...
Irenæus in this passage is not speaking of justification, but merely exhorting man never to yield to the efforts of heretics, but rather to resist them steadfastly. This was necessary to note, so that we might liberate the holy martyr from this injustice and expose the cavils of the impious as far as we are able.
Notes of the same on chapter 1. Page 173. *For not through others.* He teaches that the apostles, the first heralds of the most holy Gospel, did not preach it until they were instructed by the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit; then they committed that same Gospel to writing for the future memory of posterity; and consequently it is only impiously that they are accused by heretics of ignorance or that the Scriptures are rejected by them. Furthermore, that the same one God, the creator of heaven and earth, was announced by them throughout the world, who had been preached by the Law and the prophets.
Page 174. *Boasting themselves to be correctors of the apostles.* He strikes at Marcion and his followers, whom he recounted in book 1, chapter 29, as having mutilated the Gospel according to Luke, and having removed all that had been written concerning the Lord’s generation, saying that they themselves were more truthful than those who passed down the Gospel to us. The author is Tertullian, who also describes in his entire fifth book *Against Marcion* many more mutilations brought upon the apostolic writings by the same persons; but Epiphanius deals with them with a more copious hand in *Against Heresies*, 42.
*And were clothed with the supervening Holy Spirit.* We proposed that this should be read thus, instead of "with the supervening Holy Spirit," since from our ancient codex, and especially from the text of the book of *Acts*: "You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you," it is to be read [as indicated].
Thus Matthew. Before Irenæus, Papias also had written the same thing, as quoted in Eusebius, *History*, book 3, chapter 33, and Pantaenus in India, who found the same thing written in Hebrew characters, the work of Bartholomew left there, and it is certain that it was preserved; the same is affirmed by Eusebius in book 5, chapter 10. Theodore the Reader asserts that this was subsequently found in Cyprus, in the tomb of Barnabas, and written in his own hand. St. Jerome is the author who states that the same Hebrew [text] also remained in his time in the Caesarean library, which the martyr Pamphilus had established; he relates that permission was granted to him to copy it by the Nazarenes of Berrhoea, who used it. In our own century there has been published, through the labors of Sebastian Münster, a certain Hebrew Gospel under the name of Matthew, as to how much credit should be given to which, let the Church pronounce. Moreover, A in these things we see the sentiment of this most ancient martyr, and indeed of the whole Church, that only four Gospels were approved and accepted from the beginning, as he will teach more copiously below in chapter 11 of this book. Therefore, the remaining pseudo-Gospels, such as those inscribed with the names of Peter, Thomas, Matthew, Bartholomew, and the twelve apostles; then those circulated and sold under the titles of the Hebrews, the Nazarenes, the Ebionites, the Encratites, the Egyptians, and any others whatsoever, are justly and rightly rejected. Theophylact further points out the time when each of the four evangelists wrote, namely: Matthew eight years after the assumption of Christ into heaven; Mark ten years later, that is, two years after Matthew; Luke fifteen years later; and finally John thirty-two years later.
*But after their departure.* All codices agree on this reading. Rufinus also made Eusebius speak thus in Latin: "After whose departure," etc., by which Irenæus might indicate that Mark [wrote his Gospel] only after the holy apostles Peter B and Paul had been removed either by martyrdom or by other journeys for the sake of the Gospel: which plainly and openly conflicts with those things which Eusebius recounts from Papias and the sixth book of the *Hypotyposes* of Clement, namely, that blessed Peter, with the Holy Spirit revealing it to him, confirmed the work edited by Mark with his own authority, so that it might be read through the churches; by which it is made clear that Mark wrote his Gospel while Peter was still alive. It is added that Eusebius, in re-transcribing this passage of Irenæus in the fifth book, chapter eight, makes no mention of the departure of the apostles. This was seen to indicate these things rather than to change anything. *Through the writings.* From an ancient codex, with Eusebius also approving this, we have removed "prescribed."
*And Luke.* We have added this sentence, which is completed in thirteen words, from an ancient codex; which Eusebius also acknowledges in book 3 of the *History*, chapter 8.
*Afterwards also John.* Eusebius, book 5, chapter 8: "Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who had reclined upon his breast, brought forth the Gospel while he was residing in Ephesus in Asia." St. Jerome relates that he did this at the request of the bishops of Asia, against the rising blasphemies of the Ebionites, Cerinthus, and the Gnostics; which Irenæus also indicates in chapter 11 of this book.
From the annotations of Ernest Grabe on chapter 1. Page 174. *Of Peter and of Paul, etc.* This tradition of Irenæus regarding the time of the publication of the four Gospels, doubtless accepted from Papias or other elders, seems preferable to the opinion of the more recent Theophylact, who in his Preface to the Commentary on Matthew says that Matthew wrote eight years after Christ's assumption into heaven; Mark ten years after, that is, two years after Matthew; Luke fifteen years after; and finally John thirty-two years after. Which era rests on the faith of certain codices, but is too tenuous. C For, not to mention others, it is agreed among almost all that St. John, while very old, wrote his Gospel about the year 98 from the birth of Christ, and consequently not 32 years after His ascension, but twice as many, namely 64; unless one believes, according to the opinion of Irenæus, that Christ had remained on earth for almost 50 years. Moreover, the tradition of Irenæus regarding the Gospel of St. Matthew written at that late time, when Paul was at Rome, used to come into my mind when I considered what might be the reason why the Apostle wrote in Ephesians 4:11: "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and other some, evangelists, and other some, pastors and doctors"; but in the parallel place, 1 Corinthians 12:28: "God indeed hath set some in the church; first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly doctors"; completely omitting evangelists. But if you take "evangelists" with Oecumenius as "writers of the holy Gospels," a reason is given plainly according to the said tradition. For Paul had written to the Corinthians before he had come to Rome, at which time no [Gospel] had yet been issued by any of the apostles or apostolic men; but he delivered the Epistle to the Ephesians from prison, shortly before he departed from Rome, at which time St. Matthew had already written his Gospel; and Mark and Luke were in preparation for this work. Yet I do not rely much on this conjecture of mine, but willingly submit it to the judgment of the more learned.
*By those founding the Church.* You will say, before Paul's arrival in the City, the Church was there, whose faith had been renowned throughout the whole world, as the Apostle himself witnesses in Romans 1:8. How then does Irenæus here say that the Roman Church was founded by him [Peter] and Paul? But Irenæus himself is the best interpreter of his own words, in those which follow in chapter 3: "The blessed apostles having founded and built up therefore the Church, entrusted the office of the episcopate to Linus." D Therefore, it is permitted...
A to think that those who considered themselves wiser than the Apostles walked in the same steps as the Gnostics of this age? Who does not see Gnostics of this age walking in the same steps with them? Who does not know how much they, with supercilious spirit, cavil at and hiss down the apostolic traditions received by us from the holy Fathers and kept? And of these we shall speak in the third chapter: now let us add something concerning the sacrilegious contempt of the divine Scriptures.
For even if they had existed at Rome, the Church had not yet been formed, because there was not yet a bishop appointed over them. For without a bishop, and presbyters, and deacons, the Church is not called a Church, as St. Ignatius testifies in his Epistle to the Trallians, § 3. And truly, it is not unworthy of observation that the Apostle inscribed his Epistle to the Corinthians thus: "To the Church of God which is at Corinth," etc., and likewise "To the Churches of Galatia"; and similarly twice "to the Church of the Thessalonians"; and finally to the Philippians: "To all the saints in Christ Jesus with the bishops and deacons"; but that he sent his Epistle to the Romans: "To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called saints," with no mention made of bishops (that is, of the high priest and the lesser priests), and of deacons or of a Church. Whence this difference? Unless it be that in the former places there was a hierarchy, consisting of a bishop, presbyters, and deacons, and therefore a formed Church; but in the City, no such thing had existed up to that time. But I do not wish to say more on this matter and remove objections, lest I exceed the measure of an annotation.
B *Μετὰ δὲ τὴν τούτων ἔξοδον.* It is clear that "the departure" (*exodos*) is to be understood here not as from life, but from the city of Rome, from those things which Eusebius brings forward from Papias and book VI of the *Hypotyposes* of Clement of Alexandria in *Hist. eccles.*, book II, chap. 15, namely that the blessed Apostle Peter, by his own authority, confirmed the Gospel of St. Mark, so that it might be read everywhere in the Churches. St. Luke also, after the exit of Paul from the City, not from the world, committed the Gospel to writing, from which it is gathered because he finished the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, which he published as if an appendix to the history of Christ, in the two years during which Paul was first at Rome, intending without doubt to continue it further, if he had written a long time after his departure from the City, or after the martyrdom of the blessed Apostle. For that he was joined to him again not long after, and clung to him until the very end of his life, his last Epistle, namely II Timothy, chap. iv, 11, testifies sufficiently, where he writes: "Luke alone is with me." Indeed, the Apostle seems to have alleged certain words of Luke from chapter x of the Gospel, v. 8, in I Timothy v, 18. For no other Scripture has that saying: "The laborer is worthy of his hire." C Furthermore, that some have wrongly interpreted the word *exodos* in this place as the end of life, the occasion was without doubt the mutation in the text of Irenæus, made by the author of the *Catena Patrum* on the Gospel of St. Mark, which Petrus Possinus published, or by another before him. For in that, the words of Irenæus are expressed thus on page 5: *Μετὰ τὴν τοῦ κατὰ Ματθαῖον Εὐαγ γελίου ἔκδοσιν, Μάρκος ὁ μαθητὴς καὶ ἑρμηνεὺς Πέτρου, καὶ αὐτὸς τὰ ὑπὸ Πέτρου κηρυττόμενα ἐγ γράφως ἡμῖν παραδέδωκε.* "After the edition of the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark the disciple and interpreter of Peter, committed to us in writing the things which were preached by Peter." Christophorsonus substituted the same reading in Eusebius by conjecture, and for that reason was beaten by Valesius in his notes on Eusebius, lib. v, cap. 8, who nevertheless himself also deserves reprimand in this matter, because he translated *exodos* in Irenæus as "death," and hence set the holy Fathers fighting against one another.
Adnotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 2. Page 174. *For when they are refuted from the Scriptures.* He exposes the incredible malice and obstinacy of the Valentinians and similar earlier Gnostics, whom he was attacking with these books. For, truly, being convicted by the open and certain writings of both the prophets and the apostles, they stubbornly rejected them as if they were apocryphal, or corrupted, or of doubtful faith, as has been written above about the Ebionites, Cerinthians, Carpocratians, Marcionites, and others. But when they were pressed by the traditions of the apostles, with incredible rashness and impudence, they D thought themselves wiser than all the apostles and Fathers. Who does not see the Lutherans and Calvinists, with the same impiety, hissing down from the catalog of divine books, as if they were apocryphal and of no faith, the books of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and both books of the Maccabees? They reject not insignificant fragments, nor a few chapters torn away from the book of Esther and Daniel. These, whom they even pretend to admit as canonical, they leave to be hissed down by their followers, deformed by mockeries and insults. For by the judgment of Luther, as Joannes Aurifaber, his table-companion, reports of him in his *Colloquia*, the apostles did not preach the faith of Abraham in such a way, nor did they portray it with colors as it deserved; and Moses mentions it too simply. Lo, in a few words, the writings of Moses, the greatest of the prophets, as well as those of all the apostles, are brought into suspicion of falsehood. Rebenstock, another of his table-companions, writes of the same man, that he would say at times: "Ecclesiastes is not a complete book, it has many abrupt passages, it is shod neither with boots nor spurs; that is, it has no perfect sentence. It rides on a long reed, just as I did when I was in the monastery." And looking at the book of the Maccabees, he used to say: "I hate this book and the book of Esther; I would prefer that they did not exist, for they imitate the Jews and the heathens too much." And leaving the book of Chronicles suspicious and doubtful, he would say: "The books of Kings are to be believed more than Chronicles." Belittling also the Pauline faith, to Justus Jonas, who said he did not believe these words of his, "There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness," etc., he replied: "Nor did Paul believe it firmly." And revealing his old hatred for him, he said: "I hated Paul with the utmost hatred, when I read Rom. 1: For the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel, etc." He judges the history of Job to be an argument of a fable, by which we may be admonished concerning patience. Nor did he spare the sacred Gospels, writing: "John's Gospel is the only beautiful, true, and principal Gospel": as if the other three were neither Gospels, nor beautiful, nor true. That same man contends that the Epistle to the Hebrews is not Paul's, nor that of any other apostle. The Epistle of St. James, for him, is clearly "strawy," and unworthy of the apostolic spirit. The Epistle of Jude is not an apostle's, and thus is to be contemned. There is no need to be anxious about the second of Peter, and the two later ones of John. Finally, he does not admit the Apocalypse as a prophetic, nor as a pious apostolic book.
And thus far concerning the accusations and criticisms of the Lutheran sacred Scriptures: by which it becomes manifest that these men are imbued with the same spirit by which the ancient Gnostics were, as Irenæus testifies in this place. What the Calvinists attempt against the evangelists and apostles, as well as their sacred writings, we have said at the end of the *Comm.* on the Epistle to Philemon, and in the seventh Dialogue.
*For not through letters handed down.* The ancient codex lacks these five words and reads in a single context: "From those who know not that tradition, but through the living voice," etc.
*But we speak wisdom.* Augustine writes that the Manichæans also abused this testimony, so that they might persuade [men that] the Apostle had handed down many things to those with whom he was discoursing in words other than those he wrote in his Epistles: "But far be it that so great an apostle of Christ..."
A was chosen by God. An organ of the Holy Spirit, one in teaching, another in writing; one secretly, another openly. He was indeed made all things to all men, not with the craftiness of a deceiver, but with the affection of one who feels compassion; relieving the diverse diseases of souls with diverse affections of mercy; giving, as it were, small things to little ones—not false, but small; yet to the perfect, deeper mysteries—all things, however, true, harmonious, and divine."
Pag. 175. *But among these, he denotes Marcion, whom in book I, chapter 20, he named "the mouth of the devil."*
*But when to that tradition.* Here first observe what is properly meant and called apostolic tradition, namely, doctrine pertaining either to faith, or to sacred rites, or to good morals, which was not given in the express Scriptures of the Old or New Testament, but by living voice, or by example, and practice from the first pastors of the Church, that is, the apostles, and has been kept by their successors down to us among the people of God. Discussing some things of this kind, Tertullian says: "If you demand the law of the Scriptures, you will find none: tradition will be held out to you as the source, custom as the confirmator, and faith as the observer." See on the same matters Augustine, Epistles 118 and 119, and what we note at the beginning of the next chapter.
Observe next that those most brave and ancient athletes of the Christian religion contended constantly against its most infested enemies, having drawn arguments from the traditions of the apostles: that they opposed these to them as the firmest walls, so that they not only retarded all their attacks but utterly subverted their machinations. And not only those, but they also confidently objected the consent of all the Churches, especially the authority and apostolic succession of the Roman Church: furthermore, they solidly refuted their errors by the testimonies of the ancients: as here AND in the following pages Irenaeus opposes the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, and the writings and deeds of the martyr Polycarp, to the Gnostics. From which it is most evident that Erasmus of Rotterdam erred to the whole heaven when, in the epistle prefixed to these books to this day, he writes that Irenaeus himself fought against the band of heretics with the safeguards of the Scriptures alone.
To these things, the writings of Justin Martyr cited by the same Irenaeus in book IV, chapter 14, and book V, bind Erasmus to a false and rash assertion: moreover, the testimony of Hermas, or the Pastor, in book IV, chapter 37, also of the martyr Ignatius in book V, and the words of a certain elder, a disciple of the apostles, frequently brought forward in the Preface of book I, and of the same book chapter 12; book III, chapters 19 and 35; book IV, chapters 45, 47, 49, 50, 52; and book V; from all of which it is plain and conspicuous that Irenaeus vanquished the Gnostics not only by the guards of the Scriptures, but also by traditions, and the sermons and writings of the Fathers.
*They oppose tradition, saying.* Thus we have restored it from an old codex: in the printed copies, "those who oppose tradition, will say, etc."
38. *But even the Lord himself.* That Irenaeus reported above that the Gnostics accused our Lord Jesus Christ of ignorance; and from this place it is manifest that he also convicted them of certain errors. But who would believe that the Calvinists now recall from the underworld and restore such impieties? Truly, we have proven them guilty of this crime in Dialogue 4, by many and most clear testimonies of Calvin.
*Escaping.* We have expunged "to feign" by the authority of an old codex.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 3.* Pag. 175. *The tradition therefore of the apostles.* To insert this remarkable passage into his writings, and to hurl it as a fiery dart against the heretics B, almost all who in our century have sharpened their pens against them considered it worthy. So that just as this blessed martyr protects the chief head of our faith—namely, that there is one God, the Maker of heaven and earth—against the impieties of the Gnostics, with the bulwark of his tradition, which was preserved in the continuous succession of bishops throughout all Churches, by doctrine and voice: so might they confirm and guard articles of faith, sacraments, and various controversial rites, with the unanimous consent of centuries, Churches, and doctors, by the tradition instituted by the apostles and preserved by their successors. Nay, and in all past centuries, as many as have ever been held to be Christians and Catholics, as often as dispute has arisen concerning the dogmas of the Church, they have fled to the traditions of the ancient Fathers and apostolic Churches as to a sacred anchor; as the testimonies written below will reveal in place of innumerous others.
Clement of Rome teaches that the sacred doctrine which is handed down in the pages of the Apostolic Constitutions 39 is to be likened to the glorious voices of our Savior, and therefore is to be embraced by all, by the command of the same Savior.
Ignatius confirms the more famous Churches of all Asia, trembling among the various surges of heresies, by frequent repetition of the apostolic traditions, as with a wall of bronze 40.
Dionysius the Areopagite 41 considers that children are to be initiated into sacred regeneration, relying on the doctrine handed down without writings—that is, by the apostles—of his divine precepts.
Polycarp, while he was staying at Rome, restored the wavering and doubtful Philippians, and many fascinated by the impostures of the Marcionites and Valentinians, to the first faith by a demonstration drawn from the traditions of the apostles 42.
Papias relates that he learned the sacraments of faith not so much from writings as from the sermons of the apostles or disciples, and that he was aided more by a living and present voice than by reading 43.
Tertullian 44 potently dissipates the storms of heresies invading his century on all sides with the brightness of apostolic traditions, and contends that all the rites of baptism, the oblations of the Eucharist for those who have finished this life, and the signings of the cross for the whole conduct of Christians, remain whole and untouched.
Origen 45, that master of Churches after the apostles, considers that heretics, however much they may bring forward canonical Scriptures, are never to be believed, so that we may not depart from paternal doctrine and ecclesiastical tradition.
Clement of Alexandria 46 recognizes a twofold agriculture in the Church of God, one which is contained in writings, the other which is not in writings; and he teaches that the knowledge of many things has come down to posterity by succession from the apostles without writings.
Cyprian 47 learned from the Dominica tradition that the chalice of the Eucharist which we offer is to be tempered with water: and at the same time that it is no less valid what the apostles handed down, the Holy Spirit dictating, than what Christ himself did, since the divinity of both is equal.
The greatest and most sacred crown of the confessors of Christ, the famous first Nicene synod, decreed against the Arians that the Son of God is ὁμοούσιον, that is, consubstantial with the Father, adhering to the traditions of the holy Fathers, even though it was nowhere written 48.
The Constantinopolitan council asserted the divine nature of the Holy Spirit against the blasphemies of the Macedonians.
The Ephesian council asserted Blessed Mary to be Theotokos, that is, the Mother of God, even though the sacred Scriptures make no mention of this word, because the divine [authors] handed down this faith...
[the Council] of Chalcedon defined it to be preached, [affirming] that the substances of God and man were unmixed, in the single hypostasis of Christ, according to the tenets of the Fathers, having spurned the sophistries of Eutyches.
It is relevant to add, for the sake of confirming in serious matters, and indeed the highest matters of our faith, that Aurelius Augustine—whom the heresiarchs pretend to admire and revere exclusively—fled to ecclesiastical traditions as to an asylum. He believes that the Gospel according to Matthew was truly written by him, against the denial of the Manichaean Faustus, relying on the tradition which had arrived by certain succession from the apostolic sees down to the bishops of the present time (Book 28, *Contra Faustum*, ch. 2). He says that the Father is unbegotten, and the Son consubstantial with Him, must be defended by an assertion of faith, even though this is not found in the holy pages (Epist. 174). He states that it is to be believed with complete faith that the blessed Mary was the Mother of God and of Christ, and that she conceived as a virgin, gave birth as a virgin, and remained a virgin after childbirth (Book *De ecclesiast. dogmat.*, ch. 69). He maintains that baptism conferred by heretics should not be repeated, based upon the tradition of the apostles, even though it is not found in their writings (Book 2, *De bapt.*, ch. 7; and Book 1, ch. 23; and Book 4, ch. 6). He says that the custom of the Mother Church in baptizing infants is an apostolic tradition by no means to be despised (Book 10, *De Genesi*, ch. 23). He says that the Lord’s passion, resurrection, ascension into heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit from heaven are to be celebrated by an annual solemnity, not by written [command], but by handed-down observance (Epist. 118, ch. 1). He says there is no doubt that the apostles were baptized, even though Scripture has not a word on this (Epist. 108). He says that certain things have been done by the sequence of tradition, and are now to be done in the rites of baptism, which for the sake of brevity are silent about themselves in the Scriptures (Book *De fide et operibus*, ch. 9). He says the apostles did not receive the Eucharist of the body and blood of the Lord fasting; but [he adds] that it pleased the Holy Spirit that, in honor of so great a sacrament, it should always be received by those fasting; and this custom is observed throughout the whole world (Epist. 118, ch. 6). He says that by the rite of the Church, handed down and firmly maintained from antiquity, infants in baptism are exorcized, insufflated, and renounce Satan, so that they may be transferred from the power of darkness into the kingdom of Christ (Book 1, *De nuptiis et concup.*, ch. 20; and Book 6, *Contra Jul.*, ch. 2). Finally, 114, although nowhere in the ancient Scriptures was it read that a sacrifice was offered for the dead, yet the universal Church, which excels in this custom, possesses no small authority, for in the prayers of the priest, which are poured out to the Lord God at His altar, the commemoration of the dead also has its place (Book *De cura pro mortuis gerenda*, ch. 1 and 4, and Sermon 34 *de verbis Apostoli*). I purposely pass over countless other places and sacred authors.
It is easy to see. Billius, that is, *licet* (it is permitted), or *promptum est* (it is ready/easy), is said after the manner of the Greeks: for *πάρεστιν* often means the same to them as *ἔξεστιν*. As regarding those who act rightly. The same, in Greek, *ὧν κατορθούντων*, that is, "those who properly fulfill their office."
But since it is very long. In many and weightiest A words in this place, and throughout the whole chapter, the blessed martyr teaches that the Roman Church is the head and rule of all others; and consequently that we ought to look only to her dogmas and embrace them, and to hold [the Church] as a firm and immovable rock against the tides of all heresies, opposing [them with] the succession of [her] lineage, and to take refuge in her traditions, decrees, and faith against the frauds of all those who plot nothing but the destruction of public safety and Christian piety, as if in a most safe fortress and holy sanctuary: which we shall explain one by one.
Therefore, first, having passed over the B churches of the whole East and South, nay, the most illustrious churches of the whole world which other apostles and disciples of the Lord had planted, watered with blood, and confirmed with stupendous miracles—[Irenaeus] weaves together the succession of bishops of this one [Roman Church], as being the most excellent of the others, from the coryphaei of the apostles down to his own age, continuous and never interrupted.
Then he calls it "most great," so that it may by right claim for itself all authority over sacred things, and keep all others inferior to itself, over which it rules by its own authority.
Afterwards he calls it "most ancient," not because of time—unless you understand it of the Latins and Westerners, since the Jerusalem, Samaritan, Caesarean, and Antiochene churches received the faith of Christ first—but on account of its dignity, and because it is superior to others, and all look up to it as a mother.
Afterwards he asserts it to be "known to all," just as it would tower as a head among all, and whose rulers, placed C as in a highest lighthouse and most clear watchtower, would direct the voyages of others among so many shipwrecks; and would observe how each one behaved in retaining religion: inasmuch as it had received from the Lord both the precept and the power to confirm the wavering hearts of the brethren, tossed by the storms of tyrants and heretics.
He adds [that it was founded] by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul, "whose," he says "are indeed, beyond the others, such excellent charisms, such singular gifts, such great labors in building this mystic ship: whose, I say, conversation, voice, and institutions, like sacred anchors, remained safe and secure thus far among so many waves and the ruins of others: whose miracles, finally, chains, blood, and martyrdom cause Rome itself to shine more brightly than the others, and more clearly than the stars [shine in] the heaven."
"At Rome," it follows, which had once pressed all mortals under the most grievous servitude, as it did its dictators, consuls, emperors, and armies; on the contrary, it ought now to assert the same [people] into the liberty of the children of God by apostolic institutions.
Then, "At Rome," so that [Christ] might place there the guard-posts for the defense of the Christian republic, and build the metropolis of His kingdom, where Satan had established a receptacle of idolatries, a workshop of filth, a slaughterhouse of the saints, and the very Babylon itself, [he built] his founded and constituted Church.
Irenaeus continues: the "tradition" of this, therefore, such a great Church, which through living voice it "received from the apostles" Peter and Paul, still reigning at its helm, it preserves the received [tradition], and "announces" it to all men throughout the D universe, "constantly indicating and openly preaching, we confound and convict all those who, led by philautia (self-love), useless desire for glory, or desire for the primacy, or blinded by their own mind, or led by any other occasion, gather groups and conventicles contrary to the law and hierarchical order of the Church."
That this is the sentiment of the most blessed martyr, which we are explaining by paraphrase, those things which follow indicate more clearly than all light.
"To this Church," he adds, "the Roman, that is to say," not [on account] of the greatness of the city, the frequency of its peoples, the gravity of its censors, or the statutes of its senate; not for its strongest armies, its glorious triumphs over the whole world, or the summit of its empire; nor finally for the majesty of the Caesars, as an ignorant and wicked impudence of Smidelius interprets: but "to this Church," in which the vertex of the apostles sat, and to which "Linus, Anacletus, Clemens, Evaristus, Alexander," and others in order succeeded; "it is necessary," because it was instituted by God Almighty; not only the European, African, Alexandrian, Jerusalem, Antiochene, [and] Constan-
Constantinopolitan, the Asiatic and Eastern Church; but "the whole Church, that is, those who are everywhere the faithful," as members to agree with their head, and not to depart a fingernail's breadth from its communion. And this is necessary, he says, for a double reason: the one, "on account of its more powerful principality," or its prince-like position, rank, and authority, which it obtains before all others. The other, because "in it there has always been preserved that which is the tradition of the true faith and sincere piety from the apostles."
It remains now that we make most evident what he writes so gravely, but too generally, that it is necessary for "the whole Church, that is, all who are everywhere the faithful," to agree with the Roman Church, by a very brief enumeration from the more select writers, who are above all exception among Christians. And that we may begin with our own, that the Gallican, Italian, Spanish, English, Scottish, Irish, German, Gothic, Sarmatian, B and all Western Churches have perpetually adhered to the Roman Church as their head; and conversely, that the successor of Peter, as became an ecumenical pastor, has watched over them, is openly taught primarily by the letters of blessed Bernard, 123, 126, 130, 131, 136, 137, 138, 185, 190, and his books I, III, IV, *De consideratione*; Gratian, dist. 19, 20, 21, 22; Anselm's book *De incarnatione Verbi*; the *Decreta* of Ivo of Chartres; the writings of Lanfranc, Guitmund, Algerus, and Paschasius against Berengarius; the books of Bede II, III, IV, *De historia Anglorum*, and *Chronica de sex mundi ætatibus*; the book of Alcuin or Albinus, *De divinis officiis*; the preface of Isidore to the work of the Councils; the books of the *Histories* of Paul the Deacon; the *Chronicles* of Prosper, and his book *Contra Collatorem*; the second book of Arator the Deacon; the homily of Maximus of Turin, 2, on the natal day of St. Lawrence; the booklet of Vincent of Lérins against profane novelties; the letters of Ambrose to Pope Siricius, and his letter to Theophilus; the hymns of Prudentius; and the letter of Hosius of Córdoba to Constantius.
Furthermore, the councils, whether provincial or general, C which were convened throughout all parts of the West, make this also true and long-evident: all of which did not refuse to obey the Roman bishop as the successor of blessed Peter. The same is proved by Jerome’s letter to Eustochium, in which he writes that the Churches of the entire West were brought together and summoned to Rome because of certain dissensions.
Cyprian’s 42nd letter confirms this again, in which he warns Pope Stephen to ensure, with his own fullest letters, that the bishops of Gaul no longer endure the Arelate-born Martianus, who persisted in the Novatian heresy; and that he should preserve the glorious honor of his blessed predecessors with his own gravity and authority; and that this Martianus should accept judgment, and another should be substituted in his place.
And because they concede this to us of their own accord, namely the presbeia times, that is, "the first rank of honor and dignity," to use their words, "having been assigned to the Roman Church"; and that its bishop is the protos einai pantōn tōn iereōn, "the first of all priests": and that the ancients everywhere bestowed great honor upon the Roman Church, and spoke of it reverently; partly because it had prevailed that it was founded and established by the ministry of Peter, partly because it had men outstanding in doctrine, skill, and the practice of many things; and at the same time it was more sedate than all others, and more tenacious of the doctrine once delivered; and therefore it was called and held to be the apostolic see in the West. D Calvin, lib. IV, cap. 6, *Instit.*, sect. 16, and cap. 7, sect. 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19; Bucer in his *Præparationes ad concilium*; Moulin, and his champion Francis Villerius in his booklet *De statu primitivæ Ecclesiæ*, against Ruffinus, being convicted by the most open decrees of this matter from the Council of Nicaea, the 6th chapter of the Council of Chalcedon, and Constantinople; by the *Præscriptio* of Tertullian, and the most lucid words of blessed Irenaeus in this chapter; and by the obedience and laws of the supreme monarchs; we will not dwell any longer upon these Western and European parts.
115 Having turned therefore to the South, among the primary Churches of all Africa acknowledging the Roman primacy, there occurs first that celebrated one of Carthage, which watched over the Numidian and Mauritanian [churches]; and over which presided with such great praise that most valiant martyr, Cyprian. He professes that "the Chair of Peter, upon which the Church was built by the Lord, is the primary [seat], from which the priestly unity has arisen; whose faith, the Apostle preaching, was commended, and to which perfidy can have no access." And elsewhere: "God is one," he says, "and Christ is one, and one Church, and one chair founded upon the rock by the voice of the Lord. Another altar cannot be constituted, nor a new priesthood be made, besides the one altar and the one priesthood; whoever gathers elsewhere, scatters."
The same [Cyprian], from the council of very many priests, refuses the benefit of all communion to Martianus of Arles and his legates, whom he had sent as far as Africa to be admitted to his communion, because he had attempted to erect a profane altar, and to set up an adulterous chair, and to offer sacrilegious sacrifices against the true priest, in the Catholic Church, ordained by the judgment of God and the suffrage of the clergy and people.
The same [Cyprian], again, used to exhort individuals sailing from Africa to Rome, that they might not sail with any scandal, that they should recognize and hold the mother and root of the Catholic Church; and he took care that all his colleagues, that is, the bishops of Numidia and both Mauritanias, should firmly approve and hold the communion of Pope Cornelius, that is, the unity of the Catholic Church, as well as charity.
Lest anyone think that Cyprian taught this only in a private capacity, he, in the name and opinion of the bishops assembled in the Carthaginian synod from all Libya, Numidia, and the Mauritanias, deemed that he should write especially to Pope Stephen, and confer with his gravity and wisdom; because this pertained both to priestly authority and to the unity of the Catholic Church.
To Cyprian, let us add the opinion of his master Tertullian (for so Jerome is a witness that he called him, while he would handle his volumes day and night). "If you are adjacent to Italy," he says, "you have the Roman Church, from which our authority is ready at hand. How happy is that Church, on which the apostles poured out their whole doctrine with their blood, where Peter is made equal to the Passion of the Lord, where Paul is crowned with the death of John, where the Apostle John, after he had been plunged into burning oil and suffered nothing, is banished to an island."
But omitting Carthage, let us now proceed to Hippo, where Augustine acted as bishop, who will teach us his greatest reverence and obedience toward the seat of blessed Peter, that is, the Roman Church. The four books which he had published against the two letters of the Pelagians, he directs especially to the holiness of Pope Boniface to be examined and corrected, committing himself and his own work to the correction of the apostolic see.
He calls Pope Melchiades the son of Christian peace and the father of the Christian people, *epist.* 162. He earnestly asks Innocent, by the authority of the apostolic see, [to aid in the matter of the] Carthaginian council and [his own] mediocrity.
By the command of the venerable Pope Zosimus, he writes that he was compelled by ecclesiastical necessity to be summoned to Caesarea in Mauretania, *epist.* 57.
He says, *epist.* 162, that Caecilian of Carthage was able to scorn the multitude of conspiring enemies, the Donatists, because he saw himself joined by communicatory letters to the Roman Church, in which the primacy of the apostolic see has always flourished.
He confirms in book V *De baptismo*, chapter twenty-three, that Pope Stephen wrote and commanded against anabaptism in the time of Cyprian in Africa.
He reports and approves in book *De peccato originali*, chapter 8, that Saint Pope Innocent judged the matters of the Palestinian synod, by which Pelagius falsely boasted that he was absolved.
He judges in book two *De baptismo*, chapter one, that the primacy of the apostolate of Peter is to be preferred to any bishopric.
He opposes to the schism of the Donatists, *epist.* 165, the successions of the Roman Church alone from blessed Peter down to his own age, as a mass of immense virtue. B
The bishops of all Numidia, gathered at the Council of Milevis, humbly beseech the supreme pontiff Innocent that he might deign to apply his pastoral diligence to the great dangers of the members of Christ, and that he might, by the authority of his holiness—drawn from the authority of the holy Scriptures—restrain the heretics Caelestius (in Asia) and Pelagius (established in Jerusalem), and provide for others instantly and speedily, as testified by the same Augustine, *epist.* 92.
The same Augustine recognizes and approves the reports of this council and of the Carthaginian council mentioned a little earlier, which were sent to the pontiff of the apostolic see, and at the same time the responses sent back by the same to the Africans, *epist.* 106 and in book 1 *Contra Julianum Pelag.*, and in book two *Contra Pelagium et Caelestium*, chapter 7.
But, lest I be too wordy in a most evident matter, let us turn our eyes—leaving aside the testimonies of Fulgentius of Ruspe, of the abbot Eugypius, of Eulalius, and of Eugenius of Carthage, of Primasius, Optatus, Lactantius, Arnobius, and the African doctors—to the Alexandrian see, which the holy Nicene synod ordained to have, according to ancient custom, *τὴν ἐξουσίαν ἔχειν*, that is, excellence and supreme power and dignity in Egypt, Pentapolis, and Libya. Jerome, in his letter to Theophilus, writes that this see glories in being a participant in the faith of the Roman Church, praised by the apostolic mouth 88.
The most ancient and holy Dionysius of Alexandria seeks the counsel of C Xystus, the Roman bishop, and vehemently demands his opinion in the cause of anabaptism, fearing that he might himself slip through error 89. The same man had consulted Stephen, the predecessor of Xystus, for the same reason, in a sufficiently long letter, mentioning the concord of all the Churches of the East, so that he might hear and heed the shepherd of the Church, without doubt the first, whose opinion all ought to follow 90.
Older than Dionysius, Origen, himself an Alexandrian catechist, had taught that the summit of all things regarding the feeding of the sheep was handed down to Peter, and that the Church was founded upon him as upon the earth, and that he merited to become the foundation of the Church 91. And he writes to the Roman prelate Zephyrinus that he had undertaken a journey to Rome for this reason: because it was very much his desire to see the Roman Church, which was clearly the most ancient.
Great Athanasius, and with him the bishops of all Egypt, acknowledge Mark and the holy Roman apostolic D and his holy see as the mother and head of all Churches; to which they promise that they will be perpetually obedient, along with all those committed to them 92.
Elsewhere, the same Athanasius is gravely angered by the sycophancies of Ursacius and Valens, the Arian prelates, because they did not spare even Liberius, the Roman bishop, being led by no reverence; his see was apostolic, in which nothing resided save the fear of God.
The same man writes again that he had once sailed to Rome from Alexandria, *in order to commend himself and his own to that Church*, just as he himself is his own witness in the *Apology to the Emperor Constantius*: or, as even Calvin likes to think, so that by the authority of the Roman see he might both repress the rage of his enemies and confirm the suffering pious 93.
Now, as we head toward the East, the renowned Churches of all Syria, Palestine, and Arabia occur to us, to which that Dionysius of Alexandria, in Eusebius *Hist.* book VII, chap. 4, congratulates Pope and martyr Stephen for always having been a great help through his doctrine, counsel, and letters.
Jerome, living in the diocese of Jerusalem, cries out these things with a present mind in his letter to Pope Damasus: *I speak with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of the cross. Following no one but Christ, I communicate with your blessedness, that is, with the chair of Peter: I know that the Church is built upon that rock. Whoever eats the lamb outside this house is profane. If anyone is not in the ark of Noah, he will perish while the flood reigns. Whoever does not gather with you, scatters; that is to say, whoever is not of Christ is of Antichrist.*
And in the following letter to the same: *If anyone is joined to the chair of Peter, he is mine.* Elsewhere also: *If he had written anything with too little caution, he asks that it be corrected by the same Damasus, as by one who holds the faith and the chair of Peter.*
The same man also teaches, again, that the synodical consultations of the whole East and West were accustomed to be deferred to the Roman bishop, when he writes that he had responded to them when he aided Damasus in ecclesiastical papers.
And in a letter to Principia, he committed to memory that he had been drawn to Rome by ecclesiastical necessity along with the holy pontiffs Paulinus and Epiphanius, the former of whom ruled the Church of Antioch in Syria, the latter that of Salamis in Cyprus.
But let the most illustrious prelate of Jerusalem, 116 Cyril, be heard. He calls Peter the prelate of the Roman Church, the most excellent prince of the apostles, *catech.* 2; the bearer of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, *catech.* 6; the supreme herald of the Church, *catech.* 11; the prince of the apostles and the key-bearer of the kingdom of heaven, *catech.* 17.
I omit Sophronius, Pachymeres, and Michael Syncellus, who later presided over this Church, so that I may run through others.
In Caesarea of Palestine, that most learned bishop Eusebius calls Peter the first pontiff of the Christians in his *Chronicles*; and he adds that he persevered in Rome for twenty-five years; and as often as he recounts the successions of the bishops in the histories of the principal Churches, so often does he accord the first place to the Roman.
Let us now run through certain Churches of the East. The Church of Caesarea in Cappadocia most willingly received and heard the legates of the Roman prelate, Lucifer and Eusebius, who had come to quell the sedition that had arisen there 94.
A. Basil, great in every way, desires and asks the Roman bishop to consider the affairs of the East, to interpose the decree of his judgment, and using his authority, to visit the East, being prepared to submit himself to his diligent examination 66.
The Churches of the East, distracted by three different opinions concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit, upon receiving the letters of the Roman bishop—by which he persuaded them to believe, together with the bishops of the West, that the Trinity is consubstantial and equal in glory—returned to unity, acquiescing in all things already judged by the Roman Church; according to Sozomen, in the second book, chapter twenty-two, of his History.
Julius, the Roman bishop, restored to their sees the bishops Paul of Constantinople, Asclepas of Gaza, Lucius of Adrianople, and Marcellus of Ancyra in Lesser Galatia, who had been ejected by wicked men and heretics. He did so by letters written quite freely to the Orientals, severely arguing against those by whom they had been rashly deposed, B "since the Roman Church," says Socrates 67, "possesses a privilege above the rest"; and (adds Sozomen) "because of the dignity of the see, the care of all belonged to Julius himself." They, although they took it severely that their own decrees were being infringed, nevertheless acknowledged in their own letters to this same Julius that the Roman Church held the primacy among all, inasmuch as she had been from the beginning the school of the apostles and the metropolis of piety.
Chrysostom, having been driven from his see and relegated by the factions of Theophilus, Epiphanius, and many bishops of the East, implored Pope Innocent himself by letter that he should decree by his authority that their acts had no force, but that he should subject those who acted iniquitously to the laws of ecclesiastical penalties. Innocent, however, ordered that Atticus, who had been substituted in Chrysostom's place, should desist, and that Proclus, bishop of Cyzicus, should shepherd the Church of Constantinople C for a time, until the cause could be weighed. And the same [Pope] removed from the communion of the Church and from the sacraments the Emperor of the East, Arcadius, and the Empress Eudoxia— whom he found guilty of the relegation of such a great doctor—and afterwards absolved them when they had done penance 69.
Meanwhile, Anysius of Thessalonica confessed that he followed the judgment of the Roman Church; the presbyters of the Antiochene see wrote that they recognized the same discipline; and Syriacus of Apamea in Bithynia, Palladius of Helenopolis, Demetrius of Pisinuntus, the bishops of all Caris, and the monasteries of Mesopotamia, execrating the nefarious deposition and relegation of Chrysostom, adhered to the judgment of the Roman see.
But omitting these things, let us consider the reverence and obedience towards the successors of Peter regarding the Church of Antioch—which Jerome (from the Latins), Theodoret (from the Greeks, bk. 5, ch. 2) 70, and Hegesippus (from the Hebrews, bk. 3, ch. 5) teach was the metropolis of the whole East. Socrates, Theodoret, and Sozomen have recorded with one consent that Flavian, D the prelate of that same see, through an embassy and by the prayers of Chrysostom and Theophilus, was reconciled and restored to communion by the bishop of the Roman Church—from whom he had been deprived of communion on account of his violated oath 71. The same [Church], willingly embracing Paul the patriarch, did so because he had been delivered and ordained for it by Lucifer, the legate of the Roman pontiff; who afterwards himself also, together with Epiphanius and Jerome, set out to the Roman pontiff to consult about ecclesiastical matters 72.
But why do I linger in enumerating individuals? It is better to collect the judgments of the councils, in which all came together, concerning the supreme head of the Church after Peter. From the West and the whole East, more than six hundred bishops were gathered at Chalcedon—which, says Gelasius, was "convened by the decree" of the Roman see alone; all of whom, with not even one dissenting, heard Paschasinus, the legate of Pope Leo, acting as the head of all the Churches, and fulfilled his mandates, in action 1. Then Leo is called by the consent of all, "universal archbishop, universal pope of the Church, universal bishop of the Church," in action 3. Afterwards, in action 16, he willed that all primacy and the chief honor should be preserved to the archbishop of ancient Rome, according to the canons.
Another council had preceded this one, which was convened at Ephesus against Nestorius by the "command and authority," say Nicephorus, Evagrius, and the Emperor Justinian, of Pope Celestine 73. There, two hundred Fathers gathered from the entire East, having the necessity laid upon them by the canons and by the letter of the most holy Father Celestine, bishop of the Roman Church, protest, weeping long and much, that they are being driven to render the sad sentence of anathema against Nestorius. They also look with all admiration upon the piety, zeal, and care for the right faith of the same Celestine in a letter addressed to him; they acknowledge that the Roman bishops are illustrious in all things and that their studies are the supports of the churches; and because necessity demanded that all things which had been done in that holy synod should be referred to the knowledge of his holiness, they write to him, by that necessary letter, that they are informing him of all these things 74. Finally, they defer the punishing of the rashness of John, the patriarch of Antioch—who, in order to disturb the synod in favor of Nestorius, had deposed the bishops of Ephesus and Alexandria—to the judgment of the same pious Celestine 75.
But those 150 bishops, who many years before had gathered for the second universal synod (which was the first Council of Constantinople) in accordance with the letters of Pope Damasus, profess in a letter to the same prelate of the Roman Church that they are his own members, and at the same time [he] exhorted [them] that he should acquiesce with his piety and spiritual charity to the ordinations of Nectarius, Flavian, and Cyril, to whom they had committed the Churches of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
Now, indeed, let us consider the first Nicene synod, so celebrated and to be observed by all, which consists for the most part of such a crown of confessors, drawn from Mesopotamia, Persia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, both Palestines, Phoenicia, both Syrias, Arabia, Armenia, and Pontus, Galatia, Asia, Lydia; Phrygia, Pisidia, Pamphilia, Isauria, and other parts of the East. That it was convened not only by the consent of the Roman bishop Sylvester at Damasus, but also that it was regularly called by his vocation, is taught by the Roman council celebrated at the same time 76: and that Vitus and Vincentius
priests, and the other legates of the Roman See, presided over it in the name of Sylvester, is attested by the Latins Marianus, Regino, Platina; and by the Greeks, Cedrenus in his *Compendium of History*, and Photius of Constantinople. The same synod ordered that the observation of Easter, which they had received from apostolic men, Polycarp, Polycrates, and others, be set aside, and that the time of celebration of the Roman Church be embraced; which, when Emperor Constantine had exhorted them, they willingly agreed to do. This same synod also, in the name of all the bishops, prays in a letter to the same Sylvester that whatever seemed good in such a great gathering and consensus might be confirmed by the participation of his mouth 77. What, therefore, could be found more evident, firmer, or fuller for the confirmation of the supreme power over all Churches in the successor of Peter? Behold, the pastors of the Churches of the whole West, the South, and the East, in words, writings, and deeds; both individually and gathered in the greatest synods, acknowledge that this Church was founded by Peter, to whom, above others, the care of feeding the Lord's sheep was committed B; they show it obedience and reverence; they judge those excluded from its communion to be profane, heretics, and Antichrists; they look for its judgment in every controversy; they hear, embrace, and kiss its decrees as the voice of Christ; the primary patriarchs seek to be confirmed by it; they ask it to add weight to their councils; when afflicted by injustice, they appeal to it; and when cast out from their own sees, they flee to it as to the safest asylum; those whom it receives into communion are held by all to be Catholic; those whom it has not admitted are held as schismatic: and, to conclude with this clause of Irenæus, «that they, whoever they are and from wherever they may be, if they are faithful in the whole world, gather to it because of its more powerful preeminence and its preserved apostolic traditions.» And let this suffice regarding these matters.
117 *To Peter and Paul.* In chapter 4 of this book, he testifies in express terms that Peter and Paul evangelized at Rome and founded the Church: which, since it is confirmed by his superiors, Hegesippus, Caius, Linus, Clement, Anacletus, Papias, and by all the orthodox and famous writers who followed afterwards, whether in the East or in the West, in the South or in the North, with wonderful consensus: I cannot but marvel at the utter impudence of Velenus, Illyricus, Funccius, Molinæus, Gallasius, and certain other Hugnostics, who dare to blather that Peter was never at Rome. Especially when even Luther himself, just as Rebenstock writes from his conversations, willingly confessed 78: «That all histories affirm that Peter was the first pope at Rome»; and Calvin professes 79: «That because of the consensus of writers, he does not wish to fight against the fact that he died there.»
It should also be noted in this place that Peter is placed before Paul, because the former had preached to the Romans long before the latter even wrote to them or arrived among them. For Paul himself, writing to the Romans whom he had not yet seen or taught, testifies that their faith is reported in the whole world, and that he is possessed by a great desire to visit them and to confirm them in the same faith. Therefore, already there, through the labors of Peter, the most ample and flourishing face of the Christian and Catholic Church had grown: which also other writers of the first rank, besides Irenæus, testify. For Eusebius says 80: «Peter, by the word of the saving preaching, first opened in the city of Rome the door of the heavenly kingdom with the keys of his Gospel.» Epiphanius agrees (*cont. hæres.* 27), Chrysostom (on Ps. XLVIII), Nicephorus (book II); and, to join the Latins to the Greeks, Leo the Great (sermon 4 on the natal day of the apostles), Orosius (book 1, cap. 6), Arnobius (book 11 *Against the Gentiles*), and very many others.
*Through the successions of the bishops.* That they, those who counted the continuous succession of bishops, especially of the Romans, down to their own age, because through them the true and manifest bride-known of Christ is the Church, from which the interpretation of the Scriptures, the legitimate sacraments, and the truth of the faith must be sought, they felt, together with Irenæus, and opposed them to the heretics as the firmest wall; Tertullian (*lib. Præscr.*), Cyprian (*lib. 1, epist.* 6), Optatus (*lib. 11 Against Parmen.*), Epiphanius (*Against heresies* 27), Augustine (*vol. VII, Ps. against the party of Donatus*), and all other orthodox men who followed.
But truly, such a perpetual succession in the Roman See is so certain and clear that no Lutherans, no Calvinists, no Anabaptists, no Arians, Samosatenians, Trideutists, or Trinitarians can deny it: on the contrary, these lack any succession of bishops; and for the greater part their ministers are laymen, bursting into the Churches from profane mobs and trades, without any sacred initiation, and either reviving the old heresies of Simon, Marcion, Donatus, Vigilantius, Berengarius, etc., or sowing others invented by new heresiarchs, unto the extreme destruction of the entire Christian world. They are therefore, as the orthodox say, ordained by themselves, disciples without a master, children without a father, members without a head, and prodigiously born creatures 81.
*Beyond what is necessary they gather.* Billius does not doubt that the interpreter endeavored to translate the Greek word *parasynagein*: though he would have translated it more clearly as «to conduct assemblies beyond law and right.» Whence Socrates in his *Ecclesiastical History*, book V, c. 21 (in the Latin version 20), says that Sabbatius Novatian, when he had left his own people and begun to conduct private assemblies, *parasynaxe*. But what is the difference between heresy, schism, and a *parasynagoge* or *parasynaxis*, see Basil in his *Canon to Amphilochius*, can. 1.
*Page 176. Linus the episcopate.* That they do not all agree on who first succeeded blessed Peter in the Roman See matters little, since it is established that the Church never lacked a pastor: but that it retains its own manifest and continuous succession from the prince of the apostles. Irenæus enumerates Linus as the first after Peter, which is proven by Jerome, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Dorotheus, Optatus, and Augustine. Eusebius agrees in his third book of *History*, cap. 2 and 4, and book V, cap. 6; also in his *Chronicle* under the year of our Lord 70, the 14th of Nero, he asserts that Linus governed the Roman Church for 12 years after Peter. On the contrary, Clement writes that he was appointed successor by blessed Peter in the seventh book of the *Apostolic Constitutions*, cap. 45, and in his first epistle to James, which Rufinus made Latin nearly 1,200 years ago; Epiphanius, Damasus, Marianus, and Sabellicus subscribe to this. The reconciliation of the most learned theologian Sanderus pleases me greatly, namely that Peter indeed ordained Clement, but that Linus and Cletus were placed before him in the catalogue of Roman bishops because Peter had taken them to himself as coadjutors. Therefore, as Epiphanius also correctly gathers from the ancients, Linus was the first to preside over the Roman Church after the death of St. Peter, Cletus the second, and Clement the third; who, with Christian and rare moderation, refused to take the seat of Peter while Linus and Cletus were alive and were the coadjutors of the prince of the apostles, Peter, at Rome, while he—the latter—was traveling to other provinces due to the urgent salvation of his neighbors, even though he had been designated by Peter himself.
Furthermore, it is to be noted from this opinion of Irenæus that it is the duty of the apostles and their successors to appoint legitimate bishops over the Churches; not kings, not civil magistrates, and least of all the common people. How monstrous and shameful, therefore, that a woman, whom divine law does not even permit to speak in the Church, should appoint Calvinian ministers of the word, deans...
A Irenæus also, in his Epistle to Florinus, highly commends the piety, the doctrine, the way of life of Polycarp, and other gifts of both mind and body. Eusebius contains a fragment of this in *Hist.*, lib. v, cap. 19.
To appoint bishops and archbishops in the churches somewhere! “Purple, certainly, makes emperors, not priests,” says Ambrose. And the same to Valentinian: “Do not burden yourself, emperor, by thinking that you have any imperial right in divine matters. The administration of public buildings is committed to you, not that of sacred ones.”
He is succeeded by Anacletus. Most writers place him after Clement, and in the epistle inscribed to him, he calls Clement his predecessor; but Epiphanius, Rufinus, Damasus, and Sabellicus also add Cletus—not Anacletus—after Linus. However, Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. iii, cap. 13, subscribes to this enumeration of Irenæus, which ignores Cletus unless it makes him the same as Anacletus, saying: “In the second year of the empire, Linus, having presided over the ministry of the Roman Church for twelve years, handed it over to Anacletus.” He has similar things in lib. v, cap. 6, and finally in his *Chronicle*; Ignatius also, in his first epistle, writes that Clement succeeded Anacletus.
Clement, who also saw the apostles. That he learned the first elements of the faith from the preaching of Barnabas, and that he was brought to the apostle Peter by his ministry, and afterwards became his companion in various journeys and struggles, he is a most ample witness to himself in the books of the *Recognitions*. Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, and Epiphanius think that he is the one whom Paul mentions in a certain epistle.
Therefore, under this Clement, there was no small dissension. If the epistle of Clement, by which he checked this schism and confirmed the wavering faith of the Corinthians, were extant, the occasions for such a division would be easily explained: but neither Eusebius nor Nicephorus have handed down more than this Irenæus.
*Most powerful letters.* Observe hence that the Roman Church, even from the beginning, exerted its authority in moderating the Churches of the Greeks as well, which was so pleasing to the bishops of those churches that Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. iv, cap. 12, writes that this commemorated epistle was read publicly in many churches, not so much in the name of Clement as in the name of the Roman Church, within his own memory. Furthermore, you may find fragments of this epistle, not to be despised, in Justin Martyr, *Quæst. 47 ad orth.*; Clement of Alexandria, *Strom.* lib. i, lib. iv, and lib. vi; Basil the Great, *De Spiritu sancto*, ch. 29; Athanasius, in his *Disputation against Arius* at the Council of Nicaea; Epiphanius *contra hær.* 27; Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. iv, caps. 16 and 37; Jerome, *lib. i Cont. Jovin.* and in his *Commentaries* on chapters 1 and 4 of Ephesians. It seemed sufficient to merely admonish the reader of these.
To this Clement succeeds Evaristus. Augustine (epist. 165), Optatus of Milevis (lib. ii), write that Evaristus succeeded Anacletus, whom Damasus and Platina have followed; but since Irenæus protests against this, and Eusebius in many places subscribes to him, he is rather to be believed. Eusebius transcribed this whole passage in *Hist.* lib. v, cap. 6.
*Who also most gloriously.* Eusebius, Damasus, Metaphrastes, Nicephorus, Platina, and other writers of ecclesiastical history agree with this: and thus the most ancient writer Tertullian in these verses: *He who, after his period of five years was completed, handed it over to Telesphorus;* *This one was excellent, and a faithful martyr.*
And Polycarp. You may also find this passage in Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. iv, cap. 13. Then he graphically depicts the most constant martyrdom of this same Polycarp in cap. 15. Ignatius also frequently mentions Polycarp in his epistles and directs one to him by name. The same, writing again from Philippi to his own Antiochenes, greets them in the name of Polycarp, to whom, as a most faithful guardian, he commends the Antiochene Church with greater intensity as he goes to martyrdom.
*For he persevered for a long time.* Eusebius in his *Chronicle* reports that Polycarp received the crown of martyrdom around the year of Christ 169, in the seventh year of the reign of Antoninus Verus; moreover, that he said to the proconsul when death was imminent that he had served Christ for eighty-six years: from which it is evident that he was truly an old man and had presided over the Church of Smyrna for many years.
*Page 177. And he is a more faithful witness of the truth.* By the authority of Eusebius, and the admonition of Billius, we have thus restored the passage, having expunged “fidelioris” which all the manuscripts had.
*For he is the one who under Anicetus.* Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. v, cap. 24, reports more abundantly the reasons for this journey from the epistle of Irenæus to Pope Victor. B But from this it must be observed how much the Churches of the whole East valued the authority of the Roman pontiff, whose primate, a hearer of the apostles, Polycarp, having been appointed pastor at Smyrna by John the Evangelist himself, already advanced in age, goes to Rome, consults the successor of Peter on various matters, and requests and attains communion of peace.
D And there are those who heard him. Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. iv, cap. 13, transcribed these things from Irenæus; Epiphanius *contra hæresim* 30; Theodoret, *Hæret. fab.*; Nicephorus lib. iv. Moreover, it is reported in ecclesiastical books that Polycarp had many most holy disciples and hearers besides Irenæus, who were still surviving at that time in both Asia and Gaul: among whom they count Andochius, Thyrsus, Felix, and Benignus, who were consumed by martyrdom in the Gauls.
*Cerinthus.* Epiphanius *contra hæresim* 30 reports this once and again regarding Ebion, not Cerinthus. What if both, that is, Cerinthus and Ebion, as professors of almost the same impiety, had happened to come together into the bath, either by arrangement or by chance? Jerome, *Adversus Luciferianos*, asserts that after the departure of John, Cerinthus was crushed by the collapse of the bath with his followers. And indeed Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. iv, cap. 22, Nicephorus, lib. v, cap. 22, and Theodoret, *Hæreticarum fabularum* lib. ii, report the coming and going of John with Irenæus, but they do not mention the collapse of the bath and the destruction of the heretic.
*After one correction.* Tertullian, *lib. De præscript.*; Cyprian, book *Ad Quirinum*, cap. 78, also epist. 55; Lucifer Calaritanus and Ambrose, *Com. in hunc Pauli locum*, following this reading of the old codex of Irenæus, do not have “et alteram”; but Athanasius, *orat. contra Arian.*, *orat. ad Max.*, *epist. ad Serapionem*; Leo the Great, *serm. contra hæresim Eutychetis*; Jerome, Theodoret, Primasius do have it.
*And there is also the epistle of Polycarp.* Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. v, cap. 20; Jerome in his *Catalogue*; Nicephorus, lib. ii, cap. 39, acknowledge this. It came to light in our age, as did the monuments of many other ancient men, which had long lain hidden through the injury of time. Furthermore, Irenæus is a witness, in his *Epistle to Florinus*, a notable fragment of which exists in Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. v, cap. 18, and Nicephorus, lib. iv, cap. 30, that this same most blessed and apostolic man wrote other epistles as well, either for the sake of confirmation to neighboring Churches or to certain brethren, to admonish and exhort them, from which the purity of his doctrine can be gathered. Moreover, five fragments of these, not to be despised, [were found] by me during the time of the previous Lent at Verdun, in a certain [manuscript] with very ancient characters...
a Catena compiled on the four evangelists, as noticed by Victor, bishop of Capua, one thousand one hundred years ago; it seemed worth the effort to insert them at this place. (These fragments we have already published in volume V of this Patrologia, under Polycarp. ED.)
A Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on ch. 4. Page 178. *Since such, therefore, is the demonstration*, and thus Irenaeus collects what he said above concerning the Scriptures, the successions of bishops, especially in the Roman Church, and the traditions of the apostles, as having the force of a most manifest and firm demonstration against all heresies. He infers, however, that the truth of the faith is not to be sought from the so impure and dissected sects of the Gnostics, but from the Catholic Church alone, to which, as to a sacred and heavenly pledge, it was committed by the apostles to be preserved. The first confirmation is from this, that in the face of new disputes that have arisen, one always recurs to the more ancient Churches, as to purer fountains. The second, that if no Scriptures had been left to us, one would have to flee entirely to the traditions of those Churches. The third, that many nations throughout the world steadfastly hold and preserve the true Christian faith delivered to them by word of mouth alone. The fourth, that the Holy Spirit, as was foretold by the prophets, implants and fixes true and salutary piety in the hearts of the faithful, rather than on paper. Shortly after, for "in it," instead of "in her," and then, "with the greatest diligence," instead of "with great," we have substituted [these phrases], instructed by an ancient manuscript.
*Diligence*. Billius would prefer "to choose" rather than "to choose out," because of the word "to avoid," which precedes it.
*What then if even*. A truly powerful bolt against those who clamor that nothing is to be believed which Scripture does not clearly and openly say. Would they, therefore, have believed that God is one, and that He created all things by His Word, if they had preceded the age of Moses? Or would they have professed atheism, if they had seen the entire Holy Bible burned in Babylonian flames? Would they not, therefore, have truly believed the incarnation, death, resurrection, and the entire economy of our Lord accomplished by Him, before Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John committed these things to writing? And what will they answer to this reasoning of Irenaeus, if they believe only and solely in open writings, with all tradition denied?
B *Many nations of the barbarians*. By the divine injunctions by which Christ delegated the apostles and disciples, that, going into the whole world, they might profess the happy and auspicious word of the Gospel to every creature, beginning from Judea as far as the end of the earth, they obeyed with such fervor that they traversed the entire orb of the earth within 40 or 50 years. This Paul clearly indicates, saying that the faith of the Romans is announced in the whole world; and the Apocalypse, referring to the blessed ones among the eucharists, saying: *You have redeemed us from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation*. However, the writings of the apostles were not spread immediately through so many tongues and provinces; which, nevertheless, they believed, supported by the true faith in God, by the word of God alone handed down, and not by writing, as Irenaeus teaches.
*Those who believe in Christ, without paper and ink*. Thus we have restored from an ancient codex: *codes printed, of those who believe in Christ, without characters or ink*.
C *For before Valentinus*. With the same arguments, namely, from the recent origin of both the heresiarchs and the heresies, Tertullian fights most validly against these Gnostics in his book *De Praescriptione* and book 1 *Against Marcion*. This kind of argument also carries great weight against the Hugnostics of this age: since it is certain that Lutheranism in the year of the Lord 1517 had its beginning from the unhooded apostate Luther; the sacramentarian faction [arose] around the year 1524; the works of Carlstadt and Zwingli proliferated; but the dregs of the Anabaptists in 1522, through Nicolaus Storck, and then Thomas Müntzer, laid the first foundations of their frenzies. For if we go through all ecclesiastical histories, we shall find no province, no nation, which has ever produced a confession of faith similar to the Augustan, Witebergian, Mansfeldian, Saxon, Bohemian, Vandalic, Swedish, English, Belgic, French, Helvetic, or Byzanitic. Beza himself confesses this sufficiently in the first place, when in his book of *Images* he writes that Knox, Bucer, Farel, Calvin, Zwingli, and Oecolampadius were the first evangelists in Scotland, D England, France, Savoy, and Switzerland; likewise, that nothing more prudent, nothing more lucid, nothing more magnificent had been written by any interpreter of the divine word on the holy Scriptures of Calvin; and in his *Life*, overstepping the bounds of decency, he writes as impudently as he does wickedly: *That the doctrine concerning the Lord’s Supper had not been rightly understood and taught by any one after the apostles until Calvin*. It is evident, therefore, even by the testimony of their own people, that Calvinism and Zwinglianism are most recent: and that we can with the best right object to them what was recently objected to their grandchildren, the Anabaptists, in the Frankenthal colloquy: *If you are the Church of God, it follows that God was without a people and a Church until the year 1524, in which Carlstadt laid the foundations of your doctrine*. For if you read through all histories, you will find no people from the beginning of the world who had a confession of faith similar to yours, etc.
Lutheranism is also most recent, and Luther himself openly signifies and testifies in these words: *We dare to boast that Christ was first proclaimed by us*. And in his *Table Talk* collected by Rebenstock it is reported that, frequently preferring his own labors even to the labors of the apostles, he would say: *In the time of Paul, the Gospel was not proposed publicly, but privately*. And Joannes Aurifaber in other *Table Talk* of the same Luther, his master, elevates him so far above all Fathers, doctors, martyrs, disciples, and evangelists, and apostles of Christ, that he judges that the most divine Paul is scarcely to be preferred to him, and assigns to him next to the same Christ the place entirely, as we noted above from his verses. Finally, Wigandus in his book *On the Goods and Evils of Germany* ascribes to the same Luther *an illustration of the articles of faith, such as has not been known in the world from the times of the apostles until now*. And in fact, they cannot, nor will they ever be able, to name even one, not a single one from the times of the apostles to this age of ours, who professed the Lutheran or Melanchthonian doctrine, or embraced a confession of faith similar to the Augustan. But neither can they point out any province, any city, any town, any corner of the whole world, in which it has been baptized or practiced or preached in the manner of the recent Hugnostics. Therefore, their doctrine is clearly new, and until now neither heard nor received among Christians.
*For Valentinus came to Rome*. These things, up to *but Marcion succeeding him*, were transcribed by Eusebius in book IV of his *History*, ch. 10. The sect of the Valentinians also, having arisen in the time of Antoninus Pius and Pope Telesphorus, who had preceded Hyginus, was handed down to memory by Theodoret and Sabellicus.
Page 179. *Now indeed teaching secretly*. It is to be observed how uncertain, wavering, and fluctuating toward every breeze, nay, even repugnant, and with the miserable conscience perpetually scourging them, the errors...
A of those who are not willing to acknowledge in it the real presence of the body of Christ, stubbornly persist. The same man, proceeding to the Tigurines, said to Cyringius: "My faith and opinion concerning the Supper of the Lord shall stand or fall by these Helvetic theologians." With the same inconstancy and trepidation, Calvin, prepared to change and abandon his sacramental, wrote: "If Philip Melanchthon should declare by one little word that I deflect from his mind, I will immediately desist." Are these not most light prophets and most inconstant apostles, who stand and fall, concerning the primary articles of the Christian faith, at the nod of lying and mortal men? They are ready to fix and re-fix the tables of their own dogmas. Oecolampadius, another parent of this sect, being admonished by the Chancellor Ficinus from the Landgrave of Hesse in 1529, not to trust in the foreign and uncertain inventions of men while neglecting the words of Christ, replied in these words: "Would to God, most illustrious prince, that this right hand had been cut off when I first began to B write on the matter of the Lord's Supper!" Is this not an open and certain testimony of an oppressed, reprobated, and condemned conscience? Zwingli himself, also doubtful and wavering concerning his own dogma, wrote: "I candidly confess that, regarding this sense of the words of Christ, which we bring forth: 'it signifies my body,' I am more inclined than to the other which we have hitherto held, although I affirm nothing rashly. But if anyone shall bring forth clearer things, I promise that I shall embrace them with thanksgiving." And again, declaring the uncertainty of the sacramental doctrine and his own inconstancy, he says: "I fear that many err in the contest concerning the Eucharist, unless I err more than all," etc. Nor is it indeed surprising if they tremble and shudder, and are thoroughly terrified while conducting so impious a cause; since, having abandoned or corrupted the clearest words of Christ, they follow either Satanic dreams or glosses invented and introduced by impure men; which can never quiet C the weak and timid minds of men. Who could safely entrust his own salvation to Proteuses and Vertumnuses of this kind? But enough of these matters for the present occasion.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 5.*
Page 179. *By tradition, therefore.* The argument from traditions being completed, he now institutes a disputation against the Gnostics from the open Scriptures: and by these he demonstrates that there is one only God, the Creator of the universe, and the same who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
*Truth from the earth.* After Irenaeus, Arnobius interprets this place thus: "Truth, who is Christ, has sprung from the earth, that is, has arisen from Mary." Lactantius also, in book four, chapter twelve: "Truth," he says, "has sprung from the earth, because God, in whom the truth is, took a terrestrial body, that He might open the way of salvation to earthly beings." And Augustine: "Truth has sprung from the earth, Christ born of a woman, the Son of God proceeded from the flesh of Christ." Nor do Jerome in his Commentary on the Psalms, Fulgentius in book III *Ad Trasimundum*, and in his book *On the Incarnation and Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ*, chapter 6, dissent from this interpretation.
D Page 180. *And without respect of persons.* We have added the word "person," and have expunged "acceptance"; then for "might establish" we have substituted "might establish" [translating the correction], and not long after, for "about to descend" we substituted "to be descended," from an ancient codex.
*Widening Japheth.* He alludes to that blessing with which Noah honored and decorated his first-born son Japheth. This place is illustrated by this more ample interpretation of Justin: "Noah foretold that the descendants of Shem would occupy the lands of the Canaanites and their dwellings, to be expelled soon by the progeny of Japheth, which in this way..."
managed to seize it; he means the Romans.
A Regarding the same, annotations on chapter 6.
Page 180. *Neither therefore the Lord.* From many clear places of the Scriptures, he demonstrates that there is one sole God and Lord, the Creator and Ruler of this world; and under this name, not only the Father (as the old and new Arians impiously contend), but also the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, three divine hypostases together, are comprehended. Hence there emanated that rule, not only of Augustine but of all the ancient theologians: "As often as God is named in the Scriptures absolutely and indefinitely, three divine persons are signified at once."
For he placed the Father with the Son. Christ interprets this passage concerning the Father and Himself, Matt. XXII, 44, which Paul also constantly preaches, 1 Cor. XV, 23, and Heb. I, 13; and hence they prove that the Father and the Son are two distinct persons between themselves, but to be worshipped in one and exactly the same divinity and co-eternal majesty. And for this reason, Justin the Martyr in his *Dialogue* rightly reproves Trypho and similar Jews, because they contended that this psalm should be understood not of the Father and the Son, but of King Hezekiah, since he neither sits at the right hand of God the Father, nor is, or ever was, a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, nor finally was begotten by the Father before the morning star. Tertullian, in book *Against Praxeas* and books I and V *Against Marcion*; Cyprian, book II *Against the Jews*, chap. 26; Athanasius, *Oration against the Arians*, etc., subscribe to Justin and Irenaeus.
*And the Lord rained upon Sodom.* From this passage, besides Irenaeus, most grave and ancient authors, such as Justin in his *Dialogue*, Tertullian *Against Praxeas*, Cyprian in the third book *To Quirinus*, Cyril in his first book *On John*, Jerome on the forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, Hilary in his book *On the Synods*, Athanasius *Against the cohorts of Sabellius* and in his epistle *On the Synods*, Ambrose in his first book *On the Faith*, chapter 2, Chrysostom in his homily *On the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity*, prove that there are several divine hypostases, against the stubbornness of the Jews—whom Calvin and Gallasius ought rather to imitate than to censure, as if the repetition of Jehovah lacked mystery, or as if the Father operated anything without the Son.
*And concerning those who received the adoption.* Tertullian, book *Against Praxeas*, chap. 43, shows from this after Irenaeus, that Christ is also truly and by nature God; and at the same time that all the pious are made sons of God by adoption through Him. B "Remember," he says, "it is written: 'I said: You are gods, and sons of the Most High.'" And: "God stood in the congregation of the gods"; so that if Scripture did not fear to pronounce men gods, having been made sons of God through faith, you might know that it has much more rightly bestowed the name of God upon the true and only Son of God.
*And again.* We have added these six small words from the old codex, changing the word "descends" to "descended," so that it is the Son Himself who speaks to Moses, as the texts of the Scriptures, Exodus III, indicate should be read, with which our old codex agrees.
Page 181. *But the nations do not know the true God.* Thus the old codex: "the word of the Lord." And soon after, "took away those who are not gods," and from the same old codex we read, for that which I had printed, "that they are gods."
*In both hamstrings (suffraginibus).* The passage is 1 Kings XVIII, where the old translation says: "How long do you limp into two parts?" The Saints from the Hebrew: "How long do you limp into two opinions?" The Greeks, in
ἀμφοτέραις ἰγνύαις
, "in both popliteal tendons" (or hamstrings); and the interpreter translates it "hamstrings." Theophylactus refers to the fact that C quadrupeds bend their wings forward, and their hamstrings backward. The same author, lib. XXX, cap 6: "The eagle's feet pull away in the opposite direction against the hamstring."And so, therefore, I invoke Thee. Even though this prayer of the most blessed martyr is certainly fervent and memorable, by which he prays well for the perseverance in true faith of the readers of these books, yet the impious and at the same time detestable opinion of the pagan Valentinus, by which he wished to establish from this passage that only God the Father is the God of the Israelites, and not the Son and the Holy Spirit as well, is to be execrated. But the wicked man does not see that he is thus constructing three gods in a purely heathen manner. Nor does he note Irenaeus at the beginning of this chapter asserting that there is one God and Lord of all, definitely and absolutely, namely the Father and His Son. Then a little later asserting that the Father and the Son truly are that one Lord; the Son having spoken with Abraham; also called God and God of gods by David; the Son is God, who gathered the Church by Himself; the Son is God who was to come to judgment; the Son who spoke to Moses; from which it is manifest and clear that He, together with the Father, truly is and is called the God of the Israelites, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Concerning the same and consubstantial divinity of the Holy Spirit, we have spoken above, and it will be said again below in opportune places.
*You have felt well concerning us.* The interpreter translates
τὸ εὐδοκεῖν
as "to feel well," which is rendered elsewhere as "to be pleased with oneself"; as if he were to say: "You have held us as pleasing and acceptable."*Who rule over all.* We have added "who" from the old codex, having expunged the conjunction "and"; and on the next line, "through the Lord," where the codices had "besides the Lord."
*Domination.* The old codex: "domination which you also give D of the Holy Spirit." Perhaps it should be said "donation." But, whether you read this or that, you always have the eternal and consubstantial divinity, majesty, and domination of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son confirmed against the ancient and new Arians.
*Over all.* Theophylact follows this interpretation of Irenaeus, referring that word
πάντα
(for thus the Greek codices have it) to the demons and all men who have been held as gods; butσέβασμα
refers to idols, groves, or shrines of idols.From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 6.
Page 180. *Neither therefore the Lord.* He uses the same Scriptural sayings for his purpose as Justin uses in his *Dialogue with Trypho*, page 277 of the Paris edition, so that I have no doubt that Irenaeus had this passage before his eyes when he wrote these things.
*For he indicated both by the appellation of God, etc.* Thus also Justin M. in his *Dialogue with Trypho*, p. 277, with the same words of David cited, adds: "But if you say that the Holy Spirit also calls some other God and Lord, besides the Father who is Lord of all, and His Christ?"
*God and Lord of all.* I am surprised that Irenaeus attributes verse 14 of chapter III of Exodus to God the Father, but verse 8 to God the Son; when, however, the whole context most clearly shows that it is the same person who speaks in both cases.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 7.
Page 183. *But what they say.* By even a single passage of Paul, he demonstrates that the heretics neither read Paul correctly, nor understand him: since, on account of the impulse of the Holy Spirit speaking in him, he sometimes uses hyperbaton, and is obscure. But, from the cited sentence of this same Paul, the heretics have shown much difficulty to the Fathers, as Irenaeus indicates after...
A Tertullian in book V *Against Marcion*. Marcion, he says, distinguished the "God of this age," as if to suggest a God of another age; but we, on the contrary, distinguish it thus: "in whom the God, then, of this age hath blinded; the minds of the unbelievers." Subsequently, he admits another reading as well, so that we might be able to say "the God of this age," that is, the devil. St. Augustine testifies that the former reading pleased many, and especially those who had dealings against the Manichaeans, or the Marcionites; yet the same author sometime later denies that it should seem absurd if the devil is called the god of this age, that is, of wicked men; as is that saying to Paul: "Whose God is their belly." This former reading also pleases Chrysostom, Theophylact, and the Greek scholia through hyperbaton; Cyril and Ambrose embrace the latter.
*Incorruptelae* (of incorruption). So the old codex. The printed copies had *incorruptibile* (incorruptible).
*Ostendemus* (we shall show). I have expunged *co-ostendemus*, following an ancient codex.
*Ut non nunc in multum avocemus mentem* (that we do not now distract the mind too much). Thus the old codex instructed it should be read: the printed copies read "et non nunc in multum mutemus" (and let us not now change too much), etc. And we say in passing, from many places of the blessed Augustine, that God blinds the wicked not by inflicting a blind malice, but by not imparting the grace to which they render themselves unworthy. August. epist. 105, Comment. in psalm. LII, lib. *De praedest. et gratia*, cap. 4.
*Quoniam autem hyperbatis* (Since, however, by hyperbata). Quintilian describes hyperbaton as a transposition of words, which the reason of comparison and decorum frequently demands. Origen, explaining the Epistle to the Romans, complains more than once that the Greek diction of Paul is perplexed, obscured by hyperbata, and that out of the Cilician idiom some things sound little Greek and reflect a foreign character.
*Disposita* (disposed). We have deleted *dispositum*, following an ancient codex.
*Ex Joan. Ern. Grabii adnotationibus in cap. 7.*
Pag. 128. *Lex factorum posita est usquequo* (The law of works is laid down until when). The interpreter seems to have followed the Italic version rather than the Greek text of Irenaeus in this place, as also later in book V, chapter 21. For I think Irenaeus read in Galatians II, 19, not *praxeon* (of works), but *parabaseon* (of transgressions), just as we do, because there is no Greek codex provided that has the former reading; but the latter is confirmed by Clement of Alexandria, a contemporary of Irenaeus, in *Strom.* lib. 1, pag. 350; Origen in *Comment. in Joan.*, pag. 427, not to mention others. Regarding the different pointing of this text also, by which some close the interrogation after "therefore," while others defer it further, see the notes of the most learned D. Mill on this place.
*Ex adnotationibus Nic. Gallasii in cap. 8.*
Pag. 183. *Mammonas autem* (But mammon). According to Jewish speech, which the Samaritans also use, it means *cupidus* (covetous), and one desiring to have more than he ought. According to Hebrew, however, it is said adjunctively *mam*, or it signifies *gulosum* (gluttonous), that is, one who cannot restrain himself from gluttony. That this word *Mammona* is Syriac, Jerome testifies in various places. First in Matthew, chapter VI, then to Algasia, in the sixth question. "Mammona," he says, "is not of the Hebrew language, but of the Syrians, and riches are called by this name, because they are collected from iniquity." Also to Eustochium: "For in the Gentile language of the Syrians, riches are called mammona." Since all learned Hebrews agree with this interpretation, I was surprised that it was taken here by Irenaeus for *cupido* (covetous) and *avaro* (greedy), and likewise for *guloso* (gluttonous), and I thought a metonymy ought to occur. I doubted also what that meant for itself, "according to Hebrew it is said adjunctively *mam*." For the Hebrews do not use a word in this meaning. Moreover, the Samaritan language doubtless understands the Syriac and Chaldean, such as was then commonly in use; but the Hebrew is that pure and genuine one in which the sacred Letters were written, as we have already observed above in chapter 67 of book II. There is, therefore, no doubt at all that the beginning of this word *mammon*, namely A *mmm*, is added, and therefore is said by Irenaeus to be adjunctive, that is *meta prostheseos*, or *prosthetikos*. For the Greeks call *prosthesis* a thing by which something is added to the beginning of a syllable or word. But since these things were tormenting me, and I could not satisfy myself, I asked our Cornelius (of whom we made mention before), who is not unversed in these languages, to examine this place. And when he had examined it attentively and diligently, he brought forth this opinion, which I hope will be approved by all the learned: That what Irenaeus says, that *mammona* signifies *cupidum* (covetous), is fetched from too far away. For properly among the Chaldeans it denotes what among the Latins is *pecunia* (money). But because the Chaldean paraphrasts sometimes render the Hebrew word *mamon* by *from*, and *y* indeed properly signifies *quaestum* (gain), likewise *pleonexian* (covetousness), or *philokerdeian* (love of gain), and from there it also signifies *aischrokerdeian* (greedy gain), it resulted from this, that it might be taken not only for gain, but also for the desire of profit, B and thus even for the love of base gain, and that the meaning of that name is not extended only in the abstract, but also in the concrete for the covetous and greedy person. Moreover, what he says, that according to the Hebrews it is called *mam* adjunctively, this is indeed obscure, and can hardly be understood otherwise than that to the word *m*, or even *mnt*, which is Hebrew, *m* is added, and thus the word is made Chaldean *mmm*. By the addition of the syllable, therefore, and joined together with the Hebrew word, this word was composed. That *mmm* and *m* mean the same among the Hebrews as *from* among the Chaldaeans is well enough known, especially from XII *Osee*, 8, where it properly denotes those riches which were produced by wicked arts: concerning which Christ in Matthew VI and Luke XVI, which He expresses by this word *mammona*. Nor are there wanting even now those who derive the word from the verb *m*, that is, he coveted. And it seems that this could have been what Irenaeus looked to, when he said *mmm* signifies the covetous and the gluttonous. For the Hebrew grammarians in some places want this word to be *nomen tear*, that is, an adjective.
*Adnotationes Fr. Feuardentii in cap. 8.*
Pag. 182. *Soluta igitur* (Therefore it is solved). He continues further to prove as much from the words of Christ Himself as of the prophets and apostles, that the only true God is absolutely and simply called God and is so in reality. Moreover, we have added the negative conjunction from an ancient codex, though it may appear superfluous, because the early C authors, even if they write in Latin, nevertheless connect the double negation of the Greeks, the more strongly to negate.
Pag. 183. *Non Deum* (Not God). So the old codex. The printed copies had *Dominum* (Lord), which perhaps also ought to have been retained.
*Mammonas autem* (But mammon). Jerome affirms in chapter VI of Matthew and in *Question 6 to Algasia* that *mammona* is not properly a Hebrew word, but Syriac, and that it signifies the same thing as the Greeks call *ploutos* (wealth), which the poets fashioned as a god. Tertullian agrees in book IV *Against Marcion*, to whom Origen subscribes at the end of *Dialog. 1 Against Marcion*. But the fact that D. Irenaeus says that in this word, which is purely Syriac, *mam* is an adjective, that can hardly be persuaded to one skilled in both languages, namely Hebrew and Syriac. It is well known, for even those moderately versed in Chaldean know, that D *mammona* is a primitive word, not derived from any Hebrew root. But if anyone in this place would wish to play more freely, and [prove] that the Syriac word is composed of two complete Hebrew words, he would perhaps not go too far from the scope by deriving it from *mam*, or *mum* (which sounds as *maculath*, i.e., spotted/stained), and *hon*, power, or riches; so that by syncope, instead of *mambon*, it is called *mamon*, the letter being removed.
A Perhaps Irenaeus took *mammon* metonymically, clearly meaning the cause for the effect, that is, money and riches, instead of the desire for them.
*From the hand of the stronger.* Thus the ancient codex. The printed ones hold: "from the hand of Pharaoh." He also added: *But neither anything.* We have deleted "indeed," [as in the] ancient author's codex. Moreover, he proves, as much from the Gospel as from the Psalms, that all things were created through the Word, so that all the orders of angels [were created through him]: but the Only-Begotten is not made, and [is] without any end or beginning in creating: by whom he sufficiently teaches that he must be believed and confessed as entirely coeternal and consubstantial with the Father.
*And they can [give] the dissolution.* The printed codices lacked these three words.
*From the annotations of J. Er. Grabe on chapter 8.* Page 183. *But according to the Hebrew.* By the "Hebrew" B language he seems to understand not that pure and genuine [tongue] in which the Holy Scriptures were written, as Gallasius also notes in this place; but the Syriac, such as was commonly used at that time, and which is called Hebrew by the writers of the New Testament.
*It is termed "mamuel" by way of addition, and it signifies "gluttonous."* Someone has certainly imposed [this] upon Irenaeus, who was ignorant of the Hebrew language: for the indicated meaning does not in any way square with the word *mamuel*. But when Irenaeus says it is called "mamuel" by way of addition, I understand it thus, as if he meant to say *mamon* with an addition.
*But we were his vessels and house, etc.* Thus also S. Barnabas in his Catholic Epistle, § 16, whose words I shall set down from the ancient Latin version only: "Before we believed in God, our habitation was corrupt and weak, like a temple built by hands, because we were full of the worship of idols; and it was a house of demons." Clement of Alexandria, citing these things of Barnabas, in book II of the *Stromata*, adds more for their explanation. Also to the heretic Valentinus, the heart of those who live carelessly is called, *πολλῶν δαιμόνων οικητήριον* ("a habitation of many demons"). See his words, cited and corrected from the said Clement, in the *Spicilegium Patrum et hæreticorum sæculi II*, page 59, et seqq.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 9.* Page 183. *Having shown this, therefore.* By the authority of the ancient codex, we have expunged "showing" [and we have substituted] "will be shown" for "may be shown." He teaches, moreover, that the apostles preached one and the same God and Lord of all throughout the world; and [that he is] the very same one whom the ancient prophets once celebrated; whom we also ought to imitate.
Here, however, I do not wish to hide from pious readers that, when I was reviewing this book and passage a second time, there fell into my hands a booklet printed at Geneva C in the workshop of Franciscus Perrinus, 1567, inscribed "to Valentinus Gentilis," etc., on the pages of which, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13, ten testimonies of Irenaeus are cited from the writings of the same Valentinus, by which that wicked man attempts to prove that only the Father is the true and unique God and Lord of Israel; and not the Son and the Holy Spirit along with him. I was certainly immediately horrified by such great blasphemy and impudence on the part of the man, and at the same time I began more accurately to examine the writings of Irenaeus, which I had in my hands, and to search in them for what he thought about the matter proposed.
I discovered, however, that the passages cited by Gentilis for his impiety, such as this one on which we are commenting, breathe nothing less than such impious and blasphemous [ideas]. For Irenaeus urges and frequently inculcates that there is one true God, the creator of this world, preached in Israel by the prophets, known and invoked by the patriarchs, the author of the old law, and [that he] is the same [as] the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he does not deny, rather he constantly asserts, that the same Christ, insofar as he is the Word, that is, the Son of God, is coeternal, coequal, [and] consubstantial with his same Father, and finally that he is with him the one true God, who [made] both this world and the angels, D and all things, and was known to Israel: [he is] gathering this correctly and piously from his effects and works as they relate to the Holy Spirit, as we shall now make clear.
Therefore, the exclusive particles *only, alone, except, none, other, unique, sole, only-mod*, etc., which occur in the writings of Irenaeus, and which are twisted into a perverse meaning by the Gentilians and Servetians, exclude from the divinity only those eons of the Pleroma, Bythos, Propatores, Proarchontes, Aoratos, Anonomastos, Ageratos, Autophyes, Choicos, Carpistes, Ennoas, Enthymeses, Achamothas, and other monsters and prodigies of this kind, which the Gnostics tried to substitute—distributed through ogdoads, decads, dodecads, and triacontads—in place of the one in deity and the three in persons, the true and omnipotent God. But the Son and the Holy Spirit are never removed from the name and nature of the true God of Israel; indeed, they are included and signified: as will easily be made known to all from the following fifty complete and open passages, which we have gathered from his individual books, and [which we] constantly oppose to the ten [passages] corrupted and mutilated by Gentilis.
1. Therefore, in the first place, Irenaeus in book 1, chapter 1, refutes the Valentinians because they would not call Christ "Lord" (by which title the true God of Israel, and creator and ruler of the world, is designated everywhere in the Scriptures). 2. In chapter 2 of the same book 1, he calls the same Christ, "Lord, God, Savior, and our king, to whom every knee of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth bows." Moreover, we also observe [it stated] in the same place that the faith of the whole Catholic Church is in one God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 3. In chapter 4, he criticizes the Gnostics because they "fancied another God, another Christ, and another Only-Begotten," [and] did not believe in one. 4. In chapter 19, he professes [that he] is the same creator of heaven, earth, and all things visible and invisible; which truly pertains to the true and everlasting God. Cerinthians and Ebionites, "because they judged the same Christ to be the son of Joseph; and taught that he had his origin from Mary;" but would not confess him to be coeternal with the Father. 6. In chapters 28 and 29, he pursues and confutes Cerdo and Marcion, because they denied that the same Son is of God, who was preached by the law and the prophets. [He rejects] the two gods of Marcion, but asserting only one, "who with his Word, that is, with Christ the Son, created all things;" he acknowledges him to be consubstantial by nature, and coequal and coeternal in power. 8. In chapter 41, he affirms that the name of Jesus signifies him to be the Lord, who contains heaven and earth. 9. In chapter 47; affirming that the Word, that is, the Son of God, dictated the sacred Scriptures to the prophets and apostles, he proves [him] to be one God with the Father. 10. In chapters 48 and 49, he writes that the Word is "God, simple, in no part composite," and born of the Father in an ineffable way, in no part different from him. 11. In chapters 56 and 57, by the miracles performed by the apostles and his other servants in the name of Christ, he confirms him to be one with the Father, the omnipotent God, who does whatever he wills in heaven, and on earth, and in all the abysses.
12. In the preface to book [III], he affirms that he is the Lord of all and the Son of God, [and that] he who spurns him, spurns the Father himself: [and] he sufficiently indicates that the majesty and deity of both are one. 13. In chapter 1 of the same book, reporting that all the prophets and apostles have announced one God, and one Christ the Son of God, he acknowledges him [to be] equal to the Father. [He is] persuading [that] faith is to have in the Savior, which is in one and true God; and he believes in him as true God. 15. In chapter 6, he proves that the Father and his Son are definitely and absolutely called God in the sacred Scriptures. 16. In chapter 8, [when], who made all things "with...
His Word, he affirms that He existed from the beginning, and in the Father, and without beginning, and without end, and that He created all the angels. 17. In chapter 9, he proves that the prophets and apostles confess the Father and the Son, and that they neither name any other as God nor profess any other as Lord, teaching that He is one with the Father. 18. In chapter 10, he writes that the Lord Jesus, "inasmuch as He is God, granted remission of sins, and loosened sinners from their bonds," which is clearly a divine work. 19. In chapter 11, he acknowledges Jesus as the Son of the Most High, the Savior, the "Lord God of Israel, the God of Salvation," and the eternal King. 20. In chapter 12, [he says that] the apostles announced one God the Father, and Christ Jesus the eternal Son of God and King, and the faith which is in Him. 21. In chapter 13, [he says that] Peter in the circumcision, and Paul in the Gentiles, preached one Father, and the Son of God, who is in the Father, even as the Father is in Him. 22. In chapter 16, he shows that the apostles and other heralds of the truth called no one else God B save only the true God the Father and His Word. 23. In chapter 18, [he says that] Paul teaches everywhere that Jesus was incarnate for our salvation, "the only-begotten Son of God," and "God over all, blessed for evermore." 24. In chapter 20, by John writing that "in the beginning the Word was with God," every contradiction of those who say, "Christ was not before He was born of the Virgin," is excluded. 25. In chapter 21, [he says that] He is "the Son of the living God," God and Lord, eternal king, the holy Lord, the strong God, who is to come upon the clouds as the judge of all things. 26. In chapter 22, [he says] the most powerful God of all, who granted to all that they should exist, was "made in the likeness of sin," that man might be accustomed to carry God. 27. In chapter 23, [he says] Christ is not only man, but according to Isaiah, "the Lord saving us," the holy Lord of Israel, the Son of God who is God, born in Bethlehem, God made man. 28. In chapter 26: Concerning Christ it is said: "He shall not consent to iniquity that He may choose the good," which is proper to God. 29. In chapter 29, "the Finger of God," that is, the Son of the living God, worked salvation for His people, and not the son of Joseph. 30. In chapters 30 and 31, Christ is the eternal King, through whom Adam was formed, and the same [is] God and Lord with the Father.
In the Preface of the fourth book, those are refuted who think there is another God besides the Father of all and His Son. The Son, therefore, is one and the same in number as God with the Father. It is likewise firm and constant that no other God and Lord is preached by the Spirit, save Him who rules over all, God, with His own Word. 33. In chapters 2, 3, and 4, His Son, who is Christ, who made heaven and earth, gave His words to Moses, and Abraham and the prophets believed in Him. 34. In chapter 5, purging the temple as His own house and the Father's, He manifested Himself as one God with Him, the God of Israel. 35. In chapter 10, Isaiah records the words of His God, who is over all: "I am witness, says the Lord God, and the child whom I have chosen" C. By the prophets the living God was worshipped; this is the God of the living, and His Word. Christ Himself, therefore, with the Father, is the God of the living, who was also manifested to the patriarchs. 37. In chapter 14: Christ did not begin to be when He came to us according to the flesh; for this reason we direct our faith toward Him, just as [we direct] our love toward His Father: and He preached Himself and the Father through the law and the prophets, and for this reason all called Christ God: "because He was truly recognized as God by the Father, by the Spirit, by the angels, by the very creation, by men, and by the apostate spirits, and by death itself." And therefore in all things and through all things, "one God the Father, and one Word, and one Son, and one Spirit, and one faith, and salvation to all who believe D in Him." 38. Chapter 17: "He who spoke to Moses, 'Seeing I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt,' etc.," this is the Son, who is the Word of God. Christ, therefore, is true and one God and Lord of Israel with the Father. 39. In the twenty-first chapter, one and the same paterfamilias, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, produced both testaments. 40. In chapter 22, we await Christ the Son of God, in whom we believe, of whom Isaiah says: "Behold our Lord God, in whom we have hoped," etc. I pass over the remaining testimonies of this book, so that I may append some things from the fifth book.
41. In the first and second chapters of the fifth book, he calls Christ not only the Word of God, "but also God manifested in the flesh," and condemns the Valentinians and Ebionites who think otherwise. 42. In chapter 5, he acknowledges Christ as the Son of God, omnipotent, and the hand of the Father (that is, consubstantial and coeternal with Him). 43. In chapter 6, "Christ and the Holy Spirit are the hands of the Father (that is, consubstantial with Him), [and they] create and sanctify man; who is also called the temple of God, that is, of the Son and the Holy Spirit." 44. In chapter 8, he teaches that faith and the anchor of our salvation must be cast equally into the Father and the Son. 45. In the same chapter and the next, he proves the divinity of the Holy Spirit from His works and effects with such clarity that the great Basil, 1,200 years later, praised his sentiments again and again to that same end. 46. In chapter 11, "He teaches that Christ and the Holy Spirit are the authors of justice and human salvation: therefore they are one God with the Father." 47. In chapter 12, "He teaches that the Holy Spirit is properly in God, and eternal; and even the Word of God fashioned all things," and he proclaims both as true and eternal God. 48. In chapter 13, affirming Christ the giver of incorruption, and the Holy Spirit the dispenser of eternal life, he confesses that both are one God from their effects. 49. In chapter 14, he teaches that Christ must be recognized as God and man. 50. In chapter 15, the Lord shows Himself and the Father to the disciples, so that they might not seek another God. "And He who fashioned man from the beginning, in the last times formed the eyes of the man born blind, and asked for us who were lost." Chapter 17, the Lord, by forgiving the sins of men, manifestly shows that He is the same God with the Father, the Son of God the Father, and made the son of man. Chapter 18, one God is shown, the Father who is over all, the Word through all, and the Spirit in all, who is living water. John bears witness to this, saying: "In the beginning was the Word," etc. Chapter 20. Of all who are of the Church, there is one and the same faith, all receiving one and the same God the Father; and believing in the same dispensation of the incarnation of the Son of God; and knowing the same gift of the Spirit, etc.
What, I ask, could be said or thought, more open, more firm, more dense, for the confession of the most holy Trinity, that is, [concerning] three distinct persons in one deity; and just as much [for] the coeternal and everlasting divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit with the Father? This most ancient Father, most holy bishop, most learned writer, and most brave martyr was therefore a most devout worshiper, preacher, and defender of the most blessed Trinity, and of the unity of God: whereas that Gentile, Servetus, and the scoundrels of the same bran, those most wicked sycophants and most abandoned betrayers and destroyers of the lightest men [have attacked it] with their own blasphemies and heresies.
Pag. 184. *Fructum dignum pœnitentiæ*. In the old codex, *fructum digna pœnitentiæ*. In the Greek codices, καρποὺς ἀξίους τῆς μετανοίας, that is, "fruits worthy of repentance." And *vocabunt*, καλέσουσιν, that is, "they shall call," is in the Greek text of Matthew, as Irenaeus reads here; whom Origen and Chrysostom imitate,
A in Jesus when he was being baptized. Cyril of Jerusalem touches upon this in these words: "The appellations of the Savior are many; and lest for this reason we should think there are many sons, and because of the errors of heretics saying that one is Christ and another is Jesus, confess well: I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ. For although the appellations are many, the subject is nevertheless one," etc. A little later, from an ancient codex, we have restored, "who is the Savior of all, and ruler," etc. Item: "The Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord," which were had otherwise and corruptly in the printed editions.
"Not according to glory." The Vulgate edition has, "not according to the vision of eyes," which is conformable to the Hebrew truth. The Septuagint, which Irenaeus for the most part follows: "He shall not judge according to glory, nor shall he reprove according to speech."
Page 185. "For according to that." He teaches that Christ, not according to that which He is as God, was anointed in time with spiritual oil, that is, with the fullness of all knowledge and grace; but truly, according to that which He is as man. Whence also Tertullian, Lib. *De baptismo*: "Christ is so called from chrism, which is anointing, which provided the name to the Lord, made spiritual, because He was anointed by the Spirit by God the Father," etc. On this again below, chapter 20.
*The same person's annotations on chapter 11.*
Page 185. "Before God." Thus the ancient codex. And the Greek of Luke, ἔναντι τοῦ Θεοῦ: therefore we have expunged "the Lord." Moreover, the scope of this whole passage is that the blessed Luke affirms that the God and Lord of both Testaments is one and the same, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: just as the same has been proved above from the blessed Matthew.
But also concerning John, these nine words, which were most clearly missing, have been restored from the old codex and fit wonderfully. And "in whose." Thus the ancient codex; the printed ones had "and in whose sight of the Lord."
Proclaiming for the Church. It is nothing unusual that Irenaeus in this place attributes the gift and the exercise of prophesying to the blessed Mother of God; since in all ways she surpassed in holiness and in the abundance of God’s gifts the sister of Moses, Deborah, Judith, Elizabeth, Anna, and the four daughters of Philip, to whom it was given to prophesy among the people of God. Next, the angel affirming her to be "full of grace," and "blessed among all women," sufficiently indicates that this gift of God was by no means lacking to her. Add that at the holy Pentecost she was present with the sacred assembly, upon whom, when the Holy Spirit was abundantly poured out, all were filled with His divine charisms, such as the gifts of tongues, of the interpretation of speeches, of healings, of prophecy, of wisdom, of might, and of the rest which are enumerated by the Apostle. Finally, that the same is also firmly proved as much from this passage of Isaiah, "I drew near to the prophetess," as from the words of that canticle, the great Basil confirms: "If you have applied your mind to all her words, he says, you will not contentiously deny that she was a prophetess." Ambrose, subscribing to this, says: "The greater the person, the fuller the prophecy." Nor do Hildephonsus and Rupert doubt that she, with holy Luke transcribing it, dictated the canticle *Magnificat*: and that he collected it with the same sharp points and words in which he heard her speaking with her own mouth, and inserted it into his Gospel. Moreover, that in this both the most difficult and the most numerous passages of the ancient prophets are explained more clearly; and that in this verse at least, "All generations shall call me blessed," a most illustrious prophecy is contained, even the most pugnacious are compelled to confess.
"He was blessing new things." We have deleted "he was saying new things," and a little later for "he had gone away," we have restored "where he was," from the authority of the ancient codex.
1633
IN LIB. III S. IRENÆI. 1634
A Page 186. *Populo suo*. The Greek of Luke is *tō laō autou*, in the dative case, that is, "to his people." Valla preferred this because "people" encompasses all the ranks of the city, whereas "plebs" (the common folk) is an inferior part. *Uti det nobis*. He imitates the Greek reading, *tou dounai hēmin, aphobōs ek cheiros tōn echthrōn hēmōn rhysthentas latreuein autō*.
*Aufert*. Chrysostom notes that it is said "He takes away" (*tollit*), with a verb in the present tense, not "He has taken away" (*tulit*) or "He will take away" (*tollet*), because from Him always proceeds every washing away of sins. And so we have restored *aufert* ("takes away") in place of *auferet* ("will take away").
*Peccatum*. *Tēn hamartian kosmou*, that is, "the sin of the world," it pleases that this should be read in the singular after Irenaeus, Origen, homily 10 on Numbers; Theophylact, Augustine, book X *Contra Faustum*, chapter 30; Cyprian, book *De duplici martyrio*.
*Est enim*. The printed codices have *et enim*.
B *Bona voluntatis*. As Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine most consistently read in the genitive case after Irenaeus, so too Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Andrew of Jerusalem, Eusebius in book IV of the *Demonstratio evangelica*, chapter 10, and Theophylact—all Greek authors—read *en anthrōpois eudokia*, "in men good will," correctly. Erasmus thinks the rest of this canticle was added by Telesphorus, and that it has more words than meaning; but it is certain that he deviated from all truth and wandered completely astray, since the liturgy of the blessed Apostle James includes that word, as does Clement, the colleague of Paul and successor of Peter, in *Constitut. apostol.*, book VII, chapter 47, and book VIII, chapter 20. He therefore had the apostles as authors, from whose workshop nothing could proceed except that which breathes the piety and virtue of the Holy Spirit.
*Quid autem in civitate David*. Theodoret, in dialogue 4, sets forth this passage specifically from Irenaeus, as we have placed it in its own position.
*Adimpletam*. We have expunged "that it may be fulfilled" (*quod adimpleatur*), as the ancient codex authorizes.
Page 187. *Ne erraveritis*. We have deleted *enarraveritis*, an ancient codex authorizes.
*Hoc idem*. That he has hitherto shown from the words of Zechariah, the Mother of God, and John that there is a single author of the Law and the Gospel, namely God; this he now confirms has been proclaimed by the words of the angels, the shepherds, Simeon, and Anna. However, concerning what he wrote above, *Gloria in excelsis Deo* ("Glory in the highest to God"), but now according to the old codex, *Gloria in altissimis* ("Glory in the highest"); he approves of both readings. Shortly after, we have restored *factor et conditor* ("maker and founder") from the old codex in place of *factorem et conditorem* ("maker and founder" in the accusative), even though this form of speaking is frequent in this author.
*Et hi iniqui*. The old codex reads without the incision, *Hi qui erant ab ogdoade angeli* ("Those who were from the ogdoad, the angels"); all editions follow the previous reading.
*Astare*. *Parastēnai*, he translates literally; which others say as *exhiberent* ("that they might present") or *sisterent* ("that they might set").
C *Nunc dimittis*. The Gospel has *apolysis* (letting go) in the present tense, not *apolusis* (in the sense of the future). The old codex has *dimittit* ("he lets go"); hence I suspect that the letter of Irenaeus once contained *dimittis* ("you let go"), since below in chapter 18 he writes it thus; and now we have established it thus.
*Jerusalem*. Latin codices have *Israel*, but all the Greeks, along with Irenaeus, read *Jerusalem*, which Erasmus noted in his annotations, citing this passage of Irenaeus.
*Unus Deus*. The printed codices have *visus Deus* ("God was seen").
*Quapropter et Marcus*. By some testimonies taken from the Gospel of Mark, he proves that there is one God of both Testaments, and that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and heralded by the prophets by many names and titles. He calls Mark the companion and interpreter of Peter, following Papias, whose words are recited by Eusebius in book III of his *History*, in the final chapter. Jerome also touches upon this in his *Catalogue*.
*In prophetis*. Thus the Greeks, *en prophētais*. The Vulgate reading is *Isaia propheta* ("by the prophet Isaiah"), which Irenaeus also acknowledges at the end of this chapter, so that he appears to have held both readings as acceptable.
Page 188. *Hanc fidem*. Now through the fourth evangelist, that is, the divine John, he asserts the same thing that he performed a little before through the other three: namely, that the one true God is announced by the prophets and apostles.
*Qui a Cerintho*. It is certain that Nicolaus, Ebion, and Cerinthus defected from the Church while the apostles themselves were still alive, and disturbed it with foul errors. And concerning Nicolaus, the Acts and the Apocalypse report it; concerning Ebion, it was said above in book I, chapter 26, and in book III, chapter 3. But Epiphanius estimates that Cerinthus was from among those who operated the disturbance in the presence of the apostles, when James wrote to the Church at Antioch: "We know that some from among us have gone out to you and have disturbed you with words, which we did not report." He also makes him of the number of those who resisted the blessed Peter when he returned from the house of Cornelius, in Acts 12 and 15. It is certain that John also marked these men with a black coal in his epistles, just as he had previously contended against them in his own Gospel. Furthermore, you have their false opinions above in book I, chapters 25, 26, and 27.
125 *Sine ipso factum est nihil quod factum est*. Following Irenaeus, Chrysostom and Theophylact are pleased to terminate this sentence at this point, so that the meaning is: there is nothing at all created which was not created by the Father through the Son. But the usual distinction is followed by Tertullian in *Adversus Praxean*, Hilary, Augustine, and Jerome from the Latins, which Irenaeus also preserves a little later. From the Greeks, Origen, Cyril, and Nazianzen approve the reading of the Latins.
*In sua propria venit*. The pronoun *sua* ("his own") is held after Irenaeus by Cyprian in book I *Adversus Judaeos*, chapter 3, and in *De orat. Domin.*. The Greek is *eis ta idia ēlthe*, which Augustine also renders in tractate 2 on John: *in sua propria venit* ("he came into his own").
Page 189. *Cognovit Israel*. All the printed codices lacked these four words.
Page 190. *Quoniam enim quatuor*. This speculation is most pious and learned, whereby he philosophizes that the four Gospels are foreshadowed by the four regions of the world, the four spirits, the quadriform cherubim, and the four testaments; and this is against the Marcionites, who were accustomed to claim there was only a single evangelist, as the first dialogue of Origen against them indicates. Jerome agrees with Irenaeus in his epistle to Paulinus, calling Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John the "chariot of the Lord" and the "true cherubim." Again, through those four, he proves that the Church, like paradise, pours forth four rivers; and that it has four corners and rings, through which, as if it were the ark of the testament and the guardian of the law of the Lord, it is carried by immovable poles; and furthermore, that these four Gospels are Ezekiel's volume, in the four living creatures, and the Apocalypse. I deemed that these things should be added, so that I might note the lewdness of Gallasius in slandering, who, in order to obey his own birds like the Marcionites and Manichaeans, disparages this theory of Irenaeus. But what wonder is it if he insults the martyrs, when Calvin, the bishop and teacher of Gallasius, judges the very proofs and refutations which our Lord and Master Jesus Christ uses against the Jews to be weak and not very solid, and clamors that He often spoke improperly? In book VI and VII of *Matthew*.
*Imagines sunt*. Jerome elegantly adapts these forms of animals to the mysteries of Christ the Lord, *Commentary on chapter 1 of Ezekiel*. Dionysius the Areopagite discusses the same things at full length in his book *De coelesti hierarchia*, chapters 1, 2, 13, 15, and in his book *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*, chapter 4, as does Andrew of Cappadocia in the *Apocalypse*. Those elegant... pertain to the same.
A of the verses of the presbyter, through which he addresses Christ thus: "Matthew, acting in this way, generally depicts the man, Mark, like a high-sounding voice, roars through the deserts of the lion, Luke holds the laws of the priesthood in the mouth of the calf, John, flying in the manner of an eagle, seeks the stars with the Word; These four leaders sing with one voice, Just as the times are spread through the wide world." *Inciperet mactari*. Billius: "Inciperet mactari," for "mactandus erat," is stated; just as in chapter 17, "inciperent dicere," for "dicturi erant," and in chapter 20, "qui inciperet occidere peccatum," for "qui peccatum occisurus erat"; and in many other places. Page 191. *Et pennatam*. We have removed "pennatam." *Colloquebatur*. Thus for "colloquebantur"; just as presently in the place of "præbebant," we have substituted "præbebat," according to ancient codes. Page 192. *Et inducti*. He rightly judges here and often elsewhere that all heretics are unlearned: for however much they may boast of the praise of true theology or even of philosophy, they remain in reality unlearned, and by insisting only on the husk of the letter and the chasing after words, they in no way arrive at the true foundation of wisdom. Hence the Apostle, describing the heretic, says: "He is proud, knowing nothing, but languishing about questions and contentions of words" (I Tim. VI, 4). And lest we might think he asserted this of only one or another, he says of all: "Always learning, and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth" (II Tim. III, 7); "But they shall proceed no further. For their folly shall be manifest to all men" (II Tim. III, 9). For just as evil angels when compared with good ones, and false prophets and seducers when compared with divine prophets and apostles, are clearly rude and blind: so also if you compare the heresiarchs of all ages with the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church, you will judge them not unjustly to be lazy, slothful, and puffed up, yet shameless and daring men. For what are Valentinus, Cerinthus, Basilides, Marcion, or others of this bran, compared to Dionysius, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, or such chiefs of the Catholic Church? And passing over a more lengthy disquisition concerning all heresiarchs, let us reveal the shameful and—I know—to many incredible ignorance of one or two of this century. Petrus Rebenstock, a table-companion of Luther, writes that the latter, returning to him at one time and measuring himself by his own foot, often said: "I am skilled in neither Hebrew nor Greek; yet I will give a moderate reply in Hebrew and Greek." In which manner he also might have known many things, who again said of himself: "I do not dare to read the whole side of a leaf without stopping, nor to look long at two or three lines in the Psalm or any other matter. For soon a ringing of the ears comes to me, so that I am often forced to lower myself to a bench." Wishing to open the source of this evil of his, he writes to the Elector of Saxony: "The devil sometimes so permeates my brain that I can neither write nor read." And lest we alone, incited by hatred, seem to be deciding this about him from his own testimonies, let the apostle of the Tigurines and leader of the Sacramentarians, Zwingli, be admitted, writing these things to the same Luther: "We easily see that you are an unskilled, or too rude a theologian, since while debating concerning both natures in Christ, you do not yet know how to distinguish between them. Or if you are not ignorant of that, yet in the meantime, by this confused commixture of both, you deceive and beguile the simple; you B of the denier, to be worse than Marcion himself. But I recognize your ignorance in you rather than exist that this is wickedness and impiety." And this is the judgment of the Helvetic ministers concerning Luther's ignorance. How comes it, then, that he wrote and published so much? I answer: whatever occurred to his mouth was soon committed to paper: and this was greedily snatched up by men desirous of new things, and sold under the splendid title of the Gospel. For the rest, his books are bags of words: from which if you remove the scoffs, calumnies, obscene words, empty vauntings and boastings, and finally the Satans and devils which he utters everywhere; far fewer than you might perhaps believe would remain in these. Let the Germans therefore go now, and with their Taburnus, let them proclaim Luther an admirable, divine man, an angel flying through the midst of heaven, having the eternal Gospel, the highest doctor of the last century; and even now, as Sturmius objects to them, let them think Luther's slippers worthy of adoration. Or, what is also far most dishonorable and foul to even relate, as he boasts that those at Smalcald once did when he was lying down, that they sucked with their own lips his private parts; or at least let them venerate his excrement, so foul and reprobate a deserter of the Catholic faith and profession is he. Let Calvin succeed Luther, by the judgment of Beza, that "highest and greatest theologian, than whom no one has taught more learnedly, no one more judiciously, no one more clearly, no one more magniloquently written hitherto." He also certainly showed himself to all to be most unlearned in all antiquity and most ignorant of ecclesiastical history, when he wrote that the blessed Athanasius presided over that great First Nicene Council; whereas he was then only a deacon, having followed his own bishop who was setting out for that council. To the same ignorance also pertains the fact that he judged the Arians to have preceded the heresy of the Manichaeans by some time; whereas these began to rage under the emperor Aurelian, to the year of Christ 277, but the others had their beginning only under Constantine, about the year of Christ 322. Furthermore, the innumerable contradictions in which he involves himself; the six hundred places of the Holy Scriptures badly translated and understood by him; the most frequent passages of the ancient Fathers now mutilated, soon wrongly twisted, and finally false sentences imposed upon them, all manifest to everyone that he has neither read these things with sufficient diligence nor understood them well. To these, the successor of this same Beza, correcting his versions and interpretations and most of his erroneous sentences in public writings, and contradicting them, either clearly convicts the ignorance of the latter before the whole world, or manifests his own. When, moreover, in most grave disputes he so often attempts to change or flee from the state of the controversial question, relies upon false principles, argues stupidly, quibbles, dances outside the chorus, rages and rails instead of proof, uses the most inept comparisons, concocts the most absurd metonymies, plays with ambiguous words, begs the question, completes his matter with paralogisms, etc.; he demonstrates that he has never touched or penetrated the foundation of true dialectic, philosophy, and theology. For whoever has reduced all his arguments to a right method and form of disputing and weighed them, will at length find those things to be most empty which at first sight appear most magnificent and powerful to the unlearned. But since a most learned and illustrious man, the doctor Stapleton, has most plainly detected the wiles, frauds, versutias, and most inept disputations of this man in his most learned Catholic *Promptuaria* C and *Antidotes*…
… A regarding this judgment, most equitable indeed, of Stancarus concerning these heresiarchs, I shall put an end to this observation: "One Augustine is worth more than a hundred Luthers, two hundred Melanchthons, three hundred Bullingers, and four hundred Peter Martyrs, and five hundred Calvins: if all of these were ground in a mortar, not even an ounce of true theology would be expressed."
*As much.* Printed books, as most do. *He boasts he has a part of the Gospel.* Thus the old codex, with which Erasmus's conjecture agrees: the printed codices had "he boasts likewise he has the Gospel."
*Of John.* Printed codices "Of John." *They entitle it The Gospel of Truth.* You see the perpetual custom of heretics, to adorn the foulness and turpitude of their heresies with the specious title of "Gospel." Therefore, just as the ancient Gnostics called their ravings a "Gospel," and the Manichaeans their furies, and the Arians sold their blasphemies under the same veneer, so also now the Huguenots, whatever Luther has published—even if it be: "That one must not wage war against the Turks; that a concubine is to be taken by a man instead of a wife; that the human will is absolutely in servitude; that faith alone justifies and saves; that the magistrate ought not to stop anyone from teaching and believing whatever he pleases, whether it be Gospel or lie"—and any such things, however absurd, they bluster out with puffed-out cheeks as "Gospel." The Calvinists, [concerning] the most impious hypotheses of Calvin and Beza, that God is the author of all sins, that He has predestined the greater part of mankind to be damned, [that He] predestines them to sin: that even Christ was ignorant, that He despaired on the cross, that He felt all the punishments of the damned, and that His blood poured out for us has long since rotted in the ground, and other clearly horrible and blasphemous propositions—they insist and preach that [these] are the Gospel. The Anabaptists, teaching promiscuous intercourse, that Christ was not the son of Joseph before He was generated from Mary, that all public preaching of the Word of God should be entirely abolished, that no political magistrate is to be endured, etc.—they shout themselves to be the most "evangelical" of all evangelicals. Is not the same impudence present in the Trinitarians, the new Arians, the Ebionites, and the Samosatenians, who now also come forth instructed and armed? Thus, therefore, does the most terrible Satan in this age, most of all, transform himself into an angel of light, that he may impose upon the less cautious.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 11.* Pag. 186. *All our days.* From this passage, as also [from] lib. 1, cap. 37, before the middle, one may almost conclude that Irenaeus simply read πᾶσας τὰς ἡμέρας ἡμῶν, as the Alexandrian codex and the Latin Vulgate version have, and not—as the printed Greek has—πᾶσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ζωῆς ἡμῶν. I do not, however, maintain that the former reading is the genuine one: but rather that, through the carelessness of scribes, on account of the article recurring in this clause, I thought the two words τῆς ζωῆς were omitted.
*Of good will.* Feuardentius notes at this place: indeed, the Greek Fathers Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Andrew of Jerusalem, and—who should have been mentioned first—Eusebius, together with others, cite [the passage] in Luke 2, 14 as D ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία; on the contrary, however, he says, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine use the genitive case after Irenaeus most consistently. But I greatly fear that the Greek text of Irenaeus had εὐδοκία in the nominative, just as Origen—more ancient than all the aforementioned Greeks—[has it in] tom. 1 Comment. in Joannem, pag. 14, and that the Latin translator, or rather some scribe, led by the authority of the Latin Vulgate, placed "of good will" in the genitive.
1638 Pag. 187. *Mark the interpreter and follower of Peter.* Similarly, Papias, by the reason of the presbyter, or Aristion, or John, wrote according to Eusebius, lib. 3 Hist. eccl., cap. 39: Μάρκος μὲν ἑρμηνευτής Πέτρου γενόμενος, ὅσα ἐμνημόνευσεν, ἀκριβῶς ἔγραψεν.... Οὔτε γὰρ ἤκουσε τοῦ Κυρίου, οὔτε παρηκολούθηκεν αὐτῷ, ὕστερον δὲ, ὡς ἔφην, Πέτρῳ. "Mark, having been Peter's interpreter, wrote accurately everything that he remembered.... For he had neither heard the Lord, nor followed Him, but later, as I said, Peter." Lege, if you please, regarding this notion of "interpreter" in this place, Nourrius's *Apparatus ad Bibliothecam Patrum*, tom. II, pag. 641.
*In the prophets.* Anyone might easily suspect that these two words did not proceed from the hand of Irenaeus or his translator, but that some scribe, because he had read in certain copies of Mark—as today in the Vulgate Greek—ἐν τοῖς προφήταις, abused the license of emending. For in this very chapter below, where the same words of St. Mark are recited, it exists in the Greek and Latin text of Irenaeus equally: ἐν Ἠσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ, "in Isaiah the prophet." Origen also reads it so, tom. 1 Comment. in Joan., pag. 14, and tom. VII, pag. 117, and also lib. II Contra Celsum, pag. 60, not to mention more recent Fathers. Moreover, all the versions—Latin Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, Persian, Arabic—confirm this reading. Whence, from this place, Porphyry long ago took an opportunity in lib. XIV against the Christian faith to object that the evangelists were so ignorant that they did not even know how to correctly cite the writings of the prophets; since the first words which Mark alleges here are found not in the prophecy of Isaiah, but of Malachi, as the author of the 1st homily on Mark, among the Latin works of Chrysostom, has left it testified: and he replied to this objection, just as Jerome in ch. 1 of Matthew and more recent commentators on Mark 1 did. However, what makes me less inclined to admit the stated suspicion is the repeated citation sounding the same way in ch. 18 of this book, and the words which he subjoins in both places. For here, immediately from the cited passage of Mark, he infers: "Manifestly saying the beginning of the Gospel [is] the voices of the prophets." And many things later: "Who (God) also promised through the prophets that He would send His angel," etc. Similarly, in ch. 18, immediately after the alleged words of Mark, he added: "Knowing one and the same Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was announced by the prophets." Thus, Irenaeus absolutely reads ἐν τοῖς προφήταις, just as the Alexandrian codex has; but it seems he found the other reading in certain copies, and therefore, in the progress of the chapter, expressed it so that it might be clear to the reader that it too was known to him.
*Thy way.* Note that Irenaeus did not read ἔμπροσθέν σου ("before thee"), which exists as an addition in the modern Vulgate Greeks, and also in Latin Bibles, while on the contrary these two words are missing in the Syriac, Coptic, Persian, and Ethiopic versions. Nor did Origen's codex have them, as is evident from the aforementioned tomes on John, especially from the latter, where he not only alleges the words of Mark on page 117 without them, but also adds about the evangelist on the following page 118: "He made an abridgment, even of that: 'Behold I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.' For he quoted the proposed [text]: 'before thee'." He made a compendium of those words also: "Ecce, ego mitto angelum meum ante faciem tuam, qui præparabit viam tuam ante te," for there was added (by the prophet, namely) what was set: "Ante te." Whence, to note this in passing, the translation of Ambrosius Ferrarius, sounding as follows: *Addens* (namely the evangelist, "ante te"), *quod positum non fuerat a propheta*, is absolutely to be corrected, since it was not corrected by the most learned Huetius. The matter on the contrary stands thus: the prophet indeed added, according to
the version of the Seventy; the evangelist omitted it, clearly in accordance with the judgment of Origen and the trust he placed in the codices he saw. I do not know, however, whether the words *before you* were truly omitted by the evangelist, or rather by the scribes on account of the recurring pronoun *you*. Wherefore, far be it from me to judge that they should be deleted from the codex of St. Mark. I do think, however, that they should be removed from the text of Origen, book II *Contra Celsum*, p. 60, as it is clearer than the sun from his cited words that he did not recognize them.
*Paths before our God.* The common Greek and Latin codices possess *hys tribous autou*, and they possessed them formerly as well, as is evident from Origen, who, at the place cited above, p. 177, writes: "In what way John, while summarizing the text which he cited, set it forth, Mark himself revealed in another passage. For the prophet says: *Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.* But Mark: *Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.*" That is: What John did in abbreviating the text he quoted, Mark also represented in another saying; since, while the prophet says: *Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God,* he himself wrote: *Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.* B Irenæus, however, or at least his interpreter, reads it nearly thus in his codex of the Gospels, just as it now exists in the Cambridge ms.: *the paths of your God,* instead of *our*, which is to be imputed to a scribe's error.
Page 188. *Of that which is falsely called knowledge.* From this text, Pearson correctly proves in the place cited that the apostolic times were already infected by the plague of the Gnostics. For if St. John promulgated the Gospel to refute the error of Cerinthus, and if the Nicolaitans held this much earlier, and the Gnostics were their parents, it is certain that they must have been contemporary with the apostles.
*That which has been made was life in him.* Thus it pleased [us] to punctuate the text of St. John according to the Arundel and Vossian codices, C in the opinion not only of Tertullian, Origen, Hilary, Gregory Nazianzen, Cyril, Augustine, and Jerome, but even of Irenæus himself: which you see expressed sufficiently above, book I, ch. 19, and book II, ch. [22]. Whence the period in the editions is not correctly closed with these words, *that which has been made*; and Fenard is in vain, who ascribes both punctuations to Irenæus in his Notes to this place.
For it will not be conceded to them that all things are called those which are beneath their Pleroma. Thus Heracleon, a disciple of Valentinus, in his Commentary on these words of John, excluded by the word *all* [things] D "those things which are of the world and those which in it are differing," i.e., "those things which are more excellent than the world and those existing in it," witness Origen in his *Commentary on John*; or, as the words of Heracleon himself sound, *ton aiona e ta en aioni*, "the aeon and those things which are in the aeon"; that is, Bythus with Sige, and Nun with Alethia. You have more of the words of Heracleon, as well as of Origen who touches upon them, in our *Spicilegium of the Fathers and Heretics of the Second Century*, vol. I, p. 86.
For here he was working for such likenesses to come to be, etc... *The Demiurge however was perfecting, etc.* Irenæus seems to have looked toward the words of Heracleon, who was commenting on the cited place of St. John, recited in the said *Spicilegium*, p. 87: "Not as if by another acting did the Word himself create... but he himself acting, another created"; namely, the Demiurge. For in the same place Heracleon affirmed that *the one who provided the cause for the generation of the world to the Demiurge, the Word*, was that Word which provided the cause of the world's generation to the creator. Confer the notes appended in the *Spicilegium*, p. 234, and Irenæus himself, book I, [ch.] 8 and 9 (ch. 4 and 5).
1640 Pag. 189. *John as he was able to testify, etc.* In a similar manner Origen argues in his *Commentary on John*, p. 14, whose words I am pleased to transcribe only in Latin: "It comes to my mind to marvel," he says, "how those who dissent from the decrees of the Church assert two gods of the two Testaments... For how can it be that John is the beginning of the Gospel, pertaining to another God, as they think, a human being of the creator of the world, and ignorant, as they assert, of the new Deity?"
*From whom also Nathanael learning knew... From whom also Peter being taught knew, etc.* After Irenæus, Tertullian and Augustine compared the recognition and confession of Nathanael and Peter concerning Christ as the Son of God; the former in his book *Contra Praxean*, ch. 21; the latter in *Tractate* 7 *on John*. The words of the latter are: "He uttered such a voice: *You are the Son of God*; such as Peter did much later, when the Lord says to him: *Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona.* Which things are to be observed against those who make the recognition of Christ, as the Son of God, proper and peculiar to St. Peter."
*Behold my beloved Son, etc.* Irenæus alleges this prophecy of Isaiah in the same tenor as St. Matthew does, ch. XII, 18 sqq. But today it is read differently in the version of the Seventy interpreters; indeed, even in the age of Irenæus, it seems to have been corrupted in that place.
*For the Ebionites, using only that Gospel which is according to Matthew.* Since Eusebius, *Hist. eccles.* lib. III, ch. 27, testifies concerning the Ebionites that they "use only the Gospel called according to the Hebrews"; and since Jerome likewise writes in ch. XII of Matthew: "In the Gospel (according to the Hebrews) which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use, which we recently translated from the Hebrew tongue into Greek"; hence, in the *Spicilegium of the Fathers of the Second Century*, p. 21, I conjectured that Irenæus, deceived by the fraud of the heretics, accepted that apocryphon as the canonical Gospel of St. Matthew, because it was written in the same language, as he himself recorded in ch. 1 of this book, and because many, witness Jerome in the place before mentioned and in his book I *Contra Pelagianos*, ch. 1, touted it as the authentic St. Matthew. But just as the conjectures of mortals are uncertain and sometimes tend to be false; so also do I now perceive this conjecture of mine and that of others concerning Irenæus to be such. For the matter being considered again and again, I perceive that not so much Irenæus, as Eusebius, or at least Jerome and all modern writers were caught in error, while they held the Gospel according to the Hebrews (which Jerome frequently asserts the Nazarenes had) and that which the Ebionites abused, to be one and the same: and I marvel that I did not long ago notice this error, while I was collecting the apocryphal fragments; of which, one and the other being compared between themselves, the diversity of both shines forth more clearly than the sun. For in the history of the Savior's baptism, the Gospel of the Nazarenes sounded thus: "It came to pass, when the Lord had ascended from the water, the fountain of all the Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him, and said to him: My Son, in all the prophets was I expecting you, that you should come, and I might rest in you. For you are my rest, you are my firstborn Son, who reigns into eternity." Jerome translated these words verbatim in his book IV *Commentary on Isaiah*, ch. XI, 2. But the Gospel of the Ebionites, according to Epiphanius, *Hæres.* 30, § 13, brings forward almost nothing of these. There, indeed, the voice from heaven is said to have sounded twice: "You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased"; with the addition in the first instance from Ps. II, 7, of these: "I have this day begotten you." Which things approach more closely to the words of St. Matthew. I therefore judge, along with Irenæus, that the Ebionites used his Gospel; not, however, uncorrupted and complete, but with various interpolations made, and with the genealogy and history of the nativity of Christ removed first of all, as is apparent from the place of Epiphanius cited. And that same thing Irenæus perhaps...
A indicated in the aforementioned place, since Eusebius records that there were two types of Ebionites, and says that the later ones believed Christ was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, which Epiphanius (Hær. 29) does not deny regarding the Nazarenes either. More on this matter, God willing, I shall say in the addenda to the *Spicilegium Patrum*.
Page 190. *But those who separate Jesus from Christ, etc.* He points to Cerinthus and his followers; so that it is certain that they received the Gospel of Mark.
Neither are there more in number than these, etc. So that this argument of Irenæus concerning the quaternary number of the Gospels may not be interpreted in a negative light, it must be observed that the ancients, philosophers as much as Jews and Christians, leaning on that saying of Wisdom 11:21, that God B "disposed all things in measure and number," entered into the reasons for the numbers by which all things whatsoever are determined; so that entire books concerning the mysteries of numbers were written by ancient and recent men, some surviving, some lost; and among these, the treatise of Philo Judæus on numbers, which he himself cites in the place I am about to mention and elsewhere passim, but which perished by the injury of time. Especially, however, the Jews held the opinion that the structure of the holy tabernacle, by the impulse of God, had been so fashioned that it represented the entire fabric of the whole world, and especially of man, just as it appears partly from Josephus, Lib. III *Antiq.*, cap. 5, 7, 9, but more from Philo’s Lib. *De Vita Mosis*, where generally, page 667, he says regarding this matter: "Ἓν γὰρ ἀναγκαῖον, ἱερὸν κατασκευάζοντα (or as it is read in the MS of Lincoln College: κατασκευάζοντα, so that it might refer to Moses as architect) χειροποίητον τῷ Πατρὶ (Lincoln adds τῶν ὅλων) καὶ ἡγεμόνι τοῦ παντὸς, τὰς ὁμοίας λαβεῖν οὐσίας, αἷς τὸ ὅλον ἐδημιούργει." "For it was necessary that those who were preparing a holy work, made by hands, for the Parent of all things and the Prince of this universe, should take as materials for that work the things similar to those from which the world was created." Whence, in the following sections, he pursues this argument at length through individual parts, and among other things, page 670, discussing the name of God inscribed in four letters on the golden plate of the high priest, he extols the dignity of the quatenary number which Irenæus treats here, and says that he had treated it accurately in his treatise *De Numeris* [περὶ ἀριθμοπραγματείας]. But they proceeded even further, and were persuaded that this tabernacle made by hands adumbrated heavenly things. The Apostle himself bears witness to this fact in his Epistle to the Hebrews, cap. viii, where in verse 5 he writes that the priests ministering in the temple at Jerusalem "serve D [ὑποδείγματι καὶ σκιᾷ τῶν ἐπουρανίων], an exemplar and shadow of heavenly things"; and in verse 2, he makes mention of a "true tabernacle, which God pitched and not man." Which in the following chapter, ix, verse 11, he calls D "a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this structure." And in verse 26, he calls D [χειροποίητα ἅγια], "holy things made by hands," [ἀντίτυπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν], "exemplars of the true ones," that is, of the heavenly ones, as he speaks in the preceding verse 23. Nor does he record only the supernal tabernacle, but also the heavenly Jerusalem in chapter xii of this Epistle, verse 22, that is, of course, "which is the Jerusalem which is above, which is the mother of us all," as he writes in Gal. iv, 26, which St. John in the spirit saw "coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband," Apoc. xxi, 2. It is therefore no wonder if the ancient Christians also compared their Church, and the things that pertained to it, on one hand with the heavenly Jerusalem and supernal things, and on the other hand with the world and its condition; considering indeed A the way that operations of God in the kingdom of power, of grace, and of glory (as theologians now like to speak) have a mutual resemblance, and one is aptly represented by the other. Relying on this hypothesis, Irenæus settled that it was fitting that there should be four in number, namely the Gospels. For the Gospel was held as the pillar and foundation of the Church, as not only here, but also in chapter i of this book, he testifies; it was also called "the Spirit of life," because it recounted the words of Christ, of which he himself says in John vi, 63, that "they are Spirit and life." Therefore, just as buildings have four columns, and the machine of the world has four cardinal points, and four also of the principal spirits, or winds, by which it is blown, so it was fitting that the Church also, as an ample house of God diffused through the whole world, should be supported by four Gospels, as by four sacred columns, and be refreshed by this quadripartite, divinely inspired codex, as if by a fourfold spirit. Nor were the Catholics the only ones delighted by this resemblance, but heretics also, and their very leaders, the followers of Simon Magus; concerning whom the author of the Arabic preface to the Council of Nicaea, which Abraham Ecchellensis translated into Latin, described from Oriental Arabic codices (Tom. II *Concil.* Labbei, col. 386), has these words: "But these perfidious ones fashioned for themselves a Gospel, which cutting into four volumes, they called the book of the four corners and cardinal points of the world." Yet Irenæus did not propose these things as demonstrations, but [εἰκόνως], that is, meritoriously and conveniently, he said the Gospels were contained in the quaternary number: and likewise, "it does not capture," that is, it was not fitting that there be more or fewer Gospels. But if the Holy Fathers indulged and attributed too much to such speculations, far be it that we should laugh at them for that reason like Ham, but let us grant such things to the time in which they lived, and to the custom then accepted. Often one age demands what another rejects: whence even within the space of one century, in one and the same place, the method of writing books, of delivering homilies, and of other things of this sort is initiated so differently, that what were previously for admiration, are afterwards held in contempt. And furthermore, Christian modesty requires that we do not attribute too much to our own judgment: but let us consider that it sometimes happens that the wisdom of God seems foolishness to the world and to worldly men, when yet "what is foolish of God is wiser than men," 1 Cor. i, 25. But to whom these things do not suffice, but who nonetheless continues to scorn Irenæus and other Fathers as the most uneducated simpletons, let him think for himself that saying of Irenæus in Lib. v, c. 20, that an uneducated religious man is worth more than a blasphemous and impudent sophist.
Page 192. *Others, however, etc.* He undoubtedly censures the Cataphrygians, or Montanists, who taught that the Holy Spirit had indeed been in the apostles, but that the Paraclete had not been, and that the Paraclete had said more in Montanus than Christ had brought forth in the Gospel; and not only more, but also better and greater things, as the author of the Appendix to Tertullian’s Lib. *De Præscript. adversus hæreticos*, cap. 52, writes. Therefore those men denied that the Paraclete, and his principal virtue, which was "to announce things to come" (John xvi, 13), had been in the apostles and the Church, but falsely boasted that it was given finally to Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla, so that they are deservedly referred to the number of pseudoprophets, as much here as below in Lib. v, cap. 61, where I shall add some things concerning them. But in this place it is to be noted that those men repudiated the Gospel of St. John, in which the Savior several times promised that he would send the Paraclete to the apostles; indeed, you would scarcely find that recorded elsewhere by anyone else.
Adnotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 12.
Page 193. *Peter therefore the apostle.* The order of the ten books of the New Testament having been kept, now from the Acts
A of the apostles, in his book, he pursues the argument established against the Gnostics, regarding the one and true God, creator of the world, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
*To elect.* In the old codex: *to choose out* (allegere), a term common to legal experts, by which they signify joining into a company, enrolling, and, as it were, co-opting. For they were also said to be "elected" (legi) who were enrolled in the number of senators. Suetonius: "Tiberius refused to elect (allecturum) him who was pressing frequently to be elected to the decuriae, even though he had been granted citizenship." Ulpian on the law of the decuriae: "Generally, to be elected (Allegi) is to be received into an order by selection." Lucifer Calaritanus uses the same word in his first book for St. Athanasius.
*It behooved.* Since in the Greek it is *ēdei*, it is better rendered by Irenaeus as "it behooved" (*oportebat*) or "it was fitting" (*oportuit*), as it is in our old codex, rather than "it behooves" (*oportet*), using the ordinary tense. For Peter is speaking of a matter already completed.
*Into the heavens.* We have preferred this emendation of the old codex, because the Greek context of Luke has *eis tous ouranous*.
*A footstool.* Thus also in book II, chapter 49, he rendered *hypopodion*; and the Latin Fathers Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine not infrequently speak in this way.
Page 194. *Leaping.* When he was made whole, he leaped once, but afterward he kept leaping. The former is expressed in Greek as *exallomenos*, the latter as *hallomenos*; Irenaeus rightly notices this, as Erasmus also observes there.
*Ye have denied.* In Greek *ērnēsasthe*, which all universally, along with the ancient interpreter, translate as "ye have denied" (*negastis*), "ye have rejected" (*repudiastis*).
*And may come unto you.* Both the Greek text and the Vulgate edition express this passage a little differently. Tertullian, in his book *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*: "That times of refreshing may come upon you from the presence of the Lord," which does not depart much from the reading of Irenaeus.
B *Not the apostle.* But as for the Queen of the Ethiopians, who had sent the eunuch to Jerusalem in the public name of the kingdom, she was called by her proper name (for Candace was a common name among the Ethiopians, just as Caesar was among the Romans) Lacasan, the daughter of King Baazena; she survived Christ for four years, and through the efforts of that eunuch publicly received the Christian religion. It is most certain—as is clear from the embassies of the kings of Ethiopia to the supreme pontiffs Clement and Leo, and to the kings of Portugal, and from the books of Damiao de Góis, Osorio, Alvares, Giovio, and Maffei—that this religion has persisted there in some way down to this very time.
*He was sent into the regions of Ethiopia.* As Eusebius later borrowed this passage from Irenaeus (History, book II, chapter 1), and Jerome (Commentary on Isaiah, book LII), so it seems Irenaeus himself culled it from book VII of the *Apostolic Constitutions* of Clement, chapter 47. For all affirm with one mouth, and in almost the identical words, that they announced the Gospel of Christ and baptism to their fellow countrymen, just as it had been handed down to them by Philip. And Abdias adds that the apostle Matthew went into Ethiopia and found him there; Sophronius, moreover, testifies that he was so inflamed with the desire for promulgating the Christian religion that he evangelized in Arabia Felix and the island of Taprobana, and died in a glorious struggle for the name of Christ.
*Your God from your brothers.* We have expunged "our" (*noster*) and "to ours" (*nostris*), in accordance with the evidence of the Latin and Greek C texts of the Acts, along with the old codex. Furthermore, that Christ was promised by this testimony of Moses is taught by the apostles and Irenaeus, as well as Justin in his *Responses to the Orthodox Questions* (101); Tertullian, book V *Against Marcion*, chapter 22; Cyprian, *Against the Jews*, book I, chapter 18; and Clement of Alexandria, *Pedagogue*, book I, chapter 7, even if with slightly different translations; through which the Judaic impiety of the Calvinists, who distort that passage elsewhere, is refuted.
Page 195. *Since, however.* He refutes the chicanery and cavil of the Gnostics, which he reviewed above in chapter 5.
*Which man.* We have deleted "just as," and likewise below, for "of them" (*ipsis*) we have replaced "they themselves" (*ipsi*); for "they were thinking" (*putabant*) we have put "he was thinking" (*putabat*); and for "to you," "to us" (*nobis*), restoring the authority of the old codex.
Page 196. *Predestined by God.* We have removed "by him" (*ab eo*), in accordance with the old codex and the Greek reading, *hypo tou Theou*.
*Imperfect therefore according to these is Peter.* Consider how, a little higher up, he asserted that the apostles were made perfect after the ascension of the Lord, by the coming of the Holy Spirit: here, too, he objects to the Gnostics, as if it were absurd and impious, that they should judge Peter and the rest of the apostles to be imperfect. How much more would he have condemned the Gnostics of this age, who assail and traduce them in words and writings as "schismatics, apostates, and idolaters"? Accusing Paul of "rashness, contempt of God, and Epicureanism"? Finally, saying of Peter that he "abolished the grace of Christ, deformed the Gospel, and buried Christian liberty"?
*Philip, however.* They wish him to have been a deacon. D
Page 197. *Certain among you.* Just as here he omits the mention of the poets, which is nevertheless found in the Greek codex of Luke, so did Augustine later, when explaining certain questions on the Epistle to the Romans.
*To be penitent regarding him.* Instead of "to repent" (*poenitere*), he said [this]. The common edition reads: "That all everywhere should do penance" (*metanoein*). He perhaps said "to be penitent" (*poeniteri*) as the Greek *metameleisthai*, a passive or deponent form. For this is a passage in Acts XVII, 30, and Revelation XI, 18, and to both the author has respect.
*Of the angels of God.* He follows the LXX version, as did Basil (*Against Eunomius*, book I), Chrysostom (Homily 60 on Matthew), Cyril (on Isaiah, book LII), Rufinus (in the Symbol), and most of the Greeks and Latins. The Hebrew renders it word for word, Sanctes: "He set the bounds of the people, according to the number of the children of Israel."
*Used by those vain ones.* We have added these seven words from the old codex, which the context of Luke in Acts XIV also recognizes, and we have replaced "name" with "us."
*Both appropriate to the times.* Augustine, book XXXII *Against Faustus*, chapter 14, and in Letter 5, which is to Marcellinus, explains the same with an elegant analogy taken from a doctor, who prescribes one thing to be observed by the sick for tomorrow and another for today, sometimes even prohibiting what he had previously commanded. Origen had performed the same before, drawing an analogy from a mother who feeds her children now with milk, now with solid food, in his first dialogue against Marcion.
Page 198. *Certain ones indeed.* That Marcion had utterly rejected both Epistles to Timothy, and that which is to Titus, Tertullian writes in book V against the same. Epiphanius will supply her other corruptions most abundantly against heresy 42.
*In another description.* He promises a special book against Marcion: even if he published it, it is certain that it does not exist today.
*They blaspheme the maker.* The universal Fathers considered blasphemy against the true God to be so horrible—that is, to deem Him the author of any evil—as is clear from this passage and the second book against Florinus, which he titled: "That God is not the author of evils"; such that they pronounced that no one but a sacrilegious person could say these things. Moreover, those words of the prophets: "There is no evil in the city which the Lord has not made." And: "I am God creating."
A mala; Augustinus interprets this not as referring to sin, but to punishment, following Tertullian, who interpreted it as the evil of punishment, not of guilt.
*Quoniam autem.* He returns to the proofs established from the Acts of the Apostles, that there is one God, the Creator of all things, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
*Discentes.* He uses this word for disciples and hearers quite often, as he does later in chapters 16 and 20, which Tertullian also did frequently in his *De patientia*, *De carne Christi*, *Præscriptio*, and *De poenitentia*.
*A dextris.* The Vulgate edition adds "of virtue," but the Greek codices, which Irenæus follows, are ignorant of this word.
*Implevi.* The Vulgate edition says "I have multiplied," with which the Hebrew text also agrees.
*Pag. 199. A fornicatione.* Neither here nor below does he mention the "things strangled," which nevertheless exists among the Greeks; but he added a little before: "over them," and "according to me," which the Greek codices and the Vulgate edition completely lack. The words that follow—"And whatever they do not want," etc.—Irenæus adds to the words of the apostles, since they are now absent from the published Greek and Latin texts, although there are not wanting those who testify that in a certain very ancient Greek codex, and in two manuscripts, it is added: *καὶ ὅσα μὴ θέλωσιν αὐτοῖς γενέσθαι, ἑτέροις μὴ ποιεῖτε*. So also in Cyprian, book 3 of *Testimonia*, chapter 119: "And whatever you do not want to be done to you, do not do to others"; which Irenæus also repeats later.
*Cum ipsis.* The old codex has "with the peoples"; we have proposed that both should be read.
*Cum allophylo.* Thus also Tertullian calls the Greeks and all foreigners in his book *Adv. Judæos*, c. 6, and in book 5 *Adv. Marc.*, cap. 37, from the LXX version.
*Pag. 200. Hi autem qui circa Jacobum.* Billius notes that this is a pure Grecism for "the apostle James." For the Greeks say *οἱ περὶ τὸν Ἰάκωβον* for "James." Irenæus understands by this place that address which James gave after Peter in Acts xv, in which, certain things being excepted, *διαφορεῖν*, which is translated here as "to act freely," he permitted to the Gentiles.
*Non fecissent.* The old codex had "would not have done."
*Ex Jo. Ernesti Grabii adnotationibus in cap. 12.*
*Pag. 191. Meos.* We do not read *μου* in our New Testament exemplars; but Chrysostom reads it in Homily 6 on the Acts.
*Traditum.* Irenæus does not acknowledge *λαβόντες*, just as the Alexandrian codex does not, nor do the Latin and Arabic versions.
*Inferorum.* Before Irenæus, Polycarp to the Philippians has the word *ᾅδου* in place of "death"; Epiphanius in *Ancoratus*, § 34; the Vulgate and Syriac interpreters.
*De fructu ventris ejus sedere.* Note that Irenæus did not acknowledge those words, *τὸ κατὰ σάρκα ἀναστήσειν τὸν Χριστόν*, which exist in modern exemplars, verse 30; just as they are not found in the Alexandrian codex, nor in the Latin Vulgate, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions.
*Neque derelictus est apud inferos.* Our Greek exemplars have: *οὐ κατελείφθη ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ εἰς ᾅδου*. But *ψυχή* is omitted not only by Irenæus, but also by Didymus in book II *De Spiritu S.*, and in the Alex. codex, as well as in the Latin Vulgate and Syriac versions.
*Donationem hanc.* Irenæus's codex seems to have had not only *τοῦτο*, as we read, but *τοῦτο δῶρον*, or *δώρημα*, as Didymus of Alexandria has in the cited place; Ruffinus in his *Exposition of the Article*, "He ascended into heaven"; and among the more recent, Rupertus in book VI *De operibus Spiritus S.* have alleged. Furthermore, Bede in his *Commentary* on these Acts of the Apostles clearly testifies to the place, in the Greek text now being: B "He poured out this gift which you now see and hear."
*Et Dominum.* Irenæus or his interpreter reads *Καὶ Κύριον*, just as Amphilochius does in his oration *περὶ τοῦ λόγου*, in Theodoret, dialogue 3, p. 166, and Epiphanius, *Hæres. 69, Arian.*, § 42, p. 764.
*Pag. 196. Credo Filium Dei esse*, etc. From this, and from the parallel place in book IV, cap. 40, it is clear that Irenæus read verse 37 of cap. VIII of the Acts of the Apostles in his codex, which is omitted in the Alexandrian and other manuscript codices and in Chrysostom's own Commentary.
*Pag. 197. Genus.* Irenæus seems to have read not *voc*, but *γένος*; just as the Vulgate interpreter and Clement of Alexandria, book 1 *Stromat.*, p. 315.
*Præfiniens tempora secundum determinationem inhabitationis eorum.* I am mistaken if Irenæus read *κατὰ ὁροθεσίαν τῆς κατοικίας αὐτῶν*, just as it exists in the Cambridge manuscript codex of the Acts. I wonder, however, that *προτεταγμένους* or *προστεταγμένους* escaped in this place.
*Illud quod est divinum, si quo modo tractare possint... non longe sit.* Clement of Alexandria also has *τὸ θεῖον* in the cited place, and the Cambridge codex, in which it is also read *ψηλαφήσειαν αὐτοῦ* instead of *αὐτόν*, and *ὑπάρχοντος* instead of *ὑπάρχοντα*.
*Quidam secundum vos.* The mention of "poets" is also omitted in the Cambridge manuscript and the Ethiopic version.
*Diem judicari.* From these it could seem that Irenæus's codex of the Acts of the Apostles did not have *ἐν ᾗ μέλλει*, which are also missing in the Cambridge manuscript.
*In viro Jesu, in quo statuit fidem, excitans.* *Ἀνδρὶ Ἰησοῦ* is also written in the Cambridge codex. But in Irenæus alone the two words *παρέχων πᾶσιν* are missing, which perhaps fell out on the occasion of the preceding word *πίστιν*, which ends with the same letters as *πᾶσιν*.
*Stephanus autem.* The same Origen connects an argument against heretics from this sermon of Stephen, in *Comment. in Joannem*, tom. XIX, p. 263, whose words it pleases us to give only in Latin: "That he (the Father of Christ) is indeed the God of the prophets, and the creator of the world, we can see from many places; but for the present, it suffices to see the assembly of Stephen from the Acts to the people saying in this manner: 'Men and brothers,' etc., and what follows; for throughout the whole oration one may see without contradiction that the God of the prophets is the Father of Christ Jesus."
*Pag. 198. Quasdam quidem in totum non cognoscentes.* Tertullian writes in book V that Marcion completely rejected both Epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus. FEUARD. But he also writes that he rejected the Acts of the Apostles of St. Luke and the Apocalypse of St. John as false, nor does only the author of the Appendix to Tertullian's book *De præscriptione adversus hæreticos*, cap. 51, say this, but Tertullian himself also testifies to the same; concerning the Apocalypse indeed in book IV *Adversus Marcionem*, cap. 5, but concerning the Acts of the Apostles in book V against him, cap. 2, from which place the other book, *De præscriptione adversus hæreticos*, cap. 22 and 23, is to be illustrated. Indeed, concerning the Acts the matter is clear, from Irenæus's own chapter 14, which follows immediately.
*Secundum Lucam autem Evangelium et Epistolas Pauli decurtantes.* Whoever wishes to know all and every one of these curtailments and corruptions of the Gospel of Luke and the Epistles of Paul, let him read Epiphanius, heresy 42, of the Marcionites, and Tertullian, books IV and V *Contra Marcionem*, in the former of which he refutes him from those parts of the Gospel of St. Luke which Marcion had acknowledged; in the latter, however, he disputes against him from the remainders of the Epistles of Paul. Especially from book IV, cap. 7, it is clear that this heretic began his Gospel with the three prior chapters of Luke intact, and with the greatest part of the fourth cut away.
A Migne’s note: “In the fifteenth year of the principate of Tiberius, God descended into the city of Galilee, Capharnaum.” Whence it is said in Irenæus, book I, cap. 29, that which is the Gospel according to Luke, he mutilated, and cut away all things that are concerning the generation (the nativity) of the Lord. But when he immediately added: “And cutting away many things from the doctrines of the words of the Lord, in which the Lord is most manifestly recorded as confessing the Creator of this universe to be His Father,” he looked especially to verse 21 of chapter x of Luke: “I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” etc., where Marcion expunged the word “Father,” as is clear from Tertullian, book IV, cap. 25; with which compare Epiphanius in the said heresy 42, refutation 22.
“In the other draft.” He looked to this place in Eusebius, *History*, book V, cap. 8, writing thus concerning Irenæus: “The same one promised that he would refute him from Marcion’s own writings in a separate work.” And he indeed promised that he would refute him in a special work from the very books of Marcion.
Page 199. “In you.” Published copies of the Acts of the Apostles have *en*, but the Alexandrian manuscript reads *hymin* [“to you”], as is found also in the *Apostolic Constitutions*, book VI, cap. 12, and as is read in Chrysostom. “Of our Lord... we have power.” We do not read *hymōn* [“of you”] in our Greek Bibles; but the Syriac and Ethiopic translators read it after Irenæus. The other two words, “we have power,” were added for the sake of explanation. “God thought fit to take from the gentiles a people for his name.” Two words which exist in edited copies of the Acts of the Apostles, *proton* and *epi*, are omitted; the latter of which neither the collector of the *Apostolic Constitutions* in the place cited, nor Chrysostom and Theophylact in their Commentaries acknowledge, nor does the Alexandrian manuscript contain it. B “And thus.” For *toutō* [“hereto”], Irenæus or his translator reads *houtos* [“thus”], as it was also written originally in the Cambridge codex, but corrected by a more recent hand. “Doing these things.” Our copies of the Acts of the Apostles sound *tauta panta* [“all these things”]. But the Vulgate and Ethiopic translators did not read *ta panta* [“all things”], nor the author of the *Apostolic Constitutions*, nor does it exist in the Alexandrian codex. “Known from of old to God is his work.” Similarly the Cambridge ms. reads: *gnoston ap’ aionos esti to Kyriō to ergon autou*. “From blood; and whatsoever they do not wish, etc.” Just as Irenæus, or his translator, here and a little later; so also the Cambridge codex in both places omits “and from things strangled,” and adds: “and whatsoever you do not wish to happen to yourselves, do not do to others,” in the latter place, *poiein* [“to do”]. Cyprian also acknowledges this appendix in *To Quirinus*, book III, cap. 119, but not Clement of Alexandria in *The Pedagogue*, book II, cap. 7, page 172, nor pseudo-Clement of Rome in the place cited before.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 13.
Page 200. “But those who say.” He shows that Paul not only acknowledged the truth, but that the knowledge and profession of it was common to all the apostles; otherwise they would have been sent in vain into the whole world to propagate it. “Of false witnesses.” So the old codex, by whose authority we moved the phrase “false testimony” from its place. “We yielded for an hour.” All codices read thus; now the Greek letter of Paul and the Vulgate edition have it with a negation: “Neither did we yield for an hour”; and thus Augustine, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Jerome in their later Commentaries on Galatians interpret it. But the same person in his earlier Commentaries, and afterward Primasius, indicate that certain copies do not have *oude* [“neither”]; which Ambrose also omits. Tertullian in *Against Marcion*, book V, cap. 4, as if untying a knot, and approving both readings, confesses that Paul yielded for some time by circumcising Timothy and introducing those who had been shorn. C Page 202. “After my departure.” So the old codex, and the Greek reading, *meta tēn aphixin mou*. Therefore we delete “our.” And immediately, “grievous wolves,” Irenæus rightly renders *lupi graves*; Vulgate edition, *rapaces* [“rapacious”]. “So the apostles.” These things are said against those who wished to claim that the apostles announced different and conflicting things to different audiences, or that they were sent as harbingers less prepared by the Holy Spirit: those whom Tertullian also refutes most sharply in *On Prescription Against Heretics*, chapters 6 and 7. “Contemplators.” In Greek, *autoptas tou Logou*, from the pronoun *autos*, “self,” and *theō*, “I see,” those who had seen and contemplated themselves. “But if anyone should refute.” Using a preoccupation, he teaches that Luke was not ignorant of the highest divine mysteries; indeed, because he committed the chief points to memory in the Gospel as well as in the book of the Acts, as he makes clear also from what follows. “And with false prophets.” For in the Greek it reads *pseudoprophetais*; Vulgate edition, *prophetis*. “They will demand back the soul.” Cyprian in the *Lord’s Prayer*: “Fool, this night your soul will be demanded back.” Tertullian in *Against Marcion*, book IV: “they will demand it back.” In Greek it is *apaitousi*.
Annotations of the same on chapter 15.
Page 203. “To those who Paul.” He understands the Ebionites, whom he reviewed in book I, cap. 26, as having rejected Paul as an apostate from the Law. But he pursues the other part of the higher dilemma. If the Gnostics acknowledged the whole and entire Scripture of blessed Luke, they would then learn from it that the one and true God spoke with the blessed Paul, and that he was elected and sent by the same to educate the gentiles concerning the true Christ, the Son of God. For he indeed announced many things bypassed by other evangelists, so that faith might be had in him also, as he testified concerning the vocation and labors of Paul. D “For this of the inventors.” How truly these things agree with all the heretics; the monuments of all the Fathers attest this along with ecclesiastical histories. Tertullian wrote that the Marcionites, distorting the resurrection of the flesh by an imaginary signification, and by this pretext being accustomed to deceive the Catholics in conversations, acted as if they themselves admitted the resurrection. Notable is the wicked craftiness of Arius, who displayed to the emperor Constantine a confession of faith, patched together with the words of the Catholics indeed, but in meaning far abhorrent from their mind. But we have already observed certain things concerning these in book I.
“And they entice them, simulating our text.” We have deleted “in delights.” Furthermore, the craftiness and malice of all heretics in masking, palliating, and encrusting their perverse and blasphemous errors is to be noted; but that of the Sacramentarians most of all. For the Lutherans and Anabaptists proffer what they think more ingenuously and openly; but the others turn themselves into so many varied shapes like Proteus, so that they impose upon many even great and wise men, and that with a marvelous and ineffable craftiness. Just as the hyena, as Schlusselburgius also observes before me, citing Pliny, wishing to exercise its ferocity upon someone, is accustomed, between the stalls of shepherds, to mimic human speech and learn the name of someone; which
once it has caught its follower, it immediately draws out, tears apart, mangles, and devours. A Thus, the Calvinists, wishing to promote their own errors, learn the divine language, take the name of the ancient Church—both Greek and Latin—attemper their confession of faith as much as they can to that of the Catholic Church, and rail against those who say that the signs of bread and wine are empty, while professing in bombastic words that Christ’s flesh and blood are truly, really, and substantially offered and exhibited to us through the sacrament of the Eucharist. But in reality, these are mere prestidigitations, illusions, and traps with which they catch the unwary; nay, they are even horrendous abysses, covered over with arbors and sod of words, with which they drag those walking in their simplicity with them into the eternal pit of perdition; seeing that the true substance of Christ the man is as far from them, as they themselves eventually affirm, as heaven is distant from the earth.
*They think they can discern.* For the words "and not," instead of "and also," we read, by the authority of an old codex: "but in this place to discern," instead of "to learn," following the judgment of Billius. For Irenaeus intends, he says, that it is not easy to distinguish the persuasive in words from the truth. That is, to distinguish from the truth that which is painted over with certain verbal blandishments.
*Without guile.* A similar proverb is cited from Euripides by Seneca, Epist. 49: "Truth’s speech is simple." For it is the way of impostors to paint over lies with verbal blandishments; but simple truth calls a fig a fig, and a spade a spade. Basil, Homily on the Martyr Mamas: "Truth is naked, testifying to itself without defense." More on this in the preface to book 1.
*Like a small egg.* Regarding "small egg," or "wind-egg," which might be more aptly translated as "an empty egg," Billius thinks the interpreter rendered it thus. For those who devote themselves entirely to the inventions of heretics can not undeservedly be compared to wind-eggs and useless ones.
*"To surrender himself,"* instead of "to hand himself over entirely and pledge himself," approximates the Greek custom, as they are accustomed to say *ἔκδοτον ποιεῖσθαι*.
*Not in heaven.* This is a proverb, a near similar of which is read in Lucian in the *Pseudomantis*: "He sent me eight oracles, which, they say, touch neither earth nor heaven." That is: He sent me eight oracles, but they were such as touch, as they say, neither heaven nor earth; a metaphor taken from those who hang in the air.
*Having the haughtiness of a cock.* This proverb was born from another: A cock is very powerful on his own dunghill; for thus even they, on account of the muck of their own refuse, puffed up their spirits and minds.
B *From that very same.* These two words were either added by Irenaeus, who was quoting this book from memory, or by some scholiast in his codex, by which it was signified, *ἐκ τούτου*, namely of time, from that very time, Paul’s sufferings had their beginning. For, immediately after his conversion, he was tossed hither and thither by persecutions.
*Simulating our tractate.* By "tractate" understand "discourse," and explain this by those things in the proem of book 1, page 3, line 2: "Like in name, but unlike in thinking": as well as those things in chapter 17 of this book: "Confessing one Christ Jesus indeed in tongue, but divided in opinion."
*Institorio.* That is, pride and haughtiness of mind. For *institorium* is said of everything that pertains to *institores*, that is, supervisors. And since these are usually people of puffed-up mind, hence Quintilian says elsewhere, book XI, chapter 1: "He called a proud boaster and an ambitious supervisor of eloquence."
C Adnotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 16.
Page 204. *But let us return.* With the disputation about Paul and his co-worker Luke finished, which was to be instituted as if in passing, he returns to the chief point, namely, that the apostles preached in the whole world the one God the creator of the world, who had given the Law to Moses and had assumed the Hebrew people as his own possession: by which doctrine all the Eons of the Gnostics and all their fables vanished.
Page 204. 131 *But there are among them.* These now refer to those Anabaptists who are called apostolic and separate. For they boast that they follow the footprints of the apostles and live altogether in their manner. They present an austere countenance, heave frequent sighs, eschew joys, and do not wish to participate in more cheerful banquets. They turn themselves to simplicity, carry no weapons, eat, sleep, walk, and labor only according to prescription, and preach that a severe life must be led by all who wish to be saved.
*But the majority.* And these are the parents of these Anabaptists, whom they call the new Cathars. They deny that there is any original sin whereby little children are stained; and therefore that they are saved without baptism; which they learned from the Calvinists. Nay, they even preach that they themselves are immune and pure from all sins—this little particle of the Lord’s Prayer, "Forgive us our debts," they omit entirely; for Christian liberty into all flesh D they convert; they use women in common; nor do they boast that the Holy Spirit (whom they brag they have received once) departs from them on account of any sins; which Beza also, in the colloquy of Mompelgart, did not blush to assert openly concerning himself and his own.
Ex Jo. Ern. Grabii adnotations in cap. 15.
Page 203. *In the Gentiles.* It seems that the interpreter in Irenaeus, or Irenaeus himself in St. Luke, misread *τοῦ* for *ἐνώπιον*.
*Unless the only true God the Father and his Word.* First, observe from this and six hundred similar places that Irenaeus never excludes the Son or the Holy Spirit from divinity when he speaks of one and sole true God, since the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are that one and sole true God. In vain, therefore, do the new Ebionites, Samosatenians, and Arians seek from this author patronage for their impieties. Next, that the principate and dominion of all things is attributed to the Creator, to the Word, that is, to the same Son of God, just as the Scriptures also testify: "All things have been delivered to me by my Father" [Matth. xi, 27]. "The Father has given all things into his hands" [Joan. xiii, 3]. "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me" [Matth. xxviii, 18]. "He is the head of all principality and dominion" [Coloss. i, 10], etc.; by which is signified and asserted his everlasting power, one with the Father, and the same majesty.
*And of the learning.* That is, of the disciples and auditors, such as were Timothy, Titus, Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, Dionysius, etc. For thus Tertullian also calls them disciples in his book *De patientia*, chapter three, and in the book *De praescriptione*, chapters three, twenty, and twenty-two.
Adnotations of the same on chapter 17.
Page 204. *Since.* He means Cerinthus and his followers, whose delusions he gave in book 1, chapters 25 and 34. He affirms, however, that Christ is impiously torn asunder by the Gnostics as if into four parts; when truly he is the unique Son of God and man, born of the Virgin Mary, and one who suffered for us; and they who think otherwise are blinded and led by Satan, the father of all lies.
*But others.* The followers of Basilides, concerning whom [see] book 1, chapter 25. These he had most bitterly attacked before Irenaeus.
A Ignatius, himself a martyr, Epist. ad Trallian., Tarsen., Philip., Philadelp., Polycarp. *The tongue indeed.* Here again, one must observe—nay, treat with abhorrence—the fraud of the Gnostics, who while seemingly learning correctly for a time in their words, were in fact blaspheming impurely in their interpretation. The Sacramentarians, their offspring, breathe this same impiety with full breath, whether concerning the omnipotence of God, or the descent of Christ into hell, or many other articles of faith, against whom a dispute should be instituted. *To apply.* We have expunged "to have," [following the] authority of an ancient codex.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 18.* Page 204. *And since John.* Especially throughout the whole chapter 11 of this book, he has asserted from the Gospel of John that Christ is the eternal Son of God, and that the same became man; and that Jesus is not one person and Christ another, nor is there one Son of the Most High and another the Son of the Virgin. *But foreseeing.* We have expunged "providing." Likewise, in this chapter as in all other places, we have substituted "Emmanuel" for "Emanuel," which is enough to have said once.
Page 205. *Wills.* Old codex: "by pleasure"; but because below in chapter 21 it again has "by will," we have chosen not to change anything. *But the other.* We have added these four words from the old codex, and have deleted that author's "we suspect." *Predestinated.* The Vulgate edition [has] "set apart," and thus read Jerome, Ambrose, Theodoret, Augustine, Primasius; in Greek it is ἀφωρισμένος. *Who is God over all.* Latin Vulgate edition: "above all"; the Greeks [have] ἐπὶ πάντων, commonly for either reading. Furthermore, Erasmus, not without manifest malice and impiety against Christ, has attempted to diminish the authority of this apostolic passage, by which the eternal divinity and majesty of Christ is (says Theophylact) openly refuted against the Arian impiety. First, by writing that Cyprian, in book II *Against the Jews*, chapter 6, omits the mention of God; yet codices corrected from ancient manuscripts by Morellius and Pamelius, and published versions, further, Tertullian in book *Against Praxeas*, chapters 13 and 15, and Novatian in book *On the Trinity*, chapters 13 and 30, and this passage of Irenaeus, prove this to be a manifest imposture. Then, it is conjectured that that particle, "God," was added by the interpreter of Origen, or by certain others; that this is most false is proven by the aforementioned testimonies of the Fathers, and by the most ancient monuments of all Latins and Greeks. There stands, therefore, and there shall stand, as most firm and most manifest against the Arians and their abettors, this testimony of the blessed Apostle for the true and everlasting divinity of Christ. *Born of a woman.* In Greek it is γεννώμενον. Augustine, book *On the Trinity and Unity of God*, chapter 3; Cyprian, book II *Against the Jews*, chapter 8, consistently interpret it with Irenaeus as "born"; Tertullian, book *On the Veiling of Virgins*, and Ambrose, book *On Faith*, chapter 6, and epistle 32, sermon 5, on Psalm 117, read "done." *Bearing.* In these things he acknowledges that ineffable union by which a duplex nature, all confusion removed, subsists in the single hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ; so that He is one, the Son of God and son of man. *Swiftly.* The Vulgate edition, which is also conformable to the Hebrew letter: "Make haste to take the spoils, be swift to plunder." I cannot here pass over in silence the impiety of Calvin, by which he rages with blind fury against the holy Fathers, when he writes that all Christian writers were too crassly hallucinated, who drew this prophecy to Christ. Does one thus favor Jewish blindness? Is this the accommodation of all the Scriptures to the analogy of faith?
A But whether they wish it or not, the spurious sons of the Synagogue, we will receive this interpretation of the Fathers—Justin, Tertullian, Jerome, Basil—so entirely conformable to this Irenaeus, with both arms. *For this and the children.* He understands the innocent infants, of whom fourteen thousand—as the Ethiopians note in the liturgy left to them by R. Matthew, and as the Greeks observe in their Calendar—Christ, by the abominable savagery of Herod, consecrated as child-martyrs. For these, Cyprian and Augustine call "the flowers of the martyrs"; nor do they deny that the tyrant profited them as much by his hatred as he would have [profited them] by his compliance. And Tertullian says: "They offered testimony to Christ by their blood." *And recapitulating all things in himself.* He alludes to this passage of Paul, Ephesians 1:10: *To restore all things in Christ*; where the Greek word is ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, that is, to recall to the one Christ the entire salvation of men and angels, and consequently the whole sum of all celestial and terrestrial things, and to comprehend them in that one. Jerome, *Commentary on that passage*, using the word "recapitulate" after Irenaeus, wonders why it is held in the Latin codices as "to restore." *Untimely haste.* There is no reason why later Gnostics should think from this passage that Irenaeus accuses the B. Virgin Mary of any fault; of whose integrity, piety, and faith he appears so great an asserter and defender below, book III, chapters 24, 25, 26, 27, 32, 33, and book IV, chapter 40, and book V. Nor indeed does he blame her humanity, by which she wished to assist those in need; nor does he deny that the Son is her mother, whom He did not refuse to be subject to and to obey: "But He, singularly born of the Father without a mother, of a mother without a father, was to perform the miracle which He was to perform, according to the divinity which the mother had not begotten, [and was] not according to the infirmity; therefore, about to work divine deeds," says Augustine, "he does not recognize human innards." And Justin Martyr in *Response to 136 Questions, Orthodox*, says: "That: *What is it to me and to thee, woman?* was not said to the mother by the Savior as a rebuke, but as if he wished to demonstrate this: We are not those who have undertaken the care of the wine which is consumed at the wedding; nevertheless, if out of love you wish so that wine may not fail them, say to the servants that they do what I tell them, and you will see that they will not lack wine; which indeed also happened. Therefore he did not rebuke his mother with words, since he honored her by his deeds." Therefore, the commentaries of Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Euthymius on this passage, by which they seem to attribute untimely emotions to the B. Mary, are to be read prudently; especially since the holy Council of Trent struck with anathema those who did not assert that she, by the special privilege of God, avoided all sins, even venial ones, in her whole life. *In diminution.* [From the] author of the old codex, we have deleted: "by the reason of the Demiurge." D *Many gods indeed.* Imitating Irenaeus, Cyril of Jerusalem calls Valentinus the preacher of thirty gods, *Catechesis* 6. *Wherefore again.* We have inserted this passage from Theodoret in Greek and Latin in its own place. *Dwells in us.* The Greek reading of Paul is ἐν ὑμῖν: and the Latin Vulgate is "in you." And afterwards, "your bodies." But Irenaeus, numbering himself with others, turns the person to his own purpose.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 18.* Page 204. *But Christ.* From this citation, and the argument deduced therefrom, it is evident that Irenaeus had read *Iesum*, which exists expressed in our Greek New Testament exemplars, neither does the Latin Vulgate nor the Persian version have it. Page 205. *For not from will... The Word [was] made flesh.*
A dienum in the Claromontanus manuscript, as I learned from the most learned D. Mill in his *New Testament*.
*From the dead.* It is not added, "by the glory of the Father"; just as in Tertullian, *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*, ch. 47, it is missing: whence the interpreter or, rather, the scribe placed it thus from the Italic version. Nor do I doubt that Irenæus wrote B as our New Testament codices have it, not *eis ti* [into anything], as the Latin interpreter seems to have erroneously read.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on ch. 19.*
Page 208. *For they were able.* The Apostles never handed down anything concerning a double, or even a quadruple Christ the Saviour, such as the Gnostics invented: but they relate in explicit words that the Holy Spirit descended and remained upon Him in the likeness of a dove, just as had been foretold by the prophets. B The same Spirit also was effectively present with the apostles, and the Church, and in the sacrament of baptism, just as the same prophets, and later Christ Himself, had promised. A little later, "shall rest upon him," for "shall rest upon me," we restore from an ancient codex and the context of Isaiah.
*And as dry [ground].* By a most fitting similitude, he shows that the aid of divine grace is necessary for the free will of men, a comparison which Chrysostom has followed in some places.
*For our bodies.* To one who examines and weighs this chapter diligently, among many other things, three points occur which Irenæus affirms concerning the sacrament of baptism. First, that its form was entirely commanded by Christ to the disciples, saying to them: "Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Therefore, those Gnostics—or Hugnostics—are clearly blasphemous against Christ in asserting that it is a magical act to bind the administration of the sacraments to specific words; and that the word of the sacraments is nothing other than the word of the minister's preaching from the pulpit.
Second, that this sacrament is of such necessity that without it, we can neither cling to Christ, nor attain eternal life: which Irenæus proves here by some similar examples and figures. Consenting to this, Tertullian says: "The law of baptizing has been imposed, and the form prescribed: Go, teach the nations, baptizing them," etc. But D. Augustine writes: "The Lord Christ most overtly said: 'Unless one be reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.'" The examples of Cornelius, of the disciples of John the Baptist, and of others sanctified before the reception of this washing, prove its necessity. Hence, again, Augustine: "Do not believe, do not say, do not teach, that infants who are prevented by death before they are baptized can attain to the remission of original sins, if you wish to be Catholic." Most basely, therefore, do the Gnostics deceive and are deceived, promising for certain that their followers' infants who die without baptism obtain salvation.
Third, that which Irenæus constantly asserts, is the manifold power and efficiency of this sacrament. For there is in it the power of regeneration and of human renewal; it makes one [to be] with Christ, so that we are watered and made fruitful by heavenly rain, and it makes [the Spirit] leap up into eternal life, etc. And so, again and again, the same Gnostics are foully hallucinating, subtracting all efficacy from it, and so filching it away, that only a hollow symbol of previously received grace remains.
*But she has been a harlot.* He does not condemn second or third marriages; but he understands the Samaritan woman to be guilty of many adulteries, even though Athanasius, in Question 59 to Antiochus, considers the five previous husbands to have been legitimate.
*Of the gift.* A neat allusion to the dew.
A it, regarding the heavenly grace and charity which is poured out through the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers, which would otherwise be more than sufficiently arid and sterile. That this was foreseen and foreshadowed of old by the Fathers, no one who believes Paul, asserting that all things happened to the ancients in a figure, and that the Law was a shadow of good things to come, will deny. As regards this pious application of Gideon’s fleece, Augustine imitates Irenaeus (Quest. 49 in the book of Judges; *Contra Faustum* bk. XII, ch. 32; *De unitate Eccles.*, ch. 5; *Comment. in psal.* XLV and LXXI; sermon 2, on the words of the Apostle; and sermon 108, *de tempore*), as does Ambrose in his prologue to book I *De Spiritu sancto*; Jerome, in his epistle to Paulinus concerning the institute of a monk; and among the Greeks, Theodoret, Quest. 14 in Judges, and Origen, Hom. 1 in Judges. I have thought it necessary to note these things against the malevolence of Gallasius, who, in order to perpetually disparage the authority of the Fathers, does not fear to accuse this blessed martyr of levity here.
*And upon the fleece [there shall be] wool.* Thus the ancient codex; the printed editions had, *from the upper part, fleece [or] wool.* B Or *through the Spirit [there is] an image and an inscription*, etc. What if by the name of the image and inscription received in baptism, Irenaeus understands in this place that spiritual and perpetual sign impressed upon Christian souls, which others call a "character"? For I gladly refer to this what Tertullian, a writer of the same century, says: "The flesh (in holy baptism, by the sign of the chrism and the cross) is signed, that the soul may be fortified." But these words of Cyril of Jerusalem concerning the same character do not seem to me to admit of any cavil: "Approach to baptism, not only beholding this visible countenance of those baptizing, but remember the Holy Spirit. For He is present, prepared to seal your soul and to give you a signet, at which demons tremble, a certain heavenly and divine thing, just as it is written: 'In whom also, believing, you were signed with the Holy Spirit of promise,'" etc.
*The Spirit therefore descending.* These things, up to the words "and they devised subdivisions," were transcribed by Theodoret in dial. 1, which we have also taken care to append.
Page 209. *And it will be necessary [Et oportebit].* We have expunged "it was necessary [oportebat]," and a little later we have deleted "of connection [assectionis]" and restored "of affection [affectionis]" from the ancient manuscript.
*Milk is mixed with gypsum.* This is a proverb, not unlike this one: "A deadly honeyed wine [Lethale mulsum]"; signifying everything that brings destruction under the appearance of good. For Pliny, book XXXVI, chapter 24, teaches that gypsum is a present poison, which, when it has been mixed with milk, deceives.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 20.*
C *For it was not possible.* We have not hesitated to remove the two words "impossible [impossibiles]" and "obedience [obedientiam]" by the authority of the ancient codex, and to substitute the opposites, "possible [possibile]" and "disobedience [inobedientiam]," so that the sense may be: that Christ the redeemer was necessary for men, since no one else beside Him could suffice for such a duty. And that this is the mind of Irenaeus is most manifest from those things which are found at the foot of this chapter. Athanasius subscribes to Irenaeus in orat. 3 *contra Arianos*, and at the beginning of the book *De incarnatione Verbi*; but Anselm treats this discussion accurately in the two books to which he gave the name *Cur Deus homo*. Petrus in the *Recognitions* of Clement, book I, asserts that it was impossible for the evils of mortals to be purged by another. Augustine agrees with these words: "It was necessary for that man to be one who could be killed, and God, who could not die."
*And incarnate.* We have restored these eight words from the ancient codex.
*It is attached [Affingitur].* We have expunged "it is fastened [affigitur]," and we have restored "the end [Horo], that is, the limit [finis]" for "a rope [loro], that is, a cord [funi]" by the authority of the ancient codex.
*It is manifest, therefore.* Theodoret transcribes these things from Irenaeus by name in his third dialogue, up to the words: "and again, and the infirm shall perish," etc., as we have placed them in their proper place.
Page 210. *And shall perish [Et periet].* By the authority of the ancient codex, we have not hesitated to replace it with *will perish [pereat]*, since in Greek it is καὶ ἀπολεῖται, and the ancient ecclesiastical writers frequently used such forms of words. Arnobius, *Comment. in psal.* XX: "The fruit of those who remain incredulous shall perish [perient] from the earth." And in Ps. LXXI, in three lines, he uses the word "shall flourish [floriet]" four times. Lucifer of Cagliari, book I, in place of Athanasius: "The memory of the impious shall perish [periet]." Augustine complains that he could not remove from the mouths of the singers of his own diocese [the words]: "But upon Him my sanctification shall flourish [floriet]"; to such an extent were they accustomed to this word. A little later we have also substituted "he lay down [decubuit]" D for "he lay down [discubuit]" from the ancient codex.
*In the name of Christ.* Ambrose teaches almost the same thing word for word in book I *De Spiritu sancto*, chapter 3.
*He shall have saved [Salvaverit].* We have deleted "he will save [salvabit]," and below we have substituted "fear [timete]" for "fearing [timentes]" by the authority of the ancient codex.
*Who were to be scourged and killed.* That is, they were to be scourged and to be killed. So also below, "and when we begin to suffer in truth, to begin to suffer, is to be about to suffer," as in John IV, 47: ἤμελλε γὰρ ἀποθνήσκειν, "for he was about to die [incipiebat enim mori]"; and Luke VII, 2, δοῦλος ἔμελλε τελευτᾷν, "the servant was about to die [servus erat moriturus]."
*Who might be put to shame [Qui confunderentur].* The ancient codex has simply, "they might put to shame his confession [confunderent confessionem ejus]." And Tertullian reads almost thus: "He is safe, he says, if he does not..."
A ...follow, and which we also grant to the martyrs themselves, that it smacks clearly of a mistake: but one which, without a better exemplar, cannot be removed [by] help."
Page 211. *For if he did not truly suffer.* Ignatius refutes this error everywhere in his epistles before Irenaeus; afterwards, Tertullian does so most sharply of all in his entire book *On the Flesh of Christ*; and at the end of book IV of his *Against Marcion*.
*And he caused [him] to stick.* He describes here learnedly the adorable mystery of the two natures joined in Christ, and the causes thereof; which Justin Martyr had also performed no less elegantly than acutely in his book *On the Confession of Faith and the Trinity*. Theodoret takes these things verbatim from Irenaeus in his second dialogue, up to the words: "for in what way [are they] sons of adoption," etc.
*That they might even scorn the martyrs.* Observe how gravely he condemns the rashness of the earlier Gnostics, who held as nothing the most blessed martyrs, who for the sake of Christian piety had undergone so many labors. What, therefore, would he have said if he had seen the censures, jeers, sacrileges, and brutalities of the later Gnostics; by which they condemn the writings of these men, hiss at piety, destroy memorials, and consign the venerable relics—having dug them from their tombs—to fires, sewers, or wild beasts; [by which they] either condemn, tear to pieces, or corrupt most pious writings; attribute miracles to the deceptions of demons; call diligent exercises dangerous superstitions; call examples, discipline, and doctrine seminaries of idolatry and marks of the Antichrist; and also [assert] that all are damned if they have not repented of these things before the final hour, do they not fear to shout and to write?
And lest I seem to attribute these things to them without cause, behold these judgments—collected and published by some of the disciples of Luther, the parent of the youngest Gnostics—so diverse, adverse, and perverse, regarding almost all the Fathers, martyrs, and ancient doctors of the Catholic Church: "Dionysius babbles much about divine names, about the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchy. B Thus they called him 'God-speaker' [Diviniloquum]: but they are mere dreams, and he was neither a disciple of Paul nor a martyr. Tertullian is churlish, savage, without talent, without learning, without common sense. Cyprian is a weak theologian. In the age of Cyprian and Tertullian, the Church began to degenerate. I have long since excommunicated Origen. In the whole of Origen there is not one word about 134 Christ. In Athanasius there was nothing singular. Basil is worth nothing at all. He is entirely a monk. I do not value him even a hair. Nazianzen, occupied with his poetry, wrote nothing sincere about God. Jerome ought not to be counted among the doctors of the Church: for he was a heretic. He was a man of no judgment or diligence. He writes many things impiously. Such was his sloth and dullness in understanding the Scriptures, that in his customary way he thrusts forward Jewish blindness in place of the historical sense, and then his own ineptitudes in place of allegory. Regarding faith and true religion and doctrine, not even a word exists in his writings. I know no one among the Fathers to whom I am so inimical as to Jerome. For he writes nothing except about fasting, about the selection of foods, and about virginity. Many books of Augustine are nothing. I hold Chrysostom in no place; he is nothing but a chatterbox. He writes almost nothing that is pure. His books are nothing other than chaos, and a sack full of words, where there is nothing of substance. The sermons of Gregory are not worth even a copper coin. The devil gravely deceived him in his dialogue 50," etc. I beseech you, who is so patient and mild, that such diabolical curses and infernal reproaches thrown at the holy servants of God would not stir his stomach? Who would bear with an even mind such great calumnies, and foul injuries against the most holy organs of the most holy Spirit of God, and His living instruments? Who would not from C Satan himself—whom Luther boasts and writes frequently spoke to him—believe for certain that these were sent [and] breathed into [his] chest and mouth? If the blessed martyr Irenaeus were still living here with us, with what right, with what merit, would he call Luther an 'opening of the devil' like Marcion! How often, if the most holy Polycarp heard these things with us, would he repeat with groans that saying of his: "O good God, to what times hast Thou saved me, that I must endure these blasphemies?" But Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, will doubtlessly be present, will be present in a short time, who will both vindicate the glory of His holy servants and shut the blasphemous mouths of heresiarchs with everlasting fires.
*And let all things hold together [et substent omnia].* Billius thinks it ought to be read *substant*; which word is indeed barbarous, but is expressed from the Greek *ὑφίστανται*, that is, 'they sustain.' Which D follow, and which we also grant to the martyrs themselves, [this] smacks clearly of a mistake: but one which, without a better exemplar, cannot be removed by help.
*Esset.* We have deleted *esse*. *In carne natum.* We have expunged *incarnatum*. *Non enim Spiritu.* We have added these three words. *Qui inciperet occidere.* That is, 'who might kill the sin.' *Sic igitur.* In the printed codices, *si igitur*. *Antiquam.* Thus we have restored *antiquam* for *antequam* of the ancient codex.
*From the Annotations of Joan. Ern. Grabius on Chapter 20.* Page 209. *Christum Jesum crucifixum.* We do not read *Ἰησοῦν* in our New Testament codices; whence I would say that Irenaeus cited these words from memory, were it not that Clement of Alexandria also, in book I *Strom.*, p. 313, had alleged them with this addition.
*Propheta.* The editors of Irenaeus indicated neither the name nor the place of the prophet. It is, however, Jeremiah ch. XVII, v. 9, where the Septuagint have: *καὶ ἄνθρωπός ἐστι καὶ τίς γνώσεται αὐτόν;* reading, namely, *as* [not] *enosh*, just as the Masoretic codex now has. But the ancient Fathers applied these words to Christ, proving thence "that man is the Lord and Savior, according to the dispensation of the flesh assumed," as Jerome testifies in his Commentary on this place, and notes that they did it with good intent, but "not according to knowledge." But after our Irenaeus, Tertullian did so in *Against the Jews*, ch. 14, in the book *On the Flesh of Christ*, ch. 15, in book III of *Against Marcion*, ch. 7, and Cyprian in book II of *Testimonies against the Jews*, ch. 10.
Page 110. *Servare eas, quæ ad eum essent, confessiones.* That is, 'to observe,' lest I deny him before men.
*Concedimus.* That is, 'we permit,' as in book II, ch. 49, and elsewhere. Irenaeus explains himself, however, when he adds that Christ will vindicate this injury brought upon the holy martyrs, when He shall come with them a second time unto glory; where not only He himself, but also they, shall sit to judge the world, according to Apocal. xx, 4. When Billius did not grasp this meaning, he suspected in vain that the text was corrupt, in book II of his *Sacred Observations*, ch. 5.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 21.* Page 212. *Rursus autem.* He fights against Carpocrates and his followers in this place; but more fully below in chapters 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, whose heresies he had described in book I, ch. 24. Justin Martyr specifically struggles against this heresy in his *Dialogue*, and afterwards Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Theodoret.
Irenaeus contends, however, in this chapter, that they who constitute Christ as the son of Joseph neither attain to the remission of sins, nor to the adoption of the sons of God, nor indeed even to the right of a blessed resurrection. Thus, in Him, a double birth is to be acknowledged and confessed, a double nature, and substance in the unity of a person.
It must also be observed that it is the opinion not only of Irenaeus, but of all theologians, that a pure and naked man could not have fulfilled the office of human redemption; but that it was necessary that it...
A be perfected by God and man at the same time. "By no means," says Fulgentius, "would human nature have been sufficient and suitable for taking away the sin of the world, were it not by the union of the Word of God." And Augustine, *Enchiridion*, ch. 108: "Nor should we have been liberated by him, the mediator of men, Christ, unless he were God." Ambrose also, in chapter 9 to the Hebrews, says: "Our sin was so great that we could never have been saved unless the only-begotten Son of God had died for us." And Basil in Psalm XLVII: "It was not a naked man, but the God-man Jesus Christ, who redeemed us: because no one else could bring a worthy price." The studious reader will find more testimonies of this kind in Chrysostom, *Homily 10 on John*; Cyril of Alexandria, *Thesaurus*, book V, ch. 7, and *Book 1 on the Faith to the Queens*; Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catechesis 43*; Damascene, *On the Faith*, ch. 15 and 19; Pope Leo, Epistles 13, 81, and 95; Sermons 1, 4, and 10 on the Nativity, Sermons 7 and 8 on the Epiphany; and Sermons 1 and 12 on the Passion of the Lord; and finally, Anselm in his two books, *Cur Deus homo*.
*Commistum Verbum.* That is to say, truly incarnate from the Virgin: or if the reading of the old codex pleases, *commisti Verbo* [mixed with the Word], that is, those who do not yet adhere to Christ by faith, hope, and charity. Immediately, for "percipientes" [perceiving], we have restored "perficientes" [perfecting], by the authority of the old codex.
*Manumiserit.* Ἐλευθερώσῃ, that is, the yoke of the most miserable captivity of all having been loosened, he has asserted them into the liberty of the sons of God. For just as a slave is called by Augustine a *mancipium* [chattel], who, taken by hand, could by the law of war be killed; so he who is manumitted, to whom the opportunity of liberty was granted by certain rites and words such as: "I wish this man to be free."
*Ego dixi: Dii estis.* Theodoret cites this in *Dialogue 1*, from Irenaeus down to the word: "For we could not," etc. Furthermore, by his authority, and by the consensus of the old codex, we have quickly substituted "Verbi Dei" in place of "Verbum Dei."
*Commistus Verbo Dei.* Theodoret desires these three words, and from there perhaps they might seem to some to have been brought in from elsewhere, had not all the codices consistently preserved them, and had he not not infrequently used the same words below in book V, ch. 37. Moreover, he strives to teach and explain that perfect union of divine and human nature in Christ with such diligence, that he is not content with the words of *aduniendi* [uniting], *adhærendi* [adhering], *conjungendi* [joining], *couniendi* [becoming one], *assumendi* [assuming], and *communicandi* [communicating], which he used in the previous chapter, but now he uses the word for *commistio* [mixing], yet for the significance of the previous ones. And let no one be offended by this phrase, as if Irenaeus were introducing some confusion of natures in our Lord, but let him note that other sound-thinking Fathers have not been averse to it. Dionysius the Areopagite: "Jesus is simply composed from the flesh of our humiliation in an ineffable way." Tertullian, *Against Marcion*, book II: "Mixing man and God in himself"; and *Apologeticus*, ch. 12: "Man is born, mixed with God." Cyprian, in his treatise *On the Vanity of Idols*: "God is mixed with man." Vigilius the martyr, book I, *Against Eutyches*: "The Son of God wished to show the nature of our kind through the individual unity of mixture." Augustine, *On the Trinity*, book IV, ch. 20: "Man is in a certain way mixed with the Word of God unto the unity of person." I pass over many others, whom you may note by reading.
*Ut adoptionem percipiens.* Erasmus, in the preface to these books, thought that this passage should be read prudently, because Irenaeus seems to assert that Christ is the adoptive Son of God according to his human condition. And certainly, centuries later, this 135th opinion was condemned in Elipandus, bishop of the Toledan see, by Paulinus of Aquileia, Pope Adrian, and the Synod of Frankfurt, to which, under the rule of Charlemagne, about three hundred bishops had gathered from Gaul, Germany, and Italy. B Elipandus, with his followers, wanted to defend himself by way of a published booklet, wanting to support Hilary, Jerome, Augustine, and then Eugenius, Ildefonsus, and Julian, formerly bishops of Toledo: but he was convicted of having partly corrupted the sentences of those Fathers, and partly of having supposed them to be fictitious; and his error was utterly suppressed by the sentences of the holy Scriptures and of the most grave theologians Athanasius, Nazianzen, Cyril, Hilary, Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Isidore, and Paschasius, which were brought forward in the same place, by which they deny that Christ can in any way be called an adopted Son.
It remains, therefore, that here, by the word of *adoption* which Irenaeus uses, we understand that grace, gift, or benefit by which, into the unity of person, without any preceding merits of his own, the Son of God assumed our human nature from the Virgin. Petrus Lombardus will explain this to you more fully after Augustine in *Sententiae*, book III, dist. 10, and as many scholastic fathers as have illustrated that passage with their questions. Or, what seems far more correct to acute and learned men, those words of Irenaeus are not to be referred to Christ himself, but to the assembly of pious men, whom he has mercifully assumed into the adoption of the sons of God by the benefit and efficacy of his passion, blood, and death. For these words of Irenaeus confirm this: "The Son of God became man, that man, receiving adoption, might become a son of God." And slightly before: "He speaks to those who do not receive the gift of adoption." Therefore, the blessed martyr, looking to these words of the apostles: "He gave them the power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name; You have received the spirit of adoption of the sons of God," speaks of our adoption in Christ and through Christ.
*Possemus.* We have inserted these six words, but we erased "possimus, nisi" [we may, unless] on the authority of the old codex.
*Propter hoc.* We have expunged "quod per hoc" [that through this], and not much later, we have substituted "aut" [or] for "ut" [as] on the authority of the old codex.
*Sicut enim homo erat.* Theodoret transcribes this from Irenaeus down to the word: "Therefore the Son of God," etc., which we have added above in Greek and Latin.
C *Requiescente quidem Verbo.* He teaches most clearly that nothing of pain was brought to the divine nature in that passion of the Lord, since it is free from all change, and cannot be subject to these things. The Council of Seville confirms this same thing with many scriptures, in action 13, and Eusebius illustrates it with very clear examples in *Demonstratio evangelica*, book IV, ch. 13.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 23.*
*Pag. 213. Magnanimus.* The old codex has "magnanimis." I think the interpreter rendered the Greek word μακρόθυμος in this way, which others might render as "patient" or "long-suffering." Furthermore, Tertullian in his book *On Patience* and Cyprian in *On the Lord's Prayer* imitate Irenaeus, using the same word. Irenaeus shows in this chapter that God, from the fall of man, has revealed to this world how patient, benign, merciful, and powerful he is for saving. He proves this very thing even by the example of Jonah: and therefore that the ingratitude of men is most grave, if they have not recognized and looked upon such a great benefit for its worthiness, etc. Moreover, he almost always refers to *Verbum* [the Word] in the masculine gender, attending to the Greek word λόγος, which is masculine.
*Ninivitis.* Thus the old codex; the printed edition has "inimicis" [enemies].
*Conterritos ab eo signo.* He indicates that Jonah preached to the Ninevites the wonders which had happened to him in the sea, in the whale, and on land; which also pleases certain Hebrew interpreters, as we have noted in our Commentaries on that prophecy.
*Ut insperabilem.* Thus also at the beginning of the chapter: "that he might glorify God, who had given him insperable [unhoped-for] salvation." Therefore we have expunged "inseparabilem" [inseparable].
"Let him know, however." We have removed "cognoscant" [let them know], according to old manuscripts.
Page 214. "It was made." It should have been translated "factum est" [it was made] because of the preceding "Verbum" [Word], unless the interpreter had been looking at the masculine noun *logos*: which he frequently does elsewhere. A little later, "assueret" [he might accustom] is used for "assuefaceret" [he might have accustomed].
"They could not be saved." In Greek, *ouk eichon sōthēnai*, "they could not be saved"; just as *echō legein*, "I can say."
*Annotations of the same by the same on Chapter 23.*
Page 214. "Again, since neither man." It was necessary for the Savior of the world to be true man, who would suffer and die for us; and likewise God, who would remit sins and save from death.
"Without flesh." Many of the ancients attribute their own bodies to angels, as is evident from Justin, Tatian, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, and many others. But others, such as Dionysius, Cyril, Theodoret, and Damascene, hold that they are entirely incorporeal and immaterial; to which view Irenaeus seems to lean in this place, although chapter 70 of book IV seems to indicate otherwise. Likewise, Ignatius, in his *Epistle to the Trallians*, calls angels incorporeal creatures. Basil, in his homily *That God is not the author of evils*, says that the nature of the devil is incorporeal. Nazianzen, in his second *Oration on Theology*, writes concerning the nature of angels: "We cannot see even this, although it is devoid of body, in an incorporeal way." Gregory of Nyssa, in his book *On the Life of Moses*, considers angels to be incorporeal by nature. Epiphanius, in *Against Heresies* 26, calls the demon an incorporeal spirit. Chrysostom, in his 22nd *Homily on Genesis*, affirms that it is impossible for the incorporeal nature of angels to be possessed by the lust of the flesh. Finally, Jerome, in his *Epistle to Avitus*, lists it among the errors of Origen that he said demons are clothed with airy bodies because of their offenses.
"Neither the elder." This is the opinion of Isaiah LXIII according to the Septuagint translation; which is also cited in almost the same words by Cyprian, book III, *Against the Jews*, chapter 7.
"Isaiah says: And he called to mind." I do not doubt that the name of Isaiah crept into this place in place of the name of Jeremiah, because he had said as a little before; "And Isaiah again"; furthermore, in book VI, chapter 39, he attributes this same passage to Jeremiah; and in book V, chapter 31, he cites the same passage, though slightly differently, without mentioning Isaiah. But Justin Martyr also, in his *Dialogue*, alleges the passage as if from Jeremiah. Moreover, he writes that the Jews, out of hatred for Christians, removed this statement and many others from the Holy Scriptures. And in truth, this passage does not now occur either in the Septuagint, nor in the Latin Vulgate reading.
"God will come from the South." Novatian, in his book *On the Trinity*, chapter 12, as cited by Tertullian, reads it thus with Irenaeus, and that from the edition of Theodotion, which Jerome testifies was translated: "God will come from the South, and the Holy One from Mount Paran," as the Latin Vulgate edition now reads. The same Jerome teaches that Paran is a place near Mount Sinai and that Bethlehem, in which the Savior was born, is situated to the South. However, the mountains of Ephraim, or Ephrem, are not to the South of the city of Jerusalem, but to the North. Therefore, it would seem better to read "from Mount Paran" than "Ephrem." Novatian has "from the shaded mountain."
"He covered the heavens." This is a new reading fashioned from various translations, and almost similar to the one which Cyprian uses for the same sentiments in book III, *Against the Jews*, chapter 21, which his most diligent and learned scholiast Pamelius prudently notes.
Page 215. "God therefore was made man." Eusebius, in his book V of the *Ecclesiastical History*, chapter 8, translates these things by name from Irenaeus, which will be added in Greek and Latin in the following chapter.
*Annotations of the same by the same on Chapter 24.*
Page 215. "Therefore the interpretation of some is not true." He understands the authors of this perverse interpretation among the Jews to be the Ebionites, Theodotion, and Aquila: to whom Justin joins Trypho and Carpocrates; Eusebius and Epiphanius join Symmachus, a proselyte from the Samaritans who was circumcised. And for those, it is not at all surprising, since they either never accepted Christ, or having once accepted him, later completely denied him. But, in our time, in the very middle of Christian regions, it would be difficult to find one among posterity who would believe that there have arisen some who sold themselves as the greatest and most sincere champions of the glory of Christ, while reviving from Hell this Jewish and Gnostic impiety, which had been extinguished by the blood of so many martyrs. I refer to Calvin, who concedes to the Jews what they demand regarding the name *Haalmah*, namely, that it is to be understood of a young woman who has known a man: Oecolampadius, translating in a Jewish and Gnostic manner: "Behold, that young woman pregnant, and bearing a son"; and the impure Castellio, interpreting with common speech for both the corrupt and the incorrupt: "Behold, a girl pregnant will bear a son"; all of whom we refute with the following arguments.
1. Three different Hebrew words signify almost the same thing: *naarah*, an adolescent girl, but as much a virgin as one who is corrupt; *bethulah*, designating a virgin exclusively, whether she be a decrepit old woman or an adolescent; *ha-almah*, by which the prophet calls the mother of the Messiah in this place, signifies only an adolescent virgin, and one who is *aset* [hidden] and intact, hidden and obscured from men, as the etymology itself indicates.
2. Then, with three letters, *haalmah*, with the letter or article *he*, it is found: Genesis xxiv, 13, when it is said of Rebecca: "Behold, I stand by the spring of water, and it shall be *haalmah*," that is, a virgin "coming out to draw," etc.; secondly, Exodus ii, 8, when it is written of Mary, the sister of Moses: "And the *haalmah* went," that is, a virgin, "and called the mother of the infant"; finally, in this passage in Isaiah: "Behold, the *haalmah*." If, therefore, the first two are called by this name because they were intact, hidden, and not known by men, without doubt the third, which is in question, is as well.
3. There is added the fact that those seventy elders, Hebrews by race and social life, clear in their expertise of the Hebrew and Greek languages, translated *haalmah* (as Justin Martyr and Jerome prudently observe with Irenaeus) in this passage as *parthenos*, which for everyone, regarding the controversy, signifies a virgin; and not *neanis*, which denotes an adolescent girl, nor *paidiskē*, which denotes a girl simply.
4. To a small degree our positions are confirmed by Jonathan son of Uzziel, the Chaldean paraphrast, a man of the highest name and authority among the Hebrews, who rendered this passage, "Behold, a virgin." The Gospel of Matthew in the Syriac language, that is, the Hebrew, the common dialect in which it was first written, also agrees, rendering the passage of Isaiah thus: "Behold, for a virgin." The Punic language also, which is truly Arabic, properly calls *haalmah* a virgin: so that, not without mystery, the integrity of the mother of the Redeemer of the whole world may be celebrated in the tongues of all.
5. Finally, that which they considered as an impregnable fortress in this matter with Irenaeus—Justin, Tertullian, Basil, Cyril, Chrysostom, Jerome—I will not omit; a notable portend, a miracle unheard of in past centuries, and a sign not common, but worthy of God, and, to use the words of Tertullian, a certain "monstrous novelty," the divine prophet was promising to the Jews; of which the daily [union] of a betrothed young girl has no reason at all.
A etc. Moreover, by his authority and the consensus of the old codices, we have restored and corrected: "adorn" (ornare), for "to complete" (compleri); "to Jerusalem" (Jerosolymitis), for "in Jerusalem" (Jerosolymis); "for they obeyed" (cobediebant enim), for "who obeyed" (qui obaudiebant).
Ptolemy, son of Lagus. Tertullian calls him Philadelphus, and likewise names him the most learned of the Ptolemies. Epiphanius notes that this event took place in the seventeenth year of his reign: for in his *Chronographia*, Nicephorus of Constantinople writes that he reigned for 38 years.
Of all men. Josephus writes that he possessed that library of 50,000 volumes, *Antiquities* bk. XI, c. 2, where he also follows the entire history accurately. Aristeas, in Eusebius, *Praeparatio Evangelica* bk. VIII, cap. 4, relates that Demetrius of Phalerum, the royal prefect of the library, when asked by the king how many books were now in the libraries, replied: "More than two hundred thousand, but in a short time they will be no fewer than five hundred thousand."
The Seventy elders. There have not been lacking those who have sparked a dispute about their number, saying there were only seventy, not seventy-two, because they are reckoned in this way both by Irenaeus and by very many other authors. But I would have them note that this brevity is for the sake of simplicity, just as the seventy-two disciples, sent by Christ apart from the apostles, are more commonly called the seventy: although, nevertheless, from the Gospel, the interpretation of Augustine and Bede, and Epiphanius who lists them by name, and finally Clement—who saw some of them—in *Apostolic Constitutions* bk. II, cap. 59, it is truly beyond any doubt that there were seventy-two. Furthermore, since Eleazar, then the high priest of Jerusalem, chose and sent six men from each tribe of his people, and the number six multiplied by twelve makes seventy-two, the number of the seventy-two interpreters is certain. Finally, Aristeas, who was secretary to that same Ptolemy, testifies in his writings that he had seen, admitted, and fostered them: moreover, he lists their individual names by their tribes: From the tribe of Judah, he says, Joseph, Hezechiah, Zacharias, John, Hezechiah, Elisha. From the tribe of Reuben, Judas, Simon, Samuel, Adaeus, Mathias, Eschemias. From the tribe of Gad, Nehemiah, Joseph, Theodosius, Baseas, Ornias, Datis. From the tribe of Asher, Jonathan, Auxeas, Elisha, Ananias, Chabrias, Sachus. From the tribe of Naphtali, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Gabareus, Simon, Levi. From the tribe of Manasseh, Judas, Joseph, Simon, Zacharias, John, Jonathan. From the tribe of Simeon, Sabatheus, Jason, Jesus, Theodorus, Jonas, Jonathan. From the tribe of Levi, Theodosius, Jason, Jesus, Theodorus, Jonas, Jonathan. From the tribe of Issachar, Theophilus, Abraham, Arsamis, Endemias, Daniel, Some. From the tribe of Zebulun, Jeremias, Eleazar, Zacharias, Baneas, Elisha, Datheus. From the tribe of Ephraim, Samuel, Josephus, Judas, Joathes, Chabel, Dositheus. From the tribe of Benjamin, Israel, Joannes, Theodosius, Arsamenes, Abietas, Ezecel. And so much for these.
There are also those in this century who contend that they translated only the Law, that is, the five books of Moses, from the Hebrew into Greek; and they think that Aristeas, Josephus, and certain Talmudists understood it that way. But they are mistaken, since by the name of "the Law" D these understand the entire Scripture of the Old Testament, just as our Lord Christ speaks of it, John 10:34 and 15:25. Furthermore, Philo and Epiphanius, the most diligent investigators of this matter, expressly testify that the entire Old Testament, which was preserved by the Jews in 22 sacred books, was translated by them into the Greek language. Nor is it credible that a king so avid and curious for all books would have neglected the books of all the other most illustrious prophets, being content only with the five of Moses alone. Finally, since none by these LXX [index: entries preserved]
there are translators of the Old Testament up to Aquila, who lived under the emperor Hadrian; and before him the apostles, and other apostolic men, quoted the prophets according to the Greek translation. There is indeed no doubt that the entire Old Testament was rendered into the Greek language by those LXXII [interpreters].
Nor must it be passed over that the authority of the translation of the LXXII was once so great, even among the Jews, that, as Philo bears witness, many of them would cross over every year to the island of Pharos and honor with a celebrated solemnity the place where such a wonderful interpretation of the divine law was first published. Therefore, in their calendar, on the eighth day of the month Tebet, which is December, a fast is marked, because on that day the law was translated into Greek in the time of King Ptolemy, and, as they say, darkness occupied the whole world for three days.
Finally, the ancient doctors of the Church—Justin, Tertullian, Epiphanius, Augustine, together with Irenaeus—did not doubt to affirm that these LXXII elders were instructed and fortified in this matter by a prophetic Spirit, when, by such a stupendous miracle, they all concurred in the same wordings, periods, and sentiments, expressed the more obscure oracles concerning Christ so aptly, and were eventually accepted and approved by the apostles and the entire ancient Christian Church. Although we do not deny that, both through the passage of time and the negligence or ignorance of many scribes, their interpretation was later corrupted in many places, so that it had to be amended subsequently by Lucian, Hesychius, Origen, and then by the blessed Jerome. At length, by Divine Providence and the never-sufficiently-to-be-praised labors of very learned men, all pious people of this time rejoice that it has finally come to light in a version corrected and approved by the authority of the Roman Church. And let these words suffice for this place. B
*Separating them from one another.* Justin Martyr writes that he saw the ruins of the seventy cells in Alexandria in which they translated separately, from which Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 4), Tertullian (Apologeticum, chap. 19), Eusebius (Book V De praeparatione evangelica, chap. 1), Hilary, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Augustine (Book II De doctrina Christiana, chap. 15, and Book XVIII De civitate Dei, chap. 42) do not dissent. Furthermore, that these interpreters were endowed with the prophetic, that is, the divine, Spirit is not doubted by the same Augustine (XV De civitate Dei, chap. 14, and Book XVIII, chap. 43), even if Jerome is sometimes more hostile to them out of a love for the Hebrew truth.
*Page 216. To restore the law to the people.* Ancient writers prove this sentiment with great consensus by their own reckonings, such as Basil (epistle to Chilon), Clement (Book I Stromatum), Jerome (Book Against Helvidius), and Isidore (Book VI Etymologiarum). But it will suffice here to note the words of Tertullian alone: "Jerusalem," he says, "having been destroyed in the Babylonian conquest, it is established that the whole instrument of Jewish literature was restored through Ezra" (Book De habitu muliebri, chap. 3).
*Regarding the first.* Tertullian subscribes to this (Book Against the Jews); Eusebius in his *History* and his *Chronicle* in the year 42, whom Epiphanius follows (Against Heresies 78). Therefore, Ptolemy had preceded this time by more or less three hundred years.
*And Matthew.* Jerome, intensely devoted to the Hebrew truth, warns that Matthew sometimes does not follow the authority of the LXX translators, but the Hebrew, as those two [passages] indicate: "Out of Egypt I have called my son," and "He shall be called a Nazarene" (Book De viris illustribus and Commentary on chapter 2 of Matthew).
*From the annotations of J. E. Grabe on chapter 25.* C *Page 215. Ptolemy the son of Lagos.* Clement of Alexandria (Book I Stromatum, p. 341 sqq.) records that he first mentions the division of these matters: "They say that the Scriptures, both those of the law and those of the prophets, were translated from the Hebrew dialect into the Greek language in the time of King Ptolemy the son of Lagos, or, as some say, in the time of the one called Philadelphus, who took the greatest ambition for this and engaged Demetrius of Phalerum to deal accurately with the interpretation." The Scriptures of both the law and the prophets are said to have been translated from the Hebrew language into Greek in the time of Ptolemy, the son of Lagus; or, as some say, in the time of the one called Philadelphus, since Demetrius Phalereus had contributed the greatest diligence to that matter and had urgently seen to it that they be translated. The author of this latter opinion seems to have been Aristaeus, whether genuine or spurious, as it appears; his followers are Philo Judaeus (Book II De vita Moysis, p. 658), Josephus (Book XII Antiquitatum Judaicarum, chap. 2), and Tertullian in his *Apologeticum* (chap. 18), invoking the history of Aristaeus, and other more recent Fathers. But Irenaeus, following some other author—I know not whom—attributes to Ptolemy Lagus what [others] attribute to Philadelphus. Regarding Justin Martyr, the matter is uncertain, since he names Ptolemy without an addition; and although in his *Paraenesis to the Greeks* (p. 14) he alleges Philo and Josephus, he nevertheless adds others, even if he leaves their names silent: from whom he undoubtedly drew what he alone mentions regarding the double legation (Apology 2, p. 72). Whether, therefore, he agreed with Philo and Josephus regarding the author of the legation, or with others, remains in doubt. Perhaps, however, this division of opinions arose from the fact that the legation to the Jews for the purpose of acquiring the sacred books took place at the time when Ptolemy had taken his son, Philadelphus, into the partnership of the kingdom; so that it could be ascribed to either, and in reality has been ascribed by different authors. Which opinion, as it is approved by the reckoning of most recent writers, is also confirmed by the testimony of Anatolius, bishop of Laodicea, whose manifold erudition Eusebius praises (Book V Hist. eccl., chap. 32) and preserves there a fragment of the *Paschal Canons*, in which he cites Philo, Josephus, and Musaeus for his own purpose, and names other more ancient Jewish writers, namely the two Agathobuli, to whom the title of "Masters" clung, and Aristobulus, whom he describes on that occasion in the cited place (p. 234) thus: "Who was one of the seventy men who translated the sacred and divine volumes of the Hebrews for the favor of Ptolemy Philadelphus and his father, and dedicated books of explanations of the Mosaic law to the same kings." In this, he perhaps erred, that he confuses Aristobulus, who was much younger and cited as the author of the explanations of the Mosaic law by Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius in their *Preparation for the Gospel*, with that older one, one of the LXX (unless two Aristobuli wrote different commentaries on Moses); yet he seems to feel entirely rightly in that, that the translation of the biblical books was made during the reign of Ptolemy Lagus and his son Philadelphus. And this is also proved from the fact that Demetrius Phalereus procured this work, as the younger Aristobulus himself testifies in Clement of Alexandria (Book I Stromatum, p. 342) and Eusebius (Book XIII De praeparatione evangelica, chap. 12). That he was exiled from the court by Ptolemy Philadelphus is established by that most celebrated testimony of Hermippus in Diogenes Laertius. It is necessary, therefore, that, when Ptolemy Lagus was still alive and Demetrius was among the friends of the king, the translation of the LXX was, if not brought to the end, at least begun. Compare the following annotation...
which will provide additional confirmation for this opinion.
“Being eager for the library which had been constructed by him,” etc. You will say that many writers attribute this great zeal for founding the most extensive library to Philadelphus, and not to Ptolemy Lagi. I reply that the zeal was the same for both, although perhaps it was more ardent in the former, while he was still a young man. Since, indeed, it is established that Ptolemy Lagi was highly learned, not only in that he wrote many epistles and those sent to learned men, but also a History of the expeditions of Alexander the Great, to such a degree that he is said by Curtius (book IX, chap. 8) to be greater and more renowned in the arts of peace than in those of war, there is no doubt that he was also intent upon acquiring books from everywhere. And certainly it is reported by Suidas A in the entry *Zenodotus* that a library existed while he reigned, and that Zenodotus of Ephesus, a versifier and grammarian, was in charge of it. This is confirmed not a little by Strabo, book XIII, Geography, page 608, where it is recorded that Aristotle taught the kings in Egypt the ordering of a library. But Aristotle did not prolong his life beyond the reign of Ptolemy Lagi; so that he was perhaps the very first author of the founding of this library. Demetrius of Phalerum was certainly, even if not the first, a promoter of it, about whom Plutarch says in his *Apophthegmata*, page 189: "He advised King Ptolemy to acquire books concerning kingship and leadership, and to read them." These things can hardly be interpreted as applying to anyone other than Ptolemy Lagi; and although they are referred to Philadelphus, this advice of Demetrius was given while Ptolemy Lagi was still alive, as is clear from the preceding annotation.
“Having translated the Scriptures.” So also Clement of Alexandria, in the cited passage, says that all the books, both of the Law and of the Prophets, were translated into the Greek language by the seventy elders. Theodoret subscribes to this in the preface to his *Commentaries on the Psalms*, as do Olympiodorus in his *Comm. on the book of Job*, and almost all the rest. Aristobulus and Josephus, however, both Jewish writers, merely hint that only the Law was translated by them into Greek. Aristobulus’s words are indeed found in Eusebius C in book XIII: “The whole interpretation of all things through the Law took place under the king designated Philadelphus,” etc. But Josephus, in the preface to his books on *Jewish Antiquities*, writes thus: “I found, therefore, that Ptolemy, the second king, having busied himself with learning and the collection of books, was especially eager to have our Law and the constitution of the polity according to it translated into Greek.” And a little later he declares the same thing more clearly in these words: “For he did not succeed in obtaining the whole writing, but only those things of the Law which those who were sent for the interpretation handed over to Alexandria.” He writes the same in book XII of the *Antiquities*, chapter 2, and in book II of *Against Apion*, not far from the beginning. Valesius noted these things concerning this passage of Irenæus in his *Animadversions on Eusebius*, page 94, columns 1 and 2. He adds, indeed (which Feuardentius also notes), that it is possible to answer that the Jews sometimes include the Prophets under the name of the Law, as Drusius notes in chapter 2 of his *Response to the Minerval of Serarius*; and for this explanation he brings forward certain words of Josephus from book II of *Against Apion*. But the opinion of Josephus concerning the version of the Mosaic books alone is apparent from the words D cited above, where the Law is contrasted with all of Scripture, so clearly that it is futile to hunt for another meaning. But the matter stands otherwise with Aristobulus, whose words can conveniently be understood, and perhaps even ought to be, not of the Mosaic Law alone, but of the interpretation of all Scripture. For in the aforementioned book, page 664, Eusebius recites these words of his: “For there was translated, before the time of Demetrius of Phalerum, by others, before the time of the dominion of Alexander and the Persians, what was related to the exodus from Egypt of the Hebrews, and the manifestation of all things to them, and the taking of the country, and the explanation of the whole legislation.” And he continues to write shortly thereafter, in opposition to those things: “But the whole interpretation of all things through the Law, under the king designated Philadelphus," etc. But this is not the place to dispute this at greater length.
“Having separated them from one another.” Justin does not attest in *Apology 2*, as Feuardentius writes, nor in the *Dialogue with Trypho*, that he saw the traces of the seventy cells, but in the *Parænesis to the Greeks*, page 14. Irenæus agrees with this; but not Epiphanius, who, in his book *On Weights and Measures*, mentions that two were stationed in each cell. As for Jerome’s censure, this Preface to the *Pentateuch* sounds thus: “And I do not know who was the first author to construct by his lie the seventy cells at Alexandria, in which, divided, they wrote the same things; whereas Aristaeas, the *hyperaspistes* of that same Ptolemy, and long after that time Josephus, reported nothing of the sort.” Yet Philo Judæus did report, or at least did not obscurely hint at it, in his book II *On the Life of Moses*, page 659, where he says of the seventy interpreters: “Just as if inspired by God, they prophesied, not one saying one thing and another another, but all of them the same words and expressions, just as if an invisible prompter were whispering to each of them.” Whence the animadversion of Valesius on Eusebius (p. 94, col. 2) must be corrected, for he writes that no mention was made by Philo of cells.
“The same things in the same words.” After Philo, Justin M., in the passage just mentioned, similarly says: “The seventy men not only used the same thought, but also the same words, and did not err by even a single word in their agreement with one another, but wrote the same things concerning the same things.”
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 26.
Page 216. “As they themselves.” This beginning of the chapter would not have been here unless it had been separated from the preceding by a colon: which, however, so as not to be annoying to the readers, who were accustomed to the preceding sections, we preferred to indicate rather than to transpose. Moreover, the oracle of Isaiah concerning the virgin who was to bring forth Immanuel is confirmed to have been fulfilled in the most blessed Mary bringing forth our Christ. Furthermore, there would have been no miracle promised if she had not obviously given birth as an integral and inviolate virgin. The impious error of Helvidius, born from this passage of the Gospel being wrongly understood, is learnedly and sharply refuted by Jerome, Chrysostom, and Ildefonsus of Toledo.
“In the womb.” We have added this from the ancient codex, as the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 1, has the same thing openly.
“Into the deep of hell.” Ancient codex: “Into the deep below, or to the height above.” Which I judge to be the genuine reading of Irenæus, since Jerome indicates that the LXX has it so; which reading the ancients, along with Irenæus, embrace: Justin in the *Dialogue*; Cyprian in book II *Against the Jews*, chapter 9; Basil, and Cyril on this place of Isaiah, and Ambrose in his 8th sermon on Psalm CXVIII.
Page 217. “Is it a small thing for you.” Because all the codices had it thus, we changed nothing. Sanctes from the Hebrew: “Is it too little for you to weary men, for you weary also my God?” Tertullian, book *Against the Jews*: “Is there no small struggle for you with men, since God provides the struggle?” Cyprian in the second book *Against the Jews*, chapter 9: “Is it a small struggle for you with men, since God provides the contest?” The same also appears in his epistle to the martyrs and confessors regarding the Mappatico.
“He will participate in the good.” We have restored these six words from an ancient codex: we have deleted the single word, “he changed,” Justin Martyr has it thus: “Butter and honey he shall eat, before he knows evil, he shall choose the good; because before he knows evil from good,
A he rejects evil and chooses the good.” There is a notable paraphrase of this passage—otherwise quite obscure—in Jerome’s Commentaries on Isaiah, where he warns that the infancy of the human body did not prejudice the divine knowledge of Christ.
For the name Emmanuel is a Hebrew name, composed of *himmanu*, which is "with us," and *el*, "God": from which it is established that Christ is God manifested in the flesh. How this name is appropriate to Christ Jesus, and what answer must be given to the Jews who object to this matter, is discussed by Justin Martyr in *Question 135 to the Orthodox* and by Tertullian in his book *Against the Jews*.
*His annotations on chapter 27.*
Page 217. *And in that which he says.* This passage from Irenaeus is found in Theodoret, *Dialogue 4*. He demonstrates that the promises made to David concerning Christ were fulfilled in the Virgin Mary, and that Christ is the true son of David through her; the impious interpretation of the Ebionites is refuted.
*He shall give a sign.* We have deleted "he gave" based on ancient codices.
*For what is great.* Some of the Rabbis explain this prophecy of Isaiah as referring to king Hezekiah: but he was already about fifteen years old at that time. Others suggest some obscure son of Ahaz, and still others that it applies to the prophet’s own son; but none of them was Emmanuel, nor had he any universal land subjected to his empire, like that child whom the same prophet designates as Lord of the earth shortly thereafter. The prophet therefore praises a remarkable and unusual miracle of God, which—as Irenaeus acutely saw—would by no means be the case with the ordinary conception of women. For the same reason, Justin urges Trypho and his associates: B “If he were to be born in the common manner of firstborns from [marital] intercourse, why does he promise it as a prodigy, which is common to all firstborns?” In the same way Tertullian (*Against the Jews*), Basil (*Homily on the Nativity of the Lord*), and Cyril of Jerusalem (*Catechism 12*).
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 27.*
Page 217. *From the fruit of his belly he promised a king... and not from the fruit of his loins.* Tertullian argues similarly in *Against Marcion*, book III, chapter 20, where, having cited that promise, he adds: “Who is this belly? David’s own? Certainly not, for David was not to give birth. Nor his wife’s: for he would not have said, ‘From the fruit of your belly,’ but rather, ‘From the fruit of your wife’s belly.’ By saying his own belly, therefore, he shows that someone from his race is intended, whose belly would be the fruit of the flesh that bloomed from the womb of Mary. And therefore he named only the fruit of the belly, as being properly of the belly; as if of the belly alone, and not also of the man: and he reduced the fruit itself to David, to the prince of the race and the father of the family. For because he could not attribute the belly to a man, he attributed it to the virgin, to the father.” But this argument seems to lack solidity, especially the distinction between the belly and the loins; C since the very chief of the apostles, Acts 2:30, reciting this prophecy, says: *ek karpou tēs osphyos autou*. Whence it is no wonder that the Jew Trypho also in the *Dialogue*, p. 293, said *apo tēs osphyos autou*, although he interpreted it poorly.
*It was as a sign, since he who was descending, etc.* So also Jerome on these words of Isaiah: “Both,” he says, “pertain to the type of the Lord’s death and ascension. For he who descended is the same as he who ascended.” I have cited the twin words of Theodoret and supplemented them in the notes to the *Spicilegium Patrum*, century 1, p. 364.
*For what is great, etc.* Most consonant with these of Irenaeus are those of Justin in the same *Dialogue*, p. 310: “As if great things were signified, if a woman were to give birth from [marital] intercourse; which all young women do, except for the barren.”
D *Annotations of Fr. Feuardent in chapter 28.*
Page 217. *For this is what is “without hands.”* So the admirable prophecy of Daniel, before Irenaeus, Justin in the *Dialogue*; and after both, Tertullian in *Against the Jews* and books III and V of *Against Marcion*, Jerome on chapter 11 of Daniel, Augustine in *Tractates 7 and 9 on John*; and among the Greeks, Origen and Basil, have applied these words—no less piously than elegantly—to the birth of Christ the Lord from an intact Virgin. From which it happens that I cannot sufficiently marvel at and detest the clearly Judaic impiety of Calvin, who writes that these words are entirely absurdly understood concerning the birth of the Son of God from the Virgin Mary.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 29.*
Page 217. *For this reason.* That the transformation of the Mosaic rod pre-signified the coming of the Son of God into the flesh is held by Irenaeus and also by most of the ancients; whose words will explain this passage. Isidore: “The rod into the serpent, Christ into death; Moses was terrified and fled, Christ died, and the disciples were terrified and fled.” Ambrose, book *On Solomon*: “Moses cast the rod onto the ground; which itself was an image of the Lord’s body, therefore it absorbed the power of all the Egyptians.” He pursues this further in many words in Psalm 117, and in book III of *De Officiis*, chapter 14. Augustine, *Sermon 86 on the times*, Gregory of Nyssa in *The Life of Moses*, Gregory the Roman, Prosper of Aquitaine, Bede, and Rupert subscribe to him.
*Just as.* Tertullian seems to rival this passage: “It was not fitting for the Son of God to be born from human seed, unless he were entirely the son of man, he would not be the Son of God, and would have nothing more than Solomon, and more than Jonas, and was to be believed according to the opinion of Ebion.”
Page 218. *Over these, moreover.* That is, besides, furthermore, *pros toutois*.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 30.*
Page 218. *Jechonias, moreover.* Sixtus Senensis, a very learned and accurate man, writes that the Anabaptists abuse this passage of Jeremiah, as they do the testimony of Irenaeus, to prove that Matthew the evangelist erred in recording the genealogy of Christ, as if he were born from the kings of Judah and David through Jechonias, Salathiel, and Zorobabel: when it is clear from the earlier passages of Jeremiah and Irenaeus that Jechonias, who is also Joacim, died without children in the Babylonian captivity; and that in him the entire royal lineage was extinguished. But he answers that they only speak of the abdication from the kingdom, or the childlessness of the throne: not of a total sterility or childlessness of offspring, which becomes clear from these words of the same Jeremiah: “Write this man down as an abdicated man, because he will not increase from his seed sitting upon the throne of David, a prince in Judah.” But that he begat Salathiel in Babylon, from whom Zorobabel was born, besides the fact that it is constantly asserted from Ezra 1, chapter 3, verse 2, and Matthew chapter 1, 12, Philo in the second *Chronography* testifies that Evilmerodach led Joacim, bynamied Jechonias, out of prison and held him in honor. And a son was given to him, Mesezebeel, bynamed Salathiel, who in the seventeenth year after the captivity was ended was the leader of the people, from whom came Zorobabel.
*King of Judah.* That is, the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, not of all Israel.
*His mortification.* The corpse of the same Joacim, of whom Jeremiah 22, 19: “He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, and putrefied, and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” Irenaeus intends that, because it was predicted that no one from the seed of Joacim, from whom Joseph the spouse of the blessed Mary was descended, would sit upon the throne of David; if Jesus Christ had been begotten by him, he could not have sat upon it, according to the word of the angel, Luke 1.
A A little further on, for *inhabitantem* we have placed *inhabitantes*, according to an ancient manuscript.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 31.* Page 218. *And the ancient formation.* He teaches that it was necessary for Christ the Redeemer to be born of a virgin, since Adam, the transgressor, had been formed from virgin earth: which Cyril of Jerusalem teaches somewhat more openly and profusely in these words against the Jews: "That bodies can be begotten from bodies is possible; but that man should be made from the dust of the earth, this is far more wonderful. That confused clay should be moved, formed into the tunics and splendors of the eyes, enabled to speak, to teach, to obey, to reign—this is worthy of admiration. Therefore, O most unlearned Jews, whence was Adam made? Did not God take dust from the earth and create this admirable creature? What then? Is clay changed into an eye, and shall a virgin not give birth? What is impossible among men, shall God be unable to perform?" etc.
And *as in the same way.* Tertullian seems to have transcribed this sentiment almost word for word in his book *On the Flesh of Christ*: "The virgin was still earth, not yet compressed by any work, not yet subdued by seed; from her, we have received that man was made by God into a living soul. Therefore, if the first Adam is thus handed down, the following one is rightly so," etc. I could not pass over the mellifluous words of St. Bernard applicable to this place: "God," he says in his 2nd homily *on Missus est*, "befitted a birth of this kind, by which He would be born of none but a virgin: such a birth was fitting for a virgin, that she should bear none but God. He wished there to be a virgin from whom the immaculate might proceed, to purge the stains of all," etc.
*If therefore the first Adam.* This whole passage is expressed by Theodoret, *Dialogus* 1, as far as that of the next chapter: "For if he indeed was from the earth," etc.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 52.* Page 218. *There were therefore.* He understands the followers of Simon Magus, Saturninus, Valentinus, Cerdo, and Marcion; who all, though by different winding paths of errors, fell into the same blasphemy, that Christ either did not take true flesh, or was not conceived and born of a Virgin. In refuting these, Tertullian is most pugnacious in his book *On the Flesh of Christ*, as also in book IV *Against Marcion*. But Irenaeus proves that our flesh was truly conceived, born, crucified, suffered, and resurrected in Christ, from the fact that He is called *man* and *Son of man*; furthermore, that He truly hungered, ate, was fatigued and wounded, grieved, wept, sweated, and finally was crucified and died. Below, B "he sustained," we have placed "he raised up," according to an ancient manuscript.
*He confesses himself the Son of Man.* Tertullian: "Why is Christ man, and the Son of man, if there is nothing of man, and nothing from man? Unless perhaps man is something other than flesh; or the flesh of man is from somewhere else than man, or Mary is something other than man."
C From this it appears that the Council of Ephesus rightly collected from the Fathers and established against Nestorius that the Holy Virgin Mary is to be considered *Theotokos* (God-bearer), not merely *Christotokos* (Christ-bearer), since it stands that He whom she conceived in her womb, cherished, and brought forth, existed simultaneously as God and man; which the sixth and seventh synods later confirmed. I will subjoin only this pronouncement of Nazianzen: "If anyone does not believe that Holy Mary is *Theotokos*, he is outside the divinity."
Page 219. *But it is superfluous.* Theodoret transcribed all these things to the end of this chapter, *Dialogus* 1.
*If he were to begin to take.* That is, if he were about to take nothing, D *ἔμελλε λαμβάνειν*.
*Or if he had taken nothing.* Tertullian addresses Marcion in the same way: "What do you say of heavenly flesh, when you have nowhere to understand whence it is heavenly? Why do you deny the earthly, when you recognize whence it is earthly? He hungered under the devil, he thirsted under the Samaritan woman, he wept over Lazarus, he trembles at death. The flesh, he says, is weak. Finally, he shed blood; these are, I think, heavenly signs."
*Is nourished.* We have expunged "is nourished," according to an ancient manuscript, with the approval of Theodoret as well.
*From the annotations of Jo. Ern. Grabe on chapter 32.* Page 219. *Nor would he have sweated drops of blood.* Epiphanius looked to this place of Irenaeus in his *Ancoratus*, § 31, where, about to cite the words of Luke concerning the bloody sweat of Christ, he prefaces his own thus: "It lies in the Gospel according to Luke, in the uncorrected copies, and the holy Irenaeus uses the testimony in his book *Against* (for *μετά* must be read for *Κατά*, as I find it expressed in the most recent edition) *Heresies*, against those saying that Christ appeared in appearance only: But the orthodox removed the saying, having become fearful, and not having understood its final, and most powerful, meaning." Whence follows the text of Luke concerning the bloody sweat; to which the words of Epiphanius just recited entirely pertain, having been wrongly referred by Petavius, the interpreter and commentator of this place, and by Grotius in his *Commentary on Luke* XIX, and other learned men, to what preceded concerning the weeping of Christ from Luke XIX.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 33.* Page 219. *For this reason Luke.* From the genealogy of Christ, he shows Him to be truly man and the redeemer of all men, and the same conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary; so that, just as the virgin Eve became the cause of death for herself and for us, so too might the Blessed Virgin Mary be the cause of life and salvation for us through her Son.
*A little before.* We have deleted "at the testimony of Paul," according to an ancient manuscript.
Page 220. *Mary [was] the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.* In this chapter, and not rarely below, Irenaeus proclaims the praises and virtues of the most blessed Mother of God with many eulogies: which is so common to him with all those who have cultivated Christian piety, that you will find no Catholic writer who does not either in a work published for that single purpose, or scattered here and there, gladly expatiate upon recounting her praises. But these things vex later Gnostics, who, I suspect, in order to pave the way for him who is finally to bring the most baneful war upon all the saints, strain every nerve to either raise up her praises or load her with more grievous crimes. For sometimes they accuse her of importunity, by which she tried to prematurely interrupt the course of the doctrine of Christ. At other times, [they say] that she did not even recognize the Lord as her son, but rejected him when he interceded with her. Some deem the angelic salutation to be a kind of magic or exorcism; and they do not fear to malign the Holy Virgin by restricting the power of God no less than Zechariah did before. They do not fear to call the vow of perpetual virginity emitted by her absurd, ridiculous, nay, a perfidy worthy of grave reproach. Others say that "greatest injury is offered to her" when she is called Queen of heaven and lady of the world. Others again call her "a little woman stripped of all dignity, of base and wretched condition, inglorious, ragged, a pauper, and exposed to the mockery of all." Others wish her to have brought forth the Lord by natural means. Some again prattle that she fell into such a state through thoughtlessness that she sometimes preferred herself to God. Others gravely injure her by touching upon the three-day loss of her Son, comparing that sin with the transgression of Eve, by which she overturned the beginning of human salvation. Finally, the impious Magdeburgenses did not blush to write (I use the words of them all) that she was so affected with Joseph, that at the appointed time, after the manner of other spouses,
A they desired to beget children." I purposely pass over the frenzies of Beza and the virulent revilings of Vitrarius against her, as they are still more impudent.
Against these, one must with great courage oppose the most elegant figures of the patriarchs, the clear prophecies of the prophets, and the writings of the evangelists, by which the most abundant fruits of the grace of God and the immense benefits and stupendous works wrought in her are manifest to all. One must also oppose the learned writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers, by which she is deservedly adorned with the highest and most ample titles of honor. And, to say nothing of Anselm, Rupert, Bernard, Andrew of Jerusalem, Fulgentius, and many other supreme praisers of the Blessed Virgin who lived a thousand years ago, I shall first bring forward Peter Chrysologus, who flourished under the Emperor Marcian, that is, in the year of our Lord 450: "How great God is," he says, "he does not sufficiently know who is not stunned by the mind of this Virgin, who does not marvel at her soul; the heaven is awestruck, the angels tremble, the creature cannot bear it, nature does not suffice; and a single girl so takes God into her breast, receives him, delights him with hospitality, that she exacts a pension from the house itself that B she might bring peace to the earth, glory to the heavens, salvation to the lost, life to the dead, kinship between earthly and heavenly things, and the communion of God himself with flesh." And again: "The angel himself marvels either that a woman alone, or that all men, have earned life through a woman; the angel is stunned that the whole God should come within the narrow confines of a virginal womb, to whom the whole creature is at once narrow." And elsewhere: "Hail, full of grace: This is the grace which gave glory to the heavens, God to the earth, faith to the nations, an end to vices, order to life, discipline to morals. This grace the angel brought, the Virgin received, to return salvation to the ages." And a little later: "Truly blessed Virgin, who possesses both the beauty of virginity and the dignity of a mother. Truly blessed, who both earned the grace of the celestial conception and bore the crown of integrity. Truly blessed, who both received the glory of the divine offspring and existed as queen of all chastity. Truly blessed, who was greater than the heaven, stronger than the earth, broader than the world; for God, whom the world does not contain, she alone contained," etc.
When Augustine deals with original sin, he declares that he does not wish to have any question concerning the Blessed Mary: for he knows that more grace was conferred upon her to overcome sin in every way, as she earned the right to conceive and give birth to him whom it is certain had no sin. The same man elsewhere: "Let us see," he says, "what is that virgin so holy, to whom the Holy Spirit deigned to come; who so beautiful, whom the Lord chose as his spouse; who so abundant, whose generation the whole world receives; who so chaste, that she could be a virgin after birth. She is immaculate in her union, fruitful in her birth, Virgin and chaste perpetually. She conceives, not by man, but by the Spirit; she gives birth, not with pain, but with joy. This is the spouse of Christ, and the teacher of the nations, who marvels at herself being full, and rejoices while pregnant." The same man again: "Let Mary say: I have been made the gate of heaven, I have been made a gate for the Son of God. That gate made closed, which Ezekiel saw." And again the same: "Mary has been made a celestial ladder, because through her God descended to the earth, so that through her men might earn the right to ascend to heaven." C Again the same: "Even if the members of us all were turned into tongues, it would not suffice to praise her. Higher than heaven, deeper than the abyss is she, whose praises we strive to speak. For this is she, who alone earned the right to be called mother and spouse. This one resolved the losses of the first mother, this one brought salvation to lost man," etc. And a little later: "But what shall I say, poor in talent, when whatever I say about this matter, it is less than thy dignity deserves? If I call thee heaven, thou art higher. D If I call thee the mother of nations, thou showest thyself to be superior. If I speak of the form of God, thou art worthy. If I call thee mistress of the angels, thou provest thyself to be so in all things," etc. And again: "O truly blessed humility of Mary, who gave birth to God for men, gave life to mortals, renewed the heavens, purified the world, opened paradise, and freed the souls of men from the underworld. O how truly glorious is the humility of Mary, who is made the gate of paradise, is constituted the ladder of heaven! Truly the humility of Mary has been made a celestial ladder, through which God descended to the earth. Because he looked upon, he says, the humility of his handmaid," etc.
Let the Christian and pious reader, I beseech you, allow me—while I strive to soothe the just indignation of spirit which he has now contracted from the cited revilings of the impious Gnostics—to bring forward a few, but more concise, writings of our pious and ancient Fathers. Ambrose: "Let virginity be described to us as in an image, and the life of the blessed Mary, from whom, as from a mirror, the species of chastity and the form of virtue shine forth. What is more noble than the mother of God? What more splendid than the mother of God? What more splendid than her, whom splendor chose? What more chaste than she, who generated a body without the contagion of a body? She was a Virgin not only in body, but also in mind, humble in heart, grave in words, prudent in soul, more sparing in speech, more studious in reading, intent on work, modest in speech: accustomed to seek as the arbiter of her mind not a man, but God; to harm no one, to wish well to all, to rise to those older by birth, not to envy equal in age, to flee boasting, to follow reason, to love virtue. When did she hurt her parents even by her look? When did she dissent from her kindred? When did she despise the humble? When did she mock the weak? When did she avoid the needy? There was nothing stern in her eyes, nothing wanton in her words, nothing shameless in her act, no gesture overly free, no walk too foolish, no voice too petulant; so that the very appearance of her body might be an image of her mind, a figure of probity." And a short while after: "This is the image of virginity: for such was Mary, that the life of her alone might be a discipline for all."
Let there come forward into the midst the fiercest defender of her integrity against Helvidius, Jerome: "Propose to yourself," he says in his letter to Eustochium, "the blessed Mary, who was of such purity that she earned the right to be the mother of the Lord." And again in the same place: "After the Virgin conceived in her womb, the curse was dissolved. Death through Eve, life through Mary." And to Principia: "Holy Mary, because she had conceived him in whom all the fullness of the godhead dwells, is hailed as full of grace." And in the book Against Jovinian: "A garden enclosed, my sister spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed. That which is enclosed and sealed has the likeness of the mother of the Lord, mother and virgin." And in the book Against Helvidius: "Joseph, who had known such miracles in the blessed Virgin, did he dare to touch the temple of God, the seat of the Holy Spirit, the mother of his Lord?" And in his Apology for the books against Jovinian, he calls her mother and perpetual virgin, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, an eastern gate always closed.
To Cyprian, whom we all deservedly celebrate for his eloquence and most valiant martyrdom, I shall add a few sentiments: "Mary is both mother and midwife," he says in the sermon On the Nativity of Christ to Cornelius, "and she shows a devoted care to the beloved offspring, touches, embraces, joins kisses, extends the breast; the whole business is full of joy, there is no pain, no nature's ignominy in childbirth. Nothing could 141 harm in this matter, nor did preceding pleasure seek any usury of punishments. The original fire was extinguished by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit: and therefore [she remained] innocent."
A nor did it become justice, nor did it sustain it, that that vessel of election should be burdened with common injuries, since, differing much from others, she shared in [human] nature, not in guilt. And it was her own peculiar privilege, which no woman, neither before nor since, deserved to obtain, that she was simultaneously mother and virgin, marked by singular titles. Whence to the mother was fullness of grace owed, and to the virgin, a more abundant glory, who, marked by the integrity of flesh and mind, enjoyed the presence of Christ spiritually and corporally, within and without, etc.
I must not, nor could I, pass over some excellent words of an unlearned, pious, and learned man, whom they wish to have lived in the year of the Lord 850. "Draw me after you," he writes, addressing the Virgin, in his book *Contemplations on the Virgin Mary*, ch. 1, "O blessed Virgin Mary, blessed before birth, in birth, and after birth; before the age, in the age, and after the age," etc., and ch. 2: "You are all fair in soul, through the perfect beauty of all virtues and graces; you are all fair in your conception, created for this alone: that you might be a temple of the most high God." And somewhat later: "You are all fair, not in part, but in whole: and the stain of sin, whether mortal, or venial, or original, is not in you, nor ever was, nor shall be." And in the sixth chapter: "You have found, Virgin Mary, heavenly grace, because there were in you preservation from the stain of origin, the angelic salutation, the supervention of the Holy Spirit," etc.
Sedulius the presbyter, before the year 1140, if we believe Trithemius, sang of the Blessed Virgin as intact from common sin in these verses, *lib. 2 Carm. pasch.*, v. 28 seqq.: And as the soft rose rises among prickly thorns, Having naught that injures, and obscures the mother with honor: So Mary coming from the sacred stock of Eva, A new virgin atones for the deed of the ancient virgin. And a little later, 55, 56: After the prophets had spoken of these things to come, The angel sang of the intact one to speedy Mary. And Arator the deacon, who is said to have lived in the year 540 from the birth of Christ, *lib. 1 in Acta apost.*, v. 56 seqq.: Where she then sat in station, Mary, the intact Mother of God, formed by her Creator, Sprung from no bane; the second Virgin puts to flight The evils of the crime of Eve: there is no injury of sex.
Finally, may the Blessed Hildephonsus, prelate of Toledo and most worthy primate of the Spains nine hundred years ago, close this order of Latin Fathers. "Beata Virgo Maria," he says, "unless she had been sanctified in her mother's womb, her birth would not be worthy of being celebrated at all. But now, because she is worthily venerated by the authority of the whole Church, it is certain that she was immune from all original sin, through whom not only the curse of mother Eve was dissolved, but also a blessing was bestowed upon all. Therefore, when she was born, she was subject to no offenses, nor did she contract original sin, having been sanctified in the womb." So he; which, when I had objected it about twenty years ago, at Paris, to a certain Spaniard, a man indeed very learned, but a most bitter enemy of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Mother of God, he could not respond anything else than that this testimony was supposititious and fabricated by me: which reproach, when the most ancient and manuscript codex of Hildephonsus was immediately produced by me, then another written 400 years ago by Peter Comestor, in which these things are cited word for word, he being silenced, he was utterly dumbfounded.
To the Latins let some Greeks be added: Chrysostom in his liturgy not rarely uses these words: "Celebrating the memory of our most holy, most pure, blessed above all, glorious Lady the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and one another, and our whole life to Christ our God." And later: "It is truly meet and just to glorify you, O Mother of God, and ever-blessed, and absolutely incontaminate mother of our God, etc."
Nazianzen, towards the end of his tragedy, addresses the Virgin thus: Venerable O Virgin, chaste, most happy, When now blessed among the blessed in the pole, Stripped of whatever filth the human seat [doth bear], Adorned with the mantle of eternity, O goddess, Habited, void of age, from the highest ether Be benignly present to my voices, admit my Prayers, O Virgin, etc. O maiden, grace Equal to none, mother and Virgin above All beauteous virgins, and greatest, C Who vanquish all orders of the heavenly ones, Queen, mistress, the good of the human race, Be always a friend among mortals, D The greatest, who in any place art my salvation.
Basil, great in all ways, uses these words five times in his liturgy: "Sanctifying and immaculate of our mistress, the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and one another, and our whole life to Christ our God." I will omit those things which the homily on the human generation of Christ hands down.
Let us hear Athanasius the Great, inferior in no part to those superior. *Epist. ad Epictetum*, he calls the Virgin "Impolluta [unpolluted], in whom a new thing of this kind was fashioned, such as in no other woman." And in his sermon *in Evangel. de sanctissima nostra Deipara*: "Since he is himself King who was born of the Virgin, and the same is Lord and God; therefore also the Mother who bore Him is properly and truly considered Queen and Lady and Mother of God." And later: "To you we cry, be mindful of us, most holy Virgin, who even after birth remained a virgin, and reward us for these discourses with great gifts from the riches of such great graces," etc.
Knowing and prudent we omit what Damascus, Isychius, Andrew of Crete, the Metaphrast have; which also the Blessed Ephrem, disciple of Basil, in his oration on the praises of the most holy Mother of God; Origen, *hom. 1 in diversos*; Clement of Alexandria, *vII Strom.*; Tertullian, *lib. De carne Christi*, numbers 3, 14, 15 and 18. Justin Martyr, *passim in Diat., lib. De Trinitate*, q. 66 and 136 *ad orthod.*; Dionysius, *cap. 3 De divinis nom.*, and *epist. 4*; Ignatius, *Epist. ad Trallianos, ad Philip. et ad Ephesios*; Martial, *Epist. ad Tolosanos*; James in the liturgy, discourse on this matter.
Only one thing remains, of which I would wish pious readers to be here advised: namely, that when we were writing these things in the first edition of our Irenaeus in the year 1575, and a disagreement had been raised at Paris by a certain one (whose name I spare) lacking in prudence, against the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, we, although then occupied and distracted by continuous and public exercises of the Sorbonne school, collected the testimonies of the ancient theologians here, as many as we could hurriedly find, for the defense of the eternal praise and innocence of the Virgin. Among these we added one as if from Cyril of Alexandria, *lib. VI in Joan., cap. xv*; which, when the folio had been scarcely printed by the typographers, we discovered to be in truth not Cyril’s, but of Jodocus Clichtoveus, who inserted four books of his commentaries into the Cyrillian commentaries. For this mistake, when a more excellent remedy could not then be given, at the end of the book, after the corrections of errors had been gathered, as is usually done, we sedulously and seasonably advised the readers: content with this office of a good man, for so long as this second*
* Book against those who dispute about the virginity and childbearing of the Blessed Virgin.
A Mors per Evam, vita per Mariam. » Bernard, homil. 2, de laudibus Virg.,: « Run, O Eve, to Mary; run, mother, to daughter; let the daughter answer for the mother, let her take away the disgrace of the mother, let her make satisfaction to the Father for the mother: for behold, if man fell through a woman, now he is not raised up again except through a woman. » Innocent III, serm. 2 de Assumpt.: « It was necessary that as death entered into the world through a woman, so life might return into the world through a woman; and therefore what Eve condemned, Mary has saved, so that from where death arose, thence life might rise again, » etc. Pag. 220. Solutus est autem. The old codex: « But the bond of condemnation was loosened, by which man had been led captive. »
Ex J. Er. Grabii adnotationibus in cap. 33. Pag. 319. Septuaginta duas. In the handwritten codices which I have inspected, that number is not written out in complete words, as commonly, but thus, LXXV, so that you do not know whether the translator of Irenaeus intended to express 72 or rather 75. I approve of the latter. But what follows, when he says that there are also as many peoples and languages, does not oppose this; rather, it confirms it. Clement, Stromata 1: B Εὔφορος δὲ, καὶ ἄλλοι πολλοὶ τῶν ἱστορικῶν, καὶ ἔθνη, καὶ γλώσσας πέντε καὶ ἑβδομήκοντα λέγουσιν εἶναι. « Now Euphorus, and many other historians, say that there are seventy-five peoples and languages. » Isaac Vossius has this in p. 323 of his Castigationes ad cap. 4 of Hornius. And as far as the manuscript codices are concerned, I would have wished that he had named them. Indeed, the most illustrious Mr. Dodwell compared Vossius’ personal copy with the Feuardent edition with the greatest diligence; but he found no difference from the accepted number 72: nor did Mercerus in two other copies which he used. Examining the Arundel codex myself, and looking at it again just now while I write these lines in London, I indeed see two strokes by which the binary number is expressed, joined together, but not in such a way that they form the figure of five, and they are formed in a totally different way elsewhere in the codex. As for Clement’s text, it is so far from confirming Vossius’ opinion that it rather refutes it, by the clear words immediately following, noted below, by which he makes 72 languages according to the opinion of the Christians. C I have little doubt, therefore, that Irenaeus read only 72 generations in the Gospel of St. Luke, ch. 3 (omitting verse 26, τοῦ Ματθάτ εἰ τοῦ Λευὶ, and verse 36, τοῦ Καϊνάν), just as Julius Africanus, cited by Eusebius, lib. 1 Hist. eccl., cap. 7, Gregory Nazianzen, carm. 38, on the genealogy of Christ, Ambrose in his Commentary on that passage of Luke, and others have done. Significans, quoniam ipse est, qui omnes gentes… et universas linguas… in semetipso recapitulatus est. That you may understand the mystical consequence or deduction of Irenaeus, know that it was formerly counted by the holy Fathers, especially the Greeks, that there were seventy-two nations and languages. Thus Clement of Alexandria, lib. 1 Stromatum, p. 538, writes: Φαίνονται δὲ εἶναι καὶ κατὰ τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον αἱ γενικαὶ διάλεκτοι δύο καὶ ἑβδομήκοντα, ὡς αἱ ἡμέτεραι παραδιδόασι γραφαί. « And they appear to be, according to the true account, seventy-two generic dialects, as our Scriptures deliver. » Or, to pass over others, Epiphanius in the Panarion against heresies, lib. 1, tom. 1, § 5, p. 6, says of God: Διεσκέδασε γὰρ αὐτῶν τὰς γλώσσας καὶ ἀπὸ μιᾶς εἰς ἑβδομήκοντα δύο διένειμε, κατὰ τῶν τότε ἀνδρῶν ἀριθμὸν εὑρεθέντα. « For He scattered their languages and divided them from one into seventy-two, according to the number found of the men of that time. » Compare heresy 39, of the Sethians. D Nor were certain pagans alien to this number, especially the Egyptians, of whom the words of Horapollo, lib. 1 Hieroglyphicon, cap. 14, are remarkable: Οἰκουμένην δὲ γράφοντες, κυνοκέφαλον ζωγραφούσι, ἐπειδὴ ἑβδομήκοντα δύο χώρας τὰς ἀρχαίας φασὶ τῆς οἰκουμένης εἶναι. « And depicting the inhabited world, they draw a cynocephalus, because they say there are seventy-two ancient lands of the world. » Read Bochart, lib. 1 Phaleg, cap. 15, where you will find more on these matters.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 34.
Page 220. *But this is Adam*. He argues by reason and example against the error of Tatian, that it was most consistent with divine equity and mercy that the first parent should be saved before all his children: a point which other theologians afterward asserted at greater length. And concerning his repentance, it will be spoken of in chapter 37. See also chapter 31, book 1.
*But when man is saved*. He contends with as many arguments as possible that Adam was saved, a position which Augustine later pursues in Epist. 99, because it is written in Wisdom x, 1–2: "She guarded him who was first formed, the father of the world, and brought him out of his transgression." Further, this is a consistent opinion of the Church. Moreover, Origen in *Tract. 35 in Matth.*, Cyprian in *Serm. de Resur. Domini*, Athanasius in *lib. De passione Dominic.*, Basil in ch. 5 of Isaiah, Chrysostom in *homil. 84 in Joan.*, Epiphanius in *contra hæres. 46*, Augustine in *serm. 71 de tempore*, and Moses Bar-Cepha in *lib. De paradiso* teach with great consensus and from the ancient tradition of the Fathers that Adam himself, after so many falls and so many dangers, finally reached Golgotha or the mount of Calvary, and there finished his life and was buried where our Lord and Savior was nailed to the cross. Jerome in *xxvii Matth.* does not approve this opinion, nor does he dare to condemn it in ch. 5 [of his *Commentary*] *ad Ephes.*; but he embraces it in his *epist. ad Marcellam*.
*Will appear*. We have expunged *it was appearing* [parebat] from the old manuscript in the author’s edition.
Page 221. *But not having left them*. Tertullian touches on all these in few words in *lib. Præscript*. Tatian added to the doctrine of Valentinus [the claim] that Adam could not attain salvation, as if the branches are not saved, and the root is saved.
Annotations of the same on chapter 35.
A for his envy, fratricidal murder, and greatest irreverence toward God, [Cain] was justly cursed and rejected.
Page 221. *For this reason and in the beginning*. He shows that the divine curse was not laid properly upon human beings, but upon the earth and the serpent: for which reason neither was eternal fire prepared primarily for them, but for the devil, the prince of all defection. Rupertus, weighing these things wisely, says: "The Lord did not say to the woman, 'Thou art cursed,' nor to the man, 'Thou art cursed,' but only this: 'Cursed is the ground in thy work'; for of course the curse of the earth is nothing else than the manifold and frequent affliction by which man is afflicted through the various events of the earth, corrupted and rendered worse from that time. But to the serpent alone he said: 'Thou shalt be cursed.' By which pronouncement, clearly, the firm and immutable sentence of eternal damnation is to be understood." Tertullian in book 1 *Adversus Marc.* summarizes this place of Irenæus in a few words: "God for this reason did not curse Adam himself and Eve, as being candidates for restoration, since they were revealed by their confession, in the way that he cursed the serpent, whose salvation was utterly hopeless," etc.
*But similarly the woman*. The woman was punished with a triple penalty, because her sin was three times greater than Adam's. First, because by believing the serpent more than God, she was seduced. Second, because she coveted the beauty of the forbidden tree. Third, because she also led the man into transgression. Therefore, she justly received a triple vengeance, beyond the death common to her and the man. For she deserved to be the mother of the dead. For all her offspring die in sin in soul and body; and none of them lives unless he be quickened by Christ. And because she intemperately sought the fruit of the tree, the pain of the womb is returned, the Lord saying: "In pain thou shalt bear children." Third, because she enticed the man to eat through womanly importunity, for that reason she was reduced under the power of the husband.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 36.
*Just as Cain*. Cain, on account of his neglect of God, B for his envy, fratricidal murder, and greatest irreverence toward God, was justly cursed and rejected.
*That he might rest in it*. Chrysostom, Cyril, and all the Greeks render this passage in this way, following the LXX version: "143. If thou hast offered rightly, but hast not divided rightly, hast thou not sinned? Be silent." This is: "If thou hast offered rightly, but hast not divided them rightly, hast thou sinned? Be silent." And thus they believe that Cain was admonished by God to distinguish correctly the duties of love toward his brother, and not to envy [his brother's] happiness. Jerome in *Quæst. Hebr.* testifies that those words do not exist in the Hebrew source; but Eugubinus teaches at length whence they proceeded.
*Extending and multiplying evil*. Chrysostom agrees with Irenæus in these words: "What of this ungrateful and impudent man? He ought to have reflected that God was not unaware of the matter, but was demanding a confession of the crime from him himself, etc. But he again increases the wound and makes the ulcer grow, and says: 'I know not.' Behold the impudence of the response, etc."
*For this reason he himself*. He presses the grave sin of Cain, the curse, and eternal perdition, so that he may refute, if only in passing, the madness and frenzy of the Cainites, whom he mentions in book 1, chapter 35. For these preferred Cain, Core, the Sodomites, and especially Judas the traitor, to all the saints, as if they were begotten of a certain superior power, as we indicated in our first book from Tertullian *lib. Præscript.*, Epiphanius *contra hær. 38*, and Theodoret.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 37.
Page 221. Procopius Gazæus in his *Commentaries* on the third chapter of Genesis, citing this passage of Irenæus, notes that it is chapter fifty-nine: whence I think that the divisions of these books among the Greeks were different from ours.
C *But concerning Adam*. Cain was indeed justly cursed: but because Adam, struck with fear immediately after the sin he had committed, fled, and judged himself unworthy of the divine presence, and manifested his repentance by a fig-leaf apron, he was eventually saved. Furthermore, Adam was seduced, not by the serpent, but by his wife: assuming also that his sin would be only venial, and that he would not die on account of it. Therefore Ignatius also writes in *Ep. ad Trallianos*: "The devil through the woman seduced Adam, the father of our race." Epiphanius also *contra hæres. 38*: "The devil deceived Adam and Eve through a lie." Finally, Ambrose in *lib. De paradiso, cap. 4*: "The woman was first deceived, and she herself deceived the man." Hence Theodoret understands these words of the Apostle, "Adam was not seduced," D as meaning: he was not the first, nor [was he seduced] immediately by the serpent.
*Which is less of a body*. Pliny in *lib. 11, cap. 5* writes that certain fig trees spread their branches and leaves so much that they cover two stadia and provide, as it were, an arched walkway and a shaded hedge for shepherds. Rhodiginus teaches that a fig leaf is called *thridax* [or *thridakinon*] by the Greeks because of its roughness: which Erasmus in his *Chiliades* asserts is proven by Plutarch, and that the proverb *thridakinē* originated from there, that is, "thou art holding an eel with a fig leaf," because it is rough and harsh, and on that account most suitable for holding an eel, which is naturally slippery. To this also pertains that emblem of Alciatus: "Long have I followed you wherever you might flee, but now At last you are caught in our nets. You can no longer evade our strength, We have held the eel in a fig leaf."
Moved by the occasion of these leaves, very learned and grave authors have estimated that the tree from whose fruit the first parents sinned was a fig tree, and they have called this an ancient tradition, and on that account [have said that] Christ once cursed the fig tree. Theodo-
Theodoretus Quest. 28 in Genesis believes those who suppose it to be another tree are mistaken through excessive simplicity. Athanasius Quest. 58 to Antioch; Isidore of Pelusium in Lippomanus on chapter 3 of Genesis; Moses Bar-Cepha in his book *On Paradise*; Oleaster Lusitanus on chapter 3 of Genesis.
Furthermore, it should be noted that this passage clearly and soundly proves that bodily penances, whether voluntarily undertaken here by penitents, or enjoined, or inflicted, must be borne with a calm mind, so that, being conjoined with the passions of Christ, they may compensate for the pleasure conceived from sins, and make satisfaction with those many punishments which, as worthy fruits of penance, with sins forgiven and the guilt of eternal punishment pardoned, must otherwise be paid to the last farthing, either in this world or in the expiatory abyss. For Adam, having cast aside all softness, put on a most rough garment, checked the impulse of petulant flesh, girded himself with the bridle of continence, and cast down and humbled himself before God the Judge as submissively as he could. Is this not a manifest satisfaction for committed sins? Hence Tertullian says: "Adam himself, the prince of the human race and of the offense against the Lord, restored to his paradise by confession, is not silent." Who, before these words, had also written: "You have one to whom you may make satisfaction; confession is the design of satisfaction; satisfaction is arranged by confession; to make satisfaction to the offended Lord," etc. And Cyprian, rebuking those who neglected this part of penance, writes: "Pains are taken so that sins may not be redeemed by rightful satisfactions and lamentations, so that wounds may not be washed away by tears." And in the sermon *On the Lapsed*: "The Lord must be entreated, and [must be] appeased by our satisfaction," etc. Augustine exhorts everyone to this same satisfaction and presses it with dense arguments, Enchiridion ch. 63, 70, and 71; epistle *to Macedonius*; book I of *Homilies*, hom. 50; Comm. on Ps. 50, and book *On Ecclesiastical Dogmas*, ch. 53. Let heretics therefore be confounded and converted, who, with incredible loss to souls, try to remove from the midst [of the Church] the name and works of satisfaction, that is, this third part of the sacrament of penance.
A *Quoniam inquit, eam.* By this paraphrase it is signified that Adam had lost both original justice and the grace that makes one pleasing, or charity, which he had received in the beginning, through his own sin: regarding which it has also been said above, ch. 20: "But we have recovered in Christ what we lost in Adam." Which Cyprian also later taught, writing that he did not keep the grace received divinely, in his sermon *On the Good of Patience*. Ambrose also says: "The angels of darkness, like robbers, despoiled man of the garments of saving grace when he fell among them." They err shamefully, therefore, who either deny that original justice was a supernatural gift, or obstinately deny that divine grace is lost through mortal sin. *Et nunc.* Thus the old codex; the printed ones read, *et tunc*.
Pag. 222. *Quemadmodum quidam.* Consonant with these, Theophilus of Antioch writes, book 1 *To Autolycus*: "Not from envy, as some feel, did God command man to abstain from the tree of knowledge; but He wished to test man, whether he would be obedient to the command," etc. I am persuaded that Marcion and the approvers of his discipline are being designated; since Theodoret writes that they taught that the serpent was better and more excellent than the Creator; because the latter wished them to be partakers of the tree of knowledge, and the former permitted it. Gregory of Nyssa thinks that tree was prohibited because it had the power of generating into the mind a knowledge of evil things, which it was not expedient for man to have. Other ancients, like Theophilus, Augustine, book XIV *De civitate*, ch. 12, and VII *De Genesi*, ch. 106; Chrysostom, hom. 16 on Genesis; Theodor. quest. 26, wish it forbidden in the matter of practicing obedience.
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*Et insanabile.* We have deleted *insensibile*, supported by the old codex.
*Ejusdem adnotationes in cap. 38.*
Pag. 292. *Quapropter inimicitiam.* B *Τὴν ἔχθραν*, which is called anger, observing the time of taking revenge. But it is discussed regarding Christ, the seed of the woman promised, so that He might overcome the serpent’s head, that is, death, the Antichrist, the devil, sin, and hell, with man being saved. And thus they teach that that passage of Genesis is to be understood and explained, which follows Gen. III, 3, and XVIII, 18, and XXII, 4, as Paul also indicates, Gal. III, 8. So also it is manifest that by the name of that sacred promised seed, Christ was signified; but by the name of the serpent, the devil, from Isaiah ch. VI and IX, John III, Rom. XVI, 20, Heb. II, 14, 1 Peter V, Apoc. I and XIII, and by the unanimous consent of the holy Fathers, so that I can never wonder enough at the more than Jewish impiety of Calvin and Marloratus, who prefer to interpret that passage not of the conflict between Christ and Satan, but of common hatred and vulgar horror, by which, by a sense of nature, we all abhor all serpents.
*Super aspidem.* Augustine and Cassiodorus also interpret this passage as the victory of Christ and his servants over the devil. The devil, they say, is the asp, while he strikes secretly; the basilisk, when he openly disseminates poisons; the lion, while he violently pursues the innocent; the dragon, when he swallows the negligent with impious gluttony. Or, the dragon, while he lies in wait secretly through heretics; and the lion, while he openly rages through tyrants; all of which, through the advent of the Lord, lay prostrate at his feet, that is, by the saints.
*Ejusdem adnotationes in cap. 39.*
Pag. 222. *Mentiuntur ergo.* The same [heresy], which he confutes here, that of Tatian and the Encratites, he repeated in book I, ch. 31, where we also collected many things from other authors that explain this passage. Furthermore, Nicodemus, a disciple of Christ, and the history which is carried under his name concerning the passion and resurrection of the Lord, relates that the Lord Jesus, when He had descended into the lower regions according to his soul, took the hand of Adam and said: "Peace to you with all your just children, my own." But Adam himself, having fallen at the knees of Christ, tearfully entreated Him with a loud voice, in these words: "I will exalt you, O Lord, for you have taken me up, and have not pleased my enemies concerning me. O Lord my God, I have cried out to you, and you have healed me. You have led my soul out from the lower regions, you have saved me from them that descend into the pit," etc.
And *Et concertant de*. We have expunged *concertante*; and a little later we substituted *profecit* for *proficit*, [as per] an old authoritative codex.
*Ejusdem adnotationes in cap. 40.*
Pag. 222. *Traductis igitur omnibus.* He concludes with a brief recapitulation, by which he has hitherto discoursed against the various impieties of the Gnostics; namely, concerning the one God, the economy of Christ, and the creation of the world, then he opposes to their sects the constant and consonant preaching of the Catholic Church everywhere, with the Holy Spirit perpetually residing in her; and therefore her communion is to be sought by all most diligently, so that we may not be blown about by every wind of doctrine.
Pag. 223. *Aspiratio.* C In the old codex, *ab inspiratione plasmationi*, so that it might perhaps have been, *ab inspiratione*, that is, divine revelation, *plasmatio*, that is, the creation of the first man, became known; or if the printed reading is preferred, by *aspirationem* he understands the soul capable of reason, which was infused into the body by the divine breath.
*Et in eo disposita.* Thus we have restored it from an old codex, so that it may be understood that in that duty of preaching and faith, which was committed to the Church, the communication of Christ was disposed; unless perhaps it was otherwise, *deposito*, in whose place *disposito* had crept in, which the printed codices held.
A Of which they are not partakers. The same is sung by the common voice of all, nor is the sentiment of the most blessed martyr Cyprian therefore the less weighty: "He can no longer have God for a Father, who does not have the Church for a Mother." This, worthy to be frequently inserted in his writings, seemed so to Augustine, tom. VII, book *On the Unity of the Church*, and book II *Against the Letters of Petilian*, ch. 38, and tom. IX, tract. 118 *on John*, and tom. II, epistle 50.
*Upon the sand*. He alludes to the words of Christ, Matt. vii, understanding "upon the sand" to be the various, conflicting, and inconstant opinions of the heresiarchs, upon which they relied. It is related among the proverbs: "You build on sand," referring to those who undertake business that will be useless. A similar proverb is: "You entrust seeds to the sand," which signifies not only vain labors, but also those which at the same time have some grave loss annexed to them.
*Epicurus’s God*. That is, idle, and one who has no care for created things. For that Epicurus fashioned such a God, Clement, Theophilus, Justin, Lactantius, Laertius, Plutarch, and M. Tullius are witnesses. Such a God as Marcion fashioned, Tertullian also calls "Epicurus’s God" in the fourth book; and in the first book he calls Epicurus the counselor of Marcion.
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on ch. 40.* Page 222. *Through the beginnings, and the middle periods, and the end.* I understand those things which were done at the very beginnings of time, in the creation, and which happened later in the intervening ages of the prophets, and finally, in the end, in the age of Christ and the apostles. For Irenaeus, running through all these things, drew arguments for the faith of the Church from every side. Page 223. *Broken cisterns.* In Greek, λάκκους συντετριμμένους, by which he seems to indicate in this place the illegitimate conventicles of those who are separated from the Church.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on ch. 41.* Page 223. *God has providence.* That the world is governed by divine providence, that is, by the fatherly care and reason of God, he confirms even by the testimony of the heathens, against the errors and morals alike of the Epicurean Gnostics. Excellent testimonies of this exist in Tullius. "There is some God in the world," he says in lib. II, *On the Nature of the Gods*, "who guides, who governs, who preserves the courses of the stars, the changes of the seasons, the vicissitudes of things, and their orders, contemplating the lands and the sea; he protects the advantages and lives of men, etc. As the limbs of men are moved without any contention, by the mind itself and the will, so by the divinity of the gods all things are fashioned, moved, and changed." And in the oration *Pro Roscio*: "The advantages we use, the light we enjoy, the space we inhabit, we see are given and imparted to us by God," etc.
C *A certain heathen.* Among these, Theophilus of Antioch, in the second book *To Autolycus*, enumerates Aratus, Simonides, Euripides, Menander, Thestius, and Dionysius; to whom in the third book he adds Aristotle. Justin in the book *On Monarchy* enumerates very many others. Augustine writes of Seneca in lib. VI, *On the City of God*, ch. 10: "He practiced what he censured; he did what he argued against; what he blamed, he worshiped." Tertullian, ch. 45 *Apology*, reports that the Platonists posited God within the world, who, by the example of a governor, sits within it, and governs it.
*Annotations of the same on ch. 42.* Page 223. *Again as one who rebukes.* He resolves in a few words in this chapter what Lactantius later disputed copiously and elegantly in a whole book *On the Anger of God*, and Tertullian, passim, in book I *Against Marcion*, and Origen at the end of the first dialogue, and the beginning of the second *Against the Marcionites*. But Irenaeus proves with a very powerful argument that there is not another God who is judge of the world, but rather that he is unique, endowed at once with infinite justice, so that he may punish the wicked, and with goodness, so that he may benefit the pious and impart salvation. He calls it "rebuking" and "judicial," which to the Greeks is τὸ ἐλεγκτικὸν καὶ κριτικόν, that is, the power or force of rebuking and judging. Or τὸ ἐπιτιμητικόν, that is, the force of punishing. "Unworthy of God," thus the old codices; the printed ones, "therefore."
*Annotations of the same on ch. 43.* Page 224. *Marcion therefore.* Concerning this, in book I, ch. 29, it is shown further that there is one God, supremely good, supremely just, supremely wise, supremely patient and long-suffering, who finally will render to each one according to his works, judging the world in equity. *Because it is not God if goodness is lacking to it.* With arguments of this kind, leading to absurd and unthinkable conclusions, Tertullian often urges the same Marcion in lib. I: "God, if he is not one, is not God; because we believe more worthily that whatever is not so, as it ought to be, is nothing." And again: "From this also we shall deny him to be God, in whom all things that are worthy of God do not consist," etc.
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on ch. 43.* Page 224. *Dividing God into two.* But it is recorded in the memory of some that Marcion posited three principles. See Athanasius in *The Decrees of the Synod of Nicaea*, tom. I, p. 422; Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catecheses* 16; Epiphanius, *Heresies* 42; Damascene, *On Heresies*, etc. Hence in the dialogue of Origen, or Maximus, *Against the Marcionites*, sect. 1, p. 3. Megethius, acting for these parts, says: "I say there are three principles: the good God the Father of Christ, and another the creator of the world, and a third, the evil one." And p. 4: "The good principle rules the Christians; the creator of the world the Jews; and the evil one the heathens." Indeed, Theodoret in lib. I, *Heretical Fables*, ch. 24, reports that Marcion posited four ἀγεννήτους οὐσίας, "unbegotten substances," namely the three just mentioned, and "matter, which underlies the evil one." But these writers, either by a lapse of memory or inadvertence, attributed to Marcion himself what belongs to some of his followers, or rivals, especially to one named Synerus, as we learn from the book of Rhodo *Against Marcion*, or rather from his fragment in Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, lib. v, ch. 13, reading there the following: "Of their sect, Apelles confesses one principle; others, however, like that sailor Marcion himself, introduce two principles; but others again of them, having slipped away into something worse, posit not only two, but even three natures: of whom the leader and protector is Synerus, according to those who quote his doctrines." "From the flock of them (the Marcionites) Apelles confesses one principle to be. Others indeed, just like that sailor Marcion, introduce two principles. Others again, having been driven by this storm into something worse, suppose not two only, but three natures; whose prince and leader was Synerus, as the followers of that discipline record." Remembering which place of Eusebius, or rather of Rhodo cited by Eusebius, Augustine writes in his book *On Heresies to Quodvultdeus*, ch. 22: "Marcion, from whom the Marcionites are, who followed the dogmas of Cerdo concerning two principles, although Epiphanius says he asserted three principles, the good, the just, the evil. But Eusebius writes that a certain Synerus, not Marcion, was the author of the three principles and natures." Ptolemy, in the epistle *To Flora* (tom. I, 145 of the *Spicilegium of the Fathers and Heretics* of the 1st century, p. 78 et seq.), preceded or agreed with Synerus. But he confirms the matter concerning Marcion...
A, besides Irenæus, Tertullian lib. 1 contra Marcionem, cap. 6, saying: "He asserts that Marcion held to different gods, one a judge, fierce, and powerful in war; the other mild, placid, and only good and best." Confer Origen, to be cited immediately. Saying one is good and the other judicial. Thus also Origen in *Exodus*, tom. 1 Comm., p. 17 seq., hinting at the Marcionites, he says: "But those who say that there is another God besides the Creator, and wish him to be just and not good, have fallen very foolishly and also impiously into this position, in that they separate justice from goodness, and goodness from justice." But others, asserting another God besides the Maker of the world, wish this one to be just, but not good: this is indeed foolish and impious, when they separate justice from goodness, and goodness from justice. And in *Comm. in John*, p. 38, he speaks of the same people as ones who "supposed the Creator to be just, but the Father of Christ to be good," that is, they thought the Creator of the world to be just, but the Father of Christ to be good.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on cap. 44. Pag. 224. *Therefore let the sun...* From celestial effects he teaches the providence and beneficence of God extending to all things now; and that a grave judgment will come upon the ungrateful and blasphemous, such as were the Marcionites and Gnostics.
Annotations of the same on cap. 45. Pag. 224. *By which Plato is shown to be more religious.* That the philosophy of Plato does not differ so much from the true religion of the Christians, Eusebius shows in the last six books of *De præpar. evang.*, with as many testimonies as possible brought from his writings, and compared with the chief heads of our faith. Augustine, having discoursed many excellent things about Plato in ten chapters of the eighth book of *De civit. Dei*, investigates in the eleventh from where, or from whom, he learned such things as agree with our religion. He rejects the opinion of those who think that Plato, in his travels among the Egyptians, heard the prophet Jeremiah and met with him: which opinion, however, in *De doctrin. Christ.*, cap. 28, as that of his father in Christ (for thus he speaks of him, from whom he had been washed at the sacred font), B. Ambrose had sincerely approved. He contends later that Plato could not have read the sacred Scriptures, since they had not yet been translated into the Greek language: which, concerning the LXX translation, chronology shows to be true. But that there was another before the empires of Alexander, and even of the Persians, from which the philosophers drew whatever they taught that was true and correct, Eusebius contends in lib. IX *De præparat.*, cap. 3, and lib. XIII, cap. 7. But Augustine gladly admits that Plato, a man of keen judgment, learned both the Egyptian and the Hebrew letters through an interpreter, just as his own. *And God indeed.* This passage of Plato, etc. See below the note of Ern. Grabe on the same passage.
Annotations of the same on cap. 46. Pag. 224. *And again.* Again from Plato he teaches that this world was not created out of ignorance, falling, or the virtue of an erring Æon; but by divine and celestial virtue and goodness: which Cicero also testifies that the same Plato asserted, lib. 1 *De natura deor.* and in the book *De universo*. *Nor the fruit of a fall.* Thus we restored it from the ancient codex; the printed editions [have] "nor of these." But in a few words he restricts those figments of the Gnostics which he had described more broadly in lib. 1, cap. 1. *For they are worthy of being commented upon and are fictitious.* We have added two small words from the ancient codex, which fit wonderfully. Moreover, he seems to allude to these words of Daniel B to one of the impure judges of Susanna: "Rightly and you have lied upon your own head." For as they, by their adulteries, attempted to defile the chastity of the spouse of Christ C, "they strive to recklessy violate her faith and doctrine." *He received.* We have deleted "he receives," which was in the ancient codex. *But we pray.* Great is the piety of the Fathers, who did not cease to pray even for the most hostile enemies of the Church. Thus Ignatius urges the Smyrneans to pray for heretics, that by some means they might repent. *We have prorogued however.* That is, we have deferred to a more opportune place; we propose it thus to be read from the ancient codex, by whose authority we have expunged "we have prorogued."
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on cap. 46. Pag. 224. *And God indeed.* This place of Plato exists in the fourth dialogue *De legibus*; in which instead of "rightly perfects," which is had here, Ficinus [has] "rightly performs"; I might perhaps better say, "rightly leads," since in Greek it is read *εὐθεῖαν περαίνει*. Then, because Plato uses an ancient saying about God, I think he looked to the poems of the ancient Orpheus, which are read in Proclus: *Zeus prôtos egeneto, Zeus hytatos argikeraunos,* *Zeus kephalē, Zeus messa. Dios d’ ek panta tetuktai.* Which is: Jupiter is first, Jupiter is the last fulminator, Jupiter is the head, Jupiter is the middle: for by Jove all things have been made.
FEUARD. It is pleasing to transcribe the Greek words of Plato, from the edition of Serranus, tom. II, p. 715 seq., sounding thus: "Ὁ μὲν δὴ Θεὸς (ὥσπερ καὶ ὁ παλαιὸς λόγος) ἀρχήν τε τελευτὴν καὶ μέσα τῶν ὄντων ἁπάντων ἔχων, εὐθεῖαν περαίνει, κατὰ φύσιν περιπορευόμενος. Τῷ δὲ ἀεὶ ξυνέπεται δίκη, τῶν ἀπολειπομένων τοῦ θείου νόμου τιμωρός." *And again.* Feuardentius should have said where Plato taught this, and indicated the place from which Irenæus took the cited words. But that work, that labor, is what he, just like Erasmus and Gallasius, evaded. Yet the place is in the *Timaeus*, tom. III D of Serranus, p. 29, where he expressly says that "the creator of the world is good," which is contrary to "it is forbidden to say, nor to tell to anyone." And after other things, at the end of the said page, it has the following words, with which those things also alleged by Irenæus are contained: "Λέγωμεν δή, δι᾿ ἣν αἰτίαν γένεσιν καὶ τὸ πᾶν τόδε ὁ ξυνιστὰς ξυνέστησεν. ᾿Αγαθὸς ἦν, ἀγαθῷ δὲ οὐδεὶς περὶ οὐδενὸς οὐδέποτε ἐγγίγνεται φθόνος. Τούτου δ' ἐκτὸς ὤν, πάντα ὅτι μάλιστα ἐβουλήθη γενέσθαι παραπλήσια αὐτῷ. Ταύτην δὲ γενέσεως κόσμου μάλιστ᾽ ἄν τις ἀρχὴν κυριωτάτην παρ᾽ ἀνδρῶν φρονίμων ἀποδεχόμενος, ὀρθότατα ἀποδέχοιτ' ἄν." Which Joannes Serranus rendered into Latin thus more fully: "Let us ask, therefore, the cause which drove him who designed these things, that he should constitute the origin and movement of this admirable universe. He excelled indeed in goodness; but envy of no kind ever falls upon a good man regarding anything (that is, he never envies anything to anyone). Since, therefore, he was free and immune from that, he wished all things to be generated as much as possible similar to himself. Whoever, therefore, according to the opinion of wise men, should establish this as the primary and leading cause of the world being generated, would indeed establish it most correctly." I could add more places of Plato; but for the sake of brevity I will recite only one, and that in Latin only, from the version of Serranus. And it sounds thus in dialogue II *De republica*, tom. II, p. 379: "Consistently must those things compatible with the nature of God be attributed; whether in heroic verse, or in lyric, or in tragedy it be introduced. Is it not compatible? Must we not establish that God is in truth good, and is it not to be consistently said? Why not? ... Neither, therefore, I say, since God is good, would he be the cause of all things, as many say. ... Of good things, indeed, no other cause is to be established besides God; but for evil things, other causes are to be investigated; but..."
A but this must be refuted with all contention, nor is it to be conceded that anyone should say or hear this in the city, if we wish it to be well-constituted... as things that are said, which are neither pious, nor useful, nor consistent and coherent with themselves... Therefore, let this one law be established, and this formula for the establishment of religion... that God is the cause of good things; not of all things indifferently, as of evils, which are to be entirely removed from Him. From which it shines brighter than the sun that, for Plato, the same God was both just and most good; and that he did not imagine two, as the heretics did.
VARIOUS NOTES ON THE FOURTH BOOK OF SAINT IRENAEUS
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent in the preface to the fourth book.
146 p. 227. *Him, however, who wishes them to convert.* From this place, as well as from others, it is not obscurely gathered that Irenaeus did not only contend confidently against the heretics in his words, but also scrutinized their treatises with contentious study, by which, having uncovered their foundations as if from the bottom, he might better demolish and subvert the entire structure of the heresies afterward. Nor do I think he was led by light conjectures; I believe that the leaders of the Church, with great prudence and serious counsel, when the heresiarchs strove to disturb its peace and undermine its doctrine by books sent out here and there, chose certain prudent, sincere, and sharp-witted men from their own assembly to read through books of this kind; and that those pious men, having unearthed and laid bare the absurd impieties which the darklings dared not vomit forth openly, were to remove them from their midst and extinguish them. But others, to whom this business was not C entrusted, were to abstain from those books as if from nefarious things, or, following the example of Constantine the Great, to consign them to be consumed by flames. I think that this conjecture is given credibility by what he relates at the beginning of the fifth book, namely that he is refuting with these five books the impious opinions which the heretics left in their writings: insofar as, by yielding to the requests and command of the person to whom he dedicates these books of his, he provides the same person with many things for his support, by which he may confirm the understanding of the neophytes, lead back those who are wandering, and repress them with valid reasons, and make the obstinate better. To this is added that frequent mention of the writings of Valentinus in Clement of Alexandria, and the voice sent down from heaven to Dionysius in Eusebius: "Read all things whatsoever that come into your hands, for you are able to prove each one and discern them individually." That Epiphanius read the Marcionites; that Augustine read Faustus, Maximinus, Cresconius, Gaudentius, Parmenianus, Petilianus, Coelestius, Julian; that Jerome read Jovinian, Helvidius, Vigilantius; that Basil the Great read Eunomius; that Cyril of Jerusalem read the Manichaeans; and that Gregory and Cyril read Julian the D apostate; and that Primasius read the Donatist Ticonius; and Ambrose and Prudentius read the impious writings of Symmachus for this reason, is plain and manifest to all.
p. 228. *For just as a serpent.* Truly, this comparison of the heretics with the serpent is fitting and worthy of observation, which he uses again in book V. Augustine uses the same, but explained more fully, in book I, *On Genesis against the Manichaeans*, ch. 25, 26, 27, and Athanasius the Great in his 2nd oration against the Arians; indeed, even the Apostle in II Cor. xi, 3.
*And then indeed.* So the old codex taught it should be read; the printed editions [read]: "and then what in the apostate."
*Not only making them apostates.* So also Tertullian in his *Prescription against Heretics*: "Persecution, he says, makes martyrs, heresy only makes apostates." And Augustine, in his book *On the Utility of Belief*, ch. 18, writes that heretics clearly render men phrenetic from being lethargic. For the rest, profane writers use the name of "apostate" for one who defects from his own leader to the enemy; but sacred writers use it for one who defects from the Christian and Catholic religion to the heathens, Jews, or heretics. Thus Justin Martyr in *Dialogue*, Anacletus in Epistle 1, Hermas in book 1, Cyprian in Epistles 17 and 58. Paul also calls that signal defection, which will precede the coming of the Antichrist, *apostasian* in II Thess. ii.
*Derogating salvation.* This is something by which something is diminished and taken away from it. Cicero, *Pro Fonteio*: "The suspicion of enmities derogated from the faith and authority of their deeds in testimony." We have deleted "by derogating," by the authority of the old codex.
From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe in the preface.
p. 226. *They taught that Christ and the Holy Spirit were sent forth on account of the stain.* Above, p. 13, line 13 ff. (p. 11, line 23 ff.) they taught that Christ and the Holy Spirit were brought forth by the Monogenes to the end that the Aeons might be restored and confirmed. For they sinned, desiring to contemplate the incomprehensible Bythos, according to p. 40, line 12 ff. (p. 8, line 20 ff.). And lest they be further infected by this stain, Christ taught them that the Father is incapable and incomprehensible, and that the desire to comprehend Him is in vain.
*That the Savior was the fructification from these Aeons who were sent forth from the stain.* We read in the text, p. 14, line 22 (p. 12 and 13), that Jesus was called *teleion karpon* (perfect fruit) by the heretics, because they feigned that the individual Aeons had contributed to him whatever was best and most excellent (*anthotaton*) which they had in themselves, as is taught in the same place. But when he says these Aeons were sent forth from the stain, this is not to be accepted as if they took their origin from a stain or vice; for that was not the opinion of the Valentinians, who ejaculated this blasphemy only at the Demiurge, or maker of the world; but it is necessary to understand "sent forth from the stain" to mean "snatched away, liberated" (although this [interpretation] is harder).
A Sed potius distinxit eos. Thus the ancient codex taught us to read; [but if] I had edited it, [I would have written] *distinxisset* (he had distinguished), those who are gods in name from Him who is the True one.
Annotations of the same [author] on Chapter 2.
Page 228. *Recapitulationem* (Recapitulation). Jerome, in his epistle to Paulinus, calls Deuteronomy the second law and a prefiguration of the evangelical law. Theodoret: "Deuteronomy contains a recapitulation of those things which were sung in the law, and [the events] done in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers," etc. But by the open testimonies of Moses, David, and Isaiah, the most famous prophets, he teaches that He is the one and only God, the creator of the world, whom Christ in the Gospel many times calls His Father.
*Attende, cælum* (Hear, O heaven). The Seventy read it this way in the singular; the Vulgate edition and Sanctes [read]: "Give ear, O heavens," etc.
*Pandora*. In Book II, Chapter 54, he calls the Gnostics "satellites arranged around Pandora." But concerning Pandora we have made annotations in Chapter 19 of Book II.
*Matrem eorum* (Their mother). Since all the codices have it this way, it was an act of rashness on the part of Gallasius, against the faith of all [the manuscripts], to substitute something else.
*Adinvenerunt* (They have devised). We have deleted *adjunxerunt* (they have added) [from the] ancient author's column.
*Quem et Christus* (Whom also Christ). That Christ is said here to affirm [this], that this oracle pertains to the Father: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one" [*]; He does not do so in order to signify that this does not apply to Himself also, and to the Holy Spirit, in the way that the followers of Servetus and Gentilis, the new Arians, wickedly trifle; since, just as it is said of each divine person individually, says Augustine, "The Father is one God, the Son is one God, the Holy Spirit is one God; so also, concerning the three combined, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, God is one." And again, "The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one God, that is, the Trinity itself is one God, concerning whom it was said that there is no God except the one who said: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God.'"
Annotations of the same on Chapter 3.
Page 229. *De me enim ille scripsit* (For he wrote of me). That Christ is the one and only end of Moses and the other prophets, and of the whole law, and, as it were, its very soul, is proven by the testimonies brought forward by the evangelists, the apostles, and most especially by Paul against Jewish blindness and stubbornness; the entire speech of Stephen the protomartyr in Acts VII is occupied with this as well.
*Credetis* (You believe). Thus the ancient codex; in Greek also πιστεύετε; Erasmus [translated it] *creditis*.
Annotations of the same on Chapter 4.
Page 229. *Expositio parabolæ* (Exposition of the parable). I believe that learned men among the Germans judged that these arguments were not Irenaeus', when, in the most recent Basel edition, they removed them (whether rightly or not, I am not now disputing) and substituted other things. Therefore, according to their calculation, no one from the cited words could confirm, as if by Irenaeus' authority, that this narrative about the rich man and Lazarus is merely a parable or a figurative expression. Truly, even if we were to grant that these [words] are Irenaeus', it would not immediately follow that the entire narrative is parabolic and fabricated; but only certain parts, D especially where the discourse is about fingers, about eyes, about thirst, and the articulated speech of spirits; since here Irenaeus adds: "But he did not relate a fable to us," etc.; and in Book II, Chapters 62 and 63, he uses that to prove that souls neither die nor pass from body to body; which he would never have done from a parable, since he has frequently condemned the Gnostics on that matter. Therefore, that it is history and an example of a thing once done, and a narrative, we willing grant even to Luther.
A Bucero, Brentio et Calvino — to Bucer, Brentius, and Calvin — we shall not unjustly apply this. To this end, even those who resist are urged by Tertullian's arguments, where he says: "The soul of a certain man is in pain in the underworld, and is punished in the flame, and is tormented in his tongue, and asks for the solace of a drop from the finger of a more happy soul." Do you think this is an image, the final exit of a poor man rejoicing and a rich man mourning? And what would the name of Lazarus be there if the thing were not true in reality? Elsewhere also, souls still foreign to the flesh are tormented or refreshed in the underworld, and he proves this by this example. Again, he bids Marcion listen to Moses and the prophets as they preach the one God the Creator and the Father of Christ; a thing which that most acute and sharpest of disputants surely would not have done by means of a figurative locution. To this is added the mutual consensus of Greek and Latin Fathers: Origen, Dial. 2 against the Marcionites and in *Ps.* XVI; Cyprian, *Epist.* 18; Basil, *Homily on the Praises of Fasting* and in the *Larger Rules*, Question 55; Hilary in *Ps.* CXX; Jerome, *Epist. to Marcella*, and *Epist. to Paula*; Methodius, *Sermon on the Resurrection* in Epiphanius, Vol. 1, Book II; Augustine in *Psalms* CXLV and CXLVIII; lastly, Euthymius teaches from the traditions of the Hebrews that this was a truly performed event, and affirms that the rich man was called Nineveh; the traces of whose house are even now shown to those traveling to Jerusalem by the inhabitants, as Bishop Soarez professes that it was shown to him by them (*Commentary on Luke*).
"For the same punishment." We have expunged "+" in the same punishment, from the authority of old manuscripts.
"Many who are from the circumcision." Eusebius, *History*, Book 5, ch. 5, reports fifteen succeeding bishops in Jerusalem of the Hebrew race, all of whom embraced the faith and religion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and strove to propagate it among others with great diligence. The *Acts of the Apostles* also teach that many thousands of Jews believed in Christ.
"Persevering." Thus, we have substituted "persevering" for "those who persevere" on the authority of old manuscripts.
Annotations of the same on Chapter 5
Page 229. "Do not swear," he says. He demonstrates by the testimonies of the prophets and evangelists that there is one God, the Maker of heaven and earth, than whom there cannot be a greater, whose Son Christ confesses himself to be, saving those who believe and hope in Him.
"Footstool." The LXX has *hypopodion ton podon*; Cyprian, Book II, *Against the Jews*, ch. 4, also reads "footstool."
"For who is over himself." Similar to this is Tertullian's reasoning, by which he proves that God is unique because He is a supreme great being, than whom nothing greater or equal can be imagined (*Against Marcion*, Book 1). Hence also the verses of Prudentius, a most ancient and grave poet, in *Hamartigenia*, 20-24:
Either God is one, to whom belongs supreme power over all, Or because there are two, the supreme power is divided by an unequal sum. Yet nothing is supreme, nothing is one with full powers, since: Because they are disparate, while each claims his own with severed Rule, neither is supreme, nor can they do all things.
Page 230. "Who had begun." We have deleted "they had begun" on the authority of old manuscripts.
"Obedient to the proclamation." The LXX has *apeitheis*, that is, not obedient: "Sanctes, thy princes are turning aside"; the Common edition has "unbelievers."
"Not otherwise to be saved." Augustine, in the assertion of original sin against Julian the Pelagian, having collected the opinions of eleven ancient Fathers which he opposes to the Pelagians, mentions this place thus: "Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, was not far from the times of the apostles. He says men are not otherwise saved from the ancient wound of the serpent unless they believe in Him who, according to the likeness of sinful flesh, was lifted up on the wood of martyrdom from the earth, and drew all things to Himself, and made the dead alive." From which is evident the most impudent lie of Luther, saying in his *Colloquia*, pp. 98 and 99: "None of the Fathers before Augustine made mention of original sin."
Annotations of the same on Chapter 6
Page 230. "Because the evildoers." He responds to the fictions of the Gnostics; that the true God is not therefore changed, or ceases to be, because the heaven, His seat, is changed.
"But also [concerning] the passing." Ancient theologians also labored to resolve this question. Chrysostom, indeed, from these passages, "The whole of creation is subject to vanity," and "They themselves shall perish," and likewise, "The heaven shall fail like smoke," thinks that the celestial bodies and elements, because of the sin of the first parent, have been made subject to old age, corruption, and destruction; but at His resurrection, even immortality is to be granted. B Ambrose adds his voice, refuting those who, in order to assert the perpetuity of the heavens and stars, feigned that they are a certain fifth ethereal body: David contradicting this, "The heavens themselves shall perish," and the Lord in the Gospel affirming, "Heaven and earth shall pass away" (Luke XXI, 33, etc.). Almost all the Greek Fathers agree with these, teaching that heaven by its own nature is corruptible, but by the providence of God alone, it is never to be corrupted. Certainly Justin Martyr, in few but very firm words, refutes Aristotle, who said in the second book of *On the Heavens* that the heaven itself could neither have been created nor ever reach destruction, but was one and eternal (in *Confutation of Aristotelian Dogmas*, also *Orthodox Questions* 93, 94, 95). Finally, the same most sharp defender of this opinion is Augustine Eugubinus. For weighing these words of blessed Peter, "The day of the Lord will come, in which the heavens will pass away with a great sound, but the elements will be dissolved with heat," etc., he indicates that the scholastic exposition is too forced, saying that the heavens will undergo nothing, but only cease from motion. C But he thinks that it is clear from what follows that blessed Peter speaks of the starry heavens, and not of the air, because he adds: "The elements will be dissolved with heat." The same, again, in *Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews*, ch. 1, confirms his opinion from these other words of blessed Peter: "Looking for the coming of the day of the Lord, by which the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the heat of fire. But we look for new heavens and a new earth, according to His promise." To these, John in the *Apocalypse*: "I saw a new heaven and a new earth." And in Isaiah: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth." From these testimonies of the Scriptures, he says, unless we wish to do violence to the words, we are compelled to admit that there will truly be some great alteration of the heavens by fire, and not only a cessation of motion: by which alteration the heavens will be founded in a new way, D and will be far more beautiful. This is what he says. This opinion seems to have been approved also by Clement of Rome in *Recognitions*, Book III; Eusebius in *Evangelical Preparation*, Book XV; Nyssen in his book *On the Creation of Man*; Philastrius in his *Catalogue*; Theodoret in *Commentary*; Jerome in Book XIV of *Commentary on Isaiah*; Oecumenius on the Epistle of St. Peter; and many others.
Against this, however, now cry out all the schools of philosophers and theologians, and contend with the strongest arguments that the celestial bodies are absolutely incorruptible and will remain forever. For they have a substance far different from the nature of the elements, and a form which drives away far from them all strange impressions and qualities warring against themselves. Moreover, since they have remained for so many and such great courses of ages...
they display sufficiently that they will remain so forever. Finally, this opinion, besides all the scholastics, as we have said, has for its defender the great prelate Augustine, who affirms that the starry heavens are not to be purified by a final conflagration, nor even touched by the fire of the conflagration that will precede the face of the final Judge; but rather the aerial heavens only, that is, the elements which are more than once designated in the Sacred Scriptures by the name of the heavens.
But one must argue more sharply against the other opinion—that the starry heavens are to be understood [as decaying]—by responding to the Blessed Jerome that the "growing old," "wearing away," "melting," "dissolving," "passing away," and "perishing" which is said of them does not signify an utter destruction or abolition; but rather signifies a change to a better and more splendid state, of which Isaiah speaks: "The moon shall shine as the sun, and the sun shall receive sevenfold light." And Paul rightly said, "The fashion of this world passes away," but not its substance. Finally, Peter and John do not promise other heavens or another earth, but the old ones already renewed and changed.
*On the one hundred and first.* Because the Hebrews divide the book of Psalms into two parts, the one which is now cited by Irenaeus is the hundred and second among them, but the hundred and first among the Greeks.
*Which pass away.* In the old codex: "which have passed away."
*Annotations of the same on chapter 7.* *Page 231. Wherefore abandoned.* By the authority of the old codex we have corrected this to "left behind"; and because it did not sufficiently express the mind of Irenaeus, since he confirms in this chapter that nothing of divine amplitude and majesty was missing from the fact that Jerusalem was to be overthrown by the Romans and abandoned by other nations, after the mysteries of human redemption through Christ were already completed in it.
*Further, also about Jerusalem.* That the Ebionites worshipped Jerusalem as the house of God, he reported in book 1, chapter 26. But I think he is disputing in this chapter against the Marcionites, who wished either that it should stand forever, or that it was never the house of the true God; both of which are absurd. For it was overthrown by a horrible disaster under Titus, and again under Hadrian, with its ancient name even being changed, so that an example might stand forth of the prophecies being entirely fulfilled, of Christ having been demonstrated and the deicide punished, and of the kingdom of God having been translated to the nations. Tertullianus treats this most amply in two chapters of his book *Adversus Judæos*. That the holy city of the true God, however, was an inheritance and as it were a possession—on account of the law, the priesthood, and the promises concerning the Messiah—is explored and certain from the Scriptures.
*Just as Isaiah says.* Theodoretus transcribed this word for word in dialogue 2, up to: "for whatever things have a temporal beginning," etc.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 8.* *Page 231. In John it ended.* Tertullianus calls John by a fitting epithet, the limit established between the old and the new, at which Judaism might end, and from which Christianity might begin.
*Beginning from David.* David was the first, after the Jebusites were expelled, to name this city Jerusalem: "For under our ancestor Abraham," says Josephus, *Antiquities* VII, chapter 3, "it was called Solyma." "But a certain powerful one of the Canaanites had founded it long ago," writes Hegesippus, "who in the native tongue was called Melchisedech, that is, just king." Jerome records that the city was called by four names: first indeed Jebus; then Salem; afterwards Jerusalem; and in his own time by Aelius Hadrian, Aelia.
*Legislation.* We have removed "of legislation," by the authority of the old codex.
*For all things are measure.* Damascenus, book 1 of the *Parallels*, chapter 2, cites these things by name from Irenaeus: "Which (since we could not obtain the Greek) we append thus from the Latin interpreter: God accomplishes all things in a certain manner and order; never does anything lack measure with Him; since it is also void of nothing in number."
*And as a fruit-keeper.* The Greeks have *opōrophylakion*, that is, a keeping of fruit. Cyprianus, in book *Adversus Judæos* chapter 6, reads with Irenaeus: "As a shed in a vineyard, and as a fruit-keeper in a cucumber field."
*Since also the figure of the world.* The Blessed Peter uses the same and an almost equal example in Clement, arguing likewise that the figure of the world is at some point to be dissolved. "It is necessary," he says, "that the shell of eggs, however beautifully and diligently it may seem formed, be broken, so that the chick may proceed from it; so also it is necessary for the status of this world to pass away, that that more sublime status of the heavenly kingdom may shine forth."
*Annotations of the same on chapter 9.* *Page 231. John the baptizer.* Thus Tertullianus frequently names him in his book *De anima*, and in his book *Contra Judæos*.
*And irrational animals.* Old codex: "into irrational and non-rational," which seemed only to indicate.
*Made free in will.* To refer these things only to man before the fall is a matter of impudence, as those things which are held further down in books 29, 70, 71, and 72 of this work clearly expose. To direct them only to external and political actions is most impudent; since he speaks principally of those things which, before God, make us worthy either of wheat or of chaff—that is, of the kingdom of God or hell. Concerning these, however, that man is free is a sentence of the Fathers, in agreement and unanimous with the Scriptures of both Testaments, against the frenzies of Simon Magus, Marcion, and Manichaeus, so that the great lie of Luther appears, saying in his *Colloquia*, page 42, that "the name of free will was most hateful to all the Fathers." Against which his disciples, the Magdeburg Centuriators, are forced to admit that not only the doctors of the first century, but of all following ages, embraced this doctrine—from whose religion, however, they do not fear to depart, not without horrible blindness and the most grave judgment of God, so that they pass into the camp of the impious.
But let Irenaeus's catholic sentiment be explained and confirmed by the similar sentences of a few Fathers. First, these are the words of Tertullianus: "I find that man was instituted by God as free, and of his own will, and of his own power, observing no image and likeness of God in him more than the form of such a status." And a little later: "It was necessary that the image and likeness of God be instituted with free will and its own power, in which this very thing might be deemed the image and likeness of God, namely the liberty and power of the will." And again: "Neither the rewards of good nor of evil are justly weighed to him who would have been found either good or evil by necessity, not by will."
In the first edition, we had noted down here that the same Tertullianus confirmed our freedom of will again in the *Apologeticum*, book 149 *Ad Scapulam*, book *De exhortatione ad castitatem*, book *De monogamia*, book *De patientia*, and book *De carne Christi*, etc., but Pamelius writes that he could not find these places, in note 38 in the second book of Tertullianus's *Adv. Marc.*, undermining this citation of ours, as much as I judge. But since Tertull. in his *Apologeticum* chapter 23 openly writes that even in demons there is the power of their own
A arbitrio inesse; and chap. 28, "It is unjust that free men should be forced against their will to sacrifice;" those who are judges of such matters will easily agree with me that freedom of will is constituted by Him. Since he also, in the books *De testimonio animae*, cap. 2, calls the rational soul "openly and with full liberty to proclaim what it senses;" and in the books *Ad Scapulam*, cap. 1, he professes that Christians "willingly rush to martyrdom;" and cap. 2, he says it is a matter of natural power for each to worship what he thinks, "and that religion should be taken up willingly, not by force," he manifestly proclaims that men are endowed with a free mind. But what is more open and firmer for the assertion of our liberty than what he says in the book *De exhortatione ad castitatem*, cap. 2, that "there is something in us ourselves, and that it is our will to choose, as it is written: 'Behold, I have set before you good and evil,' etc.," and that what is placed in our own will we ought not to refer to the will of God? Does not indeed the book *De monogamia*, cap. 5, also prove this, speaking "of the liberty of foods granted to the nations by the apostles;" and cap. 10, "the freedom of his own mind given by God to man and wife," affirming it? And the book *De patientia*, cap. 7, teaching that earthly things are to be "willingly" let go? Cap. 8, "that one should give willingly?" Cap. 10, "that the discretion of self-defense is not to be claimed for ourselves?" I omit the other passages, for they have also been collected by Pamelius himself, in the place designated above. It is enough for me at present to have proved by the manifest testimonies of Tertullian that I rightly called him as a witness of free will.
But let the gravest reasonings of the apostle Peter, against Simon Magus, which Clement of Rome, who was present, committed to writing, close this discussion. "How does God judge according to truth everyone for his acts (the Apostle was saying), if he did not have the power to do something? If this be held, everything is overturned. In vain will be the diligence of seeking better things, but also the judges of the age are in vain set over the laws, and they punish those who act badly: for they did not have it in their own power so as not to sin. Vain will be the laws of the people, which decree punishments for evil acts; miserable will those be who keep justice with labor; but blessed will those be who, placed in luxuries, living with excess and crime, hold tyranny. According to these things, therefore, there will be neither justice, nor goodness, nor any virtue, and, as you wish, not even God." C Now I add to him Clement of Alexandria. "It is yours," he says, "the kingdom of heaven, if you will, who have directed the free will of the soul toward God; it is yours, if you only will to believe." And in the *Paedagogue*, from the embassy of Moses to Pharaoh, he clearly collects these two things, and that God foreknew the future, and that His kindness has afforded the opportunity of repentance to the free will of Pharaoh's mind. The same again in book 1 of the *Stromata*: "Neither praises," he says, "nor vituperations, nor honors, nor punishments are just, if the soul does not have the free power both of desiring and of approaching." And again: "The prophet says: 'If you will, and if you have heard me, you shall eat the good things of the earth'; arguing that it is in our power both to choose and to decline. For election is voluntary, and the choice of the will." And in book 2: "The unbeliever does not have the foundation of salvation, voluntary faith; but we, who have received from the Scriptures that it has been given to men to choose and to avoid by a free and absolute power, let us acquiesce in faith by a judgment which cannot be changed." And again: "Defection, and withdrawal, and disobedience are in our power, just as obedience is also in our power. Wherefore those things which are voluntary are judged: but that which is involuntary is not judged." And a little later: "Sin is a voluntary injustice; but injustice is a voluntary vice. Those things which do not consist in both principle and free election are not imputed." And in book 3: "Just as he is to be praised who has used his liberty to live according to virtue; so much the more is He to be venerated and adored who has given us a free power of our own right, and has granted us to live as we willed, as One who has not permitted our election and avoidance to serve necessity." I will omit intentionally what he writes to the same effect on fol. 110, 111, 113, 121, 140, 145, 149, 153, in the books printed at Basel in 1556. Yet we point out the passages copiously, so that the Magdeburgenses may be convicted of the grossest lying and sycophancy, who did not blush to write that this Clement, with other Fathers, does not hold to himself in this matter, but fights against himself, centur. 2, p. 59.
Let Justin Martyr be added. It seemed to God D that He wished to create angels and men, whom He willed to be obedient, with free power to act well, so that they might be judged according to His own laws, if they deviated from what is right. The same in his former *Apology*. "Nothing," he writes, "would be worthy of any praise, if it were not flexible toward either side." In the latter, indeed: "Unless men could of their own will flee base things and seek honest things, they would be without blame for whatever they did, he rightly concludes."
I will omit what is read in close resemblance to these in Dionysius the Areopagite, Ignatius, Martial, Clement, Hegesippus, Theophilus of Antioch, and the remaining Fathers of the first century. I only adjure later Gnostics, through Him who is to come to judge the living and the dead, to attend to those whom they follow as parents of their opinions, and as probable or improbable authors; nor let them fear to return to a better mind and fruit, and to offer their hand to the truth volunteered to them.
*His annotations on cap. 10.* P. 232. *I am a witness.* He follows the Greek LXX reading, which here deviates somewhat from the Hebrew truth and the common edition. *I am God.* The vet. cod. with the Greeks lacks the word "am." *I am God the first.* LXX: 'Εγώ εἰμι πρῶτος, καὶ ἐγώ εἰμι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα; and thus Cyril reads. But since it was impossible. He clearly shows by these words that faith, which relies on divine revelation, is necessary; and that nature alone as a guide cannot enable man by himself to know all things that conduce to his salvation. He proves this again below in cap. to Jacob., and lib. VII *Const.*, cap. 1; Dionysius, cap. 7 *De divin. nom.*; Justin lib. *De Trin.*; Hermas lib. 1, mandat. 9; Theophilus Antioch. lib. 1 *Ad Autolycum*; Clemens Alexand. in *Protreptico*, 2, 5, 7, and VIII *Stromation*; and Cyril of Jerusalem, the entire fifth catechesis; Nazianzen orat. 2 *de pace*; Ruffinus *Expos. in Symbolum*, etc.
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on cap. 4.* *I am God the first.* Feuard. has noted in vain that the LXX sounds differently: 'Εγώ εἰμι πρῶτος, καὶ ἐγώ εἰμι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. For this passage of Isaiah XLVIII, 12, is not alleged by Irenaeus, but another [passage] from the preceding chapter XVI, verse 4, where the sacred interpreters, just like Irenaeus, have: 'Εγώ Θεὸς πρῶτος, καὶ εἰς τὰ ἐπερχόμενα ἐγώ εἰμι. Pag. 232. *Neither elated, nor boasting, etc.* These [things] are opposed to the blasphemous heretics, saying that God spoke such things with empty boasting, above pag. 26, l. 25 (lin. 5) and pag. 109, col. 2, l. 18 (pag. 108, col. 2, l. 29, and pag. 110, col. 1, l. 15).
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on cap. 11.* P. 252. *For our Lord.* He shows by the words of Moses, Stephen, and Daniel that the same is the Lord God, who formerly spoke to the Fathers under the Old Testament.
and sent Christ, and promised the resurrection of all the dead.
*Why do you not worship Bel?* These words are found in Daniel ch. 14, v. 3, which the Greeks and Latins have often used with great consensus. Tertullian (*Adv. Psychicos* and *De Idololatria*), Cyprian (Epistle 63 and *De laude martyrii*), Hilary (*De Trinitate* bk. 10), Prudentius (*Cathemerinon*, in the hymn after food), Ambrose (*De Officiis* bk. 2, ch. 4, and *De Jacob patr.*, ch. 9), and Basil (homily against the greedy rich) all use it. Africanus, in his epistle to Origen, reports (as Eusebius relates in *Hist.* bk. 6, ch. 24) that he did not dare to reject the stories of Susanna and Bel from the sacred canon of the Scriptures.
*We have given:* We have restored these eleven words from the codex: we have deleted "and the Lord showed."
*Therefore Christ himself.* He openly and steadfastly professes that Christ is one God with the Father, the God of the living, who spoke with the patriarchs and Moses; by this he clearly refutes the heresies of both the old and new Ebionites, Cerinthians, Samosatenians, and Arians. B For he who spoke to Moses calls himself Jehovah, by which name both Jews and heretics acknowledge the eternal essence and majesty of God to be signified. But Christ with the Father is that same God. Therefore by nature and glory he is one God with him, though distinct in personal property.
*Notes of the same on chapter 12.* P. 232. *First indeed.* Josephus, *Antiq.* bk. 1, ch. 45: "Abraham was the first to presume to proclaim God as the one creator of all things; he confessed that all other things tending toward happiness are given through the command of the One who provides, and do not consist of their own virtue." And a little later: "And because the Chaldeans and other Mesopotamians were rising up against him, he chose to follow the migration through the will and help of God, and possessed the land of Canaan far and wide."
Other Hebrews also report that he was born in Ur of the Chaldeans, from which he later departed to Carrhae in Mesopotamia, fleeing the worship of fire which the tyrant Nimrod was promoting in place of God. From there, at God's command, he came into the land of Canaan, where he first built an altar to the true God between Hai and Bethel, a second near Shechem, a third near Hebron, a fourth in Beersheba, and a fifth on Mount Moriah; and he provided a burial place for his wife, himself, and his descendants in the double cave; and finally, with incredible faith and obedience, he was willing to sacrifice his son to God. For this reason, he is called by the Holy Spirit the servant of God, the friend of God, the beloved of God, and the father of our faith and of all who believe.
*Notes of the same on chapter 13.* Pag. 233. *Rightly, however.* By the example of Abraham, who followed God, he teaches that the apostles followed the Son of God, and that we ought to bear the cross for Christ, just as Isaac carried the wood on which he was to be sacrificed—who also, by his own spontaneous offering, signified the offering of Christ.
*According to his faith.* We have added these seven words, which fit most aptly, from the ancient codex.
*For faith.* The ancient codex lacks fourteen words from this sentence, and reads thus: "For faith toward the most high God, who established the heaven and the earth." It seemed good to delete nothing, but only to insert the two words "for" and "most high" from the ancient codex. Moreover, all the ancient Fathers teach that we hold the same faith as Irenaeus; Eusebius (*Hist.* bk. 4, ch. 4), Epiphanius (in the beginning of his book *Against Heresies*), Augustine (tractate 45 on John, *Contra litteras Petiliani* bk. 2, ch. 37, *Contra Faustum* bk. 19, ch. 13, 16, 17, and in Psalms LXXIII and LXXVI; also *Contra Pelag. et Caelest.* bk. 2, ch. 25).
But lest they think that Irenaeus merely asserts his faith to favor his own impiety in this place, let them consider that he is speaking of faith which operates through charity, as will soon appear in the following chapter. Also, regarding the many other places, as we observe throughout, we impute our justification to charity, obedience, and other good works. Finally, he teaches that the apostle James clearly and steadfastly proclaims C that Abraham was justified by works, by offering his son Isaac, etc., and not by faith alone. How, in this matter, Paul and James agree well with one another, Augustine teaches learnedly and prudently in his *Eighty-Three Questions*, q. 7 and 76.
*Notes of the same on chapter 14.* P. 233. *For the Lord.* He contends from the Scriptures that both the Son has known the Father from eternity and has manifested him to others, and in turn the Father has revealed his Son to men. Then, that the Son neither began to be when he was made man, nor did he announce a God other than God his Father and the creator of the world.
*Thus they describe.* We have expunged "they said" as an addition of an ancient codex.
*But if Christ.* This was the heresy of the Ebionites, of whom we spoke above in book 1, chapter 26; book 3, chapter 24; and below in chapter 59 of this book; and in Eusebius, *History* bk. 3, ch. 27. Cerinthus, Carpocrates, Artemon, and Theodorus followed the same impiety.
*And Justin well in that book.* Eusebius, *History* bk. 4, ch. 17, describing the life and works of Justin, makes mention of this place. Moreover, the words of notable constancy in retaining the true religion once accepted are: to which those of Clement of Rome are not dissimilar, when blessed Peter did not wish him to be present at the debate undertaken against Simon Magus. I have substituted *credidissem* [if I had believed] for *credidisset* [if he had believed], because an error in the ancient codex is indicated, which has *credidissent* [had they believed]; for the Greek words of Justin in Eusebius, *οὐδ' ἂν ἐπείσθην*, show that it should be read this way.
Pag. 234. *Our [translation], against which and contrary.* We have restored both sense and light to this place, with some words changed and some added from an ancient codex. We have deleted "not against whom and contrary the disciples exercise. For," etc.
*To believe him, however.* From this, consider in what sense he said in the previous chapter that faith justifies a man, namely, that which operates through charity.
*For by the creation itself.* This is certainly a notable passage concerning the knowledge of God to be derived from his works. The creation, he says—that is, the framing of the creature—reveals God the creator; the world demonstrates its fabricator; the work manifests the maker; the Son, his Father. To the same sense the Wise Man says: "For by the greatness of the beauty and of the creature, the Creator may be known to be seen." And the Apostle: "For the invisible things of God," etc. And of these things, it has already been said in the preceding pages.
*For it was fitting that the truth.* Augustine teaches how much the testimonies of outsiders avail for the confirmation of the truth in *De civitate Dei* bk. 18, ch. 47. Moreover, Novatian, in his book *De Trinitate*, subscribes to these words of Irenaeus: "It is a firm kind of proof which is even taken from adversaries, so that the truth may be proved by the very enemies of truth."
*And from outsiders.* Hegesippus testifies in book 2, chapter 12, that Josephus was a stranger to the profession of Christians, who nevertheless writes thus of Christ the Lord: "Jesus was a wise man, if indeed it is lawful to call him a man, a worker of wonderful works, and a teacher of those men who gladly hear what is true: this was Christ." Tertullian reports in *Apologeticus* ch. 21 that Pilate announced the miracles, death, and resurrection of Christ to Tiberius Caesar; but Hegesippus transcribes the epistle of Pilate in the *Anacephalaeosis* of his books on the destruction of Jerusalem. Nicodemus agrees with these at the end of his history of the passion and resurrection of the Lord, asserting that Pilate records these things in the public records of his praetorium.
A relate all the things that happened between Christ and the Jews; that the high priests Annas and Caiaphas were adjured, and that they responded optimally concerning the divinity of Jesus. Eusebius has the epistle of Abgar, prince of the Edessenes, to Christ, and Christ’s response (Lib. I, cap. 13). The same Eusebius cites more from Porphyry, that nefarious deserter and enemy of Christian piety (Lib. V De præpar. evang., cap. 1, 6, 8).
Page 235. *And by apostate spirits.* That a demon, lurking in the shrine of Apollo, consulted by a double hecatomb, answered the Roman Emperor these things, Nicephorus is the author: "My boy is Hebrew, God himself, ruling the gods, Bids me to leave my seat and return, sad, beneath Orcus: From our altars, therefore, depart from here in silence." Eusebius has no doubt that we are to understand the things narrated by Plutarch as referring to Christ the Lord—namely, that certain spirits had ordered sailors in the times of Tiberius Caesar to announce that the great god Pan was dead (Lib. De præpar., cap. 9). Augustine, *De consensu Evang.*, cap. 15, recites from Porphyry that certain philosophers consulted their own gods regarding what they thought of Christ; and that they gave a correct testimony concerning Him. On these things, again, much is said in Lib. XIX *De civit. Dei*, cap. 23.
*And one Spirit, and one salvation to all who believe in him.* Thus the ancient codex. But since he in no way separates the Holy Spirit from God the Father and the Son, he openly acknowledges His divinity here; but does so even more copiously and openly below in chapters 22 and 37 of this book, and passim in book V. From these sentences, Basil the Great did not hesitate to confirm the divinity of this same Holy Spirit (Lib. *De Spiritu sancto*, cap. 29). It appears, therefore, that the Magdeburgenses write with a great lust for slander when they claim that this most holy martyr nowhere asserts the divinity of the Holy Spirit (Centuria 2, pag. 40).
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 14. Page 255. *And Mark.* Consider this a slip of memory: for this saying of the Savior is not found in the Gospel of St. Mark. *Who wish to be more learned than the apostles.* With the same jest he criticized the Marcionites above (Lib. III, cap. 12), just as he had written generally about the heretics in Lib. II, cap. 8. *No one knew.* You will say that the codex of Marcion for Luke x (for he rejected the Gospel of St. Matthew) also had in the present: "No one knows who the Father is," as is evident from Tertullian, Lib. V against him, cap. 25. Whence not even Epiphanius (Hær. 42), where he notes all the places corrupted by Marcion, makes any mention of this one. I answer that the Marcionites seem to have corrected this text a little after the age of Irenæus. For it was not a matter of religion for them not to alter the Gospel continually, as Tertullian notes in chapter 5 of the cited book with these words: "For they also reform it daily, just as they are daily refuted by us." It is, however, wonderful that Justin Martyr (Apol. 1, pag. 122, line 20 sqq.) cited the words of Christ just as the heretics read them. *But if Christ then began to be.* I conjecture the sense in this place to be such: although Marcion, with the Ebionites, had absurdly wished to suppose that Christ began to exist then, when He was born of the Virgin Mary, and that the substantial Word of the Father did not exist beforehand, through whom He manifested Himself to the prophets and others; nor was the God whom the prophets knew to be imagined as someone different from Him, but rather it must be inquired for what cause the God of the Old Testament, careless of human salvation, hid Himself for so long.
Page 234. *Each one being provided by God to us.* I think the passage of Justin extends up to these words, whether inclusively or exclusively. We could be more certain of this if the cited *Syntagma* against Marcion still existed. B *Annotation of Fr. Fenardentius on chapter 15.* Page 255. *And taught by the representation.* He speaks of the apparition of those three, one of whom was the Son of God, whom he adored, and whom he called his Lord God; this is taught with great concord by Justin in the *Dialogue*, Tertullian in *De carne Christi* and Lib. III *Contra Marcionem*, Eusebius (Lib. I *Hist.*, cap. 1), Athanasius (Serm. 3 *contra Arianos*), Hilary (Lib. V *De Trinitate*), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 11 and 42), Ambrose (Lib. II *De Abraham*, cap. 5), and Augustine (Lib. II *De Trin.*, cap. 10 and 11). *From His seed.* Thus it is restored from the ancient codex, replacing "from the sermon." Furthermore, the Hebrews teach that this Simeon was not a man of common or lowest condition, son of Abraham. Indeed, the Talmudists make him a disciple of the great Hillel, and a teacher of Gamaliel; and one of those who belonged to the Sanhedrin college, which they thought to be the scepter of Judah. Moreover, miracles did not cease in the Temple for the forty years during which he himself served the Lord. Nicodemus, in the *Hist. of the Passion and Resurrection*, calls him the high priest again and again. Nicephorus (Lib. I, cap. 12) teaches that he excelled among the Jews in dignity, virtue, and holiness of life, which I have thought fit to note against the perverse judgments of the Magdeburgenses, Brentius, and Calvin, by which they make this private little man, a delirious old man, of obscure fame and clear by no name of dignity or office. *Now you dismiss.* In Greek it is *apolyeis*, that is, you grant the power of departing from this life, that I may be joined to my fathers. *In revelation of the eyes.* In Greek, *eis apokalypsin ethnōn*: the ancient codex and the Vulgate edition [have] word-for-word, "for revelation to the Gentiles." Some others [have], "a light to be revealed to the Gentiles," so that there may be an allusion to the prophecies of Isaiah, chapters IX, XLII, and XLIX. *And returning.* We have deleted "going out" (egrediente) by the authority of the ancient codex.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 16.* Page 235. *For not only.* The promises made to Abraham, and the exultation of the same concerning the prenotion of the future Messiah, also pertain to his descendants and to the nations which were to believe. But when the Messiah Himself came, both through Himself and through His legates, He announced the one God to this world. This, however, Jesus did. Clement of Alexandria interprets this place in the same sense and with almost the same words. He says that God raised up children of Abraham from the stones, when He stirred up justice and the hardness of their hearts, who had turned out harder than stones against the truth, by stirring up a seed of piety toward God, perceiving virtue from those stones—namely, the Gentiles who believed. In the same way also Gaudentius of Brescia, Tract. 2 in *Evang.* *And from our hard ones.* We have added "our" from the ancient codex, and we have retained "hard ones" from all the printed editions, although the ancient codex does not know it. *If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.* Thus the ancient codex. The printed editions have: "If you had known me, you would have known my Father." (The ancient codex agrees with the Vulgate edition, with the Greek letter of the Gospel).
*Annotations of the same on chapter 17.* Page 236. *On account of this the Jews.* The Jews defected at once from God the Father, and they rejected the Word of God, that is, His Son, gradually manifesting Himself to the prophets and creating and ruling all things with the Father and the Holy Spirit. *To Abraham and Aaron.* Tertullian (Lib. *De carne Christi*): "Christ appeared with the angels at Abraham’s house in the truth of flesh, but not yet born, because He was not yet to die." Augustine discusses this same thing copiously.
A
*Notes on Book III Against Maximin, chap. 26.* The old codex does not have "and Aaron."
*For He...* The old codex says: "For He, the Son, who is the Word of God, was already setting forth from the beginning." I retain "was setting forth," because it is familiar to Tertullian and not strange in Irenaeus.
*Which things were made.* Six words were wanting in the printed copies; these are inserted.
*For He uses Him as a minister.* He contends chiefly that God the Father did not need the ministry of angels to create all things, as Simon Magus, Basilides, and certain Jewish rabbis dreamed; since through the Word, as through His wisdom and power, and through the Holy Spirit, as through His goodness, He is abundantly sufficient in Himself to effect whatever He wills. In the same sense I believe many testimonies of the Fathers of that century should be understood; such as Tertullian, when in his book *Against Marcion* he calls the Son "the minister of the Father," and in his book *Against Praxeas*, "the vicar of the divine Father"; and Justin Martyr also in his *Dialogue*, when he calls the Son "a minister to the Father and executor of His decisions." For although these modes of speaking are otherwise harsh, they by no means intend that the Son of God is alien to the Father's nature, or inferior in power; but they point to either the order of the processions or the series of the distinction of the hypostases. Or, finally, they teach that the Deity itself, and at the same time the omnipotence, wisdom, every perfection, and power which the Father possesses of Himself, the Son receives not from Himself but from the Father, and refers all these things to Him as the Author, just as Novatian explains at length toward the end of his book *On the Trinity*. B
Indeed, that the Son is one and the same Cause with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the effector and preserver of the whole world, and not as it were a hollow instrument of the Father produced from Himself (as Luther babbles after the Arians, and the Calvinists vociferate), not only does Irenaeus teach frequently and gravely in the preceding and following chapters; but it is also made manifest by the firmest testimonies of the sacred Scriptures. For He says: "My Father works until now, and I work." And in Proverbs, Wisdom, having been begotten, says: "When He was preparing the heavens, I was there, composing all things with Him." Therefore, whether it is asserted by the Scriptures that "all things were made through Him; that the ages were made through Him; that all things were created in Him and through Him," or whether it is said by the Fathers that the Son ministers to the Father in the creation and governance of the world; this is not to be understood as if He were an organ or instrument distinct from the Agent in nature or power; but merely as a subject produced by the Father Himself, and distinguished by His own property, to whom from eternity, together with the divine majesty and His own essence, He has communicated every power and virtue for acting and perfecting anything whatever. Hence the same Irenaeus in chapter 8 of this book wrote: "He who made all things with His Word is justly called God and Lord." And before him Justin Martyr: "One in truth is the God of this universe, who is recognized in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." And again: "The Word, existing and being born with the Father before creatures, through Him in the beginning created and adorned all things."
*His offspring and configuration.* This is an allusion to the words of Paul: "Who, being the brightness of His glory and the figure of His substance," etc.; and also to these words of Wisdom: "It is the brightness of eternal light, and a mirror without spot of God's majesty." Nor is there any reason why old or new Arians should seek in this place any patronage for their impiety; since, as Theophylact observes after Gregory of Nyssa, by the brightness is shown the unity of essence, by which the Son is coeternal and consubstantial with the Father, just as he who is light is with the brightness; but through the figure is shown equality of nature. C
*Notes on chap. 18.*
P. 236. *But Marcion is vain.* He rightly refutes him in this place, not only because he condemns the Marcionites and Cainites, Abraham and other ancient patriarchs, and bestows heaven upon Cain, the giants, the Sodomites, and similar reprobates; but because, from the illustrious testimonies rendered concerning Him by Christ, the Holy Spirit, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, he proves consistently and evidently that He enjoys the same blessed and everlasting age in the heavens. We have refuted this heresy in a broader dispute in book 1 of the *Appendix Against Heresies*.
*Notes on chap. 19.*
P. 236. *For He was asserting, etc.* Christ, the vindicator and savior of all, but especially of those who are called the seed of Abraham by some excellence, in curing even them on the days of the Sabbath, did not dissolve the law, but fulfilled it; since even on those days the Jews were not prohibited from circumcising infants and having care of their cattle.
*For to contain, etc.* To be idle was not the simple goal of the Sabbath, when even priests occupied themselves on that same day with their ministries in the temple and synagogues; but to abstain entirely from sins, which are truly considered servile works, and to be occupied with good works toward God and neighbor.
*As a man in exile.* He alludes to the law of the Hebrews, which permitted exiles to return home when the high priest died: D and he who is here called a man in exile is only signified as an exile; perhaps in Greek he would not be poorly named a *phygadeutēs*.
*Notes on chap. 20.*
P. 236. *But even the hungry.* Christ clears His disciples from the calumnies of the Pharisees, since the law of the Sabbath did not forbid using food set forth, which David did in urgent necessity from the sacred loaves. Add that the old priests and Levites, who worked on sacred things, plainly designated the apostle and all pious ministers of Christian sacred things.
P. 237. *But David had been known as a priest.* In the same sense David is here called a priest, as his sons are [called] priests, 2 Kings VIII, 18; that is, as men who are princes and primates; for thus Sanctes translates the term *kohanim*, for which the LXX have *iereis*. Or certainly in this particular act, David was equated to the priests because he ate the sacred loaves in urgent necessity. Finally, David can also be called a priest because he proposed to the Levitical priests that sacred hymns be sung, and sang them along with them; and at the same time offered spiritual sacrifices of praise, prayer, and a contrite heart with great religion.
*For all the just.* Melissa transcribed this opinion from Irenaeus by name, but a little differently, in *Serm.* 1, part 1: "Every just king has a priestly order." Irenaeus, however, means that all pious men fulfill a royal and at the same time a priestly office, while they curb the impulses of lascivious flesh by the law of the spirit, and exhibit themselves as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, according to apostolic institution; they also offer alms, and the calves of their lips to God the most good and most great. Augustine explains this acutely in book xx *On the City of God*, chap. 10: "Just as we say all Christians are priests because they are members of the one Priest. Of whom the apostle Peter says: A holy people, a royal priesthood." Furthermore, that there should be no external priesthood that does not equally befit any men, women, cobblers, farmers, butchers, stable-boys, and the most abject of all, was a detestable heresy.
A Of the early Gnostics, as it has already been demonstrated in Book 1, Ch. 9, and in Tertullian in *De Praescriptione*, whom Luther, Calvin, and the rest of the sink of more recent Gnostics have evoked from the underworld in our own age. This impiety is copiously and learnedly refuted by Alphonsus a Castro, in Book X of *Contra haereses*, and by John of Rochester in his book *De sacerdotio*.
*But always at the altar*, etc. Or from this it is truly easy to see that Christians, from the times of Christ, the apostles, the martyrs, and thereafter, kept their altars in the temples, upon which they offered to God the bloodless sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, in perpetual remembrance of his death: which our Irenaeus also confirms in Ch. 34 of this book with these words of Christ: *When you offer your gift at the altar*, etc. Finally, *that God wishes us to offer gifts at the altar frequently*, etc. Now, furthermore, we have treated this passage against heretics from the Scriptures and the Fathers most extensively in the first book of the Appendix, under the heading "Altar."
*Fruit.* We have expunged "factum" on the authority of the ancient codex.
*Wherefore then.* We have restored these five dictions from the ancient codex; just as shortly [we restore] "legem" for "legis."
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on Ch. 20.
Page 237. *To his father and to his mother.* Hence the reading of the Alexandrian codex is confirmed: *τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ*, whereas contrariwise in the editions "τῶν 0', τος αὐτοῦ" is omitted twice.
*I do not seek,* he says, *a gift; but I seek the fruit.* Indeed, Paul speaks of the fruit, not of the fields, such as the Mosaic law gave to the Levites, but of the Christian faith and charity; nevertheless, it seemed that Irenaeus was alluding to that.
B *Every scribe.* Feuardentius inveighs against Gallasius, who had commented on this passage and meaning of Irenaeus. But he omits what primarily serves the defense of Irenaeus, namely, that this mode of arguing from evangelical parables was accepted in that ancient age among heretics and Catholics alike, and that this fourth book is occupied C primarily with this, while clearer sayings of Christ and the arguments derived from them are reserved for Book V, as Irenaeus himself professes at the end of the fourth book and the beginning of the fifth.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Ch. 21.
Page 237. *Of one, therefore, and of the same.* He teaches that there is one author of both Testaments, and one goal and chief aim. For in the Old, the New is promised. Concerning this goal, Augustine says in the Preface to the Psalms, D that whatever is carved out from any divine page has no end except charity. And Bernard: "He holds whatever lies hidden, whatever lies open in the divine discourses, who preserves charity in his morals."
*Therefore, every scribe.* Origen interprets this passage after Irenaeus in such a way that by the new, the oracles of the Gospels and apostles are signified; but by the old, the law and the prophets, which are altogether in agreement with them. This exposition is followed by Chrysostom, Theophylact, and among the Latins, Hilary, Jerome, Augustine in *The City of God* and in *Questions on the New Testament*, and Gaudentius of Brescia in Tract 7. Impudent, therefore, is Gallasius, who, mocking the opinion of the blessed Irenaeus, would rather follow the rhapsodies of the apostate and scoundrel Marloratus than the opinion of such learned and pious Fathers.
*The scribes, however.* Who are called, as it were, scribes and teachers of the apostles here, but who are called "idiotae" (unlearned) in the Acts, Origen explains in the XIIIth chapter of Matthew.
*New, however.* Either he retains the kind of Greek word *νέα διαθήκη*, "New Testament"; or he certainly calls the new conversation according to the Gospel the "New Testament."
His annotations on Ch. 22.
Page 237. *For there is more.* It seems to be a preoccupation, which dissolves the arguments by which Marcionites and other Gnostics, from distorted passages of Scripture, were abusing [the text] to fabricate diverse gods. And first indeed he concedes that the New Testament is far more excellent than the Old, as a greater light [is] to a lesser, a greater abundance of water to a less, and a more potent grace exceeds a meager one: yet this does not bring it about that the Creator of both is one God or another.
Page 238. *We perceive.* In the ancient codex, *percepimus*; I would think it should be read *percipiemus*, as afterwards we have *habebimus, proficiemus, videbimus, exspectabimus*.
*Augment.* We have deleted "cognomentum" on the authority of the ancient codex.
*For in the New Testament.* He teaches that the ancient prophets foresaw and announced those things which were to be in the New Testament; and that Christ and the apostles themselves confirm this as often as they use their figures or testimonies to establish the evangelical doctrine. From this he indeed concludes that he is truly the Christ preached to the world, whom the Father had promised under the law; and thus there is one God, who for different times brought forth different, yet not contrary, precepts. But if you imagine one god and another, and a third, and a fourth, it will be permissible to invent numberless ones.
*By the effect.* In the vet. cod., *perfectum*; we have retained both.
*Terreno indeed.* The ancient codex, *ante terrenum quidem et temporalem regem*, etc. If it pleases, I would esteem the printed reading, via comparison of the king with God, to be an interrogation full of assertion.
*And still.* Vet. cod., *ab hoc*; it seemed best to keep both. Furthermore, the very grave verses of Prudentius will bring not a little light to this place, by which he thus attacks the Marcionites:
*If there are two, therefore, why are there not many thousands of gods? / Why is the deity contained by a twin number? / Was it not better to have poured [it] into peoples / In the gods of the heavens, / And to fill the capable world / With demigods here and there without any distinction?*
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on Ch. 22.
Page 238. *Or because I have been justified.* I think that this interpreter or the ancient scribe added this from the Italic version, to whom this interpretation, inserted in the cited place from I Cor. 4, 4, is evident from the commentary of Hilary and others.
*Diligitis... in whom now seeing.* I gather that Irenaeus read these words, which are otherwise mutilated in the Syriac version and omitted at the beginning of the epistle of St. Polycarp, from this passage and from Book V, Ch. 7; especially since he prefaced it here thus: *In whom (Christ) we also believe; whom we also love, as Peter says*, etc. And so mention of both belief and love occurs in the verse of Peter cited by Irenaeus. Moreover, the ancient Latin version of the epistle of Polycarp also has these words of Peter expressed, as does Clemens Alex. in Greek, lib. IV *Strom.*, p. 525.
*The word of God.* Thus, along with Irenaeus, the Syrian, Persian, and Ethiopic interpreters have it, as well as the Cambridge codex; though the published exemplars of St. Matthew sound *ἐντολήν*, not *λόγον Θεοῦ*.
153 Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Ch. 23.
Page 239. *Well, therefore, and John.* What he recently said, that the prophets foresaw and preached the New Testament, he now makes manifest by the testimony of Christ; from which it follows that they were inspired by his Father: Moses especially, who also clearly predicted the coming, and the day and place of the passion. Furthermore, from the ancient codex we have substituted *Dominum* for *Deum*; then *praeinstruentes* for *praestruentes*.
A Some indeed [add/want]: this ancient codex adds certain things and desires others. We have restored the genuine reading by adding ten words from that source and removing one. Tertullian imitated this passage, contending that it was not the Father, but the Son, who sought Adam in the garden; that He shut the ark after the entry of Noah; that He refreshed Abraham under the oak; that He called to Moses from the bush; and that He punished the whole world with the violence of the waters: book *Against Praxeas*, numbers 11 and 12. And there is no need to recount the number. The Hellenism, for “scarcely, and not even scarcely can it be referred,” as often as it is [mentioned] by Moses, etc.
*Naming the Passover*. Not because Christ suffered on the very day of the most solemn Passover, that is, on the Great Sabbath day, as can be sufficiently gathered from chapter 19 of John; nor because of that very hour in which the lamb was eaten: but at that very time which flowed between the eating of the lamb and the Great Sabbath; which time, by the manner of the Jews, is called the days of the Passover.
From this place it is also thought that Irenaeus judged the word for Passover to be derived from the Greek verb *paschein*, which signifies "to suffer": a view which was certainly common to him with Tertullian in *Against the Jews*, chapter 10; Nazianzen in *Oration 2 on the Passover*; Lactantius, book IV, chapter 26; Arnobius the Roman in his *Conflict with Serapion*, and several others; although it is truly Hebrew, or rather Chaldean, and signifies "passage," whether of the angel striking the Egyptians, according to Jerome; or of the Israelite people passing through the midst of the sea into the desert, as is the opinion of Nazianzen and Augustine. But those ancients who say that Passover is derived from *paschein* were concerned not so much with the etymology of the word itself as with the rationale of the mystery.
*And the extremity of times, and the sign of the setting of the sun*. Thus we have restored it from the ancient codex; the printed editions have, "from the extremity of times, and the sign of the setting of the sun."
*There shall not be lacking a prince in Judah*. It is no wonder that recent Jewish rabbis, because of their innate rage against the Christian religion, deny that this passage is to be understood of Christ Jesus; since even Calvin and Marloratus, plainly Judaizing, having published their blasphemous commentaries among Christians, deny the same thing, writing: "They provide an occasion for the Jews to mock, who too precisely expound these words regarding Jesus Christ: since, they say, the counsel of the Holy Spirit, as to how that promise is to be understood, has not yet been sufficiently examined, nor has it yet been sufficiently distinctly explained." C Must we not therefore rightly reproach the Calvinists, as the Lutherans do, because they Judaize and Turkicize; indeed, because under the false name of Christians and Evangelicals they are far worse than the Jews and Turks themselves? For as many as there have been from Christ down to this age, whether Greek or Latin Fathers, who have discussed that text, they have interpreted it with one mind and spirit as referring to Christ the Lord. Furthermore, the Chaldean Paraphrast, and the ancient rabbis of the Jews, whom our Petrus Galatinus cites, have done the same: which ought to be sufficient for all pious men, whose minds the devil has not yet drawn away from the true faith of Jesus Christ.
*And to the holm-oak (*ilicem*)*. *Hex* is a species of mast-bearing tree, which cannot fit here, since Gen. XLIX has the Latin version *vitem* (vine), and the Hebrew letter *Sorec*, and the LXX have *helix*. Therefore I would read *helicem* with Cyprian, book I *Against the Jews*, chapter 21, according to the correction of Morellius and Pamelius. Ambrose, book *On the Blessings of the Patriarchs*, chapter 4, has *cicilium*; Sanctes translates it *ramum* (branch); the interpreter of Origen, *ad palmitem* (to the shoot).
*He shall wash in wine*. The interpretation of Justin Martyr will illustrate this place of Scripture: "Moses," he says, "signified that those who believe in Him were to be washed by the blood of the Messiah. For the Holy Spirit calls them a garment, who through Him receive remission of sins," receiving [them] as a whole. Furthermore, the blood of the grape signifies that Christ indeed has blood, yet not from human seed, but from the power of God; just as He produced blood from the vine, not through man, but as God. To the same opinion descend Tertullian, IV *Against Marcion*; Origen, homily 17 on Genesis; Clement of Alexandria, book 1 of the *Pedagogue*; Athanasius, question 105 to Antiochus; Chrysostom, homily 67 on Genesis; Theodoret, question 109 on Genesis; Ambrose, book *On the Blessings of the Patriarchs*, chapter 4; and Augustine, XII *Against Faustus*, chapter 42; all of whom Calvin dares to attack and note in his commentaries with a plainly Jewish superciliousness for this reason.
*And your life shall be hanging*. This place concerning the mystery of the cross is interpreted, after Irenaeus, by Cyprian, book II *Against the Jews*, chapter 20; Rufinus in *Exposition of the Creed*; Tertullian, book *Against the Jews*; Athanasius, book *On the Incarnation of the Word*; Augustine, book XII *Against Faustus*, chapter 5; Novatian, book *On the Trinity*; and Lactantius, book IV, chapter 18, whose interpretations we ought to follow, despising the Jewish mockeries of the Calvinists.
*He possessed*. We have struck out *possidet* (possesses) by the authority of the ancient codex and the consensus of the Vulgate edition of the Bible.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 24.*
*Page 239. For whereas.* Ancient prophets both knew, and greatly desired to see, Christ in the flesh, with Him revealing Himself in the Scriptures in many ways through the Holy Spirit, and without any change of Himself bestowing very many benefits upon mortals; and indeed rewarding the grateful more abundantly, but severely punishing the ungrateful.
*Page 240. And the whole substance.* All the printed codices lacked these seven words.
*Promising much not.* The ancient codex does not have the negation, but reads affirmatively: "The Lord Himself promising much." I suspect the place is corrupt, and cannot be restored except by the help of another copy.
*Of His grace*. From the ancient codex we have restored these six words.
*He entering.* Ancient codex, "He entering, all who were," etc.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 25.*
*Page 241. For of the elders themselves.* Even from this Christ demonstrates Himself to be the Son of that God who gave the Law to Moses, because He rebuked and condemned the traditions of the Pharisees that were contrary to it: and He explained and confirmed its first and greatest precept, which is concerning love.
But, because today there is a grave contention as to what kind of traditions these were, which Christ reproved in the cited chapter of the Gospel, and the discussion and definition of the same will bring some light to these two chapters of Irenaeus; let us discuss them a little more amply. These the Hebrews called *Ghezerot Azzekonim*, that is, constitutions of the elders: Christ, in the first place, using the singular number, *ten paradosin ton presbyteron*, "the tradition of the elders," namely that which was concerning the washing of hands: but secondly, using the plural number, *didaskalias kai entalmata anthropon*, "doctrines and commandments of men."
Whichever they were, there is not one opinion among the interpreters. For the Manichaeans, as is found in Epiphanius, wanted all the Scriptures of the Old Testament to be understood by the name of these traditions; the Sadducees, the writings of the other prophets besides Moses; the Ptolemaeans, only the third part of them. But these impieties cannot stand, since Christ most gravely approved and commended the writings of both Moses and the remaining prophets, saying: "Search the Scriptures." "It is necessary that what is written be fulfilled in the law, and prophets, and Psalms." "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them." Paul also from...
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*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 27.* Page 242. *And because the Lord, the natural things of the law.* Christ did not abolish the moral precepts of the law, which are here called natural, but explained them, as is evident in Matthew 5 and 6, teaching that the righteousness of Christians ought in many ways to be better than the righteousness of the Pharisees; and for this reason he called the apostles not servants, but his friends and brothers. However, if you read with the ancient codex, as we have placed in the margin, "before the legislation," the best interpreter of this passage will be Tertullian, in his book *Against the Jews*: "Before the law of Moses," he says, "written on stone tablets, I contend there was a law unwritten, which was understood naturally, and kept by the Fathers. For how was Noah found righteous, if the righteousness of the natural law did not precede him? Whence was Abraham counted a friend of God, if not by the equity and justice of the natural law? Whence was Melchizedek called a priest of the most high God, if there were not, before the priesthood of the Levitical law, those who offered sacrifices to God?" Justin also, in the *Dialogue*, argues with the same points that the Fathers were justified under the law of nature. There is no reason, therefore, why the Magdeburgians should on account of this represent Irenaeus as having a unique flaw. But if you retain the reading of the printed codices, "from the legislation," the sense is also correct. Since the law did not abolish those precepts conforming to nature, but rather explained and confirmed them; by the observation of these, with faith in the coming Messiah, the prophets and Fathers attained true righteousness. It is to be noted that he does not attribute the power of justifying to faith alone, as the Magdeburgians falsely claim. *First, indeed, not only in the Father.* To these two parts, by which he teaches that our righteousness ought to abound over that of the Pharisees, Clement of Rome adds a third in *Constitutions*, Bk. 1, ch. 39, concerning Christians taking greater care for priests, orphans, and widows. *And the unity of God.* Thus we have restored the passage from the ancient codex: others all had B "leads the man to the unity of God." *To serve God.* Thus the ancient codex; the printed copies have "to serving." *Man had become accustomed.* We have expunged "they were accustomed," as the ancient codex is the authority. *Follow God.* We have deleted "indeed," per the authority of the ancient codex.
155. Page 243. *Towards our liberator.* The printed copies have "our liberty." *He liberated us.* Thus we have restored from the ancient codex. The printed codex has "we shall be liberated." *But how much more he loved.* Here he openly teaches that a greater reward is laid up with God for the better works of the saints; and to this point Tertullian, in his book *Scorpiace* against these Gnostics, is even more evident: "How," he writes, "are there many mansions with the Father, if not according to the variety of merits? How will star differ from star in glory, if not according to the diversity of rays?" And Dionysius the Areopagite: "God makes each participant according to the merits of his own light" (*On the Celestial Hierarchy*, ch. 3). And again: "The participation of light itself is varied according to the merits of those who receive it" (ch. 9 of the same book). *This greater.* It was previously "this more." C
*He is, however.* The printed codices read "it is, however." *But as to Abraham himself.* The ancient codex taught this is how it should be read; the printed copies have "he himself." *From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on Chapter 27.* Page 242. *Ancient.* Unless the scribe added this word from the Latin Vulgate, it is confirmed by the authority of Irenaeus, since otherwise it is absent in the Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic versions, and in the Cambridge, Lincoln, and other manuscript codices. Page 243. *Two others.* So also the common interpreter, and certain manuscripts of the Marquis of Veles. Indeed, in the Cambridge codex and in Stephanus 2, "and two" is read. But most copies of the New Testament have simply "two."
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 28.* Page 243. *Of man.* We have expunged "man," as the ancient codex is the authority. *But so that he might have in whom to place his benefits.* Dionysius delivers this same rationale for the whole world being made, in ch. 4 of *Celestial Hierarchy*: "For it is the property of the cause of all and of excellent goodness," he says, "to invite and draw all things that exist to a participation in itself," etc. Nor does Lombard write less piously or elegantly that God made a rational creature, which would understand the highest good, love it by understanding, and possess it by loving, and enjoy it by possessing. *For not only before Adam.* He asserts here the co-eternity of the Son with the Father, and does so frequently elsewhere: wherefore it must have been an impure sycophant, Servetus, who thought that by denying this, he would have this martyr favor him. *But not the benefit.* The ancient codex has: "but not receiving the benefit from them." *Inasmuch as.* The printed codices have "how much"; I have restored "inasmuch as," with the letter *p* after "permanere" for "manere"; then "ad-" for "adhuc," by the authority of the ancient codex. Page 244. *For all.* This passage of Isaiah is stated somewhat differently here in the Latin Vulgate edition thus: "And everyone who calls upon my name, for my glory I have created him, I have formed him, and I have made him." *These things, therefore, because, etc.* Here we have begun a new period, against the faith of all the printed codices. *Who are needy.* The ancient codex has "are needy"; the printed copies have "the needy": we use "needy" from both, not badly. Thus a little above, "man is in need of communion with God," etc. *Giving guidance.* In Greek, *hodegysin*, leading by the hand, showing the way; so that it may be an allusion to these words of the Psalmist: "You led your people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron" (Ps. 76:21). *Spiritual.* The ancient codex has "following": Paul's letter teaches us that both should be read, *epinon gar ek pneumatikēs akolouthousēs petras*, that is, "for they drank," the Vulgate adds "but from the spiritual following rock"; and so Ambrose reads in his *Commentary* and Augustine in his twelfth book *Against Faustus*, ch. 29. D
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on Chapter 28.* Page 244. *I have prepared, and formed, and made him.* So also the Alex. codex, commonly, "I prepared him, and I formed, and I made." But the Vatican codex, according to the Hebrew, adds "him" to these three verbs individually. *And the eagle.* I do not know whether the scribe added "and" from the Latin Vulgate, or whether Irenaeus himself read "and which," as it is indeed written in the Cambridge codex and in one of the New and Lincoln College codices. *For indeed the many waters, the Spirit of God.* "Many waters," that is, manifold and of a diverse kind, he interprets mystically of the diverse operations of the Holy Spirit, and the diverse laws given through the Holy Spirit, partly in the Old, partly in the New Testament; having taken, as it seems, the occasion from John 7:38 sqq., or other similar passages. *Law consistent and apt for every condition.*
A Justin in the *Dialogue*. The words of Tertullian are: "In the institution of sacrifices, that divine care is manifest by which He wished to bind a people prone to idolatry and transgression to the duties of His own religion, by which the superstition of the age was being practiced, so that He might recall them from it, commanding that these things be done for Him, as if He were in need, so that they might not sin by making images." [/A]
Writing, etc. Theodoret B has similar things in his *Haereticarum fabularum compendium*, book v, chapter 17, the title of which is: *That the Old and New Testament were given by the same one*, where at page 291, volume IV, he writes thus: "The Master Christ gave fitting laws to each generation. For the necessary and primary things, and those which belong to the nature of men, He inscribed... but others He gave differently in each generation." *Christ the Lord gave laws suitable to each generation. For the necessary and primary ones He inscribed in the nature of men.* Which are consonant with the following words of Irenaeus: "In the first place, through natural precepts which from the beginning He implanted in men... but others He gave in various ways in any given generation." He himself indeed is in need of none of these... but He was training a people who were easily turned back to idols. Thus also Justin M. in the *Dialogue with Trypho*, page 238: "On account of the sins of your people, and because of idolatries, and not because He was in need of such offerings, He commanded these things to be done." For the sins of your people, and on account of the worship of idols, and not at all because He has need of offerings of this kind, did He ordain that these things be done. Confer the same, page 265, as well as Tertullian, book II *Against Marcion*.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 29. Page 214. *But when they were converted.* The Hebrews, abusing their freedom, are restrained by the servitude of the law, having received ceremonies by the virtue of which they were not justified; but they were recalled from the worship of idols; and furthermore, they received certain things on account of the hardness of their hearts.
Page 245. *Not good precepts.* That is, precepts concerning rites, new moons, sacrifices, and festivals, which (as we say in the schools) did not justify *ex opere operato* by their own power, nor did they bring those who observed them to perfection: but were shadows of good things to come.
*And they offered.* So the old codex. The printed editions have, *and they took*.
*Moloch.* Jerome, in his *Hebrew Questions* on the book of Paralipomenon and in chapter XXXII of Jeremiah, says that Moloch was an idol of the Ammonites, and that in the Hebrew language it signifies "king," which he adds in chapter XVI of Isaiah and chapter V of Amos, and that Aquila and the LXX in Greek rendered it C *archontem* (ruler/king). The history of Kings relates that Solomon built a temple for this one in Judea. I would suppose that he presided over the generation of others, because in his honor they were accustomed, with a murderous superstition, to purify infants by fire, and also to burn some.
*The star of God Remphan.* The old codex lacks the word "God"; however, the LXX and the Vulgate edition have it: the Hebrew Verity has "of your gods." The LXX has *Raiphan*; Theodotion has *amaurōsin* (a darkening), i.e., they turn it into "obscurity."
*They had said to Him.* Thus the old codex; we have deleted "had said to them."
*And for this sin.* He does not mean that Moses gave the precept concerning the repudiation of a wife simply: for that is entirely repugnant to the first institution of marriage, nor was it ever commanded by God or by Moses, as Augustine has argued copiously in Book I of *The Lord's Sermon on the Mount*, Book I of the *Retractations*, chapter 19, and Book XIX *Against Faustus*, chapter 26. Not, I say, was it a precept, but merely a permission to avoid a greater evil, namely uxoricide. And for one who absolutely wished to put away his wife, it was a precept that he should give her a bill or scroll of divorce, written by the scribes with many rites.
*Observing the decalogue.* The old codex has: "may they be observers of the decalogue, and held by it," which we have restored from all the codices, as the letter stands now.
*They would not return to idolatry.* That this was not the final reason for the law given and the Mosaic institutions, many and illustrious men have taught along with Irenaeus, [including] Clement of Rome, book VI of the *Constitutions*, chapter 20.
D And that which was always free. Again, he clearly shows that the freedom of the human will was not entirely abolished by sin, against the impieties of the earlier and later Gnostics, who, that they might make God the author of evils, do not fear to write that all things come to pass by absolute necessity, as the poet willed: *All things stand fixed by law.*
These words are from Luther's article 36, among those which Leo X condemned; and which John Fisher, a bishop distinguished by his doctrine, piety, and martyrdom, refuted most copiously and bitterly.
Gallasius here again rises up against Irenaeus and the whole Catholic Church, and accuses it of Pelagianism, because it teaches that the free will remains intact after sin, and cooperates with the grace of God, so that in some part it is a cause of its own salvation; ignorant, or certainly wretchedly dissembling, that the words of Paul are: "We are God's coworkers"; and of Peter: "With fear and trembling working out your own salvation."
But it is a good thing that even now, in his extreme old age, he begins to be wiser and to contradict his fellow ministers in this matter, Beza. For in Book I of his *Questions and Responses*, which he dedicates to Joachim Camerarius, he asserts that man is *synergos* (a co-worker) of the first grace; and adds that he who denies this, denies the efficacy of the first grace. The ministers of Wittemberg defend the same thing most aptly from the sentiments of the ancients; and there they conclude that "in the justification of man, three things concur at once, namely, the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and the will of man assenting to the same Word of God." And thus, the impudence of Gallasius is refuted and condemned even by his fellow ministers. But, just as above we touched upon the things that pertained to Catholic doctrine and faith regarding this matter from the apostolic Fathers of the first century in chapter 9 of this book; so also now other things from Christian writers of the second century seem to be subjoined. Cyprian, in epistle 18, teaches that Christ kept the law, by which man, left to his own freedom and constituted in his own will, seeks for himself either death or salvation, when he did not get angry at certain disciples who were turning back, but rather said to the apostles: "Do you also wish to go away?" And in the book *On the Unity of the Church*, he says that heresies arise from this, when the Lord permits and allows it, the arbitrium of one's own freedom remaining in men. Again, in the book *To Quirinus*, chapter 52, he proves that the freedom of believing or not believing is placed in the will, because it is written in Deuteronomy: "Behold, I have set before your face life and death, good and evil; choose for yourself life, that you may live." Also in Isaiah: "If you are willing and hear me, you shall eat the good things of the earth." I pass over what the author of the sermon *On the Nativity of Christ* writes about him regarding this matter, and the book *On the Singularity of Clerics*.
Let Origen follow Cyprian. He says in homily 9 on *Numbers*: "Our sense can choose good things, so that it becomes a vessel for honor; or evil and earthly things, so that it becomes a vessel for dishonor." And in homily 12 in the same: "Israel, what does the Lord God ask of you, but that you fear Him?" Let those blush at these words who deny free will in man. How would God ask, unless man had in his own power that which he should offer to God who is asking? The same in homily 20: for the mind is of free will, and it is free for it to decline into whatever part it wills, and therefore God's judgment is just, because of its own accord, whether good things, or evil things...
A a man. And this is confirmed by the examples of very many of the Fathers, who were justified without the observance of circumcision or other ceremonies. This very thing is also urged by Justin Martyr in his *Dialogue*, because women were not subjected to it; yet whatever pertained to justice and salvation should have been common to both sexes. Tertullian also argues thus: "Why did God not circumcise Adam after he had sinned, if circumcision purges?" And afterwards: "This was God's providence in giving circumcision to Israel, as a sign by which he could be distinguished." Subscribing to this opinion, Chrysostom says: "Circumcision contributes nothing to the virtue of the soul, but is done only for the sake of a sign. For those things are truly the soul's goods that come from choice; but to receive a sign in the flesh, what good work would that be?" And the same author afterwards: "There was no utility from circumcision other than this single one, that by this sign the Jews could be recognized and set apart from other nations." Finally, in his 7th homily on the Epistle to the Romans, he clearly contends that it had no power even in an excellent life. I refrain from citing other authors. B
But the whole school of Scholastic Fathers seems to conflict with this opinion, contending with their prince, St. Thomas, that circumcision bestowed upon Hebrew infants all those things that the baptism of Christians now provides to infants (with the sole exception of entrance into the kingdom of heaven), upon the accession of faith and hope in Christ who was to come. Nor are they lacking in very many and most powerful reasons for the confirmation of this assertion, which can be sought from their writings. I merely submit the testimonies of certain ancients and the decrees of the Catholic Church. Bernard, primarily comparing baptism to circumcision and as it were dissolving Chrysostom's argument, says: "Just as now baptism bestows salvation upon infants without any use of the will, so then circumcision brought salvation to infants without any election of the will." And the Venerable Bede, who preceded him by some centuries, wrote in ch. 11 of Luke: "Circumcision in the Law acted against the wound of original sin as an aid of salutary healing, just as baptism has been accustomed to act in the time of revealed grace, except that they could not yet enter the gate of the heavenly kingdom." There is added the supreme pontiff of the Church, Gregory, C asserting that the mystery of circumcision for those who sprang from the stock of Abraham effected that which the water of baptism avails for us. But above and beyond all these things, Augustine clearly teaches that circumcision, from the time it was instituted in the people of God, availed for the purging of original and ancestral sin, just as baptism began to avail for the renewal of man from the time it was instituted. What is clearer and firmer than this regarding the virtue and efficacy of circumcision? Was not the sign, therefore, clearly valid and practical?
Let us add, moreover, these two testimonies of Gregory and Augustine, long since included among the decrees of the Catholic Church, and most recently approved by Gregory XIII with these inscriptions printed at Rome and published thence: "Just as now in baptism, so formerly in circumcision sins were remitted." Item: "Original sin is now remitted in baptism; formerly it was remitted in circumcision." Finally, Gregory IX reports in the *Decretals* that Innocent III sanctioned by his decree that, even if original fault was remitted through the mystery of circumcision, and the danger of damnation was avoided, nevertheless one did not arrive at the kingdom of heaven. This does not detract from its power, but rather attributes to circumcision an extraordinary efficacy, albeit less than that of baptism. D
A Having thus established and proven these points, it remains for us to satisfy the arguments of the contrary opinion. Irenaeus clarifies his position first by saying that circumcision was not the consummation of justice, inasmuch as it did not lead directly into the heavens, since the price of human redemption had not yet been paid by the death of Christ. He adds, however, that it was not an idle sign, as if it had been given by a wise architect. Therefore, it was an efficacious and operative sign. The fathers who preceded Abraham were not justified by it, because it had not yet been instituted; nor indeed was Abraham himself made just by it, since he was pleasing and acceptable to God long before, through his faith and obedience. Nor is the argument of the Blessed Justin particularly pressing, since God had a different plan for the salvation of women, having explicitly bound only the masculine sex to this law. With the Chrysostom at D, Bernard, it has been sufficiently dealt with.
But according to the flesh. The same reasons for circumcision and the Sabbaths may be seen in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue and in Tertullian’s book Against the Jews. Philo the Jew, in his book On Circumcision, states that it was instituted by God for six reasons, four of which he offers as physical and two as mystical. Lactantius, in book V, ch. 17, explains this along with the others, that it signified that the heart must be stripped, that is, that we must live with an open and simple heart, because that part of the body which is circumcised has a certain resemblance to the heart. B Furthermore, Irenaeus, by adding that this circumcision according to the flesh prefigured the spiritual circumcision, refutes the error of certain Catabaptists who maintain that baptism by no means succeeded the circumcision of the ancients, so as to eventually remove both from the middle. But indeed, the words of the Apostle which are adduced express this entirely: "You are circumcised," they say, "with a circumcision not made by hand in the stripping of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, being buried with him in baptism" (Col. II, 11-12). Therefore, baptism is called the circumcision of Christ, and it is a spiritual circumcision, as the truth followed after the shadow of the ancient and carnal circumcision. Thus Justin also in the Dialogue affirms that baptism is the spiritual circumcision, of which that external one was a type. Athanasius also writes: "Circumcision was a figure of the sloughing off [of sins], which are put off through baptism." And a little later: "Abraham received circumcision as a token and mark of his regeneration, which is accomplished through baptism." Epiphanius, in refuting Cerinthus, affirms that the circumcision of the flesh served for a time, until the greater circumcision, that is, the Laver of regeneration, arrived. Finally, Augustine professes that circumcision and baptism are of the same nature. Moreover, Christ instituted baptism in His Church in place of the ancient circumcision. It is certain, therefore, both from the Apostle and from the consensus of the ancients, that baptism has been substituted by divine ordinance in the place and order of circumcision.
But it was manifested. He teaches that the ancient Sabbath signified two things. First, that we must at all times be free for God; second, that most happy and blessed rest which we await in the heavens after the miseries and struggles of this life. And this is the intelligible Sabbath, says Hesychius, of which Paul speaks: "Therefore, a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God," which the seventh day signifies, on which God rested. Regarding this, see Augustine at the end of the last book of The City of God.
And because not through these things. Tertullian has these same words in his book Against the Jews, from where they seem to have been taken.
He held a divine legation to the angels. The old codex does not have the name "of God." Otherwise, this passage will be difficult and obscure unless you understand the "angels" as the princes of men, whose wicked lusts Moses describes under the name of the sons of God in Genesis VI, to whom Enoch was sent as a messenger and herald; and thus it is correctly interpreted, in my judgment, by Theodoret, Cyril, and Lyranus. Suidas thinks that the sons of God are not inappropriately called Enos, Enoch, and other descendants of Seth, the son of Adam, since Seth obtained the surname of God among those who lived at that time because of the Hebrew letters he discovered, the naming of the stars, and his remarkable piety. He writes, therefore, that many of them, overcome by lust, had relations with the daughters of Cain. But if someone were to contend that this passage should be understood regarding unclean spirits, of whom Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Athenagoras, Cyprian, Methodius, and most other classical authors think that, having been drawn by the form of women, they gave themselves over to the foul pleasures of the flesh; it is a singular opinion, rather to be ignored than embraced, or impudently agitated, which Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine thought originated from the books published under the name of Enoch: cf. On the Apparel of Women, homily 28 on Numbers, book XV of The City of God, ch. 23.
And he was translated, and is preserved. That he is being preserved in the same paradise where Adam had been placed, with the same body with which he had lived, is what he writes he received from the tradition of the presbyters who had heard the apostles, later in book V. So many support this opinion that it would be a matter of religious awe for me to depart from it, especially when he openly says in Ecclesiasticus ch. XLIV the Latin Sirach (for the Greek varies): "Enoch pleased God, and was translated into paradise; and the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews: 'By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God translated him.'" The Babylonian Targum also agrees, interpreted by Fagius: "Enoch walked in the fear of the Lord; and he was not, because the Lord did not let him die." Philo the Jew, in his book On the Life of the Wise, rightly judges that God translated him, not through death, but through separation from the company and the throng of wicked men, to a retreat of virtue unknown to the common people.
These Hebrews are therefore wrong, and certain Latins who follow them, when they interpret this rapture as his premature death. For although I willingly admit that his life on earth was only 365 years, and he did not reach half the age of his ancestors or descendants; but he was taken suddenly from the middle course of this life, and by an unusual example from the sight of men, as we read of Elijah: yet not in such a way that, death having intervened, he was reduced to ashes like others in his body.
But where he was translated, and where he dwells, or by what foods he is sustained, or what clothing he wears, Chrysostom thinks it is superfluous to inquire. Among those questions that do not pertain to faith, Augustine judges that where he was translated is known to God, as Cyprian or any other author of the treatise On the Mountains of Sinai and Sion has proclaimed. Theodoret, in question 45 on Genesis, thinks it is to be venerated rather than investigated. Agreeing with the opinion of Irenaeus are the History of Nicodemus concerning the death and resurrection of the Lord, which is circulated; Tertullian in his book On the Soul; Methodius in his Revelations; Epiphanius, heresy 64; Augustine in his book IX On Genesis according to the literal meaning, ch. 6, and book I On the merits and forgiveness of sins, ch. 3; in his treatise on the Antichrist, and almost all later orthodox writers. That he was snatched into heaven, that is, through the ether, and assumed, is taught by Ambrose in book VI, ch. 3 of On Paradise, and Gregory in homily 29 on the Gospels; and all believe that he will come and fight against the Antichrist.
Page 247. And it had been extinguished in Egypt. Rabbi Moses and Elias Levites, as the most learned Genebrardus gathers from their writings in his Chronicles, maintain that the Israelites...
A constantly retained the Hebrew language, the habit of their nation, and the ancestral names; but that they flagitiously deserted the most holy faith and religion of the patriarchs, with the sole exception of the tribe of Levi, which, through its perseverance in it, earned for itself the dignity of the priesthood.
*Et cibavit.* We have expunged *cibavi*; and we have replaced *vivit* for *vivet* by the authority of the old manuscript.
*From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on chapter 30.* Page 246. *Accepit mensuras mundi.* As I ponder what these "measures of the world of the second generation" might be—that is, as if of a newly created world—various things occur to me, with which I do not wish to detain the reader. The genuine sense, if I am not mistaken, will be supplied by these words of Epiphanius in the *Ancoratus*, no. 114, concerning Noah: *Διαμερίζει μὲν, ὡς κληρονόμος τοῦ κόσμου καταστὰς ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ, τοῖς τρισὶν υἱοῖς αὐτοῦ τὸν πάντα κόσμον, ὑπὸ κλήρους διελὼν, καὶ ἑκάστην μερίδα κατὰ κλῆρον ἑκάστῳ ἀπονέμων.* "As if established by God as heir of the world, he distributed the whole world among his three sons, dividing it by lots, and assigning each portion to each according to lot."
*Ad angelos.* Meaning that they consorted with women while in human form; for which act, just as they did unto men, Enoch, as a minister of God, denounced the divine judgment, which followed soon after; hence he is soon called a B "witness of the just judgment of God."
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 31.* Page 247. *Et erga Deum dilectionem præcipiebat.* The old manuscript taught that it should be read thus; the printed editions have *erga Deum dilectionem præsciebat*. It seems this beginning should have been separated only by a division from the preceding chapter. Furthermore, he shows that God, by the most excellent right, demanded in particular the love of Himself and of one's neighbor through the observance of the Decalogue, since He desired not to profit Himself, but us. And therefore Christ, by His coming, did not abrogate it, but explained and amplified it; yet He released us from the precepts of ceremonies and legal judgments.
*Insinuabat.* The printed manuscripts have *insinuabatur*, which Erasmus also followed.
*Indigente.* So the old manuscript; the printed editions have *indigentiæ*.
*Ex toto corde tuo, et.* We have added these five words from the old manuscript.
*Præstabant.* Thus, instead of *præstabat*, the old manuscript taught us to substitute this.
*Largiter donans.* We have expunged *largitur*.
*Reddemus rationem.* We have deleted *reddimus* by the authority of the old manuscript.
*Qui et libertatis.* He confirms again that the freedom of the human will, even after the commission of sin, remains. See above, chapters 9 and 29, and below, chapters 71 and 72, 75 and 76 of this fourth book.
*Sed ad approbationem.* The printed manuscripts have *sed ad propitiationem*.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 52.* Page 247. *Quoniam autem.* He proves from Samuel, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others, that God does not need sacrifices; rather, He demands the prompt obedience of the heart, contrition, praise, invocation, purity of mind, faith, mercy, beneficence, and similar spiritual sacrifices, by which He is more properly honored and worshipped. Therefore, He rejected Jewish offerings, but established and delivered the new offering of the New Testament of His own body and blood, to be offered throughout the whole world and among all nations.
*Et rursus.* Augustine discusses these same things, relying on the same scriptures and arguments, most fully in *De Civitate Dei*, book 10, chapter 5.
*Auditus bonus.* A Hellenism thus explained in the Latin Vulgate edition: "Obedience is better than a sacrifice; and to hearken, rather than to offer the fat of rams." [1 Kings 15:22]
Page 248. *Dedissem utique.* The Greek context of the Psalms teaches that it should be read thus; and it is manifest from his commentary or paraphrase that Arnobius the Younger read it this way a thousand years ago.
*Ab oculis meis.* Thus the old manuscript. The printed editions have *coram oculis*.
*Hæc eorum sacrificia.* We have expunged *cæcorum* by the authority of the old manuscript.
*Quascunque.* We have deleted *quæcunque*.
Page 249. *Ne dilexeritis.* So the old manuscript; the printed editions have *ne dixeritis*.
*Misericordiam volo, et non sacrificium, nunquam condemnassetis innocentes.* The old manuscript taught that it should be read thus; the printed editions have: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice; you would never have condemned the innocent." [cf. Matt. 12:7]
*Sed et quis discipulis.* As for this truly illustrious and open passage in support of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the later Gnostics attempt and dare, either by wicked impiety to distort it, or by notable fraud to corrupt it, or finally with Satanic audacity to deny it. C Gallasius, in such light of words, does not blush to affirm that the ancient Christians were ignorant of the sacrifice of Christ’s body in the celebration of the Eucharist; moreover, the Magdeburgians do not fear to write that the Fathers of this and the following century had no other sacrifices, nor offered anything else to God, than invocation and thanksgiving. But soon, forgetful of themselves or condemned by their own judgment, they confess that Ignatius teaches to the Smyrneans about the offerings and the immolation of the sacrifice; and they reluctantly admit that Irenæus also speaks in this place—if indeed it is vacant of fraud or error (for so the good men say, in order to elevate the gravity of this statement)—somewhat inconveniently concerning the oblation. Finally, they maintain that these things are to be understood not of the oblation of the consecrated bread, but of that which is still to be consecrated for the use of the Lord's Supper.
We shall set forth the genuine reading and understanding of the passage, and demonstrate that all who lived during the course of this and the previous century, with Irenæus, truly believed, recognized, and performed the true oblation of Christ’s flesh in the Eucharist, according to the revelation, institution, and command of the same Lord. The manuscripts all agree, whether printed at Basel, Lausanne, or Paris. The reading of our old manuscript is: *"Sed uti ipsi nec infructuosi, neque ingrati sint, eum qui est ex creatura panis, accepit, et gratias egit, dicens: Hoc est meum corpus. Et calicem similiter, qui est ex creatura, quæ est secundum nos, suum sanguinem confessus est."* The rest agree.
By these five points he teaches with such evidence that it must be the work of the dark and impious either not to see or to dissimulate it. First, that Christ confesses bread and wine to be His body and blood with certain words, which Irenæus explains more openly below in chapter 34, and in the same book. Secondly, that He not only gave His disciples the counsel to offer to God the first fruits from created things, but also taught the new oblation of the New Testament, when He said of the bread: "This is my body," and confessed the cup to be His blood. [Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19] Afterward, that God in no way needs this oblation, but that men need it, so that as supreme Creator and excellent Redeemer, they may repay as much gratitude as they can for benefits, and gain for themselves more abundant fruits—namely, of the Lord's death—by this unbloody oblation. Next, that the Church offers this kind of oblation of the body and blood of Christ throughout the whole world, as it received it from the apostles, and they from Christ. Finally, that Malachi, one of the twelve minor prophets, had prophesied concerning this oblation which takes place in the Eucharist. D
A But in order to show that this was the doctrine and faith of all the Fathers of that century, against the denial of Gallasius and the Magdeburg Centuriators, I shall begin from Cyprian as I ascend to those prior. "When," he says, "in the sacrifices we make prayer with many, and with your crowns and praises, we ask for the full favor of the Lord;" epist. 4, which is to Moses and Maximus the priests, and the other confessors. He further considers that one a schismatic, an enemy of the altar, and a rebel against the sacrifice of Christ, who, having abandoned the bishops "and the priests of God, dares to set up another altar," epist. 7. He teaches that consciences are purged by the sacrifice and the hand of the priest, epist. 14. That priests daily celebrate the sacrifices of God, and prepare hosts and victims for God, epist. 17. He reports and approves that his predecessors, the bishops, had long ago religiously ordained that no one should be named at the altar of God for the protection or care of a cleric, nor should a sacrifice be celebrated for his falling asleep, epist. 27. He wishes the clergy and people of his diocese to remember that he had always offered sacrifices for the departed, epist. 62. He reproves those who, in sanctifying the Lord's cup and ministering it to the people, did not do that which "Jesus our Lord, the author and teacher of this sacrifice, had done," and had taught, namely, to mix water with the wine first, epist. 68. He pursues the same point, that "our Lord offered bread and wine, his own body and blood, namely, while dining, so that He might fulfill the type of Melchisedech, and so that we could drink the blood of Christ, which had been offered, and He had drunk it first; and that the priest, on the altar, acts in the place of Christ, and offers a true and full sacrifice to God the Father, in commemoration of the passion of His Only-Begotten." The same person again forbids one who has been admitted to the Lord's sacrifice to be entangled further in the snares of the devil, epist. 97. He complains that the grace of offering and celebrating divine sacrifices was denied by the tyrants to the martyrs and confessors condemned to the mines, epist. 99.
C Let Tertullian follow Cyprian, with whose writings he was so greatly delighted. He records that Christians made oblations for the dead, for birthdays, on the annual day, in the book *De corona militis*. He records that penitents were accustomed to kneel to the dear ones of God (among whom they were undoubtedly sacrificing), in the book *De pœnitentia*. He counts that these are the three offices of the priests: to teach, to baptize, and to offer, in the book *De velandis virg.* He forbids women to go out into public unless either an infirm brother is to be visited, or a sacrifice is offered, "or the word of God is administered," in the book *De cultu feminarum*. He considers that marriage between Christians is fortunate, which the Church joins, "and the oblation confirms," lib. II *Ad uxorem*. Where there is no greater consensus of the ecclesiastical order, he acknowledges that the priest has the right to baptize and to offer; and he urges the husband to render annual oblations for the spirit of his wife, in the book *De exhort. ad castitatem*. He similarly exhorts the widow to offer for the soul of her deceased husband on the annual days of his falling asleep, in the book *De Monog.*
D 159 To these is added Clement of Alexandria, who condemns the heresies of the Hydroparastatae because they did not use bread and wine in the oblation according to the rule of the Church. He teaches elsewhere that Melchisedech, priest of the most high God, gave bread and wine as a type of the Eucharist; he also commands us, washed, clean, and radiant, to proceed to sacrifices and prayers.
Justin Martyr in his *Dialogue* says that the Eucharist, which Jesus Christ our Lord handed down to posterity in memory of His passion, and so that we might give thanks to God both for creation and for redemption, was typified by the sacrifice which Leviticus commands to be offered for those cleansed of leprosy; he soon adds that the same thing had been clearly foretold by Malachi in chapter 1; A and now, by the tradition of Jesus Christ, [it is celebrated] among Christians throughout the whole world as a sacrifice of bread and the cup acceptable to God the Father. Likewise, in his first *Apology*, he explains the rite and form of this same sacrifice in a few, yet most weighty, sentiments.
But to associate with these four, not long after the apostles were born, as many of their equals and hearers: Clement of Rome desires that deacons be intent on the oblation of the Eucharist, ministering to the body of the Lord with fear; and that the people standing by pray in silence while the sacrifice is performed, lib. II *Const. apost.*, c. 61. That a bishop who is a stranger in another diocese can offer the Eucharist, book of the same, c. 62. He commands every believer to frequent the holy assemblies on the Lord's Day, since the reading of the prophets, the preaching of the Gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice, and the distribution of the holy food take place on that very day, c. 63, and lib. VIII, c. 31. He also encourages Christians after the fasts of Preparation and the night-vigil of the great Sabbath to that sacrifice to be offered, concerning which the Lord commanded, saying: "Do this in my commemoration;" on the day of the Lord's resurrection, lib. V, c. 20. He advises them to offer the antitype of the kingly body of Christ and the acceptable Eucharist in churches and cemeteries, lib. VI, c. 50. He calls that oblation the "pure and unbloody host, and the mystery of the new testament, which Christ instituted," lib. VI, c. 3. I shall pass over what he subjoins to the same effect in chapters 17, 18, 19, 24, 34, and 52 of the same eighth book. I shall neglect, moreover, those things which are in epist. 2 to James the brother of the Lord, and epist. 3, which is on the office of the priest and the clergy; again in canon 3, 4, 18, which he gathered into one body from the apostles; and from countless things, I shall adduce some from that Dionysius, whom the blessed Paul bathed in the holy waters and at the same time instructed in Christian laws. He, in chapter 3 of *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, calls the Eucharist the "oblation of the saving host, the more excellent sacrifice, the highest and most venerable celebration of divine things, the holy mysteries, and to be received with all worthy veneration, the sum of all sacraments, the divine and most august sacrament," with great religion; and [he notes] that the pontiff, after the praises of divine works (which we call the preface), because he sacrifices the saving host, excuses himself and cries out to God, doing as he said: "You said: Do this in my commemoration," etc.
The most courageous martyr and most worthy, Ignatius, who succeeded Peter in the Antiochene see as third, teaches in his *Epist. ad Smyrnenses* that it is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize, to offer, or to slay a sacrifice, οὔτε δοχὴν ἐπιτελεῖν, which Perionius rendered with the ancient interpreter, "to celebrate the mass." The same, in *Epist. ad Ephes.*, calls him a wolf hiding under sheep's clothing who is separated from the bishop and does not convene in the assembly of the sacrifices and the church.
Martialis, who testifies that he saw Christ performing miracles and adored Him ascending into heaven, says: "The sacrifice is offered to God the creator on the altar, not to man or angel; and it is offered not only on the sanctified altar but everywhere as bread, as is testified; whose body and blood we offer for life," etc. And a little later: "What the Jews offered through envy, thinking they could abolish His name from the earth, we propose on the sanctified altar for the cause of our salvation, knowing that by this remedy alone life is to be granted to us and death to be avoided; for the Lord Himself commanded us to do this in His commemoration."
With no curses and execrations, therefore, could anyone sufficiently detest, and with no lashes and worthy punishments could one justly chastise, that prodigious and pernicious lie of the later Gnostics...
A who shamelessly chatter that the ecclesiastical Fathers of the first centuries did not acknowledge the oblation of the Lord’s body in the Eucharist; since they merit indeed eternal and the most grievous of all hellish punishments.
Nor can I in this place omit, nor ought I, that Satan, the parent of all heresies and the most infested enemy of the truth, was the author and instigator of the first adversaries and opponents of this most holy sacrament and unbloody sacrifice, in order that they might attack it with all their might, blaspheme against it, and utterly abolish it. For it is not to be doubted that the Capernaites, the first contemptors and mockers of this sacrament while it was being promised by Christ in a sermon, were incited and moved to that impiety by that legion of demons which inhabited the fringes of these men. And Judas the traitor, on whose occasion Christ said to the twelve apostles at the end of the sermon: "There are some among you who do not believe," was beyond doubt blinded by a certain demon, lest he should believe as true or possible that which Christ had promised for certain: "The bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." The evangelists, noting this, report that the same Christ said to the same twelve: "One of you is a devil," meaning Judas. Furthermore, that "Satan had entered" into that same traitor who was communicating with this perfidy, and did not leave until he had dragged him with him to eternal destruction. And thus, with the most holy Eucharist, began the origin of hostilities and contradictions from the prince of darkness.
And although, after these enemies were suppressed by Christ, the universal Church throughout the world had remained in the true faith and doctrine concerning the sacrament and sacrifice of the Eucharist in peace for more than a thousand years, at length in Gaul, Satan found a minister and satellite suitable for his lies, through whom he might renew the war against both. I speak of Berengarius, who was the first to deny that the true body and blood of Christ are really present to us in the Eucharist to be offered and eaten. Nor was this, as we B maintain, without the counsel and work of Satan. For Vincent of Beauvais, a marvelous explorer of antiquity, has left it written in his *Speculum historiale* that a horrible and huge demon appeared frequently between Berengarius himself and his listeners while he was holding forth on his heresy against the Eucharist. Others also report that the blessed Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, being at the point of death, ordered that Berengarius be driven from his chamber because he perceived that a most terrible demon was always present with him. Such is the progenitor of the Sacramentarians and Misoliturgists.
Furthermore, Albarus, Amsdorf, and others write concerning Luther, their teacher, that he was the first of all the men of this age, indeed, who attacked the papist doctrine concerning transubstantiation and the unbloody sacrifice of the Eucharist: which we concede to them not unwillingly. But by whose authority and counsel he did it, I ask and beseech all the pious to consider attentively. Certainly, Gesner and the Tigurines do not doubt this; hence Daniel Tossanus in his *Libellus consolatorius*, and the Neostadian Sacramentarians in their *Pandora*, testify before all mortals that he "moved this controversy at the instigation of an evil spirit." Moreover, as Schlüsselburg recorded in his writings, Beza, from the infernal base of the Wittenbergers, wrote that Luther frequently erred in his judgment regarding these sacramental controversies, in his *Book of Epistles*, folio 275. The same man again cites the words of Calvin from his final admonition to Westphal, in which he calls the Lutheran doctrine concerning the Supper a fiction of the devil C which the devil has fascinated in a horrible manner. And again Beza, in his *Creophagia*, folio 23, says: "They are moved by the spirit of Satan, not of Christ." From which it is clear that it was most firmly believed by the Sacramentarians, and even to this day still is, that Luther in the Eucharistic matter had wholly obeyed the breathing of an evil spirit.
But the Lutherans will either elevate the perverse judgments and false testimonies of these men, as if they were his enemies, or they will rebut them as altogether false and sycophantic. But what if we prove the same thing by the words and writings of Luther himself, even those printed by the same Lutherans and published throughout the world? They certainly will not be able to refute them as either a lie or a fraud. Behold, therefore, his own words, first written against the Mass, which he calls "private" (*De missa privata et unctione sacerdotum*, printed at Wittenberg in 1557 by Thomas Kolug, in Volume VII of the Works of Luther, page 228): "It happened that I suddenly awoke around midnight. There, Satan began a dispute of this kind with me: 'Listen, Luther, most learned doctor, you know also that you have celebrated private masses almost daily for fifteen years. What if such things were a horrible idolatry? What if the body and blood of Christ were not present there?' etc." Then, in order and at length, he recites the five arguments of Satan, which he heard very attentively from the mouth of *this father of lies*, and he believes them to be true; and thus, taught and persuaded by a demon master, not only did he abstain D from the sacrifice of the Mass, but he subsequently maligned, lacerated, and weakened it with the most execrable blasphemies he could. And are the Huguenots not ashamed of such a cursed, abominable, and damned teacher of their doctrine? Do they not shudder to call that the pure word of God and the revealed truth, the Gospel, which Satan himself whispered into the ears of Luther from his infernal breast and vomited forth? Do they not fear to contribute their efforts against the doctrine of Christ and His Church to this most terrible adversary of our faith and salvation? And lest anyone doubt that Luther had the most intimate acquaintance with this monster, and gave his own hand to attacking this priesthood and sacrifice of the Christians, let him hear the same man again pronouncing on this familiarity of his with Satan: "Believe me," he says, "I know the devil well, nay, very well. He walks about in my dormitory sometimes. When I am with men, he does not harm me; but when he catches me alone, then he teaches me manners." And again he adds things more horrible: "The devil sleeps with me more frequently and closer than my Catherine." And in another place, boasting that he does not fear the arguments of his adversaries, he gives this reason: "Because I have heard their arguments at leisure from the devil, and more serious ones at that." And indicating that he was profiting not a little in the school of the demons, he adds: "I have one or another marvelous devil, by whom I am observed diligently and most intently. For they are not common, but great demons, nay, among the devils, great doctors in theology." And he writes in a letter to the Elector of Saxony: "The devil sometimes traverses my brain so that I can neither write nor read." Who, therefore, can doubt that he learned and received from them all those things which he blustered against the most holy Eucharist with such impotent and furious spirit? How much he would have liked even to end this life through this familiar master of his, just as he was leading it through him, he manifests in these words: "I prefer to perish through the devil than through the Emperor: for thus I would perish through a great lord." Or, as another dinner companion and
student of his collected and published: "I prefer to perish through the devil than through the Emperor; for I die through a magnanimous and powerful lord." A And these things, German men, are not those which the papists have fabricated about you through slander, but which even your Luther testified concerning himself, or which his disciples and dinner companions, Aurifaber and Rebenstock, ministers of your sect, collected from his own mouth and caused to be printed and published among you. These are the first seeds, the supports, the foundations of your dogma, discovered, set up, and established by the devil himself. And are you not ashamed to rely upon these and to build upon them? Does it grieve you to know better? Nay, alas! It is a delight to follow worse things, since a part of you, just as a man of the apostolic times said of your ancestors, is carried "in the middle of the threshing floor," and a part, as you yourselves see and lament, progresses to worse, going from the lime-kiln to the charcoal-burner; that is, it falls away from Lutheranism to Calvinism, Arianism, Mahometanism, and atheism. B For it is not further in question among you, nor is it doubted among us in any way, that Calvinism, Zwinglianism, or the Sacramentarism of this century, also had its origin from Satan, and that the evil spirit himself was present to its principal authors with all his power and counsel, for the purpose of depraving and corrupting the words of Christ by which the Eucharist itself is consecrated. Indeed, Luther wrote truly concerning them: "Satan is undoubtedly the author in the world of the Sacramentarians, for the sake of weakening and overturning this sacrament, contending plainly that, once the egg is eaten, he should leave us the shell; that is, to take the body and blood of Christ from the sacrament, so that nothing remains for us except the simple bread made by the baker." And that we may proceed in some order in these matters too, Carlstadt, the first author of this tragedy, frequently and publicly boasted, as Luther and Chemnitz, with whom he lived for a very long time, have handed down in their writings, that a certain man had come to him who showed him how he could twist the words of the Supper, and especially the word *touto*, "this"; and they do not doubt that it was the devil who later completely occupied and possessed him. C Alberus, a minister of Basel, writes clearly in a book against the Carlstadtites that "the devil lived in him bodily; nay, that he was obsessed by many legions of demons." Luther himself also, treating the man no otherwise in his *Colloquies* than if he were dealing with one possessed, said to his dinner companions: "Let no one wonder that I call him the devil. For I do not look at Carlstadt, but at him by whom he is possessed, and who even speaks through him," meaning Satan. Finally, the ministers of Basel left in a certain letter for the memory of posterity that "a man taller than human form (they affirm for certain it was the devil) was seen in the temple while Carlstadt was preaching, and immediately went out and entered his house, and commanded his illegitimate son (for he had contracted an incestuous marriage) to tell his father that he was to be taken from the living after three days." The event proved the deeds, with Carlstadt removed by a horrible death. And these are the patriarchs of all the most recent Huguenots, who search for and kindle the Sacramentarian fires from the ashes of Berengar, their progressions, their errors, their miserable ends. D Those inventions of Zwingli, who was assistant in the Sacramentarian error, did not proceed from the Holy Spirit, nor from the Word of God, nor from the perpetual consensus of the entire Catholic Church, nor finally from the doctrine of the holy Fathers; but from an evil spirit wandering in darkness, as he himself confesses in these words: "As the light of the thirteenth of April approached (I tell true things, and so true that conscience compels one who wishes to conceal them to pour them forth), I seemed to myself in sleep to be contending with great weariness against an opposing scribe, and so to have become mute that I could not speak. There an *apo mechanes* monitor seemed to be present (whether he was black or white, I do not remember), who said: 'Why, sluggard, do you not answer him what is written in Exodus XII: For it is the Phase, that is, the passing of the Lord?' Immediately as this phantasm was seen, I awoke at the same time, and leaped from my bed," etc. Such are his words, which Schlusselburg, the superintendent of the Mecklenburghers, receives thus: "From this narrative of Zwingli, the second leader of the Sacramentarians of our century, it is clearer than the midday sun that the Calvinists make nothing of holy Scripture itself. For Zwingli, in order not to give credence to the most lucid words of Christ, preferred to believe that black angel appearing in his sleep than Christ himself. For it is most certain that it was not a white, but a black spirit—that is, not a good, but an evil angel—who was that monitor who revealed to Zwingli the incrustation of the Sacramentarian dogma. This he proves consequently: 1st, from the fact that good spirits always present themselves to be seen in apparitions in such a form that they are truly recognized as not devils, but good angels. 2nd, that they never appear in a black, but always a white form, and are known to agree in all things with the will and word of God. But Zwingli's monitor taught him to falsify the words of the Son of God, by supposing *significat* ['signifies'] for *est* ['is']. 4th, the fruits of the Sacramentarians, which they produce everywhere, show more clearly than the sun that not the true God, but the very devil himself inspired his Sacramentarian heresy into Zwingli through a dream." Thus far he, who also writes again in his *Apologetic Preface*: "That the devil inspired the Sacramentarian heresy into Zwingli, by whispering to him to interpret *est* ['is'] as *significat* ['signifies']; and hence in his book *On True and False Religion*, in the recitation of the words of the Supper from the evangelist Luke, to substitute *significat* for *est*; which is, without doubt, a certain and manifest argument of that famous impostor, the serpent who deceived our first parents." He concludes, furthermore, that his disciples have stirred up this deadly struggle against the Eucharist in the Church of God, being instigated by nothing but Satan, and that, driven by infernal furies, they continue the same war; nor will they cease until they have either destroyed themselves, or Christ has checked them by His illustrious coming and visited them with the punishments they deserve. *Proœmium* page 2. And thus far concerning the faction of Zwingli, who, by Luther's judgment, "died like a thief and a seditious man, wishing to force others to his own error by the force of arms." But what shall we say now of the manifold and savage crowd of Calvinists? Have they not also risen up against the most holy Eucharist with hostile minds and arms, with Satan as their leader and first-rank soldier? Certainly, when the leader of the first cohort, Calvin, confesses that he is "incited by a certain genius to the insults, reproaches, and maledictions" with which his writings teem and abound, he has left it to all prudent and wise men to estimate that such a genius is a spirit of blasphemy and contention, not of gentleness and grace. But why do we dissimulate in declaring what is the case? It is manifest and indubitable that he, with all his cohorts, is agitated by the furies of the same black spirit which appeared in dreams to his predecessor Zwingli, whose heresies against the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the unbloody oblation they embrace. For so many of their horrific blasphemies against Christ and His express Word could not proceed, unless from the devil. If we are not believed, at least in this matter believe the Lutherans, whom you...
account comrades A and fellow-soldiers in the Harmony and consent of the orthodox. We have recently heard Luther, in the first place, asserting that Satan is the author of this sacrament among the Sacramentarians. Elsewhere we have recorded that he also judges the Sacramentarians to be demoniacs, possessed by devils on all sides—before, behind, above, below, within, and without; that the devil drives them on with spurs applied, and guides their tongue and pen against Christ. Therefore, if Beza has truly said that Luther was a man inspired by God in every word, then the Calvinists are certainly entirely possessed by the unclean spirit. But what of these men’s disciples and successors? Schlüsselburg declares that "with dreams instilled by a black demon, they strive to undermine and overturn the testament of the Son of God." The same man, in the first book of his *Calvinist Theology*, art. 20, does not doubt that their opinion regarding the Supper was supplied by a certain specter, that is, by the very spirit of darkness. And in the second book, article one, he says that the dialogue to which he gave the name *Creophagia* was B "without a doubt composed at the devil's dictation against the testament of the Son of God." And in article 12: "The devil himself is the teacher of all Calvinists." Finally, in the third book, article eight, he altogether contends that the Calvinist spirit is the spirit of darkness, and that Satan speaks through the Calvinists, his instruments. Joannes Schutz, in the preface to book 1 of his *Causes*, constantly affirms that "Sacramentarianism," which is now pressed most strongly by the Calvinists, is "a pit into which many heresies flow, and the final rage of Satan, which, goaded by furies, he exercises against Christ and His Church." It would be too long and perhaps tedious to recount similar judgments of Westphal, Heshusius, Chemnitius, Morlin, Wigand, Chytraeus, Corvinus, Puchenius, and the remaining Lutheran superintendents and ministers regarding the Calvinists, by which they indicate and pronounce with one mind and tongue that they are certainly agitated by a spirit of vertigo and by the devil, so that they may remove and drive Christ—who is truly present in the Eucharist—from the throne of His Church, so that Satan himself may eventually, restored by their labors, again take possession of his tyranny. And so much for these men. Let us return to Irenaeus, who discourses truly, piously, and apostolically regarding the sacrament and sacrifice of the Eucharist.
"Not as one in need." Because Irenaeus was dealing partly with most audacious and at the same time most cunning heretics, who twisted all the most upright things to their own impious fabrications, and partly with the most simple and still neophyte Christians, whom it was easy to deceive, he frequently inculcates here and in the following [pages] that God has no need of the things of men.
"But that they might not be unfruitful." He comprehends in these few words the various and manifold fruits of the communion and oblation of the body of Christ; which he enumerates more openly in chapter 34 of this book, and at the beginning of the fifth.
C "Nor as ungrateful." There is another reason for the institution of the oblation of the Eucharist, to wit, that we may give thanks for His beneficence, just as he demonstrates more clearly in chapter 34, and that we may learn to serve God. Hence, St. Augustine teaches very gravely and learnedly that this worship, which is offered through sacrifice, is not to be offered to any other than the true and only God (lib. viii *De civit. Dei*, cap. 27, and lib. x, cap. 4 and 7; and *Epist. ad Deogratias*, quaest. 3).
"He who is from the creature, bread." Ambrose: "Bread is before the words of the sacrament; when consecration has been added, from bread it becomes the flesh of Christ." And a little later: "Before it is consecrated, it is bread; but when the words of Christ have been added, it is the body of Christ." Finally, hear Him saying: "Take and eat of it D all: this is my body." And before the words of Christ, the chalice is full of wine and water; when the words of Christ have acted, there it is made blood, which has redeemed the people. Cyprian the martyr, *Sermon on the Lord's Supper*: "This bread, once changed into flesh and blood, provides life and growth to the bodies." And not so long after: "This bread, which the Lord offered to the disciples, not changed in form, but transformed in nature, has been made flesh by the omnipotence of the Word."
"This is my body." So reads the old codex; and Paul, 1 Cor. 11, τοῦτό μου ἐστὶ τὸ σῶμα, and the Greek Liturgy of James retains this reading. That these words are said of the bread, and that from them the body of Christ is brought about, he teaches more openly afterwards in chapter 34, saying: "Bread receiving the invocation of God is now no longer common bread, but the Eucharist," etc. And in book v: "When the mixed cup and the broken (or made) bread receives the Word of God, it becomes the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ," etc.
"And the chalice." Christ, indeed, taking the chalice so carefully; and Paul, calling it the "chalice of blessing" and the "chalice of the Lord," have sufficiently taught that such an august mystery is not to be exercised in profane and common vessels, as the profane heretics wish. For it is certain that, even from those times down to our own, these sacred vessels, sanctified for the sake of the communion of the body and blood of the Lord, were held in honor and veneration by all Christians. For the very chalice, certainly of silver, in which the Lord consecrated, was still religiously kept, hidden in a cabinet at Jerusalem five hundred years later, and was permitted to be touched and kissed by pilgrims through an opening in the lid, as the Venerable Bede is witness, lib. *De Locis sacris*, c. 2. Justin Martyr near the end of *Apology 1* reports the chalice brought to the president to be consecrated. Tertullian testifies that in his time the chalices were depicted and adorned with images of Christ, representing the shepherd bringing back the straying sheep. Cyprian, *Epistle to Caecilius*, on the sacrament of the Lord's chalice, and in his *Sermon on the lapsed*, makes mention of this sacred cup more than once. That the African Church also possessed gold and silver chalices in the times of Diocletian is sufficiently declared by the *Cirtensian Acts* related by Augustine in the *Breviculus collat. cum Donatist.*, day 3, c. 13. Athanasius then, from the acts of the synod of Alexandria, teaches that he is impious who has voluntarily broken the mystical cup found among the legitimate presidents of the Church, because he does injustice to the blood of Christ outpoured from it. Optatus reproaches the Donatists: "You have broken the chalices, the bearers of the blood of Christ; you have reduced their forms into masses," etc. Nazianzen, *Orat. 1 against Julian*, and Theodoret, lib. iii *Hist.*, c. 12 and 13, blame the officials of Julian the apostate and his relatives Felix and Elvidius with the same fault, etc. I pass over the rest, that I may not be long.
"He taught the new oblation of the New Testament." By these he declares that Christ by His word instituted and taught the sacrifice of His own body, and commanded the apostles, as the priests and bishops of the New Testament, to do the same, and to deliver it to the churches, since He Himself first offered according to the order of Melchizedek; then, as the blessed Clement explains, He commanded, saying: "Do this for my commemoration." Nor indeed can these words of Irenaeus be twisted to spiritual sacrifices without signal impudence; since they are not new in the New Testament. Still less can they be referred to alms collected and offered by the faithful for the favor of the needy and the ministers of the Church; or to common bread not yet consecrated, as Major and Gallasius babbled along with the Magdeburgians; but they are to be understood of the bread and chalice already consecrated by the Word of God.
A
That the Church receiving this from the apostles—not merely the action and substance of the sacrifice of the Mass (as they say), which comprises consecration, oblation, and communion as its chief parts, has handed it down to the churches along with the Gospel, baptism, and other sacraments—I would dare to affirm after Irenæus; indeed, if we look at the individual rites and ceremonies, whether vestments, lights, incense, prayers, praises, thanksgivings, lessons, washing of hands, salutations and acclamations to the people, prayers for the living and the dead, and blessings, this is clear to attentive and pious readers from the liturgies of Blessed James, Blessed Dionysius, and Blessed Clement.
In the whole world He offers to God. The book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 11, and the Sixth Universal Synod show that James and other apostles offered sacrifice at Jerusalem, along with his liturgy. Paul himself is witness that he handed down to the Corinthians the rites of the Eucharist, first by deed, then in writing: the companion of his travels, Luke the Evangelist, teaches that he also fasted in the church at Antioch with Barnabas and other ministers of Christian piety, and performed the sacred rite for the Lord, *λειτουργούντων δὲ αὐτῶν τῷ Κυρίῳ*. Gregory the Great and Isidore, in his epistle to John of Syracuse and in Book I *De Officiis*, write that Blessed Peter likewise celebrated the solemnities of the Mass there. Abdias testifies that Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia by the altar at which he had celebrated. Blessed Andrew, who had traversed Scythia, Muscovy, Germany, Greece, and Achaia for the sake of the Gospel, professes that he sacrificed the flesh and blood of the immaculate Lamb daily and distributed them to the people; as the epistle of the churches of Achaia to all the churches throughout the world testifies, mentioned by Cyprian in his book *De Duplici Martyrio*, and by Algerus and Bernard. There is no doubt that Thomas, Philip, and Bartholomew confirmed with great diligence the form and doctrine of so great a sacrament in Persia, India, and the whole East. It is clear that Mark at Alexandria and John at Ephesus performed the duties of the Christian priesthood. That Peter and Clement at Rome devoted themselves to this oblation; and finally, that in our own Gauls, Martial, Aurelian, and Dionysius the Areopagite—as they had been taught by the apostles—erected altars 162, celebrated the solemnities of the Mass, and handed them down to posterity even until these times, their writings speak. Therefore, Irenæus affirms with the best of reasons that the Church, dispersed throughout the whole world, offers to God Almighty the oblation of the Eucharist, as she received it from the apostles, according to the prophecy of Malachi and the precept of our Lord.
Malachi thus prefigured. Augustine, with ancient codices, calls him Malachiel, whom he also supposes to have been called an angel and to have been Ezra the priest, along with the Hebrews, Jonathan the Chaldean, and Jerome in his book XX *De Civitate Dei*, chapter 25. The martyr Dorotheus, in his *Synopsis*, relates that an angel of the Lord appeared to him on the very second day on which he had prophesied something. Clement of Alexandria, wherever he mentions him, calls him only an angel. Epiphanius writes that he obtained that name because of a form that was remarkably outstanding, his gentleness, and his distinguished piety.
Furthermore, this passage of the prophet, concerning the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, was interpreted before Irenæus by Clement of Rome, *Constit. Apost.* lib. V, c. 51; Martial, *Epist. ad Burdeg.*, chap. 3; Justin Martyr in his *Dialogue*; and later by Tertullian, lib. III *Contra Marcion.*; Cyprian, lib. I *Adversus Judæos*, chap. 16; Chrysostom on Psalm 95; Augustine, *De Civit. Dei*, lib. XV, chap. 35, and lib. XIX, chap. 23, and lib. I *Contra Adversarium Legis*, chap. 10; Eusebius, lib. I *De Demonstr. Evang.*, last chapter; Damascene, lib. IV, c. 14; Peter surnamed the Venerable, lib. I *Contra Petrobrusianos* and lib. II *Contra Judæos*, chap. 3; indeed, even he who did not give his name to Christ, Rabbi Samuel, in *Parastasis Veri Messiæ*, to Rabbi Isaac, master of the synagogue at Subiulmeta in the Kingdom of Morocco, chaps. 20 and 23, such that it is an impiety more than Jewish to resist this interpretation. B
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 32. Page 247. *He does not wish*. Irenæus does not read *θελητὸν*, as our copies of the LXX sound, but *oὐ*, as he seems to be read, just as Theodoret also has it. *Ears*. I do not know whether the scribe set it down thus from the Latin Vulgate, or whether Irenæus himself read *ὠτία* or *ὦτα* in the LXX, as is also found in other Greek Fathers; although the Apostle himself alleges in Heb. x, 5: *σῶμα δὲ κατηρτίσω μοι*. C
Page 248. *Holocausts*. Therefore, in the editions, for *τῶν Ο′* instead of the singular *ὁλοκαύτωμα*, read the plural *ὁλοκαυτώματα*, as the Codex Alexandrinus and the Apostle himself in Heb. x, 6, have it. *He says elsewhere*, etc. Who truly says so? Is it David, whose Psalm L, 18, Feuardentius noted in the margin? But that passage has already been cited above, and the later clause, "an odor of sweetness," etc., is not read there. Is it Isaiah, whose mention was just made? But neither in Isaiah, nor in any other book of Holy Scripture, canonical or apocryphal, can I find this sentence, although I have spent much time searching for it. I only add that it is cited in part by Clement of Alexandria, *Pædagogus* lib. II, chap. 12, page 261, along with another saying of Isaiah cited here by Irenæus, in this manner: *Ὄσμή, φησίν, εὐωδίας τῷ Θεῷ καρδία δοξάζουσα τὸν πεπλακότα αὐτήν*. Where Irenæus, from whom he perhaps borrowed these things, says *φησίν* in a general sense. Indeed, it is noted there in the margin as Ecclesiasticus chap. XXXV, which in the LXX is XXX, but this saying is not read even there. *All Judah*. The LXX now have *πᾶσα Ἰουδαία*. *And for sacrifices*. Irenæus therefore seems to have read *θυσίων*, just as it is written in the Codex Alexandrinus; while the editions, according to the Hebrew, have *θυσίας* in the singular. *You have served*. Thus, again, the Codex Alexandrinus with Irenæus: *ἐδουλεύσας*· but the editions, according to the Hebrew: *ἐδούλωσά σε*. *You have made*. Irenæus therefore reads *ἐποίησας*, not *ἐποίησα*, just as Cyril of Alexandria has it in Isaiah. *You have stood before me*. Thus, according to the editions of the LXX, Irenæus, and after him Procopius; but in the MS Alexandrinus it is *πρόσθε μου*, just as Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret, and also Jerome in his codex of the *Ο′*, read it. D
Page 249. *For not the fat*. Irenæus seems to have added these from Jeremiah, although the words differ slightly; for I do not find them in Isaiah. *From the soul*. These words are added for the sake of explanation. *And a peaceful judgment*. Our LXX have, according to the Hebrew: *ἀλήθειαν καὶ κρῖμα εἰρηνικόν*. But in the codex of Irenæus, the word *ἀλήθειαν* was omitted, which is also missing in the MS Alexandrinus. *But also giving counsel to his disciples to offer the firstfruits to God from his creatures*, etc. I omit the dissertation on the sacrifice of the Eucharist which Feuardentius inserted here, and the invective subjoined to it against Luther, Calvin, etc., not because I deny the matter itself, or would evade it, but because it is too protracted and untimely. For it is certain that Irenæus and all the fathers whose writings we possess, the aposto-
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1729 IN LIB. IV S. IRENÆI. 1750
pure sacrifice. Therefore the Calvinists are impious toward the Son and the Father, considering the very name of Jesus to be worthy of no reverence at all, as we demonstrated in the third Dialogue last year. A *Through Jesus Christ the Church offers.* Several not dissimilar sentiments of the Fathers illustrate and confirm this passage. Cyprian, Epistle 68: "The priest functions on the altar in the place of Christ, and offers a true and full sacrifice to God the Father, in commemoration of the passion of His Only-begotten." Augustine, *De civitate Dei*, ch. 20: "Christ is the priest, Himself offering and Himself being the oblation; the daily sacrament of which He willed to be the sacrifice of the Church; since He Himself is the head of it, and He Himself is the body of the head, so that both it is offered through Him, and He through it." Chrysostom, *Homily 83 on Matthew*: "He who performed these things at that supper, He now also performs; He perfects; we hold the order of ministers; but He who sanctifies and transmits these is Himself." Ambrose, on Psalm 38: "Although Christ may not now be seen to offer, yet He Himself is offered on earth, when the body of Christ is offered. Indeed, He Himself is manifested as offering in us, whose word sanctifies the sacrifice which is offered," etc.
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on ch. 33.* Pag. 249. *Through Jesus Christ the Church offers.* Irenæus explains this chapter, and how prayers and oblations are offered at the same time to Christ and to God the Father through Christ; a passage from Origen, book V *Contra Celsum*, declares this excellently, sounding thus: *Τὸν ἕνα Θεὸν, καὶ τὸν ἕνα Υἱὸν, αὐτοῦ καὶ Λόγον, καὶ εἰκόνα, ταῖς κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἡμῖν ἱκεσίαις καὶ ἀξιώσεσι σέβομεν· προσάγοντες τῷ Θεῷ τῶν ὅλων τὰς εὐχὰς διὰ τοῦ Μονογενοῦς αὐτοῦ, ᾧ πρῶτον προσφέρομεν αὐτὰς, ἀξιοῦντες αὐτὸν, ἱλασμὸν ὄντα (περὶ) τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, προσαγαγεῖν, ὡς ᾿Αρχιερέα, καὶ εὐχὰς, καὶ τὰς θυσίας, καὶ ἐντεύξεις ἡμῶν τῷ ἐπὶ πᾶσι Θεῷ.* "We worship the one God, and His one Son, and Word, and Image, with supplications and petitions as far as is in our power, offering our prayers to the God of all through His Only-begotten, to whom we first offer them, beseeching Him, as He is the propitiation for our sins, to offer them as High Priest, as also our prayers, and sacrifices, and intercessions, to the God who is over all."
B or contemporaries, or those immediately succeeding, had the Eucharist as the sacrifice of the new law. And that this was not the private doctrine of a particular church or teacher, but the public doctrine and practice of the universal Church—which it received from the apostles, and the apostles from Christ Himself—Irenæus teaches expressly in this and the following 34th chapter; and before him, Justin Martyr, partly in his *Apology I to Antoninus*, but more clearly and at length in his *Dialogue with Trypho the Jew*. It is not necessary to describe here the words of his, as also of St. Ignatius, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and others, which are frequently cited by both Papists and the more learned Protestants. It pleases me to adduce only the words of Clement of Rome—not spurious or doubtful ones, such as Feuardent noted in this place, but most certainly genuine ones from his Epistle to the Corinthians—which, to my knowledge, have not been cited for this purpose by any save the writer I am about to praise, nor by him in their entirety. He writes thus in § 40: *Πάντα τάξει ποιεῖν ὀφείλομεν, ὅσα ὁ Δεσπότης ἐπιτελεῖν ἐκέλευσεν· κατὰ καιροὺς τεταγμένους τάς τε προσφορὰς καὶ λειτουργίας ἐπιτελεῖσθαι, καὶ οὐκ εἰκῇ ἢ ἀτάκτως γίνεσθαι, ἀλλ' ὡρισμένοις καιροῖς καὶ ὥραις... Οἱ οὖν τοῖς προστεταγμένοις καιροῖς ποιοῦντες τὰς προσφορὰς αὐτῶν, εὐπροσδεκτοί τε καὶ μακάριοι· τοῖς γὰρ νομίμοις τοῦ Δεσπότου ἀκολουθοῦντες, οὐ διαμαρτάνουσιν.* "We ought to do everything in order, whatsoever the Lord has commanded us to perform; that the oblations and sacred ministries be performed at the appointed seasons and hours, and not thoughtlessly or disorderly, but at fixed times and hours... They, therefore, who make their oblations at the appointed times are acceptable and blessed; for by following the ordinances of the Lord, they do not err." Lest, however, these should be understood as referring only to the oblations of the Jewish priests or of Christian laymen, he adds in § 44: *Αμαρτία γὰρ οὐ μικρὰ ἡμῖν ἔσται ἐὰν τοὺς ἀμέμπτως καὶ ὁσίως προσενεγκόντας τὰ δῶρα τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ἀποβάλωμεν.* "For it will be no small sin for us if we remove from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily offered the gifts." C But since the author of this epistle appears to be that very Clement whose name is written in the book of life, as Paul wrote to the Philippians, ch. iv, ver. 3, and since he wrote this but two or three years after the martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul, and twenty before the death of St. John, there is hardly any room left to doubt that this doctrine concerning the Eucharistic sacrifice flowed down from the Holy Apostles themselves, and consequently must be held entirely, even if no statement could be adduced in its favor from the writings of the prophets or apostles themselves. For the general precept of St. Paul is 1 Thess. 11, 14: "Brethren, stand, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle." But later theologians—not only Papists, but also Protestants, especially the doctors of the Anglican Church—have also brought forward enough from the Scriptures for the Eucharistic sacrifice after Irenæus and other Holy Fathers; among whom I name one, a man of exceptional learning and piety, Joseph Mede, who, in his particular treatise *On the Christian Sacrifice*, written in English, proved and illustrated this matter excellently; and [it is] therefore to be read diligently by all students of theology, especially by candidates for the sacred presbyterate. I subscribe with my whole heart not only to this opinion, but also to his wish expressed at the end of chapter 8, and I hope that after many pious and learned men from the Protestant side have well recognized this error of Luther and Calvin, and the true doctrine of the apostolic Church, they will also recall into use its most holy liturgical formulas, by which the said sacrifice is offered to God—which were wickedly proscribed by them from their assemblies—and that they will duly render this highest honor to the divine majesty.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on ch. 33.* Pag. 249. *What is also another name.* The name of the Lord Jesus also pertains to the Father, who begat and sent Him; and by it He is everywhere glorified among D the nations, while the Church offers through Him prayers and the pure sacrifice. The Calvinists are therefore impious toward the Son and the Father, considering the same name of Jesus to be worthy of no reverence at all, as we demonstrated in the third Dialogue last year.
*When therefore thou offerest.* St. Clement of Rome, *Constit. Apost.* lib. II, cap. 58 (57); Optatus of Milevis, lib. VI *Contra Parmenianum*; Cyril of Jerusalem, in his *Mystagogic Catecheses*, interpret this passage of the Gospel concerning the Eucharistic oblation with Irenæus. FEUARD. For they say, as do other authors, that they mention the rite of the Church, by which the faithful about to approach the Holy Eucharist were exhorted by the deacons not to come to the altar with enmity or discord, a rite truly founded on this precept of the Savior. And indeed, since this is contained in that exceptional discourse by which He promulgated the new law, or the old one renewed, to be observed by His faithful, it seems that He did not look so much to the Mosaic oblations to be abolished shortly with the altar and temple, as He especially regarded and supposed the altar and sacrifice of the Church just then to be instituted: such as was present in Christian assemblies, testified to not only by Irenæus and the more ancient Ignatius, but also by the Apostle himself, Heb. XIII, 10, writing: "We have an altar, whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle." Outside the temple of the Jews, therefore, there was in the Church a *θυσιαστήριον*, "altar," and consequently also a *θυσία*, "sacrifice," not only the rational [sacrifice] of praise and prayers, but also the material [sacrifice] of bread and wine, which the Apostle clearly signifies by the word "to eat."
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on ch. 34.* Pag. 250. *Which the Lord taught to be offered.* Observe how frequently, gravely, and by name he repeats that Christ the Lord is the author and institutor of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
A It is proper, therefore, to offer first fruits to God. Since mention is often made of the oblation of first fruits, it seemed worth the effort to discourse somewhat upon them.
The Hebrews called "first fruits" the first produce of grain, vineyards, olive groves, etc., which they gathered from their fields every year; and they were bound by law to offer them to God (Exod. xxii, xxiii, xxv, xxxiv; Deut. xii, xviii, xxvi; Num. xv, xviii, xxxi; Lev. xxiii, xxv). In the beginning, however, it was left to the judgment of the offerers how much each wished to give; but because of the grateful spirit of the people and the avarice of the priests, Jerome records that it was eventually made a matter of ecclesiastical regulation, so that those who gave the most contributed a fortieth part; those who gave the least, a sixtieth; but between the fortieth and the sixtieth, one was permitted to offer whatever one pleased.
First, they offered them while giving thanks to God, the creator and giver of all good things, and, having paid this tribute to Him as the supreme Emperor of all, they acknowledged that they would hold themselves as His perpetual servants.
Second, the priests and Levites, to whom no permanent portion of land was allotted and who were continuously occupied with sacred duties, were honestly supported by these oblations, and for this reason God promised fertility to their fields.
Third, the needs of widows, orphans, pilgrims, and the poor were provided for.
Lastly, by this type of oblation, as by other legal sacrifices and ceremonies, they signified that they believed in and awaited the coming Messiah, and through His perfect oblation, the expiation of sins and perfect reconciliation with God.
But since Christians have been released through Christ from the ceremonies of the law, and the latter reasoning pertains to them, they may never offer first fruits under that same condition. However, because other reasons pertain to moral precepts—which Christ did not abolish, but explained and confirmed—the apostles and their successors decided that Christians are still bound by the duty of offering tithes and oblations. The blessed Clement of Rome teaches this in these words: "Although the Lord has delivered you from the servitude of the additional bonds, and you no longer need to sacrifice brute animals for sins; yet He has not freed you from the oblations which you owe to the priests, and from acts of kindness toward those who are in need. For the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Unless your righteousness shall exceed,' etc. (Matt. v, 20). So, therefore, it shall exceed, if you take greater care of the priests, the orphans, and the widows." (Lib. ii, Const. apost., cap. 39). Again, in chapter 29, he teaches how much bishops should take from first fruits and tithes, and how they should share the rest, warning them not to consume and squander them alone, otherwise it will be reproached to them: "You were eating the milk and clothing yourselves with the wool" (Ezech. xxxiv, 3), etc. Again, he writes in lib. vii, cap. 30, how they ought to give from all their goods and possessions whatsoever; to whom they should be distributed, in lib. viii, caps. 36 and 37; and with what words a bishop, while receiving them, should pronounce a blessing, in lib. viii, cap. 46. He also commands that new ears of corn, grapes, and oil for the lamps, and at the time when the holy oblation is celebrated, incense for the altar, be offered (canon 4 of the apostles); but that the first fruits of all other things should be sent to the house of the bishops and presbyters, and by no means placed upon the altar (canon 5 of the same).
Whoever, besides these passages from Clement and Irenaeus, desires more on these matters should consult the epistle of Pope Urban, martyr, to all bishops; Origen, Homily 11 on Numbers and Homily 10 on Joshua; Epiphanius, heresy 80; Jerome on chapter xliv of Ezekiel; Gratian, Causa 16, question 7; and finally, Thomas Aquinas, 2-2, q. 87, art. 4.
*And not a kind of oblation.* Thus, with the negation... B ...to do, as the old manuscript indicates the sense, which would exist in no other way; and it has strangely distorted me against the trustworthiness of the old exemplar. He teaches that the priesthood and sacrifices were not abolished through Christ, but transferred; not abrogated, but fulfilled; that is, changed into other, far more august things: which also Paul writes: "The priesthood being transferred, it is necessary that there also be a translation of the law" (Heb. vii, 12). He says "transferred," or changed, not shattered, prohibited, or (as we speak with Irenaeus) reprobated; because the oblations are there—that is, among the Jews—and oblations are also here—among the Christians; sacrifices are in the people, that is, the synagogue of the Hebrews; and sacrifices are in the Christian Church. For those were only figures and shadows of future good things, but these are the truth itself, which they signify, embrace, and exhibit.
Clement of Rome, before Irenaeus, explained this so clearly and acutely: "The tabernacle of the testimony bore in all things the figure of the Church," etc., "You, therefore, today, O bishops, are priests and Levites to your people, who minister in the holy tabernacle of the holy and catholic Church; and standing by at the altar of the Lord and our God, and bringing to Him *καὶ προσάγοντες αὐτῷ τὰς λογικὰς καὶ ἀναιμάκτους θυσίας*, rational and unbloody sacrifices, through Jesus the great high priest." And lib. vi, cap. 23: "He changed baptism, sacrifice, priesthood, and local worship; for daily baptism, one alone; for the bloody sacrifice, He instituted a rational and unbloody and mystical sacrifice, which is celebrated unto the death of the Lord through symbols of His body and blood." These things he says in the *Constitutions of the Apostles*, which all the Fathers of the ancient Church confirm with such a unanimous consensus to be genuine and truly his, that it is of flagitious impudence to doubt or deny it. Augustine discusses the same thing in his *City of God*, book xvii, chapters 17 and 20.
It is also to be observed that Irenaeus is not speaking of those spiritual sacrifices of a contrite heart, of prayer, of praise, of thanksgiving, and of beneficence, which have been common to every age and law; but of the new oblation of the new testament, the external one, which he opposes to the external legal ones. For Augustine shows from the clear Scriptures (De civitate, book xvii, chapter 20) that this sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the old testament.
*164 Nor without.* Thus the old codex. The printed editions have *sive* (or). *For from the beginning he looked.* The Hebrews by this "looking" of God understand the heavenly combustion of the thing offered, such as happened in the case of Manoah, Aaron, Solomon, Elijah and the Maccabees.
*Unless if you offer rightly.* He follows the reading of the Septuagint interpreters, as does Ambrose after him in *De incarnationis Dominicae sacramento*, chapter 1, sermon 9; *De Cain et Abel*, chapter 6; Cyril of Alexandria, lib. 1 on Genesis; Prosper of Aquitaine, *De vocatione gentium*, chapter 13; Chrysostom, homily 18 on Genesis. And of this, it has already been spoken of above.
*Seduces.* Thus the old codex; the printed editions, "toward him it leads." *They might be thought.* We have expunged "are thought" (putantur), on the authority of the old codex. *Counsel.* Thus the text of the Holy Scriptures has it with the old codex; therefore we have deleted "council" (concilium). *But not.* Thus the old codex; the printed editions, "but him" (sed eum). *When he did not at all acquiesce.* The old codex has "when he did not at all remain quiet" (cum minime quiesceret). *Always just.* I would gladly read "Super justum" (Above the just), although none of the codices teach this.
*Therefore not sacrifices.* No external sacrifices sanctify a man by themselves if he offers them with an impious mind and hatred of his neighbor, as was said above concerning Cain.
A
*Concerning the sinner.* We have deleted "sinner," old code; or "the code of the ancient author," Page 251. In the pure opinion. The Magdeburgians fall into and are led into the grossest error, who contend that in these words a list of the species of sacrifices is made, so that they may argue that the oblation of Christ's body was unknown to Irenaeus. For he is not listing sacrifices, but is teaching by what virtues, modes, and preceding preparations of the mind men may be pleasing to God and offer and receive an oblation that is pleasing to Him. To this pertains that proclamation of the deacon before the oblation and communion in Clement, Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Chrysostom: Let no one be faithless: Let no one be in hypocrisy: Let no one be deceitful like Judas: Let no one be against anyone: No catechumen: No heretic: Holy things to the holy. Grabius inserted these words of Feuardentius into his annotations, and approved of them.
To these also pertains the symbolic washing of hands, which Dionysius the Areopagite in his book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 3, and Cyril of Jerusalem in his 5th *Mystagogical Catechesis* declare. Nor can I pass over the golden words, which follow, of the truly golden-mouthed one: "Wherefore," he says, "should he who is about to participate in this sacrifice not be purer? What solar rays should that hand not surpass which handles this flesh, that mouth which is filled with spiritual fire, that tongue which is reddened with this admirable blood?" On this matter you will find many excellent things in Hesychius on chapter 26 of Leviticus; in Augustine’s letter to Count Julian; in Jerome’s Commentary on the Epistle to Titus; in Gregory of Nyssen’s book *On the Life of Moses*; in Cyprian’s 5th sermon *On the Lapsed*; and in Clement of Alexandria’s 5th *Stromata*.
*Which are His.* An ancient codex taught that this is how it should be read. Printed copies: "which are theirs."
*For He does not.* The old codex does not recognize the two little words "by" and "God"; and therefore it reads much more clearly for the verification of the sacrifice of the body of Christ, "for they have not received the Word, which is offered." It pleased us to indicate this rather than to change it. B
But not even the Synagogue of heretics. He denies that heretics, just as the Jews, have a true and sincere consecration and oblation of the Eucharist, since some, imagining diverse gods for themselves in the creation of universal things, erred most basely from the person and dispensation of our Lord. Others, hallucinating in the doctrine and ministry of the Eucharist just as in that of baptism, sometimes used water alone, as is in Clement of Alexandria’s 1st *Stromata*, at other times by a magical murmuring of words they made white wine appear as if it were red and purple; Irenaeus also showed in chapter 9 of his first book that they commanded insane women whom they had corrupted to attempt this. Some denied that the consecrated Eucharist itself was the true flesh of our Lord Jesus, as is in Ignatius, which Theodoret also references. Others contaminated the bread with abominable and unmentionable pollutions. Others were suspected of finishing it by the licking of a certain serpent, as Epiphanius and Theodoret report. Therefore, he rightly teaches that all their synagogues are devoid of the true and saving Lordly sacrifice. Moreover, it is clear that the most wicked of all are the Gnostics of our later time, who not only do not offer, but tear away from the holy altars what has been offered by others, and trample it underfoot. C
*How, however, it is plain to them.* He confirms two primary heads of the Christian confession, namely that Christ is the Son of God who created the world, and the resurrection of all flesh, from the fact that Christ by His blessing and invocation had preached that it was His own body and blood, and had instituted them to be offered, and had distributed them to be eaten in commemoration of His own death, and as a pledge and security of our resurrection. Grabius again inserts these words of Feuardentius into his notes, and approves them.
But since the impious deserter of the Church and another leader of the Sacramentarians in Switzerland, Oecolampadius, attempted to pervert these most clear words of Irenaeus with great art of speech, and to twist them into a foreign meaning, I thought it worthwhile to transcribe here what John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester—a man most pious and learned, and now a most blessed martyr for Christ—wrote long ago against him in his defense of Irenaeus, in his 5th book *On the Eucharist*, chapters 21 and 22: "In the very first words," he says, "he affirms as a certain matter that it is established that bread and wine are the body and blood of the Lord; which it appears the heretics themselves, against whom he was contending, admitted as confessed; and he makes this, upon which he agrees with his adversaries, the basis of his argumentation. For he reasons thus: You assert that that bread, in which thanks have been given, is the body of your Lord; and that cup, the cup of His blood. And how will that be established if you deny that your Lord is the Son of the Creator of all creatures? That is, the very Word by whom the vine bears fruit and produces grapes, and the earth also first produces grass, then the stalk, finally the full wheat? For if Christ held the Creator of these things as His adversary (as you think), He would never have chosen bread and wine, which are made from those creatures, from which to fashion concurrently body and blood."
*That bread, in which thanks have been given.* These seem to be taken from Justin Martyr’s later *Apology*: since there he calls the bread of the Eucharist a bread over which thanks have been given, and again food over which thanks have been given, and Cyprian also [calls it] "bread consecrated by heavenly blessing." For thus He once blessed the earth, and it brought forth: He blessed the loaves and fish, and immediately they were miraculously multiplied, etc. From these things, however, it is most evident that Irenaeus not only consistently believed and taught that bread by force of consecration is made in reality the true body of Christ, not in figure, metonymy, or signification; but also that he drew arguments against other heresies of theirs from this as from a most firm principle, which was admitted even by the heretics themselves.
*How therefore again do they say flesh.* From this passage of Irenaeus, Catholic writers construct these three arguments for the real presence of the body of Christ in the Eucharist. First: Our bodies are rendered immortal by the fact that they are nourished by the body of Christ, which now is immortal. Therefore, the body of Christ is not only conceived in the heavens in souls, as the Calvinists babble, but is in reality perceived and taken in the communion of the Eucharist by the mouth of our body. Second: "The bread receiving the invocation of God," that is, the words pronounced and instituted through Christ God, "is no longer common bread, but a sacrament consisting of an earthly thing," that is, with the accidents remaining; "and a heavenly thing," that is, the immortal body, glorious and now enjoying the company of the heavenly Father; therefore in the Eucharist that body is present in number, is offered, and is perceived by the mouth of the body, which resides at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Third: The bread of the Eucharist, once the invocation is received, is so changed from an earthly being into a heavenly one, just as our bodies through the participation in it are rendered out of mortal and corruptible beings into immortal and incorruptible ones. But our bodies will be immortal and incorruptible not by some figure or signification, but in reality and properly. Therefore the terrestrial bread of the Eucharist D
A is not by metonymy or imagination, but by a substantial and real transmutation, the very body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The blessed bishop and martyr of Rochester interprets this passage of Irenaeus thus: "It is as if he had said: Since the flesh of Christ is vivified, and the same has risen to incorruptible life, it follows that those who have worthily eaten that flesh, if they do not hereafter through their own fault lose the power which they have received, their bodies will without doubt rise again to immortality."
Cyril of Alexandria subscribes to this opinion in his *Commentary on John*, book VI, chapter 10, showing no less clearly than fully that the flesh of Christ is vivifying because it is ineffably conjoined to the Son of God, by whom all things are vivified, and who is Life by nature, since He is begotten of the living Father. Consequently, he argues that our bodies, however much they may be subject to corruption, receive the pledge, the right, and the power of glorious immortality from His natural participation and real conjunction. He proves this with these arguments: The flesh of the Savior, being conjoined to the Word who is naturally Life, is vivifying; and for this reason, in raising the dead, He not only used His power as God through word and command, but also applied the touch of His own flesh to show that His body could vivify. Therefore, when we eat that flesh, we have life in us, which will commit us and set us entirely into the immortality of those who share in Him.
Then he illustrates the matter with these examples: Water, cold by nature, upon the arrival of fire, forgets its own coldness and boils. When death was raging among the firstborn of the Egyptians, the Hebrews, by eating the flesh of the lamb and anointing the doorposts with its blood, escaped death. The woman in Matthew hides leaven in three measures of flour, and a little leaven leavens the whole lump; so a small blessing draws the whole man into itself and fills him with its grace, and in this way Christ remains in us, and we in Christ. Therefore He says: "I will raise him up C at the last day. For I," He said (that is, My body, which shall be eaten), "will raise him up." For He Himself is nothing other than His own flesh.
And again: "This corruptible nature of the body could not otherwise be led to incorruptibility and life, unless the body of natural life were conjoined to it." Do you not believe me when I say these things? I beseech you, give faith to Christ. "Amen, amen, I say to you:" (John VI, 54, 55). Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Thus far I have used the words of Cyril. I pass over what I could adduce for the confirmation of this article from Chrysostom on John and Matthew; from Hilary, *On the Trinity*, book VIII; from Tertullian, *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*; from Justin, *Question 44 to the Orthodox*; and from Ignatius, *Epistle to the Ephesians and to the Romans*.
Therefore, let them either change their opinion. The bishop of Rochester says: "He warns heretics, since these things are so—namely, that Christ instituted His body and blood to be prepared out of these creatures, bread and wine—that they should either believe that Christ is the Son of the Creator of the world, and the Word by whom the world and all things that are therein were created, or else abstain from such a sacrifice." Philip Melanchthon, having promised in good faith to Frederick Myconius, in a booklet written on that subject, that he would cite the opinions of the ancient writers regarding the Eucharist, indeed brings forward some that assert the real presence of the flesh of Christ, but with singular fraud he omits those passages that assert the oblation of the same. This I have felt worth observing, so that no one may be disturbed or put their trust in those who are accustomed to usurp the testimonies of the Fathers with such deceit.
D Our opinion, however, is harmonious. The bishop of Rochester says: "Irenaeus proceeds still further, insinuating that the dogmas of the Church agree both with one another and with the truth itself, just as those of the heretics contradict both the truth itself and themselves as well. For the fact that the Creator of the world Himself is the Father of Christ is in harmony with the fact that Christ Himself uses the creatures created by Him, from which He has prepared His own body and blood. And this, of course, confirms again that Christ (who uses such creatures so powerfully) is the Son of no other than the Creator of all things Himself. Wherefore, the faith by which Christ is believed to be the Son of God is in harmony with the Eucharist; and the same is confirmed by the Eucharist."
"For we offer to Him." The bishop of Rochester says: "By the communication of the body and blood of Christ, we are made one flesh and one spirit with Him: a unity which Paul often attests in his Epistles. 'We being many,' he says (I Cor. X, 17), 'are one body, all who partake of one bread.' And again (I Cor. VI): 'He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.' And certainly no one can be joined more closely to God than he who piously feeds on the flesh of Christ and drinks of His blood. For by this food we are incorporated into Christ, and are made one body with Him. For Irenaeus himself asserts that we truly communicate with the flesh of Christ through the sacrament of the body, and truly with the Spirit through His blood."
"Perceiving the invocation of God." All printed copies had "vocationem" (vocation); but the word "invocationis" (of invocation), which we have restored from old codices, was openly missing. He teaches, moreover, that the flesh and blood of the Lord are present not by faith or human apprehension, as the Calvinists rave, but by the power and efficacy of those words which Christ spoke and commanded to be spoken, when the substance, nature, and common condition of bread ceases, and it is transubstantiated into the flesh and blood of Christ: while nevertheless preserving the quantity, quality, flavor, and other things that pertain to external accidents. In that sense, therefore, he denies that the bread remains common, but says that the Eucharist is made, which consists of the earthly species of bread and wine, together with the heavenly and glorious flesh of the Lord: or the flesh of Christ which came forth from the earthly womb of the Virgin, and the soul which, by God creating from above, was infused into and communicated to His body.
Furthermore, I shall confirm that this is the faith of all the holy Greeks and Latins from innumerable testimonies of more select writers. Justin Martyr writes, in Gelenius's translation: "We do not take these as common bread and common cup: but in the same way that Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh through the word of God, had flesh and blood for our salvation; in that same way, *δι' εὐχῆς λόγου* (by the word of prayer and thanksgiving), the food blessed by Him, which by mutation nourishes our flesh and blood, we have learned is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus" (Apol. 8).
Origen, in book VIII of *Against Celsus*, confirms that the loaves offered are, through prayers, made a holy body, sanctifying those who use them with a sound mind.
Hesychius, in *Leviticus*, book VI, chapter 22, teaches that through the virtue of Christ and the word spoken by Him, those things which are seen on the altar are rendered holy.
Cyril of Alexandria, to Bishop Calosirius, believes that by *τῆς εὐλογίας δυνάμει* (the power of the blessing), the true body of Christ is present in the sacrament, and remains so even outside of use.
Gregory of Nyssenus writes in his *Catechetical Oration*, chapter 37, that bread is immediately changed into the body, *οὐ διὰ βρώσεως, ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου* (not through eating, but through the word of God).
Cyril of the holy Jerusalemites, a thousand and...
some three hundred years ago, testified that the patriarch, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, teaching the sheep committed to his care, said that it was A no longer common bread, but the body of Christ. To these he also added: "Since Christ himself affirms and says of the bread: 'This is my body,' who thereafter would dare to doubt? And since he himself also confirms it by saying: 'This is my blood,' who would doubt, and say that it is not his blood? He once changed water into wine, and is he not worthy that we should believe that he transmutes wine into blood?" etc.
So much for the Greeks; now let us hear the Latins. Tertullian, in book IV *Against Marcion*, declares that Christ took bread and made it his body, saying: "This is my body."
Cyprian teaches in his *Sermon on the Supper* that the bread which the Lord held out to the disciples was changed not in shape, but in nature, and by the omnipotence of the word was made flesh.
Jerome takes care not to speak anything sinister regarding those clerics who perform the body of Christ with their holy mouth, which is to say, as he himself explains elsewhere, those at whose prayers the body and blood of Christ are formed; epistola to Heliodorus and epistola to Evagrius.
Augustine says that that is only the body of Christ which, taken from the fruits of the earth and sanctified by the mystical prayer, is duly received unto salvation; in his book *On the Trinity*, book 3, chap. 4. Furthermore, in sermon 28 on the words of the Lord: "I have told you," he says, "that before the words of Christ, what is offered is called bread; but when the words of Christ have been uttered, it is no longer called bread, but is called body."
Ambrosius, having produced many examples from both Testaments, implies that it is not that which nature formed that exists in the Eucharistic bread, but that which the blessing has consecrated: since the power of the blessing is greater than that of nature itself, by which nature is changed; and the word of Christ, which the priest uses, is so effective and powerful that it changes what things were before into something else; book *On those who are initiated into the mysteries*, chap. 9, and book V *On the Sacraments*, chap. 4 and 5. I omit the rest.
However, how shameful, how diverse, and how contrary and perverse are the interpretations of this age’s Sacramentarians concerning these same words of Christ instituting the Eucharist—the fights, the contradictions, and finally how inconsistent, doubtful, and uncertain their opinions are—we shall say in part below on chapter 69.
B It is now no longer common bread. By the invisible operation of the Holy Spirit and the virtue of the consecration, he teaches that it comes to pass that that common nature and substance of bread, which previously lay hidden under its accidents, ceases to be, and passes over into the immortal, celestial, and God-joined flesh of Christ; by whose participation, there is conferred upon our bodies, which are subject to death and corruption from the transgression of the first Adam, the right, the pledge, the virtue, and the certain expectation of immortal life; which would never happen from ordinary bread. That this is the genuine meaning of this place, Irenæus himself makes clear later in book V: "When," he writes, "the mixed cup and the broken bread receive the word of God, it becomes the Eucharist of the blood and body of Christ, out of which the substance of our flesh is increased and consists." How do they (the heretics) deny that the flesh is capable of the gift of God, who is eternal life, which is nourished by the body and blood of Christ, and is made his member?
And our bodies likewise. Roffensis: "Although the grain of wheat cast into the earth may perish, yet that corruption, on account of the virtue hidden within the grain itself, is a path to the greater growth of another life; in the same way, it is necessary that our bodies at length, by bodily death, should return C to ashes. But since some of the virtue, which we contracted from the eating of the flesh of Christ, seemed to remain in those ashes even still for Irenæus as for other ancients; the burning of our flesh itself (if indeed it had first been fed by this food) is the very straightest path to immortality."
But giving thanks for the gift. All the codices printed at Basel, Lausanne, and Paris read thus: the old codex, and more correctly, in my judgment, "to the giver," and Oecolampadius reads it so in Roffensis, book IV, chap. 21. Furthermore, Irenæus is undoubtedly alluding to those praises and acts of thanksgiving which the priest chants in the preface (so we call it after Cyprian) before the consecration, the beginning of which is: "Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is meet and right—It is truly meet and right, etc." For these agree word for word with the liturgy of St. James, and book VIII of the *Constitutions* of Clement, chap. 16, which they used generally in the East and West in the age of Irenæus.
That the same was preserved in his own age among the Greeks is shown by the liturgies of Chrysostom and Basil, and Chrysostom, hom. 18 on the second to the Cor., hom. 22 on Genesis, hom. 16 to the people of Antioch, hom. on the Dedication; and Cyril of Jerusalem, 5th *mystagogical catechesis*.
That the Latins observed the same, Augustine teaches in epistle 57, quæst. 1, epist. 59, epist. 120, chap. 19, book *On Holy Virginity*, chap. 16; book *On the Gift of Perseverance*, chap. 13; book *On the Spirit and the Letter*, chap. 11; sermon 44 *on the season*; Cyprian *On the Lord's Prayer*; Cæsarius of Arles hom. 8; Rabanus book I, chap. 33.
To this end that it may provide for us. He teaches that the necessity and reward for good works are laid up with God: although the Magdeburgenses, cent. 2, p. 46, lie, stating that he and the other Fathers of that same age refer salvation and righteousness before God to faith alone and no works. It suffices here to produce against them the words of Clement of Alexandria alone: "To buy most precious salvation with one's own treasure, by charity and the faith of life, as at a price which God readily accepts," he exhorts everyone. The same, V *Stromata*: "We are saved by grace, but not without good works." And book VI: "When we hear: 'Your faith has saved you,' let us not take it that those will absolutely be saved who have believed in any way whatsoever, unless deeds also have followed." And after a few words: "There are various mansions according to the dignity and merits of those who have believed." Again book VII: "As a physician provides health to those who bring help to him, so also does God provide eternal salvation to those who bring help to him, and who work together with him toward knowledge and good actions."
The same thing. So reads the old codex. The printed ones quote it to the same meaning.
Page 252. There is therefore an altar in heaven. The Sacramentarians object this to us most ignorantly and wickedly, as if Irenæus wished to deny that any altar or sacrifice was handed down to us by Christ and left on earth: when, on the contrary, he teaches in the preceding line that "Christ himself wishes that we frequently offer a gift at the altar." And a little above he had stated so holily and gravely that he taught a new oblation of the new testament; and elsewhere, that the use of an altar was left to us for this purpose, as we said in the places above.
I add here only that the Apostle openly confirms the commemoration of altars and their use among Christians, 1 Cor. ix, 13: "He who serves the altar," etc.; 1 Cor. x, 21: "You cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord and the table of demons." What indeed was the table of demons, other than the altars upon which the Gentiles sacrificed to idols? Therefore the table of the Lord is the altars of Christians. Heb. xiii: "We have an altar."
A The fathers not only religiously preserved these, adorned them, and out of respect for Christ, who is adored in them, honored them, but also considered those who break and overturn them to be guilty of sins against divine majesty and to be its enemies. For Chrysostom teaches that as blasphemers, those who overturn altars ought to be stoned and overwhelmed with rocks. The same author, in Homily 20 on I Corinthians, and Nyssenus, in his sermon on baptism, affirm that the altar is an object of wonder because of the sacrifice which is placed upon it. It is indeed a stone by nature, but it is holy because it receives the body of Christ. Nazianzenus reproaches the Arians: "Holy things have been trampled underfoot by your profane feet, the altars have been defiled"; and to Julian the Apostate: "You have destroyed the altars," etc. Optatus says to the furious Donatists: "The altars, upon which Cyprian, Lucian, and the other martyrs once offered, you have broken." And in Book II: "At what time the altars were solemnly prepared," etc. And in books five and six: "What is an altar, if not the seat of our Lord? What is more wicked than to break an altar, to throw the Eucharist to animals?" But let this be the end: for we have discussed this most exhaustively elsewhere.
From the annotations of J. E. Grabe on chapter 34. Page 250. "It is fitting, therefore, to offer first-fruits to God," etc. I bring forward here Feuardentius's digression on first-fruits from the *Corpus Canonicum*, Distinctio 1, De consecratione, chapter 69, where he says: "Let every Christian take care to offer something to God at the solemnity of the masses, and to keep in mind what God said through Moses: 'You shall not appear before me empty.'" B
"So that in those, he may receive honor." You will hardly understand this clause correctly unless you are first warned of the homonymy of the word "grateful" (*gratus*). For in the first place, a person is called grateful by reason of a feeling of gratitude for benefits received; but in the second place, a person is considered grateful to God, that is, accepted by Him, just as he said at the beginning of this chapter: "a pure sacrifice was deemed before God, and accepted by Him." And when a man is thus accepted by God, along with the gifts he offers, he receives honor. For, as Irenæus was saying a little before, "He who offers is himself glorified in that which he offers, if his gift is accepted."
"Sacrifices in the people, sacrifices also in the Church: but the species is only changed." Fenardentius has noted quite aptly regarding these the words of Book VI of the *Apostolic Constitutions*, chapter 23: "He has changed baptism, sacrifice, priesthood, and local adoration. Instead of the daily baptism, He instituted one alone; instead of the bloody sacrifice, a rational and unbloody and mystical sacrifice, which is celebrated unto the death of the Lord through symbols of His body and blood." He added ineptly, however, that the books of the Apostolic Constitutions are the genuine and true work of Clement of Rome, which all the Fathers of the ancient Church confirm with such unanimous opinion that it would be an act of flagrant impudence to doubt or deny it. Otherwise, he correctly observes that Irenæus is not speaking here of the spiritual sacrifices of a contrite heart, of prayer, of praise, of thanksgiving, and of beneficence, which were common to every age and law, but of that new oblation of the New Testament, which Irenæus opposes to the external legal ones, and which he proved by the Scriptures to have succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, as Augustine did in Book XVII of *The City of God*, chap. 20.
"For from the outside the sepulcher appears beautiful... it is full." This also Clement of Alexandria cites, Book I of the *Pedagogue*, chap. 9: "From the outside the sepulcher appears beautiful," etc., just as it is read also in the Cambridge manuscript of the Gospels, except that *phainetai* is written there instead of *phainetai*. But the printed versions of the New Testament differ.
1740 "Cleanse that which is inside the cup... which is outside." In our printed editions of the New Testament, it stands: *katharison proton*, to which is added *tou poteriou kai tēs paropsidos*, likewise *ektos autōn*. But *proton* is also missing in Chrysostom's Commentary on this passage; and *kai tēs paropsidos* in Clement of Alexandria in the cited passage and in the Cambridge MS; finally *autou* [is missing] in Clement, Chrysostom, and the Latin Vulgate version.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 35. Page 252. "But the gifts." Although those things which were created in this world are said to be ideas and types of heavenly things, it does not follow from that that the heavenly things themselves are again types of other things higher up and unknown; or that God, known to us, is a type and figure of another unknown one: otherwise, this kind of Gnostic delirium would go on to infinity.
"For neither." Old codex: "For he could not otherwise accommodate the image of spiritual things." "And altogether of fools." Old codex: "and in every way." "As we have frequently shown." He discussed this primarily in Book II, chap. 40.
Annotations of the same on chapter 36. Page 252. "To which rightly." He points out that it is of extreme dementia and insanity to imagine and seek out another God beyond or above the true God; since if we are unable to measure or comprehend the dimensions of the heavens, we will be much less able to attain to the divine immensity. "Otherwise." Although the old codex has "of cubits" (*cubitorum*) for this reading, yet both seem to be read not incongruously. "Immeasurable." Similar to this is this sentiment of Cyprian: "God can neither be seen, He is brighter than sight; nor comprehended, He is purer than touch; nor estimated, He is greater than feeling; and for that reason we estimate Him worthily, when we call Him inestimable." "And of the right hand." Old codex: "and desires, and reads the measure of the right hand." "But truly into the depth." Cyril of Jerusalem, discussing this figment of the Valentinians, seems to have alluded to this passage when he says: "For he teaches that he, who was the depth of malice, began his doctrine from the depth."
Annotations of the same on chapter 37. Page 253. "Therefore according to greatness." God, while by nature incomprehensible, yet shows by His works that He is the one God and Lord of this world: since He created it not through the mediation of angels, but through His only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit. "To whom He also speaks, saying: 'Let us make.'" The Tertullian school, Athanasius in his *Epistle on the Synods*, Book I of *On the United Deity of the Trinity*, Sermon 4 *Against the Arians*, Hilary in Book IV *On the Trinity*, Basil in Homily 9 *on the Hexaemeron*, Gregory of Nyssa in his oration on the words: "Let us make man," etc.; Cyril of Jerusalem in *Catechism 10*; Cyril of Alexandria in Book II, chap. 2, on John; Book V of his *Dialogues on the Trinity*; Books I, VI, and VIII *Against Julian*; Epiphanius in *Heresy 69*; Ambrose in Book I *On the Faith*, chap. 7, and Book VI *Hexaemeron*, chap. 7; Augustine, Book XII *On the Trinity*, chap. 6, in his book *Against the Sermon of the Arians*; Theodoret, quest. 19 on Genesis; all judged that this passage of Irenæus is to be understood in this way. They abandon to be pursued with horrific anathemas and all dire things the Jews, Sabellians, and Arians who disagree with this interpretation, having already been convicted by reasons and other Scriptures.
"The Scripture therefore pronounced." Eusebius transcribed this passage of Irenæus in *History*, Book V, chap. 8. From which we restore the genuine reading, with two...
A additional words, and "pronounced," and "which." The Magdeburgenses, although they brag that sixteen Lyncean men, like Argus, pore over their rhapsodies day and night, have nevertheless stumbled into a most shameful lie here, writing that this very judgment of Irenæus concerning the book of the Shepherd, which Eusebius recites, is not found in the works of Irenæus that exist today. Furthermore, Origen, imitating Irenæus, inserted this opinion from the book of the Shepherd into chapter 3 of the first book of the *Patriarchs*; Athanasius reports in an epistle that the Arians loved and cited it: "That the Nicene synod," etc. Moreover, how much the writings of Hermes or the Shepherd are to be valued from this, the Church shall pronounce: I shall set forth the diverse judgments of very influential authors. Eusebius writes in *History*, Book III, chapter 3, that some have thought he was the Hermes whom Paul greets at the end of the Epistle to the Romans. Damasus calls him the brother of Pope Pius, who suffered martyrdom in the twentieth year of the Emperor Antoninus; Platina writes that he was not his brother, but an intimate friend, a great familiarity having existed between them. The same Pope and martyr Pius calls him a teacher of the faith and of the Scriptures, who shone in his own age, and to whom the angel of the Lord appeared in the guise of a shepherd. Eusebius indicates that Irenæus knew and approved this writing of his because he uses the opinion taken from it by the former to refute heresy and to confirm the chief dogma of the faith. Clement of Alexandria teaches that the angel appeared to him in the guise of a shepherd, citing his words again and again in Book I and II of the *Stromata*; once in Book IV, and twice also in Book VI. Tertullian discusses and approves certain rites of those praying from the writings of Hermes. Origen encourages the reading of his books in Homily 13 on Ezekiel. Athanasius, in his book *On the Incarnation of the Word*, citing a portion of the opinion written above, calls the book of the Shepherd most useful. Rufinus, in his *Exposition of the Symbol*, ascribes it to the books which the ancients called ecclesiastical. Jerome, enumerating him among the first ecclesiastical writers, testifies that his book was read publicly in certain churches of Greece: and he judges it truly useful, and acknowledges that many of the ancients made use of testimonies from the same. Sedulius, in chapter XVI of Romans, left a writing that the scripture of the book of the Shepherd seemed to him very useful and divinely inspired. It has pleased me to note these things against the Magdeburgenses, who, relying chiefly on the frivolous and jejune conjectures of this author, tear and condemn him, having excepted him in miserable ways.
Since, moreover, "And Wisdom." In this place one may see the divinity and co-eternity of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son: and for that reason the Magdeburgenses ought not, out of sycophancy, to have ascribed the opposite to him.
"The Lord created me." Concerning the meaning of this passage, there was formerly a grave dispute between Catholics and Arians: for those, wishing the Son of God to be properly and truly created, were at odds; while the others constantly denied it, inasmuch as He had always been with the Father, just as Irenæus hands down in this chapter, that is, that He possessed the same eternity, immensity, and divine majesty with the Father, professing in the Creed: "Eternal Father, eternal Son, eternal Holy Spirit. Yet not three eternals, nor three immensities; but one eternal and one immense." Furthermore, Epiphanius and Jerome resolve this knot in few words, teaching that in the Hebrew source the word is *Canani* [קָנַנִי], which means to possess and to acquire; not *Bara* [בָּרָא], which means to create. And for this reason, Aquila more correctly translated it, *Kyrios ektesato me*, "The Lord possessed me," rather than the LXX, *Kyrios ektise me*, "The Lord created me." For possession signifies that the Son has always been in the Father, and the Father in Him: whereas creation signifies that of one who did not previously exist, B starting from the beginning of its existence; which concerning the Son of God is to be considered impious and wicked.
Page 254. "Nor of the ancients." The old codex had "who rested" instead of these two words; both can be read. "And when he was speaking." In this place we have deleted some things, and added others, from the old manuscript author. For the printed editions read: "and he would speak, and he would be present, that is, saving His plasma from the entire universe, and [one] capable of being [saved] by Him," etc. "For prophecy." Basil has a description similar to this: "A prophet is one who, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, foretells what is to come." And Procopius of Gaza in chap. 1 of Isaiah, as his interpreter Joannes Curterius showed the Latin rendering to me: "A prophet is one who predicts future, or hidden present, things." "Just as also seeing the light." The *Melissa*, page 2, transcribed this opinion by name from Irenæus, as far as "and on account of this incapable, He made Himself visible," etc.; in that place we substituted *percipiunt* [they perceive] for *recipiunt* [they receive]. "Through whom He made." Thus the old codex. The printed editions, "through whom perfected."
"Verbum" [Word] the dispenser. We have expunged "dispensation," from the old codex, author. "For not in word only." This opinion of Augustine on that matter is elegant: "Of those Fathers, not only their tongue, but also their life, was prophetic"; Book IV *Against Faustus*, ch. 2, and Book XXII, ch. 23. Tertullian also: "As in words, so also in things it was prophesied"; book *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*. "And his remaining." These three kinds of visions, by which God made Himself and His own judgments manifest to the prophets, Augustine pursues at length, Book *Against Adimantus*, ch. 28. "And indeed the Word spoke to Moses." This is the constant opinion of almost all the ancients, as we have often noted. Most illustrious words of St. Clement will illustrate this place: "This Son of God to be incarnate, Jacob saw long ago appearing as a man, and said: 'I have seen the Lord face to face'; him Abraham received into his hospitality, him Moses saw in the bush, him Jesus Nave [saw as] leader of the army of the Lord, armed, fighting; him Daniel [saw as] the Son of Man coming to the Father," etc. See Cyril of Jerusalem, catechesis 10 and 11. "And with my hand." Thus the old codex. Greek: *skepasō tē cheiri mou*. Vulgate: "I will protect with my right hand." We have removed "my hand." And afterward, "itself," instead of "to itself," we have replaced. "And on account of this face to face." Tertullian expresses the same also in Book IV *Against Marcion*: "When Moses had desired the sight of the Lord, saying: 'If I have found grace in thy sight, show me thyself, that I may know [I might see thee],' desiring that sight in which He was to act as a man, which the prophet knew, etc. 'In the last,' says the Lord, 'you shall see my back parts'; not loins, nor shins, but that glory which he had desired, to be revealed in later times, in which He had promised to make Himself visible face to face," etc. The same is contained in the book *Against Praxeas*. Likewise Cyril of Jerusalem, catechesis 10. "Not therefore manifestly." These things seem to be taken from Dionysius the Areopagite, book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, ch. 4, and epist. 2, to Gaius the monk.
Page 256. "Prophets properly." Thus the old codex. The printed editions, "the former." "And the likeness." We have restored these ten words from the old codex. 163 "Therefore if neither Moses." They disputed formerly; but even now many inquire: Whether Moses and Paul, while they were still journeying here, saw God
A after the manner of the blessed—that is, face to face as He is—a thing which Irenæus here expressly denies. I will subjoin, in a few words, what I have learned from the eminent doctor Augustine. He writes somewhere that they saw God, not by any likeness or image of corporal nature, but in that nature and essence of the subject, as God is, so far as the human mind, withdrawn from all sense of the body, is able to grasp it. He again confirms the same in his epistle to Paulina, on seeing God, ch. 12 and 13. But he explains this same point in book II *De Trinitate*, ch. 17 and 18, affirming that they saw God for a time only with the eye of the mind, as far as was permitted to man, but not with bodily eyes. For he contends in book XXII *De civitate Dei* that not even the blessed, after the judgment, will behold God with bodily eyes, however much glorified: observing that the blessed Job said indeed, "In my flesh I shall see God," but not "through the flesh."
Nor does Irenæus alone judge that Moses or Paul, while living here, did not see God after the manner of blessed minds; but the same indeed is held by Dionysius, book *De Cœlesti hierarchia*, ch. 4, and in his epistle to Gaius; Origen, homily 4 on Isaiah; Nazianzen, oration 2, *on Theology*; Chrysostom, homily 14 on John; Cyril of Alexandria, book I on John, ch. 22; and among the Latins, Jerome, *dialogue 5 against the Pelagians*; Gregory, book XV *Moralia*, ch. 36 and 37, and many others. But to the Scriptures which those who hold the contrary view object, they respond that these must be understood as referring to a special and more illustrious vision, not to the beatific one which they now enjoy with the angels in heaven.
*For sometimes.* Tertullian: "He was seen there by the Babylonian king in the furnace with his martyrs, a fourth, as it were the Son of Man," etc. *Book against Marcion* and *book against Praxeas*. Jerome and Theodoret agree in their commentaries on Daniel 3.
*Page 253. Taking.* It seems, therefore, that Irenæus in his code B read *λαβών*, as it also exists today in some copies, whereas in others this word is absent, and is omitted even by some Fathers.
*Word and Wisdom ... in whom He made all things.* Similarly, Theophilus of Antioch, book I *Ad Autolycum*, p. 21: "God by His Word and His Wisdom made all things." Whence he soon cites the same words of Solomon from Proverbs 8, which Irenæus cited a little later.
*To whom he also speaks.* Exceedingly parallel are the words of Theophilus of Antioch, book II *Ad Autolycum*, p. 116, Oxford edition: "Moreover, as if needing help, God is found saying, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness.' He spoke not to any other, but to His own Word and His own Wisdom." Where, just as Irenæus designates the Son by the name of Word and the Holy Spirit by the name of Wisdom, just as also a little before (p. 106) he makes mention of the Trinity of God and of His Word and of His Wisdom. Compare indeed Irenæus himself, book I, ch. 19.
*Page 257. Rahab the harlot.* Before Irenæus, St. Clement in his *Epistle to the Corinthians*, § 12, the same whom he praises here, writes that Rahab the harlot prophesied in act, that is, she shadowed forth things to come: "Not only faith, but prophecy occurred in the woman." And not only in act, but also by word, she prophesied, as Origen observed in homily 3 on Joshua: "This harlot," he says, "who received them, from having been a harlot now becomes a prophet. For she says: 'I know that the Lord your God has delivered this land unto you'." You see how she... prophesies and foretells of things to come.
*But sometimes a stone from a mountain.* By the mountain, they believe is to be understood either the Hebrew race or the Blessed Virgin Mary; but by the stone, Christ, conceived and born of her by the coming of the power of the Holy Spirit alone, as Justin judges in his *Dialogue*, Tertullian in his *book against Marcion*, Augustine in his *sermon to the catechumens*, ch. 12. We have put "is seen" for "will be seen."
*But also John.* He expressly ascribes the sacred Apocalypse to John the Apostle and Evangelist: but more will be said of this below.
*And perseverance of prayers.* That is, the perseverance with which he frequently spent the night in prayer.
*He who should deliver.* "He was about to deliver," who was to betray Him.
*Page 257. And in the place where it was mentioned*, etc.
*So also does Moses.* This meaning also pleases Theodoret in his *Question 4 on Exodus*, Jerome in ch. 1 of Zephaniah, and Augustine in *sermon 86*.
*But it is asked by many* how the wife of Moses is called an Ethiopian, when she was the daughter of Jethro, priest of Midian, to which province he is said to have fled, not to Ethiopia? I answer that Midian is separated from Ethiopia by only a short crossing of the Red Sea: and that it is very often called in Holy Scripture the land of Cush and Ethiopia: therefore, Zipporah, born and bred there, was rightly called an Ethiopian. It is nevertheless memorable that not only Epiphanius, but also Rabbi Moses Maimonides observes, namely, that upon receiving the office of prophet, Moses thereafter abstained D from his own wife, that he might give himself the more purely to holy and spiritual work.
*But he received the spies.* The old code adds "three spies," which would fittingly match the comparison concerning the three divine hypostases, if the context of the Scriptures repeated that there were two, not three.
*By the faith of the scarlet sign.* When the spies promised the harlot Rahab that she would be saved with her whole family if a scarlet cord were hung in the window as a sign of her house, she had faith, and did what they commanded, and was thus saved, as the sacred history narrates. But mystically, it signified that through the blood of the Lord there shall be redemption for all who believe and hope in God, as St. Clement wrote in the cited place. Him followed Justin Martyr in his *Dialogue with Trypho*, page 338, and Irenæus in this place, and after him many others, named by Cotelier in his notes to the cited passage of St. Clement.
*Which was the Passover.* For the sign, by which the Israelites about to depart from Egypt were saved, so that their firstborn did not perish, as did those of the Egyptians, was the blood of the Passover, consistent in the matter of color with the sign of the scarlet cord. Whence Justin Martyr in the cited place commemorates both.
Notes by Fr. Feuardent on chapter 38
*Page 257. Since also in Abraham.* Not only in Abraham was faith and the calling of the nations to Christ prefigured; but also in the birth of Rebecca, and the deeds done by Jacob: therefore it easily appears that the same faith of the patriarchs was, with ours, in one God, etc.
*Page 258. But also the birth of Rebecca.* Justin in his *Dialogue*, Tertullian in the beginning of his book *Against the Jews*, Origen in homily 2 on Genesis, Ambrose in ch. 9 to the Romans, Augustine in *sermon 68 on the seasons*, and Prosper of Aquitaine in book I *De promiss.*, ch. 20, subscribe to this interpretation.
A *Who is the knower of hidden things.* These words are from Susannah, taken from chapter xiii of Daniel; from which, and from others which are cited above in chapter 41, and below in chapter 44, it clearly appears that those two final chapters of Daniel, which are now rejected by the Gnostics as apocryphal, were of the most holy truth and authority for the most ancient fathers and martyrs of the Church.
*Just as he seized the heel.* Eucherius of Lyon, Rupert, the Glossa interlinearis: "He held the heel of the greater, because mystically the greater was to be overcome by the lesser. For the heel of Esau prefigured the final time of the Israelite people, in which our Lord deigned to arrive, so that He might confer salvation upon them," etc.
*Twelve-pillared.* Thus does an ancient manuscript teach it should be read, that is, of twelve columns, by whose name he understands the twelve apostles to be adumbrated through the twelve patriarchs; who, just as they were of the Jews, so were these the offshoots of the Christians. Justin adds that the same were signified by the twelve bells hanging from the high priest's stole. Tertullian, by the twelve springs in Elim, the twelve gems on the priest's tunic, the twelve stones chosen in the Jordan and placed in the ark of the covenant, lib. v *Cont. Mar.* We have cancelled "ten-pillared," and a little before we have restored B "he suffers" instead of "he was suffering" by the authority of an old manuscript.
*From two sisters.* Concerning this great crime, which he nevertheless diligently dilutes, Augustine reports that the Manichaeans objected to the blessed patriarch, who also elegantly explains the whole history allegorically, lib. xxii *Cont. Faust. Manich.*, from chapter 52 up to 60, and likewise *serm. 80 de temp.*
*Which it prefigured.* Thus does Justin write in his *Dialogue*: "Two wives of Jacob adumbrated two peoples, Leah the Synagogue, Rachel the Church. Leah’s eyes were weak, so the Jews have the eyes of their soul dimmed; Rachel stole the gods of Laban, the gods fashioned by hands also perished for the Christian Church," etc.
169 *From the annotations of J. Ern. Grab. on chapter 38.*
Page 257. *In your womb.* The LXX now sound thus: *Ex koilias sou diastakhousi*. But St. Barnabas in § 13 of his *Epistle*, just like Irenaeus, cites: *en te koilia sou*, so that the conjecture of the illustrious Cotelier in the margin is futile: "read *ek koilias*." Concerning which, to mention it in passing, the translation of the words of Barnabas is also perverted, where it says: *hoti meiōn laos outos ē ekeinos*, "which of these or those people might be greater"; it should be corrected: "that this people might be greater than that one."
*He was suffering the persecution of his brother.* Thus also Justin Martyr in his *Dialogue with Trypho*, page 364: "For all time Jacob was hated by his brother. And we now, and our Lord Himself, are hated by you, and by other men absolutely, all being brothers by nature."
*He began the twelve-pillared abroad.* Here the holy apostles are called the twelve *pillars* and the firmament of the Church: *pillars* indeed from Gal. ii, 9, where James, Peter, and John are called *those who seem to be pillars*; *twelve* indeed being *firmaments*, as I conjecture, from Apoc. xxi, 14, where St. John in his description of the heavenly Jerusalem mentions *twelve foundations and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb*. Otherwise, Christ is said to have created the apostles "abroad," by reason of the heavenly country, from which He was a pilgrim while He stayed on earth.
*Various sheep, etc.* Irenaeus also took these from Justin Martyr, who in the place already cited says: "Jacob served Laban for the speckled and various sheep. C Christ also served the service even unto the cross for men of every race, who were various and manifold, having acquired them through His blood and the mystery of the cross." *Giving it to all similarly.* Thus also from Justin M. in the place cited.
*Notes of Fr. Fenardentius on chapter 39.*
Page 259. *Washing with His hands.* He means that the washing of the feet, which Christ performed at the supper, signified that *other* washing, by which the filth of our souls is washed away through the daily remission of sins; which Cyprian, or any other author of the sermon on the washing of the feet, explains at greater length, and to which Cyril and Augustine on John subscribe.
*Re-edifying.* We have erased "rebuilding," by the authority of an old manuscript.
*For not on account of them alone.* Lactantius writes eloquently that the Father chose the torment of the cross above all other things, so that He might allow the Son to be afflicted, that His passion might become known to all nations. For he who is suspended on a gibbet is both conspicuous to all and higher than the rest. Wherefore our Lord in His passion stretched out His hands, and measured the world, so that He might already then show that from the rising of the sun to its setting, a great people from all languages and tribes would come to be under His wings, and would receive that greatest and most sublime sign upon their foreheads, lib. iv, chapter 26.
*But on account of all without exception.* The Calvinists, for their own impiety, drawing and restricting the benefit of redemption produced and offered through Christ for the whole human race to the smallest part of it, do not fear to say with Bucer that "He expiated the sins of the elect only"; with Musculus, "that He satisfied only for believers"; with Calvin, "that He was not crucified for the impious, nor was His blood poured out for the expiation of their sins"; with Beza in the Colloquy of Montbéliard, page 544, etc. "The universal promises about Christ the redeemer of all ought to be accepted not according to the letter as applying to all *men*, but only to *some*; which are here rightfully refuted by the apostolic man Irenaeus." What else would the holy man have accomplished, especially with the blessed apostle John, the preceptor and doctor of his preceptor Polycarp, teaching that Christ is the propitiation "not for our (that is, the elect's) sins only, but also for those of the whole world"? And with the Forerunner also crying out that "He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world"? And with Paul attesting that "Christ died for all," and that "God in Christ reconciled the world to Himself," and that "Christ gave Himself as a redemption for all," and "tasted death for all"? But about this, elsewhere. D
*His annotations on chapter 40.*
Page 259. *On account of this He was saying.* The patriarchs and prophets prefigured the calling of the Gentiles to the faith, and predicted the coming of Christ, so that it might be more easily accepted: which also the angel revealed to the blessed Joseph, so that he might more willingly serve the Son and His mother.
*They served.* Thus an old manuscript. Others: "they serve." Then we substituted "think" for "was thinking" by the authority of an old manuscript.
*Which she would generate.* The printed books have "generates."
*And in the rest of his upbringing.* He teaches that the blessed Joseph not only had the name of father of Christ by custom, but also performed duties truly paternal toward Him, while he served the most holy mother of Christ faithfully and diligently in all things; he carried the child into the temple, into Egypt, into Judea, into Galilee, etc., and provided for both with assiduous labors and vigils with the necessities of this life. Indeed, Bernard, attending to this, calls him the faithful and prudent servant, whom the Lord appointed the solace of His mother and the nourisher of His own flesh, *Hom. 5, on Missus est.*
A Page 260. *Preach to come.* To this place Eusebius alludes in *History*, book 1, chapter 1. Those things which pertain to its illustration, we have annotated in chapter 3 of book 1 and chapter 12 of book 3.
*The same notes on chapter 41.*
Page 260. *For this reason and Paul.* As for the labors of Paul which he commemorates in this chapter above the rest, with all the sinews of his eloquence, as if the fountains of his entire genius had been poured out, Chrysostom later pursued these in eight homilies on the praises of Paul, to which it will not be unpleasant to add these few words from Jerome: "Where is that vessel of election, the trumpet of the Gospel, the roar of our lion, the thunder of the Gentiles, the river of Christian eloquence?" etc. And again: "As often as I read the apostle Paul, I seem to myself not to hear words, but thunder. Some of his words seem simple, and as if of an innocent and rustic man, one who knows neither how to make nor to evade snares; but wherever you look, they are lightnings. He sticks to the center, he catches all that he touches, he turns his back so that he may overcome, he feigns flight B so that he may kill," etc. Against the errors of John of Jerusalem and in the *Apology for the book against Jovinian*, Eusebius mandates in writing (book 3 of *History*, c. 42) that he surpassed the equal apostles not only in labor, but also in erudition and in the weight of his opinions.
*Who is above all.* The printed copies had "all," which we have deleted, so that we might insert six other words from an old manuscript.
*The same notes on chapter 42.*
Page 261. *For thus it behooved.* Both testaments were prefigured in Abraham: the New, when he believed while uncircumcised unto righteousness; the Old, when he was circumcised. The birth of Tamar was also a type of two peoples; but one is the God of both testaments and of both people.
Now indeed *and by Tamar.* Theodoret in question 95 on Genesis and Augustine in book 22, *Against Faustus*, chapters 83, 84, 85, 86, describe this allegory with a richer pen, and defend the patriarch Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, as much as they can, from the calumnies of the Manichaeans.
Moreover, for her excuse, Chrysostom in homily 62 on Genesis adds this reason: that she wished to steal the embrace of her father-in-law and to beget sons from him, not wishing to satisfy lust, but for the sake of the dispensation. "No one," he says, "hearing these things, should condemn Tamar; for she served a dispensation, and therefore deserves no reproach." Her two sons were a figure of the two peoples; and a prediction of the Jewish life, and a spiritual one. Ambrose is entirely of this opinion in book 3 on Luke. Indeed, even R. Simeon, son of Jochai, in his *Commentary on the Pentateuch*, whom they called Zoar, releases her from the crime, because she did not do it for the sake of fulfilling lust, but from a certain pious instinct, namely, that she might conceive the expected Messiah from Judah. But Irenaeus will speak more copiously concerning the sins of the ancient saints below in chapters 45 and 46.
*Prefigured in Abel.* Augustine's words will bring light to this passage: "Abel, lesser in birth, is killed," he says, "by a brother older in birth: Christ, the head of the people lesser in birth, is killed by the people of the Jews, older in birth; he in the field, this one in the place of Calvary." From book 12 *Against Faustus*, chapters 9 and 10. Sedulius, *Elegy*, vv. 9, 10: *The brother was wicked, who struck down the just man of old:* *The damner of Christ, the wicked brother was.*
*Prefigured the two testaments.* These are the Apostle's words to the Galatians [Gal. IV, 22]: "Abraham had two sons, one by a bondwoman, and one by a freewoman; but these are the two testaments," etc. Which opinion Augustine follows in *City of God*, book 15, chapters 2 and 3, and book 16, chapter 25, that Sarah and Hagar with their offspring signified two cities, one free in God, the other earthly. But he disputes more copiously in book 1 *Against Adversaries*, book *Prescr.* D *But others have been reaped.* He speaks thus, for "they have reaped"; and later, "it has been reaped in the Church," for "it has received fruit."
*The same notes on chapter 43.*
Page 261. *For here is the treasure.* Christ is the treasure hidden in the types of the Old Testament and the prophets, who were clearly revealed and manifested through his advent; and therefore, just as they are open to Christians, so they are still obscure to the Jews.
Page 262. *To the prophet Daniel.* So the old codex. But all others, "in Daniel."
*Before it has effect.* So the old codex reads. Others, however, "efficacy and ambiguity."
*Who with the episcopate.* He wishes truth of doctrine to be joined to succession: otherwise, those who contradict their doctrine and traditions are neither to be heard nor recognized as successors of the apostles, even if they occupy their seats: this, however, is to be done from the heart, even if one does not imitate the piety and holy morals of those to whom they succeed. From these, moreover, and from those things which he wrote above in book 3, chapters 2, 5, 25, 40, and below also in chapters 45, 65 and 70, and from others of his century and of the most learned, ancient, and holy pastors and writers who followed him, it is manifest that the legitimate succession of bishops is a certain mark of the catholic Church, by which it is distinguished from the congregations of all infidels, heretics, and schismatics; that to this as to a sacred anchor the ancients fled; that they persuaded themselves that to this alone was promised the Spirit of truth forever; that they finally opposed this as a wall of bronze to all the machines and battering rams of the infidels. With this weapon Tertullian pierced all the forces of the former Gnostics. "If they dare," he says, "to insert themselves into the apostolic age, so that they may appear to have been handed down from the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the origins of their Churches; let them unfold the order of their bishops, thus running down from the beginning through successions, so that that first bishop had as author and predecessor some one of the apostles, or of the apostolic men who yet persisted with the apostles. For in this way the apostolic Churches bring forward their registers, just as the Church of the Smyrnaeans, having Polycarp placed there by John, reports; just as the Roman, with Clement ordained by Peter, and so too the others exhibit. Let the heretics contrive something similar. For what is illicit for them after blasphemy?" And a little later: "To them it should deservedly be said: Who are you? When and whence did you come? What are you doing in my domain, not being mine? Finally, Marcion, by what right do you cut my wood? By what license, Valentinus, do you divert my fountains? By what power, Apelles, do you move my boundaries? The possession is mine, I possess from of old; I possess beforehand, I have firm origins from the very authors whose the thing was. I am the heir of the apostles; as they provided in their testament, as they committed to the faith, as they adjured, so I hold. You have certainly always been disinherited and disowned as strangers, as enemies," etc.
With an argument of this kind, Cyprian refutes the Novatians in book 1, epistle 6. Into this asylum Jerome took refuge against so many dissected sects of the East, as he himself indicates, in his epistle to Damasus and in the dialogue *Against the Luciferians*. Optatus of Milevis suffocates Parmenianus and the Donatists with this snare, in book 2. By the consideration of this succession, as if held by the tightest bonds and preserved by the strongest barriers, Augustine frequently confirms himself in the bosom of the Catholic Church, *Against the Epistle of Manichaeus*, chapter 4; *In the Psalm against the party of Donatus*; Epistles 163 and 165; *On the Utility of Believing*, chapters 17 and 49; *Questions of the Old and New Testament*, question 110; book 2 *Against the letters of Petilianus*, chapter 51.
*Who are about Core.* A Hellenism, οἱ περὶ Χωρέ, that is, the Coreans themselves, Dathan and Abiram.
A *The gifts of the Holy Spirit and the legitimate succession of bishops.* Thus also Augustine, in his book *Against the Letter of Petilian*, chapter 4, discovering and retaining the truth from the legitimate succession of bishops, says: "The succession of priests holds me in the bosom of the Church, from the very see of Peter, to whom the Lord committed his sheep to be fed after his resurrection, down to the present episcopate." But now, at this time, the ministers of the Anabaptists, Calvinists, or Lutherans cannot show a continuous succession of pastors from the apostles, through which they might have received their new dogmas. "They are, therefore," as Optatus says of the Donatists, "sons without fathers, disciples without masters, and in a truly prodigious manner, they have sprung and been born, as it were, of themselves; wherefore, neither the sincere interpretation of Scripture, nor the truth, nor divine religion is to be sought from them, but from the successors of the apostles, with whom it is bound by a certain and perpetual bond."
It should be observed, meanwhile, that the history of Susanna, taken from chapter 13 of Daniel, was frequently praised by the ancients who imitated Irenaeus: Tertullian in his book *On the Soldier's Garland*; Cyprian in epistle 25, and also in his book *On the Good of Chastity*; also in his book *On the Celibacy of the Clergy*; Ambrose in the third book *On the Holy Spirit*, chapter 7; epistles 7 and 64; book 1 *On Duties*, chapters 3 and 18; book 3, chapter 14; the book *On Flight from the World*, chapter 9; sermon 49 and in his *Enarrations on the Psalms* 37; Augustine in *Tractate 36 on John*, and sermon 242 *on the season*; Alcimus Avitus, book 6; the Greeks similarly: Ignatius in his epistle *to the Magnesians*; Clement in book 1 of the *Constitutions*, chapters 55 and 53; Dionysius, chapter 5 *On the Divine Names*; Athanasius in his oration *Against the Arians*, epistle *to Marcellinus*, the book *On the Natural Communion between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit*, and his epistle *to Serapion*; Cyril of Alexandria, book 1 *on Leviticus*; Chrysostom in his homily *on Saint Susanna*, and countless others: which it is just to note against those who so rashly cut, or rather obliterate, those last chapters of Daniel from the sacred canon of Christian books.
*Who does not judge according to glory.* He quotes the words of Isaiah according to the Septuagint, as do Cyril and very many others. The Vulgate Latin: "Not according to the vision of the eyes."
*From all such, therefore.* He teaches that we must keep far away from all schismatics, heretics, and pestilential men of this sort; but must constantly adhere to those pious and faithful pastors of the Churches, such as were once Moses, Samuel, Paul, etc.
Pag. 263. *I am poor.* The same phrase, which he wrote in Latin, is used by Lucifer of Cagliari, at the beginning of his book *to Constantius*: "You shall not oppress the blood of the innocent." They signify, by the verb *potentari*, to oppress some by force and tyranny. So also James 2, verse 6.
*You have not found.* The old codex lacks the negation, but we have been unwilling to delete it, because after the manner of the Greeks, for the sake of greater denial, they often double the negative expression.
*We have harmed no one.* Thus the old codex, and *excusique* [we have excused] *neminem* [no one].
*And I will give your princes.* The passage from Isaiah according to the LXX: Καὶ δώσω τοὺς ἄρχοντάς σου ἐν εἰρήνῃ, "And I will give your princes in peace, and your bishops in justice:" καὶ τοὺς ἐπισκόπους σου ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ. And from this it is manifest that the usage of the name "bishop" is most ancient: as also from Psalm 101, 8, it was handed down by the apostles from the prophets to the rulers and princes of the Church.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 45.*
Pag. 263. *Where then.* True and legitimate pastors are only in the Catholic Church, not in the conventicles of heretics or schismatics; and from them, not from the others, is the true and genuine interpretation of divine Scripture to be sought, since among them are B C the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the legitimate succession of bishops. *Where, therefore, are the charisms of the Lord?* Again he brings forward that legitimate succession is a certain sign of the true Church, in which alone the Spirit of truth resides. See above, chapter 43 of this book and books 3, 4, 5 of the third book.
*Of conduct.* We added these five words from the old codex. He implies, however, that the Church never errs in doctrine and morals; since there always consists in her the incorruptibility of doctrine and the integral norm of morals.
171 Pag. 263. *By a certain presbyter.* We have noted (book 1) that Irenaeus frequently cites someone who had been instructed in the Christian religion by the hearers of the apostles, but with his name suppressed, which he also does in this place. Who that was, Eusebius wrote that he did not know. I would willingly judge that it was Clement of Rome, did not the fact that he testifies he was instructed by the hearers of the apostles stand in the way; but that this man had the apostles themselves as masters is confessed by all. I would think it was Clement, because similar things to those which are brought forward by Irenaeus exist in his book 7 *of the Apostolic Constitutions*, chapter 21. Or perhaps he understands Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis, who declares in the prologue of his books, a fragment of which exists in Eusebius, *History*, book 3, chapter 59, that he had studiously inquired of the elders, who had seen and heard the apostles, what the apostles taught and delivered to the Churches. But even him, the same Eusebius, after Irenaeus, makes a hearer of the apostle John and a companion of Polycarp, in the same place of his *History*. And so I confess that I cannot judge with certainty who he may have been; let another of keener judgment show.
*For justice.* We have added these five words from the old codex.
*Wisdom.* We have deleted *wisdom*, and added *and the nations*, by the authority of the old codex.
*And it is sent.* The printed codices [read]: "and it sends."
Pag. 264. *And the Psalm of confession.* The Hebrews also acknowledge that this is the fiftieth, affixing to it a title of this sort: "A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, when he went in to Bathsheba."
*A pattern of a true temple.* Thus the old codex; the printed [copies read]: "of truth." But that Solomon's temple was a pattern of Christ the Lord is evident, John 2: "Destroy this temple," etc., which Athanasius elegantly explains in his 5th oration *against the Arians*.
*Five thousand songs.* Athanasius writes in the *Synopsis* that these are nowhere to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. For "of the Lord," we have restored "of God," by the authority of the old codex. Furthermore, Josephus in *Antiquities*, book 8, says that Solomon made three thousand books of parables and similitudes. The rabbis record that these were burned at the devastation of the city, along with the books of the Law, by Nebuzaradan, commander of the Chaldean host, and that they were not afterwards replaced.
A Likewise, he left *Hascirim*, that is, five thousand songs or poems; or, as Josephus explains, five thousand books of songs, of which only one remained, which is inscribed the Song of Songs, the rest having been consumed in the burning of Jerusalem. He also argued, as Jerome gathers from III Kings, c. v, about the powers, natures, and habits of beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes; which perished in the same fire with the others.
And the Queen of the South. Francis Alvarez and the *Ethiopian History* call her Maqueda and Nicaula, who set up the seat of her empire in Saba on the island of the Nile, which Cambyses later called Meroe. They also say that that woman married Solomon, and conceived of him a son, whom she named Melich and David. Again, that she took with her into Ethiopia twelve thousand Jews, namely one thousand from each tribe, and since they propagated there in great numbers, even today the noblemen of Ethiopia glory in being descendants of the seed of Israel. There still stands today the vast empire of the great Negus, or Prester John, in which the Christian religion, first propagated and confirmed by the eunuch and later by the blessed Matthew, is preserved in its own way. Whoever desires more on these matters should consult the writings of the same Alvarez, Damiao de Góis, Osorius, and Maffei.
And Solomon did evil. Not only did he erect temples and altars to the idols of the Gentiles, but he also sacrificed to them himself, as Justin objects to Trypho and reproachfully points out. Tertullian, Lib. V *Contra Marcionem*: "Solomon was dragged by a woman even into idolatry."
On account of the Lord. Regarding the true descent of Christ to the lower regions, to lead out from there the souls of the fathers, these things are so manifest that those who attempt to derive them otherwise stand in need of common sense; concerning which article I will speak more extensively at the end of the following book. I will only indicate here that Clement of Alexandria attributes-marvelous things about this descent of Christ, his preaching, and the conversion of many in the lower regions, in Books II and VI of the *Stromata*, which he confirms from the revelations of Hermes or the Pastor. B
And for our correction. Justin Martyr says similar things: "It is profitable to know conversations alien to reason, so that no one may fall into them out of sudden curiosity"; *Epistle to Zenas and Serenus*. See Chrysostom on Psalm 50.
With interest. We have restored these six words from an old manuscript, with the consent of the evangelical text.
*Annotations of the same on Chapter 46.*
Page 265. *Without doubt, therefore.* The transgressions and punishments of the ancient people do not prove that there is another God than He whom Christ preached in the Gospel; since He who once took notice of the Israelites, to this day also avenges the sins of His own.
*He did not think well.* οὐκ εὐδόκησεν, that is, he did not find all the Hebrews pleasing and acceptable; just as in the previous chapter, God did not think well of many of them, which others rendered: "God did not approve of many of them."
*Who do not obey the Gospel.* Thus the old codex. The Vulgate edition and the Greek text, μὴ ὑπακούουσι τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ, we have expunged; "they hear/obey the Gospel."
Page 265. *And temporally.* Augustine persuades himself that the little children and infants of those perishing cities, who were not guilty of the crimes of their parents, were freed from eternal punishments of hell, in *Quæst. ex Vet. Test.*, q. 13.
*Annotations of the same on Chapter 47.*
Page 265. *Very senseless.* Senseless and furious are they who strive to introduce another God besides the Creator, because the faith and grace of the New Testament is richer, and greater righteousness is required of us. For one and the same God variously C disposes the human race, and the death of Christ is salvation to the faithful, and perdition to the faithless.
Page 266. *So also punishment.* This argument is taken from Heb. x: "Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing," etc.
*These will always be.* He overturns the Platonic punishments and vicissitudes, which Origen, too merciful, afterwards devised; but Augustine discourses upon them at length in *De civit.* XXI, from c. 12 to 20.
*Who then temporally.* We have restored the old codex *anct.*, "tunc" for "nunc"; just as shortly "salvavit" for "salvabit".
*Annotations of the same on Chapter 48.*
Page 266. *But he hardened.* He dissolves the argument of the Marcionites, who tried to make God the author of evils because it is said that He hardened Pharaoh. But it is intended that this be understood by that phrase in which, in the Gospel and the Apostle, God is said to harden, to make obstinate, and to deliver over to a reprobate mind, when He averts His face, withdraws the aid of grace, and permits those who spontaneously chose them for themselves to remain in darkness; which he elegantly explains by an example taken from the sun. In the same way, Tertullian (Lib. II *Contra Marcionem*), Archelaus the bishop of Mesopotamia (in Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catechesis* 6), and most abundantly and acutely of all, Augustine (Lib. *De prædestinatione et gratia*, c. 15, Lib. *De prædestinatione sanctorum*, c. 8, and Lib. *De gratia et libero arb.*, c. 21, 22, 23) interpret these things.
*Harden the heart of the people.* Old codex, "it is hardened"; and thus Tertullian reads (Lib. III *Contra Marcionem*).
*But they nullify him.* So also Tertullian speaks (Lib. IV *Adv. Marc.*, c. 14): "Do not fear the ignominy from men, and do not be diminished by their nullification (that is, contempt and disparagement)." And elsewhere he uses "nullification" for contempt more than once.
*And therefore God will send an operation.* Thus we have restored it from the old codex and the Greek context of the Apostle; the printed codices have "he sends operations."
Page 267. *If therefore also now.* He does not deny that God’s pity and grace have been poured out upon the whole human race; or that God renders to them different rewards according to their different merits: but he preaches and explains what the Apostle says, that God delivers some over to a reprobate mind, and to fall into the darkness which they themselves chose; attributing the cause of their own reprobation and perdition to them, not to God.
*But he would be precipitated into the sea of infidelity.* Thus the old codex; but the printed ones have "precipitated into the sea by infidelity."
*Annotations of the same on Chapter 49.*
Page 267. *Those indeed who reproach.* He understands the Marcionites, whom Tertullian (Lib. II *Contra Marcionem*) is the author of saying most greatly objected to the Creator that fraud of the Hebrews against the Egyptians. Augustine, *Quæst.* 39 on Exodus, frees the Hebrews from every suspicion of theft: "For because," he says, "God commanded this, who knew what every man ought to suffer, they did not commit theft; but they had provided a service at God's command." D It will not be unpleasant to subjoin some not inelegant verses of Alcimus, Bishop of Vienne, a man of learning:
* The greedy carry * Pharaoh's riches thus, whom, the wage then paid, * You would believe had taxed the long labor of service.
Gregory explains this allegorically, *Moral.* XXVIII, c. 17.
*If indeed not typical.* All printed codices [have]: "for thus we on typical." We have added then eight words enclosed in brackets, from the ancient codex.
*Ministration.* Before it was, "commiseration."
*He who buys.* But who? All printed codices were lacking these fifteen words; which we have restored from the ancient one.
A That the faith of Christ had penetrated even to the illustrious orders of the Roman Empire and the princes of that age is manifest from these facts. Processus and Martinianus, soldiers of no mean rank, endured martyrdom for Christ under Nero, as Vincentius, Petrus de Natalibus, and Bergomensis relate. Later writers have recorded that under the Emperor Hadrian, by the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, Alexander, the prefect Hermetes together with his wife and children, and noble men such as Trebellius, Pertinax, the patrician Zeno, the most valiant general Eustachius, the prince Achaicus, the general Heliades, the master of soldiers Theodorus, and Carcerius, another general of the army, suffered martyrdom for the sake of the Christian piety. That under the Emperors Antoninus Pius, M. Antonius Verus, and Commodus, not only common soldiers but also those most outstanding in military affairs, even commanders of the Roman forces and legions, gave their names to Christ, is easily gathered from the apologies and embassies of Justin, Melito, Athenagoras, and Tertullian, and from the writings of M. Aurelius Antoninus to the S. P. Q. R.
And they built cities for them. Josephus adds that the Egyptians forced the Hebrews to the substructions of those pyramids which are numbered among the seven wonders of the world, *Antiq.*, book 2. What, therefore, was done unjustly? The Hebrews spent a long time in Egypt in the making of bricks, walls, and cities. The Lord, therefore, desired that they should receive some reward for their labor, and for that reason wished them to use this craftiness. For the Egyptians also had provided their services to their own king, says Theodoret, *Quæst. 23 in Exodum*. Tertullian, however, says: "The Israelites," he says, "were not prompted to fraud, but to a compensation of wages, which they could not otherwise extract from their masters," *lib.* IV *Cont. Marc.*
Page 268. And whatsoever they do well we are justified. And a little later: *Converting these into the utility of the Lord, we are justified.* Nothing could be said more clearly or certainly for the necessity of good works, both for justification and for salvation, against the Simonians, the pseudo-apostles, the Eunomians, the Lutherans, and the Calvinists, the assertors of faith alone.
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 49. Page 267. *They impute it to the people... and do not impute it to themselves.* Namely, to the Egyptians, who had dealt most iniquitously with the Israelite people. Concerning this objection, Tertullian replied to Marcion in his *lib. II contra ipsum*, chapter 20, in these words: "Come, most unhappy heretic, I call you to be the judge yourself; recognize first the one nation and the other, and thus you shall judge the author. The Egyptians demand gold and silver vessels back from the Hebrews; on the other hand, the Hebrews institute reciprocal claims, alleging that they too, in the name of the same Fathers, ought to have the wages of that toilsome servitude returned to them from the same instrument of Scripture, for the cities and villages built. What will you judge, O judge of the best God; that the Hebrews ought to acknowledge fraud, or the Egyptians compensation?"
*Fine gold.* *Without being marked,* of which mention was just made, is contrasted. Page 268. *You shall be put to flight.* I am mistaken, or Irenæus or the translator wished to use this word rather than "to be lacking," because it corresponds excellently to "reception" into the *eternal* tabernacles, whereas, on the contrary, "to be lacking" seems somewhat more obscure.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 50. Page 268. *It was a type and image.* By the authority of the same old codex, we have deleted *idebat*; and a little later, we have substituted *eum* for *ceams*. Furthermore, just as Origen, Isidore, Rabanus, and Rupert have treated the individual parts of this figure with copious discourse, so did the presbyter Sedulius and Alcimus Viedneusis sing in their refined verses. His are: The path of the sea lay open, the azure deeps D Turned back to a double side, and the liquid earth Grew solid with related waters, and the pilgrim crowd Enters the sea in its absence, and through the deep The dry sands marvel at the foreign feet. Nature changed her path, and the people, Walking through the midst of the waters, were already bearing a harsh [baptism: For whom Christ was the leader, for the reading cries out, "The many Voices of the Lord are over the waters, the voice finally [is] the Word." Christ the Word is present, who, harmonious to the double Law, Ruling the Testaments, opened the ancient abyss, That the succeeding doctrine might walk on even fields. You will find this, that is, of Alcimus, at the end of the fifth book of his *Carmina*.
John, the disciple of the Lord, in the Apocalypse. He also teaches in many other places so manifestly and constantly that the blessed Evangelist John was the author of the Apocalypse, that it is gross impiety to doubt any further concerning that matter. But since the man equally pious and learned, F. Franciscus Titelmanus of the Order of Friars Minor, treated this matter accurately and learnedly in two books against the censures of Erasmus and the notes, in refuting the doubts of Calvin and Bodin concerning the same matter, we shall not linger upon it.
Page 268. *Nor be made like to Cham.* That Cham, the impudent mocker of his father, played the type of heretics, Augustine teaches after Irenæus in his *De civit.*, book XVI, chapter 2: "Cham, furthermore, which is interpreted 'the cunning,' what does it signify but the cunning genus of heretics, not in the spirit of wisdom, but in the spirit of a crafty guile; which is wont to inflame the hearts of heretics and perturb the peace of the saints?" Eucherius of Lyon transcribed these same words of Augustine in his *lib. II in Genes.*, chapter 2.
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 50. Page 268. *Into his own inheritance.* Namely, into the holy land, in which Irenæus believed the Church with its king Christ would be at the end of the world. But concerning this happy state of the faithful, see more below at the end of book V.
*He will find the same plagues, etc.* Irenæus looked to the "seven last plagues, in which the wrath of God is finished," Apocal. xv, 1, which are recounted in the following chapter, xvi. And indeed none is named there which was not also inflicted upon the Egyptians, as is evident from a collation of the said chapter with Exodus vii, ix, and x.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 51. Page 268. *For Lot not by his own will.* That coitus, by which Lot is read to have defiled both his virgin daughters, seemed to those Gnostics and Manichæans, as is gathered from Augustine, a horrible crime worthy of all punishments: to whom in our age Luther, Musculus, Calvin, and the rest of the progeny of the Gnostics assent, but to the apostolic elder, whom Irenæus mentions in the chapter above, and to all Catholics, Greeks and Latins, it pleased, for most grave reasons, to liberate him, either entirely or for the greater part, from the sin. "For I do not find him," writes Origen, "to have plotted, or violently snatched away the chastity of his daughters, but rather to have suffered the plot and to have been circumvented by art. Let no one therefore dare," adds Chrysostom, "to condemn either the just man or the daughters of the just. How would it not be of extreme madness for us, full of sins, to condemn those whom Scripture liberates from every crime?" And Theodoret: "To those who sin through ignorance, men are also accustomed to grant pardon. Let no one therefore with justice and merit blame Lot: for that which was being done, he was ignorant of." Indeed he is to be blamed (say Augustine and Eucherius), yet not so much for that incest, as that drunkenness deserves. Therefore, that deed, when it is narrated in the Holy Scripture, is a prophecy; but when it is considered in their life, it is a foul act. Nor again with such reprehension and accusation
A of all crime, and indeed even on behalf of those for whom he has woven so great an apology, to condemn them as full of sin? In what this apology consists, he himself will shortly declare with Irenæus and others. On the other hand, the Manichæans, after the ancient Gnostics, held this act to be a great crime, as may be gathered from Augustine, book XXI *Contra Faustum*, ch. 43, where he himself, having entered upon a middle path after Origen, *Homily 5 on Genesis*, teaches that Lot did indeed sin, not by incest, but by drunkenness; yet not so gravely as the heretics contended; nor does he think it happened without a mystery and a signification of future things, as Irenæus and others also believe. I think it rash to pass judgment on this matter, and therefore the admonition of the apostolic presbyter, which Irenæus mentioned in the preceding chapter, is to be observed.
*Nor from his own carnal concupiscence.* Augustine himself, in the place cited, admits that this deed of Lot and his daughters is not recounted in Holy Scripture «as if he had burned with improper lust for his daughters,» or they «had blazed with execrable love for their father’s flesh.» Indeed, a far different explanation of the deed is provided.
*Nor about the sense nor the thought.* The same excuse is offered by Theodoret, *Question 70 on Genesis*, and before him by Chrysostom in the place cited, who says of Lot the same thing as happened to Adam: «For just as there a portion was taken from the sleeping one, without his feeling it; so likewise here... For that which the Divine Scripture said there, that (God) sent an ecstasy upon Adam, and he slept; this it signifies here also, by saying: He knew not when she lay down or rose up (the daughter).» You will say: «But Lot was the cause of his own ignorance, while he allowed himself to be made drunk.» Chrysostom responds again that this happened not from incontinence, but from sadness: «For since he was very anxious and mourning, deprived as he was of all his goods at once, and even of his own wife, he allowed his daughters to pour him wine more liberally, and, ignorant of what was being plotted, he suspected it was done to alleviate and soothe his sadness,» just as the words of Theodoret in the place cited also sound.
Pag. 269. *Δύο..... συναγωγαί.* The interpreter seems to have read *δύο θυγατέρες, τουτέστι, δύο συναγωγαί* (two daughters, that is, two synagogues), so that because of the recurring word *δύο*, the two intermediate words have slipped out; unless you would rather say that some scribe added them. But regarding the thing itself, Origen in the place cited, not without judgment, objects this against the allegorical sense brought forward by Irenæus: «I know that some, as far as the allegory is concerned, have drawn Lot to the person of the Lord, and his daughters to the two Testaments. But I do not know if he who knows what the Scripture says (Deut. XXIII) about the Ammonites and Moabites, who descend from the line of Lot, would willingly accept that.»
*The salt statue always remaining.* Thus also Clement of Rome, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, mentions *στήλη ἁλὸς ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης* (a pillar of salt to this day). And Josephus, writing from the Jews, book I *Antiq.*, ch. 12, writes of that same salt statue: *Ιστόρημα δ' αὐτήν· ἔτι γὰρ καὶ νῦν διαμένει* (I have seen it; for it still remains even now).
*Through natural things, those that are of human custom.* This seems to indicate the menstrual flow, which is natural to the female sex, as the author of the poem on Sodom, which exists among the works of Tertullian and Cyprian, teaches that some had ascribed or attributed this to the wife of Lot, even though she had already been turned into a pillar of salt, singing thus of Lot's wife after the middle: *It is said that even she, living in another body of sex,* *Discharges the bountiful months with the usual blood.* *While they are often taken away, etc.* The author of the just-mentioned poem on the salt statue [says]: *Furthermore, if anyone should mutilate the stranger's form,* *Straightway it completes the wounds from itself with its own substance.* This Irenæus applies to the Church; concerning which he also has a twin [reference] in ch. 64 of this book.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on ch. 52.* Pag. 269. *Of this kind also.* Of both testaments.
A Menti unicus est auctor [The only author of the mind is God], that is, God, who created this world; heretics holding other sentiments concealed their impious dogmas, so that they might not be detected by Catholic teachers and confounded.
*Besides him, one.* The old codex desired ‹eum› and had ‹unum›: we retained both readings.
*And let him concede by some other.* We restored this thus from an old codex. All others had: ‹but let him concede it by some other, or by some other condition made, which might be according to us, etc.›
*They hide from us.* In similar fashion Athanasius complains of the Arians (orat. 1), that like eels they would slide into the folds and meanders of the [rocks], and would strive to hide themselves, and therefore, following Tertullian, he calls them by the most apt epithet, "light-fleeing beasts." By the authority of the old codex, we substituted ‹habent› for ‹habet›.
Pag. 270. *Among those who are presbyters in the Church.* He contends that Holy Scripture and its sincere understanding must be sought from the Catholic Church alone: which Clement of Alexandria showed quite diffusely after him toward the end of the fifth book of the *Stromata*.
*That man might learn.* "Cicero, that he might confirm free will," says Augustine (*De civitate*, ch. 9), "denied that God was prescient of future things, and so, while he wishes to make men free, he makes them sacrilegious; but a religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and by the faith of piety confirms both." And ch. 10: "In no way are we compelled, either by the retained prescience of God, to take away the freedom of the will, or by the retained freedom of the will, to deny (which is a sin) that God is prescient of future things."
*Annotations of the same on ch. 53.*
Pag. 270. *Who from the beginning in all dispensations.* Since he attributes such great and clearly divine works to the Holy Spirit, it is not to be questioned that he felt piously and orthodoxly concerning His deity and coeternity, whatever the Magdeburgenses may babble. Fulgentius towards the end of his book to Trasimundus, and the whole epistle to Donatus, from these and similar works, which He holds in common with the Father and the Son, concludes against the Arians and other heretics that He is by nature God.
*He truly judges all.* He alludes, indeed, to the words of the Apostle 1 Cor. II, 15: "The spiritual man judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one"; where Theodoret says: "He who is held worthy of the grace of the Holy Spirit, he indeed suffices for teaching others, but he has no need of the doctrine of others."
*Annotations of the same on ch. 54.*
Pag. 270. *For he judges the nations.* Not concerning the transgression of the Mosaic Law, since it was not given to them: and those who sinned without this law shall perish without the law; nor concerning the despised evangelical law, if it was never sufficiently proclaimed to them; but concerning the law naturally described and inscribed upon their minds, which they have gravely and manifoldly transgressed, as Paul discusses copiously and gravely in the great part of the first chapter to the Romans, and here Irenaeus insinuates. For when with this guide they knew one God, and did not worship Him as God, B but fashioned for themselves countless gods and goddesses, nay, even sacrificed their sons and daughters to the most impure demons, as the Psalmist reproaches; for that reason, and for many other most grave crimes committed against the law of nature, they will be rightly judged and condemned. It seemed worthwhile that this be noted more accurately, so that we might refute the most foul error of the Zwinglians, by which they do not blush to donate to heaven such impure gentiles and idolaters. For Zwingli, in his *Exposition of Faith*, which he dedicated to King Francis I of France shortly before he fell by the sword, addresses him thus: "There [in eternal life] you will see Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, Aristides, Antigonus, Numa, Camillus, the Catos, the Scipios," etc. The Tigurini, by their German confession edited in the year 1545, approve the sentiment of their Zwingli. Bullinger calls this the "swan song" of Zwingli; Thalmannus, Gualtherus, Lavatherus, Hardembergius, and Tossanus took it upon themselves to defend it, counting among those aforementioned by Zwingli, Plato and other of the more honest heathens, whom they themselves also wish to be referred among the elect; Erasmus also, wallowing in the same error, connected Cicero, Maro, Horace, etc., to them. But it is well that not only Oecolampadius in chapter 10 of Job, and Beza in his book *De pæna hæreticorum*, that is, comrades in Zwinglian sacramentarianism; but also Wigandus, Winshemius, and Schlusselburgius, professors of Lutheran theology, have refuted that opinion as impious and clearly heathen in their public writings. And certainly to grieve for those who perish is of human compassion; but to rise up against the most just decrees of God is of excessive rashness and insanity. There exist, however, public and immutable decrees of divine judgment against all infidels and idolaters (such as those aforementioned). "He who does not believe has already been judged. C He who is an unbeliever in the Son of God will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him." "Whoever does such things (works of the flesh, luxury, the service of idols, etc.) will not inherit the kingdom of God." "Whoever sacrifices to gods will be killed, except to the Lord alone," etc. And it is certainly very strange, and altogether alien to all reason, to commit to the infernal regions all our [Catholic] predecessors and theirs, who died piously in the Roman, that is, the Catholic faith, in Christ; but to place all heathens, devoid of faith, hope, and charity, in heaven. But we shall speak more copiously of these matters elsewhere.
*Annotations of the same on ch. 55.*
Pag. 270. *Nor willing.* We expunged the conjunction ‹and› by the authority of an old codex. And a little later, ‹nothing for a needy God,› for ‹a needing one,› we have replaced; in the arguments ‹they will be judged› for ‹he will be judged.› He uses ‹also just as› for ‹how› in his own manner.
*Annotations of the same on ch. 56.*
Pag. 270. *Not knowing.* By a wonderful connection of the Scriptures, he demonstrates two advents of Christ, the same yet very far removed from one another: the first in abjection, the second to come in majesty.
*Indeed dissolving Amalek.* Justin, Tertullian, and Cyprian, that story, which reports that Moses stretched out his arms in the form of a cross, moving and drawing forth prayers to God, all the while that Jesus [Joshua] Nave was conquering and destroying the Amalekites, they skillfully and conveniently, with Irenaeus, accommodate to the mystery of the passion and death of the Lord Jesus Christ; who, affixed to the wood of the cross, by his own prayers, tears, and stripes, brought back great triumphs and ample spoils from death, sins, hell, and the devil, for Himself and for us.
*Annotations of the same on ch. 57.*
Pag. 270. *He confessed that it was his body.* Concerning this matter we have spoken as much as we could in chapters 32, 33, and 34 of this book.
*The tempering of the chalice.* In the fifth book he calls it the "mixed chalice"; from which it is clear to be a very ancient and thus even an apostolic tradition, that water be mixed with the wine to be consecrated in the chalice of the Eucharist. Wherefore, just as the Church condemned the Encratites and the Hydroparastae in primitive times, who offered only water for the Eucharist, as Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, Epiphanius, and Augustine teach, D
A thus he pursues all Gnostics of this our age with the same anathema, because they use only wine, and call this mixture in the Catholic Church a customary, popish, and novel institution, and condemn it. Furthermore, they embrace this rite as having proceeded from Christ and the Apostles, and teach that it is to be observed, as Augustine [testifies] in *De doctrina Christiana*, lib. IV, cap. 21; *De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus*, cap. 75; and *Sermo* 119 *de tempore*; Ambrose, lib. V *De sacramentis*, cap. 1; Jerome, commentary on chapter XIV of Mark, and *Quaestiones Hebraicae* in the Book of Paralipomena; Cyprian in his epistle to brother Caecilian; Alexander the martyr in his first epistle. And those who wrote in Greek many centuries ago: Theophylact on chapter 19; John Damascene, lib. IV, cap. 14; Justin Martyr at the end of his first *Apology*; and Clement of Rome, companion of the Apostles, in *Constitutions*, lib. VIII, cap. 17; James in the liturgy approved by the sixth ecumenical council 900 years ago; Basil also and Chrysostom in their liturgies; Theodoret in his first dialogue; and the third Council of Carthage, at which Augustine was present, in canon 24, likewise confirm and approve the same. Furthermore, we have added the word "esse"; and a little later we have substituted "suum" for "sui" [as found in] the ancient manuscript.
"How, however." Tertullian, in his book *De carne Christi*, urges Marcion with the same arguments, but explained more fully. "Answer me now," he says, "interpreter of truth; was God not truly crucified? Was he not truly dead and truly crucified? Was he not truly resurrected? So that he may be truly dead, Paul falsely established among us that only Christ was crucified. He falsely introduced [the account of] his burial. He falsely inculcated [the account of] his resurrection. Therefore, our faith is false, and all that we hope for from Christ is a phantom. Most wicked of men, you who excuse the killers of God. For Christ suffered nothing from them if he suffered nothing in truth. Spare the hope of the whole world, you who destroy the necessary glory of faith." The same author in book I *Contra Marcionem*: "If the flesh of Christ is a phantom, then nothing remained upon the wood. Nothing hung there even after he expired. Nothing was asked of Pilate. Nothing was taken down from the gallows. Nothing was wrapped in a linen shroud. Nothing was laid in a new sepulcher. And yet, it is not 'nothing,'" etc.
Annotations of the same on chapter 58. Page 271. "But he will judge them also." Even the impieties of the Valentinians will be reprobated, by which they tear apart the unity of God in reality, even though they pretend otherwise; and they distract Christ, our only Lord, into many parts with more than heathenish fraud.
"Their own emission, indeed." He said in book I, in several places, that the Gnostics distract our only Lord Christ into four [entities]: into the Monogenes, the Word, Christ, and the Savior, and assign to each of these their own *probolas*, or productions and emissions; which he again commemorates here.
"For he is my enemy." These are the words by which Homer, in the ninth book of the *Iliad*, makes Achilles respond to Ulysses, who was promising him much on Agamemnon's behalf if he would return to his favor and restore the war for the Greeks against the Trojans: "For that man is to me as hateful as the gates of Hades, Who hides one thing in his heart, but speaks another."
Annotations of the same on chapter 59. Page 271. "How can they be saved." Theodoret cites this passage by name in his second dialogue. The following words of Fulgentius will afford some light: "For human nature could in no way become sufficient and suitable for the taking away of the sin of the world, unless it passed over by the union of the Word of God—not by a natural confusion, but solely by a personal unity." *Lib. De incarnatione gratia Domini nostri*, cap. 4.
"To whose likeness man was made." We have expunged the word "Dei" [as it appears in] the author’s ancient manuscript. Moreover, what he obscurely hints at here, he clearly explains in the fifth book; namely, that God formed man from the beginning, about to assume the human nature of the Word of God, when he said: "Let us make man in our image and likeness" (Gen. 1, 26). Thus also Tertullian felt in his book *De resurrectione carnis*: "Whatever," he says, "of this human being was being fashioned, Christ was contemplated as the man to be." Origen agrees also in his first homily on Genesis with these words: "What other image of God, therefore, is there, to the likeness of whose image man was made, if not our Savior, who is the firstborn of every creature?" etc.
175 Annotations of the same on chapter 60. Page 271. "For just as." [He says] "quomodo" after his usual manner. For the rest, he means the Marcionites, about whom [he writes] in book I, chapter 29, and in this book, chapters 14 and 57.
"It is, therefore, putative." Tertullian, book *Contra Valentinianos*: "They urge everything as in an image, and indeed they themselves are imaginary Christians." And Ignatius: "All heretics of this kind are tombstones and sepulchers of the dead, in which only the names of dead men are inscribed." *Epist. ad Philadelphienses*.
Furthermore, that the later Gnostics cannot be held or called better than these earlier ones, Luther and Calvin—who reared them from tender claws, and who know them inside and out—openly and affirmingly assert; with whom, in this matter, I cannot disagree. That man, in his *Postilla* for the first Sunday of Advent, testifies that the Saxons and those of Wittenberg, compared to when they acted under the Roman Pontiff, were worse and more prone to every kind of crime, and were made again, he says, "the most wicked and most atrocious of mortals." The latter [Calvin] proves that those addicted to his heresy are the most wicked and atrocious mortals; then, because he cannot find words sufficiently suitable for their crimes, he calls them tetra-monsters and evil spirits clothed in human form; in his tenth sermon to the Ephesians, written in French.
"All things among them." We have expunged "communi" from the author's ancient manuscript.
"Or what." Thus in the ancient manuscript; the printed versions have "quemadmodum." "How, however, he." The reading of the ancient manuscript varies somewhat; I preferred to mark it rather than to change anything. [alt-version omitted]
Excerpts from the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 60. Page 271. "They think they truly argue." He denies that the doctrine and arguments of those heretics are founded in truth if our Savior was a phantom. For it is possible that his speech deceived men just as his external appearance did, upon whose words, nevertheless, all the doctrine of the Christians relies.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent in chapter 61. Page 271. "He will judge also the false prophets." He especially means the Marcionites, whom he said in book II, chapter 11, exclude the prophetic spirit from the Church so that they might arrogate it to their own conventicles. He also castigates Marcus, the follower of Valentinus, whose impostures you have above in book I, chapters 8 and 9. Following the insolence and arrogance of all these with hands and feet among the later Gnostics are the Anabaptists, whose leader Thomas Müntzer called himself and his adherents celestial prophets; which I would suspect they learned from Luther, whom Calvin complains was adorned by his own [followers] with the spoils of the greatest prophets, Elijah and John the Baptist. Moreover, Rebenstock, a table-companion of Luther, reports that he was frequently accustomed to say: "David, Daniel, Isaiah were most excellent prophets. I am Isaiah, Philip Melanchthon is Jeremiah." And at other times: "I am Isaiah, Philip bears [the name of] Jeremiah." And so that Calvin would not be considered inferior to Luther, not only does his ape Beza attribute the glorious name of prophet to him, but also Jerome Bolsec, who was frequently his auditor, often [calls] the same Calvin...
into these words as if from a pulpit, he testifies himself to have heard: "I am a prophet. I cannot err. I am sent by God." Nor is there room to doubt the sincerity of this, when in the sermons published at La Rochelle in 1563 it is read that he adorned himself with the title of prophet; and against those who bore this ill, he raved with fury. See what the alienation of the mind can achieve! But such windy false prophets shall not escape the strict judgment of God.
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 61.* Page 271. *And the pseudoprophets.* Feuardentius notes that this strikes at the Marcionites and Marcians; I, rather, at the Montanists, or Cataphrygians, whose sect began to spread far and wide when Irenaeus was writing this and the preceding book. For we read that these were branded with the name of pseudoprophets, not only in the inscriptions of chapters 14 and 16, book V of Eusebius's *History*, but even in this very chapter 16, a little from the beginning, page 179 of Valesius's edition. An anonymous author in his work against the Cataphrygians accuses them of [pseudopropheteia], and around the middle of page 181, calls them a [psychē pseudoprophetikon pneuma], etc. But the remaining characteristics also agree with the Montanists, as will be clear from the following annotations. *And on account of vain glory.* The anonymous author just mentioned, in the cited place page 180, notes that Montanus, "in a boundless desire of the soul for pre-eminence, gave passage to the adversary into himself," and by an immoderate greed for the first place, provided an entry for the adversary spirit into himself. *And for gain.* Apollonius, in his book against the Cataphrygians cited in Eusebius, book V, chapter 18, page 184, says of Montanus: "He who devised the collection of gifts under the name of offerings, he who provides salaries for those who preach his word to him, so that through gluttony the teaching of the word may be strengthened," etc. And he soon accuses the pseudoprophetess, as one who receives "gold, and silver, and expensive clothing," etc. Compare what is said of Themiso, p. 185. A little later he writes generally of them: "For we shall show those who are called prophets and martyrs among them, taking money not only from the rich, but also from the poor, and orphans, and widows." *According to the operation of the evil spirit.* Read the words of the anonymous writer in the cited place, page 180. Page 172. [*Skenobaton kath' hekastēn genean en tois anthrōpois.*] *Skenobateō* here is to be taken in a good sense; thus it will not be necessary, as with Cotelerius, *Mon. Eccl. Graec.* tom. III, col. 676, to add *exēgēsamenon*. Furthermore, unless the Latin texts are corrupted, the interpreter reads, instead of [kath' hekastēn genean en tois anthrōpois], [kath' has ēn (nempe huios), en tō anthrōpeiō genei]. But Damascenus’s genuine reading is gathered from chapter 53 and the clause of the following chapter 66.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 62.* Page 272. *And He shall judge them.* The Lord will gravely and severely inquire into those who, for slight causes, tear asunder the great and illustrious body of Christ, the Church, by their schisms, involving themselves in the gravest sin of all; as also into all who shall be found outside its communion and unity. *For there is no [remedy] from them.* The Fathers have esteemed the crime of schism, by which the holy unity of the Church is lacerated by various sects of heresies, as so grave and horrible that they believed it could not be sufficiently expiated by any torments; which Irenaeus also openly indicates here. That it is the gravest of all after Clement of Rome (lib. V *Constitut.*, cap. 1) is what Optatus Milevitanus and Augustine conclude, because God hath left a place of repentance for fratricides, arsonists, adulterers, and idolaters, or judged them with lighter punishments; but schismatics, by having the time of repentance withdrawn, He either consumed with heavenly fires or, while they were living in body and soul, cast down into the depths of the earth in a brief moment. Who would now doubt that this is a more wicked crime, because it is more severely punished? In the first book *Against Parmenianus*, in book II *On Baptism against the Donatists*, chapter 6. Dionysius Alexandrinus also discourses on this matter in Eusebius, lib. VI *Hist.*, cap. 57, contending that all inconveniences are to be endured rather than to rend the concord of the Church of God; and that the martyrdom which one suffers so that the consensus of the Church may not be severed has much more commendation than that which is undergone so as not to sacrifice to idols; which I wish many of this age would attend to more carefully! *Outside the Church.* From these it is manifest that heretics and schismatics are not true members of the Catholic Church: that is, they are not sheep, but goats; not branches of the vine, but dry and severed twigs; not children of the bridegroom and bride, but bastards and spurious, begotten by the father the devil and the harlot heresy. Hence Tertullian: "If they are heretics, they cannot be Christians. Since they have gone out from us, they have ceased to be of us." And Lactantius, lib. IV, cap. 30: "When they are called Marcionites or Arians, they have ceased to be Christians." Cyprian, in his book *On the Unity of the Church*, and Jerome, *Dialog. against the Luciferians*, agree with this sentiment. Furthermore, Theodosius and Valentinian prohibited by public laws for heretics to usurp the name of Christians for themselves, but rather [to follow the names] of the authors of the error whom they were following. *He shall be judged.* We have removed [judicatur] [is judged] by the authority of an old codex. *And of His arrangement.* An old codex: "and His arrangements, through which the Son of God was made man," etc.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 63.* Page 272. *Constant.* Thus the old codex; all printed copies [read] [consistunt]. He teaches, moreover, that the acknowledgment of the truth and the sincere and genuine interpretation of the Scriptures are to be sought from the old state and order of the Church, where charity, the greatest of all virtues, thrives and prevails. Thus also Augustine, sending the Donatists back to the seats of the Church, writes: "Whoever fears to be deceived by the obscurity of some question, let him consult the Church about it, which the holy Scripture demonstrates without any ambiguity." *Lib. II Against Cresc.*, c. 33. *And the character of Christ's body.* Thus we have restored it for [charactere] from the ancient codex. He wishes the sign and mark of the true Church, by which we distinguish it from the conventicles of useless men, heretics, and schismatics, to be the successions of bishops 176 throughout all its sees. But what would pertain to illustrating this place, we have said at the beginning of book III and book IV, chapter 43. *Custodita (Kept).* Old codex [custoditione]; "the most complete treatment of the Scriptures without [the] action." *Which is more precious.* Charity [is] the first place among the virtues; and the Apostle elegantly pursued what it means that it obtains all the charisms of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. XII). *Supereminently.* We have expunged [supereminem] by the authority of the old codex.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 64.* Page 272. *Wherefore the Church.* The copious and illustrious army of martyrs, which can exist only in the Catholic Church, openly testifies to its love for God; and that it is increased much more exactly when it is thought to be diminished and weakened by tyrants. But so far are the sects of heretics from having martyrs, that they even deny that martyrdom for Christ should be undergone. *But for all the rest.* That Basilides professed that the faith should, in times of persecution, be confidently denied even by perjury, and that martyrdom should not be undergone for Christ, Tertullian, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Theodoret, and Philastrius have committed to memory after Irenaeus. And because martyrdom is the gift of God, which [is not found] outside [the] cha-
A Church and its unity, I therefore deny that the Gnostics, wandering outside that fold, have any true martyrs whom they can point to as a testimony of true piety and apostolic doctrine. Clement of Alexandria conveys the same in Book IV of his *Stromata*. Augustine pursues these matters at length and in breadth in his *Contra epistolam Parmeniani*, Book I, chapter 7; in Book II of *Contra litteram Petiliani*; in Book II of *Contra Cresconium*, chapter 48; in Book I of *Contra secundam Gaudentii epistolam*, chapters 19 and 20; in Book II of *De baptismo*, chapter 10; and in Book III, chapter 16; as well as Cyprian in his epistle *ad Antonianum* and in his most elegant book, *De unitate Ecclesiae*. From all of these, listen to Augustine alone: "Heretics perform the deeds of robbers and demons, and claim for themselves the glory of martyrs. Robbers live, and yet they wish to boast of being martyrs."
Furthermore, it is clear that the heretics of this age who are taken out of the midst by a legitimate magistrate are not to be reckoned as martyrs, however much they attempt to seem as such and are proclaimed so by their associates; since they perish outside the Church and its unity, and this not for the Catholic faith, but because they have denied it and have embraced impious, wicked, and seditious heresies, and have attempted to drag others into the same. What shall we say to the fact that they openly recognize and confess this very thing themselves? For when Luther was asked about Zwingli, that first leader and pseudo-martyr who perished in war, as to whether he were damned, he responded: "Zwingli died like a robber, because he wished to force others into his own error, and for this reason he set out into war and was slain. God is a just judge, and his judgment is right, for he does not allow blasphemers and contemners of his word to go unpunished, but they perish miserably." Rebenstock, Vol. II of Luther's *Colloquia*, p. 36. Johannes Jezlerus, a Sacramentarian, also writes in his book *De diuturnitate belli eucharistici*, p. 57, that Westphalus, in his book against Laski of Poland, calls those afflicted for their heresies "Calvinists, English, and French" the martyrs of the devil. And on page 93: "The Lutherans assert that our people are liars, forgers, destroyers of the sacrament, corrupters of the testament of Christ, rushing into the underworld, martyrs of the devil, who ought to be refuted by the sword of the magistrate rather than by words," etc. But the same is true in return regarding the Lutherans, whom they hold to be nothing but cannibals, Christ-killers, and "bread-eaters," as the same Jezlerus, page 93, is a witness to the judgment of the Calvinists; and the judgment of the Anabaptists regarding both is clearer than to need to be demonstrated in more verbose terms.
But not even here. Something is still missing here, which we could not restore from the old manuscript. However, it has: C "But not even in the opinion of those who claim that such martyrdom is necessary. For the true martyrdom is according to their opinion," etc.
*With our martyrs.* Eusebius, in *History*, Book V, chapter 18, transcribes an elegant fragment from the books of Apollinaris of Hierapolis against Montanus, in which he teaches that the Marcionites and Montanists used to boast against the Catholics that they had many martyrs, and they wanted this to be a certain argument of the virtue and power hidden within their prophetic spirit; but Apollinaris pronounces this to be entirely alien to the truth, since the Catholics, in times of persecution, if they happened to see some from the heretics being dragged along with them, refused to share either in the confession of faith or the punishments with them.
Here also it is pleasing to add what Conrad Schlüsselburg, a Lutheran superintendent, responds to a certain Sacramentarian "darkling" who was boasting of the martyrs of his sect: "It is customary for Sacramentarians, Anabaptists, Manichaeans, and other such fugitive jugglers to preach their own martyrdoms." But D the word of God testifies that even false prophets are sometimes horribly punished by God in this world, just as Paul says: the end of false teachers is destruction. Thus Jeremiah writes that Ahab and Zedekiah, false teachers, were roasted with fire. Thus also the Donatists once complained of the most grievous persecutions and martyrdoms which they had endured. But Augustine answered them that even the devils throughout the whole world have suffered grievous persecutions. Note also: it is not the agony, but the cause that makes the martyr.
*Often weakened, and immediately increasing its members.* Justin in his *Dialogue*: "That no one can frighten or tame us, appears daily; for when we are slaughtered, crucified, thrown to beasts, committed to fires and other torments, yet we do not depart from our confession. But the more we are raged against, the more we profess piety and faith through the name of Jesus; just as if one were to stimulate a vine with pruning to a richness of fruits." And Tertullian, in his book *Ad Scapulam*: "This sect will not fail, which you may know is the more built up when it seems to be cut down." And at the end of the *Apologeticum*: "We are made more numerous as often as we are mown down by you. The blood of Christians is seed." Jerome teaches that the Church was founded by the shedding of blood and by suffering—rather than by inflicting—insults, and writes in his letter to Theophilus that it grew through persecutions and was crowned by martyrdoms. I did not want to omit these words of Blessed Augustine: "The city of Christ, although it had armies of such great peoples, never fought against its persecutors for temporal safety, but rather it did not resist in order to obtain the eternal. They were bound, shut in, beaten, tortured, burned, torn to pieces, slaughtered, and they were multiplied." Book XXII *De civitate Dei*, chapter 6.
*His annotations on chapter 65.* Page 272. *Which indeed.* Earlier in chapter 42 he wrote that Abel had shadowed forth the passion and death of Christ; and in chapter 36 of the third book, that the Lord had subjected righteous Abel to unrighteous Cain, so that an example of patience might be offered to all; by which he indicates that in the same were initiated the future martyrdoms of the servants of God. The same were thereafter confirmed by Noah, Lot, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Abimelech, Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and the rest of the fathers and prophets who endured many most grievous things from the impious for the sake of piety; to which it is not to be doubted that Irenaeus referred in this chapter.
*His annotations on chapter 66.* Page 273. *For when they themselves.* He shows that the ancient prophets, as true and living members of Christ, prophesied by the Holy Spirit concerning the glory of his kingdom, his incarnation, the place of his birth, his passion, his descent into hell, his resurrection, ascension, and return for the final judgment, and that they also taught the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one and true God.
*To render tribulation to them who trouble us.* The Greek of Paul follows: ἀνταποδοῦναι τοῖς θλίβουσιν ὑμᾶς θλῖψιν. Ambrose rendered it: "To render pressure to those who oppress you"; Jerome and Primasius, with Irenaeus, read "tribulation"; the Vulgate edition, "retribution."
*Of his virtue.* Thus the old manuscript; the printed ones read, "of God."
*Come to the prophet.* It is used in the feminine gender; the Vulgate edition of the Bible has "prophetess." Jerome interprets this as St. Mary, who he believes prophesied when she speaks in the Gospel: "For behold, from this time all generations shall call me blessed," etc. However, Cyril of Alexandria proves the reading of our old manuscript, "come," for it has προῆλθε.
*Purely [with] pure [intentions], opening the womb.* We added the adverb "purely" from the old manuscript; which, if I am not mistaken,
A tends to indicate the freedom from pain and the purity of the most blessed and most chaste womb of the Blessed Mary in the birth of Christ, as having existed entirely, and having happened far otherwise than it does to other women in labor; for these are commonly worn out by pains in giving birth, their lives are imperiled, and some die. Thus Tertullian: *Christ, a new man, was born in a new way from a Virgin, by the Spirit of God.* And in his book *On the Veiling of Virgins*, he piously teaches that Christ was born from an integral Virgin; by which he seems to me to mitigate and soften the otherwise harsh words which he employs in his book *On the Flesh of Christ*. To these things Ignatius writes in his epistle to Hero: *It was fitting for the Creator to use not an ordinary nativity, but one admirable and new, and unheard of.* For what miracle, what novelty of the thing, would it be if, polluted in our common way and by our filth and impurities, he had opened the womb of an intact mother? For the assertion of this matter, you will find excellent things in Jerome, *Apology for the book against Jovinian*, epistle to Pammachius, and in Augustine, epistle 3. But you will urge that Irenaeus writes explicitly that the womb was opened. I reply: It is a phrase of Scripture, by which the first-born is signified simply, in whatever way he may have been born. Furthermore, the Fathers contend, against the phantasm of Marcion, that Christ was truly incarnate, born, and brought forth. *He will slay.* We have noted above that this sentiment was deleted by the sacrilege of the Jews from the prophet Jeremiah, just as Justin Martyr rebukes them for this in his *Dialogue*. *He will slay.* Thus the old codex, with which the Vulgate edition and Jerome conform; the printed codices read "he slays." Page 274. *Reception into the heavens.* Before Irenaeus, Dionysius the Areopagite in *Celestial Hierarchy*, and Justin in *Dialogue*; afterwards Ambrose in book V *De instit. virg.*, ch. 5, had taught that those verses of Psalm xxiii contain a dialogue between Christ ascending into heaven and the angels.
Annotations of the same on chapter 67
Page 274. *But if it occurs to you.* Christ by his wonderful and clearly new advent renewed all things; and he fulfilled the ancient prophecies, which had emanated from none but his Father, with new mysteries and works; and finally he constituted the new testament and confirmed it C by his death. Page 275. *To dissolve.* To destroy; and rightly in my judgment, the old codex has it, since in Greek it is καταλῦσαι, which more properly signifies "to destroy, demolish, and abrogate," than simply "to dissolve." *Until it passes away.* We have expunged "it will pass away" on the authority of the old codex. *It shall live.* Thus it should be read in the future, as Habakkuk indicates, and the Greek context of Paul in Romans 1, Hebrews x, Galatians 3, reads it in the present time. *Pre-eminent in the last of the days.* The old codex lacks these four words, which also reads the following sentence thus: *For you cannot say that these things happened by some chance,* etc. *They were far away.* All the printed codices lacked those eight words; we have restored them from the old one. *In no other.* Justin Martyr in *Dialogue*, Tertullian in his book *Against the Jews*, and Athanasius in his book *On the Incarnation of the Word* use the same arguments. Page 276. *Signifying.* We have deleted "it signified," and presently for "just as" we have substituted "in what manner"; and we have substituted "he shall take" for "he takes," by the authority of the old codex. Moreover, by the name "scythe," he understands the cross of the Lord, as being composed of wood and the iron of the nails; which the death brought upon the just Abel by his unjust brother signified, as was said above.Annotations of the same on chapter 68
Page 276. *But by another Father.* Thus we have restored it from the old codex; all the printed copies read *but by another our Lord Father.* He concludes from these things which were D said before, that the madness of those who invent two or more gods can be refuted: and at the same time he narrates that all the prophecies emanated from the one Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.Annotations of the same on chapter 69
Page 276. *Against them.* He proves that the things which the Valentinians fabricated concerning the truth of the holy Scriptures are vain and insane; and at the same time that they are not a little insulting to God, who manifests himself through them. Moreover, that Christ is truly the teacher of the faith, not of ignorance, and suffered for our salvation; whose disciples and servants should be unanimous in the faith; while meanwhile they themselves shamelessly dissent among themselves. *Existing in the Pleroma.* Thus the old codex; the printed ones read "sending," which we have deleted. *This same one himself.* We have added eight words from the old codex, and we have expunged them from the same author, as well as "Spirit." *Of the Pleroma.* We have expunged "of the Pleromas"; and a little later we have substituted "Horo" for "chora," and "upwards" for "backwards." Page 277. *Concerning something.* We have deleted "whereby"; and somewhat later we substituted "concerning the Word" for "true," and "has drawn out" for "has protected," by the authority of the old codex. Such are the diversities among them concerning the one thing. He recounts again the dissensions with which the first army of the Gnostics fought among themselves; and opposes to them the unanimous and perpetual consensus of the Catholic Church in the doctrine of the faith: thence rightly and with the best reasoning concluding that nothing of truth or of the divine Spirit resides among them, but in the Catholic Church alone, whose pastors and sheep have always taught, felt, and believed the same things regarding the same articles of faith. Theodoret, Sozomen, Socrates, Evagrius, and Nicephorus in their *Ecclesiastical Histories* describe quite profusely the similar battles of the Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, Donatists, and others, as it were the Gnostics of the middle age. Concerning the mutual and acute contentions of the Gnostics, that is, the Lutherans and Calvinists, of the last of this age, we have discussed not once in the preceding pages. Here only, so that we may adhere to the footsteps of Irenaeus, we shall say at least in part how great are the diversities among the Sacramentarians themselves even concerning the one sacrament of the eucharist: so that even they themselves, perceiving how diverse, how contrary, how perverse are the things which the leaders of this sect have written regarding one thing, may abhor them; or at least that Catholic men, fleeing far from their assemblies and heresies, may be confirmed and progress more and more in their own true religion. ...blaspheme that the omnipotence of our God can never come to pass, contrary to the confession of Luther, and in the first Response against Eck; Peter Vermigli, in his dialogue against Brentius; Beza, in his libels against Selneccer, Jacob Andrae, and Pappus; and likewise in *Creophagia* folio 152; Danæus, in his *Elenchus of Heretics*; Erastus, against Schegk; Liberius, in his *Syntagma*, and others elsewhere; so that the same body of Christ may be constituted in many places at the same time, and may truly exist and be exhibited. Against this, however, Zuinglius and Oecolampadius in the Marburg colloquy conceded to Luther "that God can do this entirely, provided He wills it." The Heidelbergers in the Maulbronn colloquy professed that they did not wish to call into question the omnipotence of God in this matter. Boquinus wrote that it belongs to a giddy spirit to litigate in any way about the omnipotence of God. Volanus in his book against Skarga says: "Christ can bring it about that his flesh is as present on earth as it is in heaven." Beza calls them fallacious sophists who deny that it is possible for one to live simultaneously in two places. Calvin professes "that in this place there is no struggle concerning the omnipotence of God." Finally, all the Calvinists rage and stand firm againstA those who object to them that they detract from the divine omnipotence.
2. Œcolampadius, in his book *De verbis Domini* (1525), seems to prove that there is nothing in this sacrament that can be called a miracle, or that exceeds the grasp of human beings. Zuinglius is of the same opinion in his *Exegesis*. Calvin mocks the Catholics and Lutherans with sarcasms, because, upon hearing the words of Christ, "This is my body," they imagine a miracle very far removed from the mind of Christ, and cast themselves into the abyss of omnipotence. Beza subscribes to this in his *Creophagia*, and Gont. Pappus. Lavatherus, in *Hist. sacram.*; Aretius, in *Serm. 3 de cœna*; the German Bavarian, in his *Examen*; and all the Sacramentarians agree. On the contrary, however, Calvin, in his *Institutio*, affirms "that Christ, in a miraculous and unsearchable manner, gives us his body and blood." And in his *Optima ineunda concordiæ ratione*, p. 97, he concludes: "That this sacrament is called by Paul a great mystery; and that he recognizes in it a miracle, which both exceeds the limits of nature and the mode of our senses." Beza also, in *Creophagia*, fol. 66, calls this an "incomprehensible mystery"; and in his *Diallacticon*, p. 82, he confesses "that the holy Fathers rightly named that a huge miracle."
3. Calvinus claims that he has always repudiated substantial presence in this sacrament; that Christ’s body is exhibited there according to virtue, not according to substance; and that the substance of the flesh is not taken by the mouth. Zuinglius, in his book *De vera et falsa religione*, pp. 278 and 292, and in *Expos. fid.*, p. 36, maintains with equal error that no flesh of Christ or corporeal substance either exists there or is received there. Œcolampadius agrees, lib. *De verbis Dom.*, p. 2; Bullinger, in the 5th decade, and in chapter 11 of the first to the Corinthians; Vermilius, in his dialogue against Brentius; Beza, *Creophagia*, p. 18. On the contrary, however, all the Calvinists who gathered at the Synod of La Rochelle condemned B all those who refused to use the words "substance" and "substantially" in the matter of the Supper. The Heidelbergers, in the Colloquy of Maulbronn, asked the Lutherans not to accuse them, as if they taught that men do not become partakers of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Finally, Calvin writes "that life is inspired into believers from the substance of Christ's body; and that Christ's substantial communication is exhibited to believers (in the Calvinist Gospel, that is) through the Supper."
178 4. Zuinglius, in his book *De vera et falsa relig.*, pp. 278 and 292, writes that Christ's flesh is neither in the Supper spiritually, nor is it received spiritually; since you find no "spiritual body of Christ" in the Scriptures. The same man, in an epistle to the Eslingians, denies that we partake of the body and blood of Christ even spiritually, or in a spiritual mode. Gualtherus and most of the Tigurini follow the same error. On the contrary, however, Calvin, writing against Heshusius, affirms that "it is a spiritual communication of Christ’s flesh." Vermilius in his *Disputation at Oxford* states "that Christ is there spiritually eaten by us"; and Bullinger declares the same in his *Antithesis*, Bucer in ch. 26 of Matthew, Laschi against Westphalus, Lavatherus in *Hist. sacram.*, Simlerus against Jacob Andræ. Indeed, Zuinglius himself, in an epistle to the princes of Germany, contradicting himself, affirms "that we are fed by Christ’s body in a spiritual manner."
5. Beza, in his *Confessio* against Calvin, and against Brentius, separates Christ's body and blood from the Lord's Supper by as great an interval as the heaven is distant from the earth. He openly affirmed the same in the Colloquy of Poissy. The Tigurini and Genevans write with equal error in the *Formula consensus*, pp. 23 and 24: "It is necessary that the body of Christ be distant C by as great an interval of places as heaven is from earth."
Danaeus feels the same in his book against Chemnitius; but on the contrary, Calvin, in his last admonition, [says] "it is false and calumnious to remove the true and natural body of Christ entirely from the Lord's Supper." Danaeus, against Chemnitius, professes "that he does not deny Christ to be present in his Supper with his body and blood." Musculus, in his *Loci*, preaches "that the bread of the Supper is the true body of Christ, crucified and dead for us." Beza, finally, having forgotten his own position, says: "We testify that this body itself, which was given for us, and that same blood poured out for us, and finally Christ himself, our mediator, to be the thing, or the matter and substance of the sacrament."
...[He] constitutes bread and wine in the Supper, just as Caesar’s statue is called Caesar; and the Word, God, brought forth through a man, signifies God. Œcolampadius and Zuinglius, *De verbis cœnæ*, are of the same opinion. Vermilius openly testifies that he removes every real presence of Christ's body from the Eucharist. Danaeus says the sacrament is a sign of a thing absent from these lands: which Calvin also had handed down *Contra Westph.* Zuinglius, in an epistle to Albertus, holding the same view, says this sacrament is merely a symbol of things far absent. On the contrary, however, Wolph. Musculus writes in *Matth.*: "Let a Christian say, following his Lord's words: I do not receive bread, I do not drink wine, but I take the body of Christ, and I am refreshed by the blood of Christ; Christ gave his body, not bread; he gave his blood, not wine. I recognize no other food or drink in the Lord's Supper." Calvin also, in his book *De cœna*, says: "That the substance of Christ’s body is given to us in it." And *Contra Westph.*: "That is beyond controversy for me," he says, "that the truth is joined here with its sign." Finally, in chapter 11 of the first to the Corinthians, he concludes "that Christ’s true body and blood are really and truly given to us in the Supper."
7. Joachim Cureus, in *Exegesis*, asserts that the substantial presence of Christ's body in the Supper is useless. Danaeus agrees, writing against Chemnitius, that from it "no true and solid consolation can be brought to our consciences." Uthenhovius blasphemes that it is not only useless, but impossible, and repugnant to the Scriptures. Zuinglius, in his epistle to Albertus, Gualtherus, and Bullinger in chapter 11 of the first to the Corinthians, and Œcolampadius in the *Acts* of the Marburg Colloquy, feel the same. On the contrary, however, Vermilius, in his treatise *De cœna*, Bucer, in his *Retractations* on Matthew, [and] Musculus, in chapter 26 of the same, most clearly affirm that "the remission of sins is given with the Lord's Supper"; [and] Calvin, "that life is exhibited to us by God only from the flesh, and through the flesh of Christ." Vermilius says again: "Sacraments contain, in their own way, the principal and greatest goods which we have: in them Christ is offered to us, the forgiveness of sins, and the promise of eternal life."
8. Gualtherus, in *Comment. in 1 Epist. ad Cor.*, says that they err who treat the Supper as a kind of viaticum. Musculus in *Loci*, Bullinger in his *Fifth Decade*, and Beza *Contra Westph.* affirm the same. Calvin, in his second defense against the same Westphalus, condemns those who allow it to be given to the sick at home. Aretius, in part 2 of his *Problemata*, denies that the sacrament is to be carried to the sick; and he condemns this in *Serm. 3 de cœna* as a corrupted custom of the Church. On the contrary, however, Œcolampadius writes in *1 Epistul. Joan.*: "While we are nourished by this food and drink, we cannot wander on our journey. Finally, safe in death, we will be able to protect ourselves here with these mysteries." Cureus in *Exegesis*...
A he praises the custom whereby even in private the sacrament is brought to the sick. Vermigli, in chapter x, concedes that it should be given to the sick. Hemmingius writes in his *Syntagma* that it is correctly done when it is offered to individual sick persons who request it, so that the eternal life promised in Christ may be sealed for those about to die. Finally, Calvin, condemning himself and his own, concludes in his letters (fols. 626, 627) that "for many and very serious reasons, that sacrament ought not, nor can it by any means, be denied to the sick." On page 170, and in *Luke* on page 511, he writes that they err who teach that our bodies are nourished by this sacrament for the resurrection. Zwinglians and Calvinists everywhere in Germany, Switzerland, and France allow their sick and dying brethren to exhale their most miserable souls without any consolation of the sacrament. Conversely, in England, "it is even commanded to bring it to those suffering from contagious diseases." And Calvin, condemning both Gualther and his followers, writes in his book of letters that "the resurrection of the flesh is rightly approved by the use of the sacraments." Participation in the supper, by inviting us to the assurance of heavenly life, is also directed toward the bodily senses. Finally, Hemmingius in *Epistula Pauli*, fol. 219, asserts that "it is rightly called the viaticum, because it warns us, as we receive it before death, that Christ is our way to the perpetual fruition of God; and it must be inculcated into those who are dying that by the power of Christ's body we are resurrected from the dead to eternal life."
B 10. Melanchthon, Beza, and others frequently call the religious adoration of Christ present in the eucharist by the blasphemous term "artolatria" (bread-worship). Danaeus, against Chemnitz, most impudently and wickedly shouts that those who adore the flesh of Christ—which is even personally united to the Godhead—are cursed by the mouth of God. Nothing is more frequent in the mouths of the Calvinists than that a horrible idolatry is committed in the Mass. Conversely, the author of the *Diallactes* (among Beza's books) proves from Augustine (*De doctrina Christiana*, lib. iii, cap. 9), from commentaries on Psalms 21 and 78, and likewise from Emissenus, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Theodoret, that the ancients did not partake of the flesh of the Lord without having first adored it, and that those who do not adore it sin gravely. Vermigli also says: "Just as, when the recitation of certain sacred words is heard, we adore God, although we do not adore the words themselves; so in the sacred communion we indeed adore Christ, even if we do not adore those external symbols." But even Calvin, accusing himself and his own of impiety, grants the adoration of Christ in the eucharist in these words: "If this were done in Christ, I would say that the adoration is indeed legitimate, which does not rest in the sign, but is directed to Christ sitting in heaven." Finally, Bucer, to the Bishop of Avranches, confesses that the same thing is done piously and religiously.
11. Various and manifold bodies (as they propose) deny the true humanity of Christ, lest they be forced to confess that his same body is present to us in the eucharist according to his express word. For since he explicitly and assertively said that he gives us this body which was being delivered, and this blood which was being poured out, it follows manifestly that he did not assume a true and human body if he did not give a true and human one to us: which is the ancient delirium of the Marcionites, Valentinians, and Manichaeans. For Zwingli says in his *Subsidium* that the body of Christ is understood in one way as natural, born of the Virgin Mary; secondly, as raised from the dead and cleansed of our diseases; thirdly, as mystical." And in his *Institutes*: "The flesh of Christ is twofold," he says, "one which was delivered to death and taken up into heaven; the other which we eat in memory of that true flesh." Bullinger subscribes to this in his notes on chapter xi of the first epistle to the Corinthians, C attributing to Christ a double body, one natural remaining in heaven; the other spiritual, which is offered in the supper. The same one, in his fifth decade, attributes again two bodies to the same: "first, a true, proper, and human one; second, a sacramental one, which he gave to his disciples." The author of the *Diallactes* at Beza's place also contends at length that Christ has another body—organic, natural, true, and distinguished by its own members; and another—improper, heavenly, divine, symbolic, invisible, impalpable, unformed, and not even assumed from the Virgin Mary. Jerome Zanchius, in book ii of *De natura Dei*, chapter 6, invents not only a two-bodied, but even a three-bodied Christ with these words: "First," he says, "there is a certain true and living body of Christ, which dwells perpetually in heaven. Second, there is a dead body, which is offered in the supper, bloodless and lifeless. Third, there is a certain new body of Christ exhibited to Paul (Acts ix; 1 Cor. xv, 5), formed for this purpose, namely, that the true body of Christ should never depart from heaven."
12. I beseech you, what monsters, what portents of words! I am afraid to say it. These miserable, blind, and darkened men transform not only the most holy mysteries of Christ, the Son of God, but also Christ himself, the redeemer and judge of the world, into a fictitious Geryon, Cerberus, and Briareus. O the supreme patience of God toward these men, who are three and four times blasphemous Sacramentarians! But he will at last compensate for their lateness with the gravity of the punishment due to such impieties. I will not therefore relate with what words Calvin, in the book *Contra Heshusium*, contradicts his own previous opinions; Bullinger also, in his fifth decade, fights with himself and with that man, so that I may put an end to these mutual contradictions and dissensions of the Sacramentarians concerning the single sacrament of the eucharist. For it is not the place here to relate everything.
13. In this, indeed, they agree against the Lord and against his Christ, so that in the words of Christ, "This is my body," there should be some trope and figure established; but they dissent more than savagely as to what species and form it should be, and then by what words it should be employed, as they mutually tear and destroy one another, since each one concocts and establishes a different thing. For Calvin writes *Contra Westphalum*: "Some teach that ours is a synecdoche, others a metaphor, others a metonymy." And *Contra Heshusium*: "Bread is a sign of the body, or a figure, or a symbol; or 'bread' signifies the body, or it is an appellation used metaphorically, or metonymically, or synecdochically." Are these not self-evident arguments of a mind uncertain and perturbed by the disease of errors and darkness? Bullinger, in his *Commentary on Matthew*, writes that he "does not wish to be troublesome in this controversy by using the name of metaphor, or metonymy, or any other trope," intending to bear all things with an equal mind, provided that Christ is driven out of his sacrament. Aretius asserts that "that saying of Christ is either metaphorical, or improper, or catachrestic, or metonymic, or symbolic, or mystical, which must be illustrated by explanation." What is more devious, inconsistent, and varied than these? But let us proceed to hear these confused languages of the builders of the tower of Babel, vomiting forth their confusions. Joachim Cureus, in his *Exegesis*, calls that proposition "either sacramental, or metonymic, or synecdochic, or antonomastic." Shortly there will arise, if he has not already, one from their flock who will add an ironic sense, so that they may leave Christ, as if an impostor, hanging by his nose. D 14. Nor is there agreement as to which words should be applied. Carlstadt thinks that the pronoun "this" should be established. Zwingli, in the book *De vera et falsa religione*, considers this opinion as cold, inept, and...
condemns it as barbaric and impious; and regarding the substantive verb "is," he says it should be rendered by "signifies." Viretus, in his lengthy volume on the sacraments, writes that the verb "is" should be left as a verb of truth and existence, but "body" should be taken as the figure and signification of a body. On the contrary, Beza asserts that the trope exists not in the word "body" but in the word "is"; Laski, however, wishes the figure to be placed not in the words, but in the entire action of the Supper. Zwingli again A now wishes "body" to be understood instead as "divinity"; soon after, as "death and passion"; immediately after, as "faith in Christ"; and finally, as "the commemoration of the Lord's passion and death," as if any of these things had been handed over and poured out for us, or had hung fixed upon the wood of the cross. Germanus the Bavarian, in his *Examen*, says that the state of the question consists in the word "take"; Cleinwitz, against Heshusius, in the word "eat"; Tossanus in his *Consolatorium* swears that "there is no contention concerning the words of Christ, but concerning the words and additions of men"; Beza, however, concludes by his own authority that "the words of eating and drinking in the sacred use of the Supper are to be understood not properly, but figuratively, transferred, and tropically." Finally, Pincierius in *Antidotum* wishes that B "Christ in the Supper, for want of vocabulary, said bread was his body, and thus wished to speak improperly and imperfectly." And here we place a limit and end, begging and beseeching all through God that they might perceive, even from these things, that there is no concord among these sectarians on the highest matters, and consequently no truth, and finally no security of conscience, or salvation; and for this reason, that they should either steadfastly remain in the unity of the Catholic faith, which has always been the same, or return quickly to it if they have at any time wandered from it. What pertains to the true opinion concerning the Eucharist, we have said in chapters 32 and 34 of this book.
13 Annotations of the same on chapter 70. Page 277. *For whom does he not refute.* The parable of the vineyard clearly demonstrates that the same God, the creator of this world, sent his Son, Christ, whom he had long ago destined for the people of Israel; and that he, by his own right, demands from the Jews and Gentiles the fruits of faith and piety. We read "refutes" instead of "confesses" in the old codex. For he wishes Christ, even by that parable alone, to explicitly and solidly refute all the ravings of the Valentinians.
Page 278. *But expanded over the whole world.* That the Church had already been expanded throughout the various regions of the world in the times of Irenæus, we have noted with various examples, histories, and cited authors, in chapter 3, book 1. Here it is only to be observed that the same mark of the true Church, which is now the Catholic one, belonged to Irenæus and all the Fathers; and it pertains to all places, times, races of men, and finally all nations and languages; and, like the sun, a fountain, and a root, it radiates beams, pours out streams, and extends its branches to all, remaining itself in one confession of faith and the perception of the sacraments. This, Augustine teaches with various testimonies of the Scriptures and most valid reasons, evincing in the same way that the name "Catholic" can be applied to no sect of heretics whatsoever, Epist. 48, 161, 170; *Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis*, collation of the third day; lib. *De agone Christiano*, chapter 29; lib. *De symbolo*, chapter 10; lib. *Contra Gaudentium*, chapter 1, and lib. *De unitate Ecclesiæ*, chapters 3, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
*Will superinduce.* We have expunged "superinduces," on the authority of the old codex. *One and the same when it is always the Word of God.* The old codex has "one and the same," which is more Latin; truly, however, since he almost always said "Word of God" for the Son, in the masculine gender, looking toward the word Λόγος, we did not wish to change it.
D Truly, that opinion of Moses: "The sons of God, seeing the daughters of men that they were fair, took them wives," etc., upon which the preceding opinion rests, is rendered much more correctly by the Chaldean interpreter and the orthodox Fathers, so that by "sons of God" are not meant angelic spirits, but the sons of princes, in that phrase by which judges, magistrates, princes, and other distinguished men are very often called gods and sons of God in the sacred writings. Aben-Ezra also understands by "sons of God" men who acknowledge God, namely the sons of Seth, among whom divine religion had flourished from the beginning and thereafter; who at length, having mingled with the daughters of the Cainites, learned their works and fell into total impiety, with the exception of the single family of Noah. And Jerome, Chrysostom, and many others embrace this opinion as more apt and sound. Finally, Augustine, in his *Questions on Genesis*, inclining more to the same, writes that righteous men can even be called by the name "angel," just as John the Baptist is called an "angel" in the sacred writings, Malach. III, 1; Joan. 1.
*Donation.* Thus the old codex; the printed editions had "domination." *To you.* We have expunged "them"; then "you will say" for "thou wilt say"; and "by a voice" for "a voice," on the authority of the old codex, we restored it. *Above us.* We have deleted "you." *He distributes against.* The printed codices: "distributes in"; and not long after, we substituted "of the lands" for "of the earth," on the authority of the old codex. *Of a good work.* The reading of the old codex in the dative case, "to a good work, but to an evil one," is not inept, since certain Greek codices have [original-script column: see facsimile], and the interpreter of Chrysostom has rendered: "Princes are not a terror to those who do good, but to those who do evil." *Calling.* The printed codices: "calls"; then we erased "standing" and replaced it with "immediately," on the authority of the old codex. *But the reward is one.* If we shall have considered the eternity of the heavenly kingdom, the immortality of the bodies, and God himself, the one object of blessedness, the reward is certainly equal for all; otherwise it is not. *And the inscription.* We have deleted "discretion," on the authority of the old codex. *And he is penitent.* He uses an impersonal verb of the active voice only in the passive voice. The Greek of the Gospel has [original-script column: see facsimile]: The Vulgate edition renders, "Afterward, however, moved by repentance."
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 70. Page 277. *His only Son, saying: Perhaps.* We have noted the word [original-script column: see facsimile] from Mark XII, 6, and [original-script column: see facsimile] from Luke XX, 15,
which Irenæus appears to have sought; for neither is read in the Gospel of St. Matthew.
*In their times.* Thus the interpreter reads not only Irenæus, but also St. Matthew from the Greek: [original-script column: see facsimile]. But I hardly doubt, with the Syriac interpreter, that it should be read [original-script column: see facsimile], "of them," namely, of the fruits, because verse 34 precedes: [original-script column: see facsimile].
*He says again.* The word "again" is read in none of the Gospels.
*Have you never read.* [original-script column: see facsimile], "in the Scriptures," since this is added in this place in the codex of the Holy Gospel and in all the versions, Irenæus, citing from memory, seems to have omitted it.
*He circumscribed.* That is, he enclosed it within the boundaries of the holy land, as is evident from what follows shortly after: "The Lord God delivered it, no longer circumvallated, but spread out to the whole world," etc.
Page 278. *Suddenly.* Irenæus reads [original-script column: see facsimile] with the Vulgate interpreter, unless his interpreter or scribe followed this text rather than Irenæus’s.
*As it happened in the days of Noah.* The things that follow were cited by Irenæus from memory.
*Shalt thou be exalted up to heaven?* Does Irenæus read with the Vulgate interpreter of the Bible: [original-script column: see facsimile]? I do not think so at all, since I do not find this passage cited thus in any of the Greek Fathers. Therefore, these things seem to be attributable to the interpreter of Irenæus, or to the scribe, who followed the Latin version of the Gospel.
*To say: Turn back.* Either Irenæus in Jeremiah, or the interpreter in Irenæus, wrongly reads [original-script column: see facsimile] for [original-script column: see facsimile].
*Others, indeed, announced the Lord,* etc. Namely, the Prophets; inasmuch as the grace of adoption was reserved for the New Testament through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Pag. 279. *Of whom also the Apostle speaks,* etc. The garment with which the Apostle desires to be superinduced is the immortal body, immune from the stain of sin, such as we shall wear in heaven. Nevertheless, Irenæus mystically applies the Apostle's words to the Holy Spirit, through whom we are prepared and rendered worthy of that happiness.
*Which he himself also:* Origen, *Commentary in Matthew*, p. 475 seq., urges the same argument in the following words, which, because of their length, I prefer to cite only in Latin: “Let them tell us: whether that angry one, inasmuch as he makes a marriage for his son, is the Father of Christ; or whether, apart from him who, as the parable explains, is angry, there is another who is the Father himself? In either case, surely, difficulties will arise: whether they do not wish that Father who makes the marriage for his son to be the Father of Christ on account of his anger; or whether, because of the marriage and the son, they are forced to confess that he is the Father of Christ himself. But if they endeavor to bring some explanation to this anger, we will say to them: Woe to you, what kind of partition is this, that the one who in the Gospel makes a marriage for his son—on account of anger—you do not shun at all, nor seek for another, but in the Law and the Prophets, on account of the same name of anger, or other things similar to this, you attempt to fashion a God other than the God of the Law and the Prophets?”
Pag. 280. *Be submissive.* Our Vulgate New Testament copies read [original-script column: see facsimile]. But Irenæus seems to have read [original-script column: see facsimile] with the Latin Vulgate interpreter, and, moreover, he omitted the word [original-script column: see facsimile] entirely.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 7.* Pag. 281. *The old law of liberty.* In chapters 9 and 29 of this book, I have brought forward many things from the Fathers who directed the Church in the first and second centuries after Christ, by which I have confirmed that the present dogma of Irenæus—concerning the free will in angels and in man, preserved before and after the fall—is to be embraced as the word of God. Here, lest we be verbose in a most obvious matter, we shall add A some testimonies of the Fathers of the third and fourth ages. We shall mark the places of the rest as if with a finger, by which the same is confirmed, so that it may be evident to anyone from this that the sentiment of the catholic Church was perpetual, perspicuous, and never confused, as the Magdeburgenses B prattle. Therefore, let Eusebius of Cæsarea be heard first: “They are not good gods,” he says, “but pernicious demons, who destroyed our liberty, and persuaded us that not only external things, but even our wills are compelled by the stars. But if this were so, all philosophy would lie prostrate, piety would lie prostrate, there would be no praise for virtue, no fruit of labor, and neither should the wicked be punished, nor the studious be admired,” etc. He pursues these things more amply in that whole chapter; and in chapters 6 and 7 he confirms the same again by clear arguments of the Gentile philosophers. In chapters 8 and 9 he performs the same by the arguments and C sentiments of Bardesanes the Syrian bishop, of Origen, and finally by the sacred Letters; then also in *Demonstratio Evangelica*, book 1, chapter 9, and book 4, chapters 1, 6, 9, and 10.
Let Lactantius follow: “Since God is,” he says, “merciful and pious toward his own, he sent his Son to those whom he had hated, that he might not close the way of salvation to them forever; but that he might give them the free faculty of following God, so that they might both obtain the reward of life if they had followed him; and fall into the punishment of death by their own fault if they had repudiated their king.”
Let Athanasius be added: “The soul,” he says, “abuses its own powers for the pleasures it has devised, for the reason that it is free and of its own will.” And elsewhere: D “God, noticing that the will and choice of man inclines to both sides, wished to fortify the grace he had given with the protection of law and place.”
Hilarius: “God granted to each one of us the liberty of life and the faculty of feeling.”
Basil on that passage of Isaiah: *If you are willing and will hear me,* etc. “He exhibits in this place most effectively,” he says, “as if before our eyes, the liberty of choice granted to human nature.” Item, in chapter XIV of Isaiah: “From his own purpose and free will, each one can either be a holy seed, or surely pass to the opposite.” And: “Man uses a free nature, so that he can be inclined to either side, namely, to the choice of the good and of the worse.”
Nazianzenus, *Apologeticus* 1: “It is a proof of the singular and extraordinary goodness of God to make it so that our virtue also is in some part our own, and that it is not only implanted by nature, but also cultivated by the will and by the intention of the mind, and that the liberty of choice holds an equal movement towards either side.” I omit what the same author has to confirm this dogma in his explanation of that: *When Jesus had finished these discourses*, etc. Item, in *Oration on the Nativity of Christ*; that I may mark only the more notable places of the rest of his age.
Marcus the Hermit, in the book *On Paradise*, towards the end, and in the book *On the Spiritual Law*, chapters 55 and 56; Ambrose, epistle 84, in *Exposition of Psalm XL*; Epiphanius, book *Against Heresies*, 16 and 64; Gregory of Nyssa, book *On the Making of Man*, chapter 16, book *On the Life of Moses*, homilies 2 and 8 *On Ecclesiastes*, *Catechetical Oration* chapters 5 and 31, *Oration on the Dead*; Prudentius in *Hamartigenia*; Theophilus of Alexandria, book III *Paschalis*; Jerome, epistle to Demetrias, epistle to Ctesiphon, epistle to Damasus, *Hebrew Questions on Genesis* and book III of *Commentary on Isaiah*; Hieronymus Torrensis has collected the places of Augustine with great diligence, book *Confessionis Augustinianæ*, chapter 52; Cyril of Jerusalem in the 4th *Catechesis*, the Alexandrian in the *Dialogue on the Prayer of the Holy Spirit*, books III and VI *Against Julian*; Prosper of Aquitaine, book I *On the Calling of the Gentiles*, chapters 3, 5, and 7. All these, as well Greeks as Latins, [held] man...
as having been created free, with the option and choice of good and evil given and offered to him, and that therefore he will be justly judged by both; this part they have clearly taught, partly by the same Scriptures and arguments by which Irenæus did so in these chapters, and partly by others.
"For violence is not done by God." These words of Irenæus are cited by Damascene, *Book of Parallels*, cap. 100, and to the same end: namely, to teach that the cause of both the sins and the reprobation of the wicked is not in God, but in the reprobate themselves. For violence is not done by Him so that they sin; rather, to each one He proposes life and good, and conversely death and evil, that he may love the Lord and walk in His ways. A Furthermore, He gives to all, says Irenæus, good counsel—namely, through the exhortations of the prophets, the apostles, and the pastors succeeding them in the Church—as well as both public and private advantages or disadvantages; and finally, all the secret inspirations of the Holy Spirit speaking in the consciences of all men. B If they have chosen these, by virtue of the freedom left to them, and have earnestly embraced and pursued them, they will without doubt be saved; otherwise, they will be justly condemned to eternal perdition. Hence also Hilary says: "To be children of God is not a necessity, but a power; because it is not brought to all by the gift of nature in those who are born, but the will attains the reward." Concerning these things, Augustine discourses copiously in his book *On the Spirit and the Letter*, cap. 33; in his book *On Free Choice*, cap. 19; and in the book *On Nature and Grace*, cap. 67.
"But He placed in man." That the power of such choice, C even after the fall of the first man, has persisted in his descendants is so certain and manifest that no Simonians, no Marcionites or Manichæans, no Lutherans or Calvinists, no Anabaptists or Arians can deny this very fact, unless they pertinaciously damn, or at least miserably twist, these Scriptures: "Choose life, that both you and your seed may live." "You have chosen the Lord God today." "I have chosen to be an outcast in the house of my God." "Mary has chosen the best part," etc.
"For rational angels." He confirms by the example of the angels that it pertains to God’s infinite liberality and equity that He created not only the angels, but also men themselves endowed with freedom of will, and that, provided they are instructed by the same throughout the whole course of their life, He at length crowns them with celestial rewards or adjudges them to everlasting punishments. And we have already spoken of these in chapter nine of this book.
Ex J. Er. Grabius's Annotations in cap. 71. Pag. 281. "Just as in the angels." So also Justin M., *Apology 1*, p. 45: D *God created the race of angels and of men with free will.* And Tatian, in *Oration to the Greeks*, p. 26 of the recent edition: *Each kind of creation (viz., of angels and men) is of free will.*
"Given indeed by God, but preserved by them," etc. Thus also Tatian immediately subjoins: *Having the nature of good not otherwise than only from God, but in the freedom of choice, brought to completion by men,* etc.
Annotat. Fr. Feuardentius in cap. 72. Pag. 281. "If, however, by nature." Men are either good or bad by full liberty, not by nature, as the plain testimonies of the evangelists and apostles prove. But those who contradict free will accuse God of weakness and injustice.
"Rightly among sensible men." That is, those who do not lack common sense, but judge of things by natural right reason alone; such as were, among others, the philosophers, orators, and profane poets, by whose judgments and writings the freedom of the human mind is confirmed.
Pag. 282. "To the perfect." The old codex says, *through the prophets*; we have kept both.
"Open to him." The printed codices have, *open (plural)*.
"But also in faith free." A Theologians establish a twofold faith: the former, which is acquired by reading or hearing the word of God; hence they call it "acquired." Cyril of Jerusalem calls this "dogmatic," and the Apostle names it "faith from hearing"; Augustine teaches it is free thus: "Any man can enter the church unwillingly, can approach the altar unwillingly, can receive the sacrament unwillingly; he cannot believe except willingly." They call the latter "infused," because it is poured entirely into our minds by God. Hence they show in many writings B that it is a gift of God, but they also declare in their books that it requires the free consent of our will: *On the Predestination of the Saints*, cap. 11; *Retractations*, cap. 23; *On the Spirit and the Letter*, cap. 31 and 32, and *Catechesis 5*. Therefore, whether Irenæus speaks of either, he always speaks truly, that man is free not only in works, but also in faith.
Pag. 283. "This is he who with violence." We have added these twelve words from the old codex.
"But everyone who agonizes." In Greek it is, *ἀγωνιζόμενος*, *who contends*. Cyprian, in his book *On the Exhortation to Martyrdom*, cap. 8, and in the *Epistle to the Martyrs and Confessors of the Carthaginian Church*, has it as Irenæus: *For everyone who agonizes*. Pamelius, a man of much reading, notes there that all his codices, with one exception, read: *Everyone who agonizes*; which our old codex also had here: both are correct.
"In all things he is continent." In Greek: *πάντα ἐγκρατεύεται*, *in all things he is temperate*. Cyprian in the places marked above, as also Irenæus, has *in all things he is continent*. Then in the plural number, *that they indeed may receive a corruptible crown*, the same Cyprian reads, which our old codex also has here.
"But we an incorruptible one." Thus the old codex has, which elegantly responds to the Greek words *φθαρτόν, ἄφθαρτον*, that is, corruptible and incorruptible: the printed ones, *incorrupt*, not badly.
"We shall be more clear before God." C That for diverse works, various degrees of glory and brightness are reserved before God, is here held as investigated and certain, so that it might even be known to all who are blind. Therefore, let the haters of good works and the assertors of faith alone fret.
Ex J. Er. Grab. annotations in cap. 72. Pag. 281. "These [are the] praised," etc. Origen in *Commentary on Matthew*, book XIII, tom. 1 of Huet’s edition, p. 214, where he mentions the same heretics against whom Irenæus argues here, D saying that there are different natures of good and evil men, strikes them with the same weapon, writing thus: *All the Scriptures contradict such an acceptance, destroying the freedom of the will, and they accuse those who sin, but praise them who act rightly; since there is no just reprehension of those who are from a genus that is such by its own nature; nor is there any praise of those who are from a genus that is such by nature.* Confer Justin M., *Apology 1*, to Antoninus Pius, p. 84 of our edition, or 81 in the Paris edition.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius in cap. 73. Pag. 283. "If, however, anyone says this." It was fitting that the creature should differ much from its Creator: since He is eternal, not made by anyone; but it was made in time and imperfect, as is declared in the following chapter by the example of a child. And therefore it was fitting that man should grow and be perfected by degrees.
Annotations of the same in cap. 74. Pag. 284. "For he was an infant." For which causes...
A I think they should be refuted who today think otherwise than they wrote.
Annotations of the same in cap. 75.
Pag. 284. "And because of this Paul." He teaches that the imperfection of man is not to be attributed to any divine infirmity, but to human incapacity. For God, in the condition of man, manifested the greatest virtue, wisdom, and goodness, so that those who think otherwise are devoid of reason.
"Now just made." For these three words, the ancient codex has "imperfect."
"But concerning him." The old codex has: "but concerning him, who was just made man, since he was not infected."
Pag. 285. "But while the Son ministers." When it is said here or elsewhere that the Son ministered to the Father in the creation of things, it must be understood that the Son has omnipotence and every power, just as He has the very divinity, from the Father, not from Himself; and that He creates, rules, and works the same as the Father: as He says in the Gospel: "My Father works until now, and I work." And afterwards: "The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless He see the Father doing it. For whatsoever He does, these also the Son does likewise," etc. Joan. v, verses 17 and 19. Therefore the Father made all things through the Son, as John C and Paul affirm, not as through an instrument or a minister foreign from His nature and divinity, as Arius blasphemed; nor as through a secondary or less principal cause, as the Calvinists, the new Samosatenians, and the Trinitarians impiously prattle, but as through another person from Himself, to whom, with His own essence, He has communicated from eternity all power of cooperating and co-creating. He is therefore the same with the Father, the creator and principle of all things, even if from a principle, namely from the Father, as He testifies, saying: "When He was preparing the foundations of the earth, I was with Him composing all things." "I am the beginning, who also speak to you." "I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end." Finally, Paul addresses Him in the words of the Psalm: "Thou in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands." And so, not without grave blasphemy against the Son of God, wrote Calvin to the Polish brethren: "The person of the Son is named Creator of heaven and earth only improperly."
"But the vision of God." The words are from the book of Wisdom, although they are rendered a little differently than in the Vulgate edition. Yet from this it appears that that book was of canonical authority for Irenaeus, just as it was for Tertullian, lib. Præscript., cap. 7, book 182 Adv. Valentin., cap. 2, and in the third book Adv. Marc., cap. 22; likewise for Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, and other authors of the first rank, who numbered that same book with other divine ones. Augustine writes concerning the same book and Ecclesiastes: "Those two books, since they merited to be received into authority, are to be numbered D among the prophetical ones." To these are added the Fathers so many as were present at the councils of Carthage, Lateran, Florence, and Trent; by whose assertions I think those who at present hold otherwise than they wrote are to be refuted.
Annotations of the same in cap. 76.
Pag. 285. "But acknowledgment." The distinction of good and evil remained in the mind of man, so that he might choose and pursue one thing, and flee and deprecate another; that he might present himself as tractable to God with faith and obedience, so that he might be perfected by Him. Replied to also are those who inquire into the time of the coming of Christ and of human reparation more curiously than they should. This also Augustine discusses in his 31st tractate on John; likewise in book LXXXIII, Quest., quest. 43, and letter 49.
"Learning by experience." These eighteen words, which were manifestly missing, we have restored from an ancient codex.
Pag. 286. "Thou art made." Thus for "thou hast made," and shortly after "by thyself" for "by himself," we have restored [them] by the authority of the ancient codex.
"Therefore the art of God does not fail." We have also added these fourteen words from the old codex.
"He submitted a fitting punishment." The ancient codex has: "submitted to a fitting punishment"; hence I judged that it should be read a little above, "and those who flee, him," etc., although no codices, so far as I know, show it.
"Prepares." Thus the old codex; [in] printed [editions], "prepared."
Annotations of the same in cap. 77.
Pag. 286. "And creating evils." Irenaeus shows more clearly than light that these words of the prophet are to be understood of afflictions and torments, which we call in our schools the "evils of punishment"; but not of the defects of sin and guilt. For to make God the author of these is the blasphemy of Simon Magus, Marcion, and the Manichaeans, condemned by the consensus and authority of the whole world; which nevertheless the Gnostics of our time strive to restore in full. Jerome, on the third chapter of Lamentations and the eighteenth of Jeremiah, says this prophetic locution is tropical, by which God is said to do evils, while He inflicts adversities and scourges upon those who deserve them; which are not evils by their own nature, but seem evil to those who suffer them. Supporting Irenaeus and Jerome from the Latins are Augustine, lib. Contra Adimantum Manich., cap. 21; Contra epistolam Manich., cap. 38, lib. 1 Contra adversarium legis, cap. 25; Ambrose in sermon 16 on Psalm cxviii; Gregory, lib. Moral., cap. 7; Eucherius Lugdunensis, lib. 1 in Genes., cap. 7. From the Greeks, Dionysius the Areopagite, cap. 4 of the book De divinis nominibus; Clement of Rome, lib. 10 of the Recognitions; Justin Martyr in his Dialogue and in the book De monarchia; Basil, homil. "That God is not the author of evils"; Cyril of Alexandria, lib. 4 in Isaiam, cap. 45, and most all orthodox writers.
For this reason, I cannot sufficiently wonder at the madness of Melanchthon, Oecolampadius, Peter Martyr, Calvin, and Beza, who, under the pretext of this prophetic sentence misunderstood by themselves, have not blushed to make God the font of all good things the instigator, impeller, nay, the operator and author of adultery and the homicide of David, the fratricide of the sons of Jacob, [and of] the rapines, burnings, and massacres of the wicked who raged against the fortunes of Job; of the rebellion of Absalom, and the same incest by which he defiled his father's concubines; of Pharaonic obstinacy and cruelty; of the impiety of Herod, Pilate, and the Jews; of the betrayal of Judas, and finally of all the indecencies, crimes, and sins of men and devils.
But since those things which Mart. Campanus, a physician of Bordeaux, has written seem to pertain most to this passage, they are appended here for these reasons to our own. Whoever imagine and believe that God is the author of evil, deny Him to be good; and not only that, but they abolish [Him] altogether; and thus they make the world and the things born from it eternal; likewise things both good and evil,
placing and approving of them indiscriminately as equal and same. These things are indeed all false, vain, and invented and devised by the most filthy atheists. For God cannot be the author of good and likewise of evil; because these two opposites clearly exist in relation to one another and mutually repel each other, they make us recognize their effector as far different. For since God is goodness itself, no root of malice is derived from Him. But just as the sun cannot produce and send forth darkness, nor darkness light; cold cannot produce fire, nor fire cold; dryness cannot produce moisture, nor moisture dryness; health cannot produce disease, nor disease health, and other things of that kind, by their own power and force; in the same way, one cannot attribute to God that He is the author of evils: since He is entirely good by nature, or according to Euripides:
If gods do anything base, they are not gods,
God is by no means such. And yet it is certain that God exists, and consequently He is necessarily good: into whom not even the slightest contemplation of evil falls, so far is it from being considered as established and certain that He is the author and persuader of it. B Homer, Odys. 1, ascribes the cause of evils to the wickedness of mortals, and not to God.
Of their own, he says, by their own transgressions [they perish, fools,]
speaking of the companions of Ulysses. And a little later, Jupiter addresses the gods of heaven convened for this matter:
Alas! how mortals blame the gods. For they say that evils are from us; whereas they themselves By their own transgressions beyond fate suffer pains.
Plato, the perpetual interpreter and, as it were, index of the Homeric mind, having demonstrated everywhere in his dialogues that God is the author of all good things, and never of evils, and always [of] men, in the end of book II of the Republic, after many things, says this: "To say that God is the cause of evils to anyone, being good, is to be contested in every way; and no one should say these things in the city, etc." The cause of evils being attributed to God, who is good, must be contested and rejected in every way; and one should not allow anyone to pronounce these things in an orderly city. Menander shows that the beginning of evils and the head for men are drawn in such a way to a certain youth:
That each thing rots by its own wickedness And all the corrupting things are from within. As, for instance, the rust, if you consider, [eats] iron, The moth the garment; and the wood-worm the wood. But envy, the worst of all evils, Has made, and will make, and makes, The ungodly imaginings of a wicked soul.
Because things rot individually by their own vice, And everything that corrupts is from within, Like rust, if you observe, [corrodes] iron, Moths [corrode] garments, and the wood-worm [corrodes] wood. But the worst of evils, envy, Has rendered, and will render, and renders [the soul] wasting, Because of the impious concepts of a wicked mind.
That Mercury Trismegistus, those things now passed over being considered with industry which are dispersed and frequently discussed about God, finally concludes that the perturbations of spirits are created things, just as rust follows iron, C animated bodies follow mud. And just as the smith does not introduce rust into iron, nor does the generator introduce filth and dirt into animated bodies, so likewise God is in no way the author of evils to men. Many things can be excerpted to this sentiment, partly from Demosthenes in the Olynthiacs [and] Philippics, and Pro Chersoneso; partly from Sallust, Of the Catilinarian War in the oration of Cato; finally, almost all who have recorded the memory of God have agreed on the same thing; and it is a thing to be wondered at, and it should be held as a veritable monster, that the theologians reborn of a purer and more sincere faith, and restorers of Christian doctrine, should have arrived in our times at such a level of stupidity, not to mention insanity, as to have openly taught and even foully and wickedly confirmed that God is the author and instigator of evils; and—what exceeds all impudence and rashness—to have published books on this matter, and at the same time to have handed them down to posterity.
That which was reserved for the end, having now demonstrated [these things], I will add, that just as God neither performs an act [of evil] nor is he the author of evil, nor can He inflict it on anyone; from the rest, however, punishments and rewards are always to be expected, altogether certain and equal for all, and indeed most just, and similarly, according as each has earned, they are to be undergone and received from Him eternally. So far he, and Christianly.
183 Annotations of the Same on chapter 78. Page 286. *But if another*. He proves from the Scriptures that the same God inflicts punishments on the reprobate and bestows rewards on the elect; and that He had prepared the kingdom for the latter, as He had prepared hell for the former; thence he discourses on the fall, wickedness, and weakness of the evil angels. Page 287. *Here also the furnace*. We restored these eight words from an ancient codex. *For from then the apostate*. He teaches that the first sin of the demons was envy; and that they were then both fallen and reprobated by God, indeed, as much as can be detected from the Scriptures, when they seduced man. The assertors of the former part have with them Tertullian in his book *On Patience*, Cyprian in his sermon *On Zeal and the Good of Patience*, and *On the Temptation of Christ*; Methodius in his sermon *On the Resurrection*, in Epiphanius; Prudentius in his *Hamartigenia*; Chrysologus in his sermon. "A great ruin," he says, "the devil has fallen, because he had deceived Eve in the [guise of the] serpent." But many others, and they surely not to be despised, Greek and Latin authors, hand down that they fell also by pride and elation of mind before they had deceived our protoparents. Of this opinion are Athanasius, *On Virginity* and in the *Questions of Sacred Scripture*, quest. 6; Gregory Nazianzen, oration 1 *On Peace*; Chrysostom, hom. 15 *On John*, and [his] homily *On Adam and Eve*; Ambrose, ep. 84; Jerome, *Epistle to Antoninus*; Augustine, tractate 49 *On John*; Leo the Great, sermon 4 *On the Collection of Alms*; Prosper, book *On the Contemplative Life*, cap. 2; Primasius and Sedulius in the 1st chapter *to the Romans*; Fulgertius, book 1 *to Monimus*; Gregory of Rome in ch. 11 and vii of the first book of Kings. *He will bruise his own head*. The reading of this place of Genesis is more varied than the sense is among the Fathers. The interpreter of Chrysostom, hom. 17 *on Genesis*; Augustine, XII *On Genesis*, cap. 36, and book XI *On Genesis against the Manichaeans*, cap. 18; Gregory of Rome, book 1 of the *Moralia*, cap. 38; Ambrose, book *On the Flight of the World*, cap. 7; Bernard, hom. 2 *on the Praises of the Virgin Mary*, and sermon 2 *on the words of the Apostle*, "A great sign," etc.; Eucherius, book I *on Genesis*, cap. Mary, insofar as she conceived and bore Christ for us, is understood. The Septuagint rendered *autos*, that is, *he*, not *auth* (she), lest it refer to *sperma* (seed), which is of neuter gender; but to *sporos* (seed), which is masculine and of the same signification; [so that] Christ may be signified.
The Virgin, who cast down the strong armed man from the courtyard, dissolves the works of the devil, and crushes the head of Satan beneath her feet. A
Irenaeus follows this reading, as does Cyprian in book II, *Adversus Judaeos*, chapter 9; Jerome proves it in his *Quaestiones on Hebrews*; Chrysologus imitates it in a sermon, which likewise refers to a noun of the masculine gender; which Jonathan the Chaldean paraphrast expressed thus, as interpreted by Paul Fagius: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and also between thy seed and her seed; he will be mindful of that, [specifically] what you did to him formerly," etc. We have spoken of this also above.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 79.*
Page 288. *Cum igitur.* Therefore, the devil, and all the impious who are their messengers and sons by imitation, not by nature, are to themselves the cause of separation from God and of eternal perdition. Moreover, just as pious men by reason of their office sometimes acquire the names of angels in the Scriptures—Isaiah IX, Malachi II, Matthew XI—so too the impious are rightly called sons of Belial and angels of Satan.
*Quidam ante nos dixit.* I confess candidly that it does not occur to me who this person is whose words are cited; perhaps it is he whom he mentions so often in previous sections, and whom Eusebius wrote was unknown to him. Furthermore, the sentiment of this person holds a meaning not very unlike that of the blessed Ignatius, in his *Epistle to the Magnesians*. Nazianzus in a poem on virginity, many centuries after Irenaeus, hands down the same in these words:
Αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ τοκέες μὲν ὅσοι καλὸν ἐξεδίδαξαν, Παῖδες δ' οὓς ἐδίδαξα.
That is: But to me they are fathers, as many as have taught me what is good: But [those are] children whom I myself have taught.
*Licet sit differentia inter natum et factum.* Athanasius, in his 3rd sermon *Against the Arians*, [teaches that] to be begotten, or born, is not something alien from the nature of the begetter, but [it is] something proper, which emerges from the substance of the Father; and therefore [he teaches] that the Son of God is everywhere proclaimed in the Holy Scriptures as born or begotten by the Father. To be made, or to come to be and be created, is said of that which is alien from the nature of the maker, and has a beginning of existence, and which belongs to all things created and to them alone; and for that reason the Scriptures say: "In the beginning God made heaven and earth" [Gen. I, 1], not "in the beginning he begat." Nor: "Thy hands begat me," but: "Thy hands made me" [Job X, 8], etc.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 80.*
Page 288. *Quemadmodum enim.* For all are indeed sons of God by the condition of nature, but not by grace and obedience; since very many are rightly compared even with beasts, wild animals, and serpents on account of various depravities.
*Ira eis.* The printed codices have "his," which we have expunged. The authority of the old codex and the Septuagint indicates: θυμὸς αὐτοῖς, "wrath [to] them."
*Dixit progeniem viperarum.* Clement of Alexandria also wrote in his *Protrepticus* that men are designated by the names of beasts everywhere because of their manifold desires, through which they are led astray from right reason: as of birds, those who are flighty; of serpents, deceivers; of lions, those who continually breathe forth slaughter and threats; of swine, those who wallow in the mire of pleasures; and of wolves, those who are rapacious. Moreover, Pliny, in book X, chapter 62, Athanasius in *Quaestiones 56 ad Antiochum*, and Ambrose in book V of the *Hexameron*, chapter 7, have written many things not unpleasing regarding the nature and habits of the viper; let him who has need of them seek them there, if it is permitted. Let him look, if he so desires, at Nicander, Galen, and Dioscorides.
*Similes enim.* The old codex [says]: "a transgression similar to the Sodomites, and the same things which for them were [stigma or penalties]."
Page 286. *Præbebimus.* Thus the old codex; the printed [editions say] "we shall prevent."
VARIOUS NOTES ON THE FIFTH BOOK OF SAINT IRENAEUS.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on the Preface of the fifth book.*
Pag. 291. *Hunc librum quintum.* Those who divided the previous [books] in the first place have until now left this fifth book without any section into chapters. Likewise, our old codex had neither marked chapters nor provided arguments for [the purpose of] marking them. Therefore it seemed good to divide it, like the previous ones, into a preface and chapters, and to attach to each of these individual summaries; which I hope all good and fair-minded pious men will approve. It truly appears that there is a certain preface [as the] beginning of this book, which contains both the *recapitulation* of those things preceding and the *exposition* of those following.
*Et ratione.* The old codex [reads] "from reason." [I believe] Irenaeus wishes to imply that he has overturned these heresies, partly by the Scriptures, partly by reasons taken from the heresies themselves; since he shows a hundred times in the previous books that they fight entirely among themselves and against the truth.
*Quoniam et in administratione.* When he was the primary bishop of the Gauls and perceived that Gnostic wolves, grave and pernicious, were threatening his sheep, he thought it his duty to admonish and convince them of their error, and to administer an antidote against them to others; whose diligence and assiduity I would that his successors C might imitate.
*Ab Ecclesia acceperunt.* He teaches that the faith rests upon the word of God, which the Catholic Church alone guards, approves, and understands; and therefore it is called by Paul the pillar and foundation of the truth. Consult chapter 4 of book III, and 45 of book V.
*Oportebit autem.* The old codex [has] "it will be necessary for you, and all readers," etc.
184 *Annotations of the same on chapter 1.*
Pag. 292. *Non enim aliter.* It is apparent that a new argument is being treated here: what was the cause that we should begin the first chapter from this point, even though the particle *enim* (for) of the reasoning conflicts with this. It is certain, however, that the author did not divide his previous books at all: therefore I ask to be given the same indulgence here which was granted for the previous [books]: those who, while trying to roll this stone of the first [chapter], perhaps succumbed to the burden.
*Non cum vi.* The words of Augustine and Leo will shed light upon these; those of the former [found in] *De Trinitate*, chapter 15: "It pleased God that, for the sake of rescuing man from the devil's power, the devil should be conquered not by power, but by justice; and thus also that men, imitating Christ, should seek to conquer the devil by justice, not
power. A *This sermon on the Nativity writes with great equity that our Lord struggled with our savage enemy, because He did not engage in His majesty, but in our humility.*
*By His own blood.* Theodoret, Dialogue 5, transcribes this sentiment up to the words: "and pouring forth the Spirit," etc., teaching that Christ, according to His divinity, remained impassible and immutable forever.
*For they are vain.* The same Theodoret has this passage too, up to the words: "and reject the fashioning of God," in Dialogue 2, where he shows that Christ is at once God and man without the confusion of natures.
*Abraham and the rest of the prophets.* Altogether similar to these are the things which Eusebius has in *Demonstratio Evangelica*, lib. 1, chap. 5. For he contends by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures that the Word of God, whom we are accustomed to call Christ, was no less known to Abraham, Jacob, Job, and the other patriarchs than to us, and that they had composed their life and morals to the norm of that piety which Christ afterwards disseminated through all nations; and on this account they have the title of Christ in common with us, according to that which is said of them in the Psalm: B "Touch not my christs." * Ps. civ, 15. Origen subscribes to this in Homilies 5 and 8 on Genesis, and almost all the ancient ecclesiastical writers, as we have often indicated above.
Page 293. *Who worked His incarnation.* He teaches that only the Son of God was made incarnate, but that this incarnation was effected also by the Father and the Spirit; which Augustine also expresses in these clearer words: "He who was born of the Virgin is none other than the Son; but the voice from the cloud: 'Thou art my beloved Son,' C * Matt. iii, 17; Marc. i, 11; Luc. iii, 22. pertains to the person of the Father alone; and in the bodily form of a dove the Holy Spirit alone appeared; yet the whole Trinity wrought that flesh of the Son alone, and that voice of the Father alone, and that appearance of the Holy Spirit alone." In his book *On the Trinity and Unity of God*, chap. 9. And the same man again elsewhere: "The Son, indeed, is not the Father, He is born of the Virgin Mary; but the Father and the Son wrought the very birth of the Son." Sermon 63 on the words of the Lord, and lib. 1 of Homilies, hom. 32 and 43.
*Inspiration of life.* In the old codex, "aspiration"; for so he calls the rational soul, which God created and infused by breathing into the face of a human body.
*He made man.* We have expunged "he effects" [the old codex: "he made"]. From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on chapter 1.
Page 292. *To take the soul,* etc. Add from the Latin, "from his own," just as he soon subjoins "the flesh of his own." Moreover, Hilary the Roman deacon on 1 Cor. xi, in Ambrose: "The flesh, he says, is for the salvation of the body, but the blood is poured out for our soul, as had been prefigured before by Moses." For he says: "Flesh is offered for your body; but blood for the soul: and therefore blood is not to be eaten." Which are also cited by Peter Lombard, lib. IV *Sententiarum*, dist. 11, lit. F.
Page 293. *These therefore reject the mingling of the celestial wine, and only of water, etc.* He alludes to the abuse of the Ebionites, using only water in the eucharistic cup, as witnessed by Epiphanius, *Heresy* 30, § 16, whose words, if one wishes to unfold them, compare at the same time what I have noted about their version in *Spicilegium Patrum*, vol. 1, page 544.
*The hand of God.* Here and elsewhere Irenaeus calls the Son and the Spirit of God the "hands" of the Father, by reason of the creation of the world and especially of man. For just as we perform our works by the help of our hands, so also the Father, through the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are consubstantial to Him, fashioned the fabric of this universe, and created man perfect in it.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent in chapter 2.
Page 294. *Vain, moreover, are they who [say] that in a foreign [world].* The Marcionites [said] that this world was made by another God than the Father of the Lord the Demiurge; but other Gnostics [said it was made] by angels; and consequently that our Lord came not in what was His own, but in what was another's. These things more fully in lib. II, c. 41.
*For we have given nothing beforehand.* He wills that it be effected by no preceding merits of men, but solely by the gratuitous mercy of God, that the Son of God, made man, offered up His body on the altar of the cross and shed His blood for the expiation of the sins of the whole world. Paul openly [says] the same: "When we were yet enemies," he says, "we were reconciled to God through Christ." * Rom. v, 10. And elsewhere, the same man denies that so great a benefit has happened to us out of the works of justice which we perform. Zechariah also imputes to the bowels of divine mercy the fact that the "Orient from on high" hath visited us. Augustine treated these things sharply and diffusely in lib. XIII *De Trinitate*, chap. 16 and 19, and in the *Enchiridion*, chap. 36.
*Into the bosom.* So the old codex; the printed ones, "in the bosom."
*Saying that it is not capable of incorruptibility.* Various sects have long wallowed in the mire of this opinion; for among the Jews, the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the flesh. Hymenaeus and Philetus had said that it had already happened, and was not to be expected further. Augustine imputes this error to Simon Magus, Valentinus, Apelles, Cerdo, the Cajanians, the Severians, the Archontics, and the Proclianites; as Tertullian does to Basilides, Marcion, and the Ophites. Irenaeus agrees with him regarding Marcion in lib. i, cap. 24. But if it delights anyone to read our faith regarding the resurrection proved by the most evident Scriptures beyond these passages of Irenaeus, let him consult Tertullian's book *On the Resurrection*, Athenagoras *On the Resurrection*, and Ambrose's book *On the Faith of the Resurrection*.
*But thus according to these, evidently.* In the old codex, "But if this is not saved," etc. Because the learned and holy man, the Bishop of Rochester, in his book IV *On the Eucharist*, chapters 23, 24, 25, vindicates this whole passage of Irenaeus from the corruptions of the Oecolampadians and explains it lucidly, it is convenient to add his words to each statement. "Irenaeus," he says, "attacks those who do not believe the future resurrection, since they know that Christ redeemed us with His blood, and communicated the same blood to us in the eucharist, and likewise His own body; from which it is most evident that we shall one day rise again, just as He himself rose." And somewhat later: "Those who deny the salvation of the flesh, that is, the resurrection of the flesh to future incorruptibility, and who spurn the regeneration of the same, they contemn the whole dispensation of God. And they are vain in every way; since thus the Lord neither redeemed us with His blood, nor is the cup of the eucharist the communication of His blood, nor is the bread which we break the communication of His body. Wherefore, since the blood which He shed for us is true, and He feeds us with the same true blood and His true flesh; it follows that we who have been thus redeemed, regenerated, and fed, shall truly at length rise again to immortality." Irenaeus makes this collection in these words.
*For the blood.* The Bishop of Rochester: "He teaches that it is not a figurative blood, but true, such as is contained in the veins themselves (which are also called the vessels of blood)."
*Which truly the Word of God was made.* Old codex, "which truly the Word of God was made."
*And because we are members.* The Bishop of Rochester: "Attend more diligently to what Irenaeus says. Since, he says, we are His members, therefore He did not want us to be devoid of His blood; but just as He imparts to us the sun and the rain, so He has testified that He has given His true blood in the cup, and His true body in the form of bread."
*His blood which was poured out.* These seventeen words, which all the printed codices had hitherto lacked, we have restored from the ancient one. Because here there is nothing at all [said] concerning a sign, figure, or metonymy of the flesh
A and Irenaeus remembers the blood; therefore, it is clear to everyone that there is no trope, no metonymy in these words, for him to recognize. Moreover, he piously and holily states that our blood is nourished by the blood of Christ, and our bodies by the body of Christ, since by the real perception and communion of it, they shall not only be raised from the sepulchers and the dust, but shall also be endowed with the most excellent gifts of immortality, agility, brightness, and subtlety, and shall take on such a portion of immortal glory that they shall be lifted up into a life that is plainly celestial and everlasting with Christ their head. "For it is necessary," says the Apostle, "that this mortal should put on immortality, and this corruptible should put on incorruptibility." [* 1 Cor. xv, 53] And again: "Christ shall reform the body of our lowliness, made like to the body of His glory." [* Phil. III, 21] Why so? The same Christ answers: "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him: and I will raise him up in the last day. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever. He that eateth me, the same also shall live for me." [* Joan. VI, 55, 57] Are you looking for another witness? Lo, 185 Augustine, testifying to his own and to posterity, makes those by whom this food is taken, immortal and incorruptible in the society of the saints, where there shall be peace, and a full and perfect unity.
Beyond these, moreover, Irenaeus leaves it to be observed that they will always ill-conceive and ill-believe regarding the true resurrection of our bodies who shall deny and oppose the true presence and participation of the life-giving flesh of Christ in the Eucharist: which Farel, the first author of the Genevan apostasy and the predecessor of Calvin in that chair of pestilence, has shown only too well that the same resurrection is impossible, crying out with the pagan Simonians and Marcionites. For Calvin indicates this, when he writes to him thus: "That the resurrection of this flesh seems to you an incredible thing, it is nothing to be wondered at," etc. Behold how evil men always progress toward the worse, etc. Concerning these, we have also written in chapter 34, book IV, note 22.
B When therefore and the mixed cup. Fisher thus agrees with Oecolampadius: "Imagine, if you can, with what words Irenaeus could have opened the matter for us more clearly. When, he says, the mixed cup and the broken bread receive the word of God, it becomes the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ: that is, the words of Christ being uttered over the bread and wine, immediately it becomes the body and blood of Christ."
The broken bread. Thus read Fisher and Oecolampadius, book IV *De eucharistia*, chap. 23, whom the copies printed at Lausanne and Basel in 1571, by the Episcopii, followed; all others, "the bread having been made," with which our old codex agrees. Moreover, Irenaeus acknowledges by these words that the words of consecration, which are uttered over the bread and the mixed cup, are absolutely necessary for the perfection of the Eucharist; and from this it follows that for the later Gnostics there exists no use of this sacrament at all; since they never admit the word of consecration, but only [the word] of preaching. Concerning these we have discoursed more fully in the 34th chapter of the 4th book.
From which it is augmented. Fisher: "Furthermore, because he says that our bodies are augmented from these, this, I think, looks to the fact that just as the grain of wheat, after its mortification, arises from the earth more abundant and manifold, so also our bodies, after they have been reduced by death to an out-hollowing of ashes, by the virtue nevertheless of that same flesh which gives life, by which we have been fed and have been made one with that chief grain, we shall at length arise to a more cumulative glory."
How they deny the flesh. Such a constant and grave interrogation seems to have more majesty and weight C than if he had used an absolute and simple affirmation. He teaches, however, that our flesh is therefore capable of celestial and eternal life, because it is truly fostered by the body and blood of Christ. Therefore, by the perception of the Eucharist, not merely by the thought of the mind, or by the mouth of a faith that apprehends from heaven, as the Calvinists imagine; but by the bodily mouth substantial presence is received and eaten, according to the promise of Christ: "Unless you shall eat the flesh of the Son of man," etc.; "take and eat, this is my body." [* Matth. XXVI, 26; Marc. XIV, 22; Luc. XXII, 19.] This very thing Tertullian also teaches, writing: "Our flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul may be fattened from God." [* L. De resur. carnis, c. 8.] Hence Chrysostom exclaims: "O miracle! O the goodness of God! Who, while sitting above with the Father, is at that moment of time handled by the hands of all." [* Lib. De sacerdotio.] And again: "Being full here, and full there; one body, etc." Homily 17 on the Epistle to the Hebrews. And Basil the Great in the Liturgy: "Who though sitting above with the Father, yet art invisibly present here with us." Nyssenus finally in the oration on Pascha: "In countless places it is consecrated, and yet it is one body." See the same in his catechetical oration, chap. 37, and Cyril of Jerusalem, catechesis 4, mystagogical, etc.
From these, however, it is plain that the same flesh of Christ is present in the Eucharist in reality, even though it may be made and distributed in many places; and that it is truly perceived and taken by the mouth of the body, and by the participation of this, our bodies truly take the right and the pledge of resurrection, and consequently immortality itself from it and through it. Hence the pious and learned Fisher: "We are not now discussing whether the body and blood of Christ are truly in the Eucharist, as all the orthodox think, or only figuratively, as heretical impiety imagines. What follows in Irenaeus D most openly proves our opinion. 'How,' he says, 'do heretics deny that the flesh is capable of the gift of God, that is, eternal life, since it is nourished by the body and blood of Christ, and becomes His member?' What, I pray, could have been said more clearly on our behalf?"
Is nourished by the body of Christ. To Oecolampadius, who prattled that this expression of Irenaeus was absurd, Fisher replies in book IV, chap. 20: "Many things can be said to 'nourish' which, however, are not converted into the flesh which they foster. For gold and pearls, and precious gems, when they are ground up in medicines, are asserted by physicians to provide much virtue and fomentation to the body, and yet they are not themselves converted into the substance of the body. And in the same way, what prevents the life-giving flesh of Christ, for those by whom it is piously taken, from providing, by its most powerful and ineffable virtue, a fomentation and nourishing in a certain manner?"
Just as the blessed Apostle also says. Fisher: "Irenaeus confirms his own opinion with the words of the Apostle. I do not here dispute how correctly he understands the apostolic sense: but I mean meanwhile to affirm that no one teaches more openly that the body and blood of Christ are contained in the Eucharist than Irenaeus does here; so much so that he confesses even that we, who feed on the flesh of Christ, and drink His blood, do not eat the flesh and drink the blood of some imaginary and spiritual man; but of Him who truly has the nature of a man, consisting of flesh and nerves, therefore he asserts that we are nourished not with imaginary blood, nor with imaginary flesh, but with the true blood and true flesh of Christ."
And as the wood of the vine. Fisher: "That the flesh of Christ provides such great strength to our flesh, so that after this has been incinerated, it at length revives, he demonstrates most openly by this example. Behold the wood of the vine, although it may seem dead, being deposited in the earth, nevertheless fruits in its own time. Similarly..."
as the same action by Christ himself indicates, so also he enjoins it upon all to be done. For, as St. Cyprian writes in Epist. 63: “If in the sacrifice which Christ offered, nothing but Christ is to be followed, surely we must obey and do that which Christ did, and which He commanded to be done (saying: A Do this in remembrance of me), when He himself says in the Gospel: If you do what I command you, I no longer call you servants, but friends.” This whole letter, of course, was directed against those who offered only water in the eucharistic cup, following the example of the Ebionites, concerning whom see the previous page 394, col. 1, line 30 ff. and note 7 there. Against them, therefore, among other arguments, the very act of Christ, offering the mixed cup in the institution of the sacrament, is held to be very pressing; and because the adversaries opposed the custom of their ancestors, he adds after a few lines: “If Christ alone is to be heard, we ought not to give attention to what anyone else before us thought should be done. For we must not follow the custom of man, but the truth of God; as God speaks through the prophet Isaiah and says: ‘But in vain they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men’;” and again the Lord in the Gospel repeats this same thing, saying: “You reject the commandment of God, that you may establish your tradition,” etc. I bring these things forward for this reason, that those who, on the contrary, place only wine without water upon the holy table in the eucharistic cup may consider them; just as the Armenians do in the East, for which reason they were rejected by canon 52 of the Trullan synod, B and by private writers, such as Theophylact on chapter 19 of John, and others whom I pass over. Indeed, the holy martyr Cyprian reproves the failure of either element, whether of wine or of water, writing among other things: “In the sanctifying of the cup of the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, just as wine alone cannot. For if anyone offers wine only, the blood of Christ begins to be without us (whom he had before proven to be represented by the water mixed with wine in the cup); but if there be water alone, the people begin to be without Christ: but when both are mixed and, by a confused union, joined to each other, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is perfected.” Furthermore, with the same words with which the lauded martyr concluded his letter, I make an end of this annotation: “Therefore it befits our religion, and our fear, and the very place and office of our priesthood... in mixing and offering the cup of the Lord, to guard the truth of the Dominical tradition, and, if it seems that anything was previously done wrong by some, to correct it with the Lord warning us; so that when He begins to come in His glory and heavenly majesty, He may find us holding what He warned, observing what He taught, doing what He did.”
C “Of his flesh and of his bones” (Eph. 5:30). Since both these citations and the ancient version of Irenæus acknowledge this, they are greatly confirmed thereby; and therefore the annotation of Grotius on Eph. 5:30 is deservedly rejected, as he suspected that these words were not present in the Alexandrian MS and had been written by someone in the margin and had crept into the apostolic text. Rather, it seems that in the said codex and the Ethiopic version, they were omitted on the occasion of the recurring final word *autou*.
D
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 3
Page 295. “That he might at once truth.” The ancient codex has: “nor take away truth and love from him, and that which is towards him who made him. For the experience of both is true,” etc. Because we have judged the reading of the printed codices to be better, we only indicate these.“Since God took.” In the same way Tertullian writes in his book *De resurrectione carnis*: “He is sufficient to refit the flesh who made it: how much more to have made it than to have refitted it, to have given beginning than to have restored it! So you may believe the restoration of the flesh easier than its institution.” The same author delivers similar arguments in chapter 45 of his *Apology*.
A to whom Athenagoras gives his support in his little book *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*; and Clement of Rome does so elegantly and copiously above others in his *Apostolic Constitutions*, book 8, and Cyril of Jerusalem in his *Catecheses*, 18.
*Page 296. "Not yet made."* We have restored these eight words from an ancient codex.
*“And what is the wisdom.”* The old codex says, “And what is the wisdom of the Lord that they share.”
*“Which has now been meditated upon and accustomed.”* That is, which has exercised itself and habituated itself in this. For *meletē* is to meditate and to be trained, or to be prepared for something; whence speeches and exercises of rhetoricians are called *meletai*. Perhaps Irenaeus wrote *meletēmenē kai eithismenē*, trained and accustomed. We removed "accustomed" and replaced it from the old codex with "has been accustomed."
*“For since it is a participant of life.”* The old codex adds something here which we have refused to insert into the text, since it does not yield a full sense, but appears to require other things, and they are: “For since flesh is a participant of life, by the fact that it is helped it is shown that the life of the thing is manifest; for since it is preeminent, we live by it,” etc.
*Notes of the same (editor) on chapter 4.*
*Page 197. "Besides the Demiurge."* All the printed codices thus far had lacked these three words. Furthermore, in book 1, chapters 1, 4, 16, 19, 25, 33, he has counted enough and more than enough those who constituted another God apart from the Creator of the world.
*“By the prophets.”* The prophecies concerning the resurrection of the flesh are most well-known and certain in the book of Job, chapter 19, 25 and 27. Also Ezekiel 37, 3, 4, etc.; Daniel 12, 2; Isaiah 26, 19; from which Tertullian, Ambrose, Cyril, and others, after Irenaeus, confirm our general future resurrection against its enemies.
*“Which from its own.”* We have added these nine words from an ancient codex, and not long after, three others.
*Notes of the same on chapter 5.*
*Page 298. "Let them read the Scriptures."* In the fifth chapter of Genesis, Adam is reported to have lived 930 years, Seth 912, Enos 905, Cainan 910, Malaleel 895, Methuselah 969. Augustine, *On the City of God*, book 15, chapter 12, judges that those who think those years were otherwise computed in those times are in no way to be listened to, i.e., that they were of such brevity that one of our years is believed to have comprised ten of theirs. Irenaeus also holds the same as certain, otherwise he would derive no argument from them.
But since many, counting this very short life of ours as their own, and not daring to weaken the authority of Scripture, have thought that those years were not finished by the circuit of the sun, but by the age of the moon, so that months are held for years; and that Varro, the most learned of the Romans, and Pliny, considered it uncertain, fabulous, or even impossible that which is reported about the great longevity of the ancients, and having found it established in the centuries of years; for that reason, it will not be unpleasant to examine this matter a little more accurately. And first D I do not see why we should marvel so much at the life of the first-born men, since ours would be longer if we measured their years by the lunar monthly period and not the solar; for since if anyone of us arrives at the hundredth year, then it is certain that he lived 1,200 lunar years, which was never granted to any of the ancients. To these things, Josephus, in *Antiquities*, book 1, presents reasons not to be despised why they were able to extend the times of their life so many centuries. For they, being friends of God and produced entirely by Him, and using more perfect food; furthermore, also for the sake of virtue, so that they might also find and hand down things very useful to their descendants, on account of this, they are not unjustly to be believed to have lived many thousands of years.
But so that we may obstruct the mouths of the heathens, who in this matter have no faith in divine writings; let us produce from their authors some men whose longevity they will not be able to deny. Pliny himself attributes 100 years to Valerius Corvinus and Metellus; 117 to Terentia, wife of Cicero; 150 to King Arganthonius; 160 to Cinyras; 200 to Aeginius; 300 to Pictorius; 800 to Dandon; 800 to another on the authority of Xenophon. Lucian, in the little book whose title is *Peri makrobiōn*, i.e., *On those who have arrived at a long life*, writes that the prophet Tiresias extended his life to six ages, Nestor to three; Numa Pompilius and Servius Tullius 80; Tarquin 90; Agathocles and Hiero 92; Cyrus 100; Mnaseas 109; Manomen 115; Democritus 104. Xenophilus 105; Solon, Thales, Pittacus 100; Ctesibius to have either reached or surpassed 124 years, and he asserts and counts many other long-lived men, from Homer, Herodotus, Anacreon, and many other praised authors. Valerius Maximus is a witness that certain Ethiopians and Indians exceed 130 years, that certain Epirotes fulfill 200, and that a certain Litorius reached three hundred. What then do they chatter about [the lives of] our men, whom we teach to have reached nine hundred according to the Scriptures? Let them at least concede to man, to whom alone, as Pliny writes, there is an immense desire for living, what they do not deny to crows and stags. They concede that crows can live nine centuries. Hesiod, Virgil, Ovid, Martial. Virgil interprets a verse of Hesiod about stags: "And the stag outlives the generations of the crow four times over." The Satiric poet also: "And now long and stag-like old age torments the young man." But of these, enough for the occasion.
*“Enoch pleasing to God.”* Tertullian expresses this passage of Irenaeus thus: "That today Enoch and Elijah, not yet finished by resurrection, because they have not even died, having been translated only from the world, and by this very fact already candidates for eternity, they learn the immunity of the flesh from all vice, and from all harm, and from all injury and insult; to whom do they signify this testimony, unless because it must be believed that these are proofs of future integrity?" Epiphanius also, in the *Anchoratus*, calls Enoch and Elijah the two first-born of our resurrection: and the one indeed in uncircumcision and conjugal insult, the other however in circumcision and virginity, to which Augustine subscribes in *De civitate Dei*, book 15, chapter 19. The words of Clement of Rome are, *Constitutions*, book 5, chapter 8: "If God had wished men to remain immortal, He showed that He could do this in Enoch and Elijah, whom He did not permit to experience death."
*“Having been translated there.”* Augustine judged that a dispute about the place where God translated and has kept Enoch and Elijah living until now does not pertain to faith, *On Original Sin*, book 1, chapter 25. But since here Irenaeus teaches that the disciples and hearers of the apostles [said] that they had been translated into the earthly paradise, wherever that may be, and that they will come from there to fight against the Antichrist; to which opinion almost all the Greek and Latin Fathers subscribe; it seems to me little safe to think otherwise now. It is to the advantage of students that I mark here the names of the Fathers and the places in which we read this, in addition to those whom we adduced in chapter 30 of the fourth book. Nicodemus, *History of the Resurrection of the Lord*; Isidore, *On the Life and Death of the Saints*; Hippolytus the martyr, *Oration on the Antichrist*; Ambrose on Romans, chapter 5; Athanasius, book *That the Nicene Synod*, etc.; Gregory in Job, chapter 38, and Homily 12 on Ezekiel; Jerome, *Epistle to Pammachius against the errors of John of Jerusalem*; Damascenus, book 4, chapter 28; Justin Martyr, *Questions 85 to the Orthodox*; Arethas of Caesarea on chapter 11 of the Apocalypse; Procopius of Gaza on Genesis 4. Many others may be noted by reading.
A *Coauspicantes* (Joining in the beginning). Thus the old codex; the printed editions [read], *conspicantes* (beholding). *Ananias also*. Tertullian has the same [sentiment] in these words: "There were evidences of the future integrity of bodies after the resurrection in the garments and sandals of the children of Israel, which were not worn out for forty years; and in the fact that the Babylonian fires did not harm the caps or the tunics of the three brothers; and in the fact that Jonah was cast out unharmed." And Clement of Rome, *Constit.*, bk. v, cap. 8: "He who brought Jonah alive and safe out of the belly of the whale after the third day, and rescued the three boys from the Babylonian furnace, He is also able to raise us from the dead."
*And unexpected things and impossible to nature*. He speaks quite rightly and holily concerning the immense and incomprehensible power of God, by which He accomplishes things that not only exceed all created force, but are [also] inconceivable and impossible to human judgment, and effectuates them without any labor; just as the carefully pondered history of the Babylonian furnace clearly manifests. For the same fire simultaneously and at once melted the iron bonds of the saints in the utmost heat and consumed the Chaldean guards; yet it cooled the saints themselves like dew and a softly blowing wind, and did not touch even the lightest hair of their garment or head. He could have added the iron of the axe swimming in likeness to the water, yet retaining the weight of iron. Likewise the waters of the Red Sea rising up like a wall and standing firm, although at the same time, by nature, they would have been heavy and liquid. But speeding toward other things, he merely adds: that their God is not subject to the laws of created things, but on the contrary, all created things together with their laws are subject to His will. Finally, with this most manifest and most certain first principle given to us by the Son of God: "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (Luke xviii, 27), he pursues the proposed disputation concerning the resurrection.
This doctrine of the apostolic men concerning the omnipotence of God it has seemed [good] to observe over against the plainly diabolical blasphemy of the Sacramentarians, who say "that God can neither understand, nor will, nor even effect that the body of Christ His Son be at the same time in one number in many places." And lest they complain that this is falsely charged to them by us, behold the words of Beza: "Some things are so inherently embedded in nature that if they are changed, they necessarily pull with them the destruction of the things themselves; whence it happens that while the things are preserved, God neither wills nor is able to change them." And again in the book *Contra Selneccerum* he says: "We conclude, therefore, that Christ not only does not will, but is also not able to will that His body be present in many places at once." And lest Beza alone be thought to be engaged in such a foul error, Carolstadt in his dialogue *De caena*, Oecolampadius in his book *De verbis Domini*, Zwingli in his book *Contra Lutheri Confessionem*, Peter Martyr Vermigli in his book *Contra Bruentium*, Simonius *Contra Schegkiam*, Abdias Liberinus in his *Syntagmate*, Simler *Contra Jacobum Andream*, Thalmann in his *Assertionibus*, Danæus in his books *Contra Selneccerum et Chemnitium*; and to condense, all the Sacramentarians are stained with this same impiety and blasphemy against the infinite power of God. I refuted this last year in my dialogues. I submit here only these most holy words of Augustine: "Just as it was not impossible for God to institute the natures which He willed, so it is not impossible for Him to change the natures which He instituted into whatever He wills."
*His annotations on chapter 6*. That is, through the Son and the Holy Spirit. When he thus connects the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son in the creation of man, just as he also taught a little further above that these words pertain to Him as well: "Let us make man in our image and likeness" (Gen. 1, 26); it is clear and certain that He is also God by nature, coeternal and consubstantial with the Father and the Son, B as we have noted elsewhere against the sycophancies of the Centuriators.
*Admista in carne* (Admixed in the flesh). Thus the old codex; all the printed [editions read], *admiste in carne* (admixedly in the flesh). *Which is fashioned according to the image of God*. He seems to establish the image of God in the flesh; which Augustine disapproves, *De Trinitate*, bk. XII, cap. 7, and *De Genes. ad litteram*, bk. VI, cap. 12. The same man again, in his book *De haeresibus*, after Philastrius, enumerates that opinion among the heresies. Cassian also, in *Collation* 10, writes that the Anthropomorphites said God was corporeal for the reason that He had made man in His own image according to the body.
But far be it from us to say that these words of Irenaeus contain any error; for by the name of image he understands the form raised up to heaven, immortal life, and other gifts not insignificant conferred upon the body itself by God; by which the internal faculties of the soul were indicated, and the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator were referred to; which even Augustine himself now calls the likeness of God, now vestiges, *De Genes.*, bk. I, cap. 16, and bk. VI, cap. 12.
*Just as we have heard many brothers*. Eusebius recites these words of Irenaeus as far as the words, "whom also the Apostle calls spiritual," *Historia*, bk. V, cap. 7. It will be possible to see things similar to these also above, bk. II, cap. 37, in which place we have noted certain things.
*On account of the effusion of the Spirit*. By these he acknowledges that the first man was created with an excellent and copious effusion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as original justice, the knowledge of all things, the highest rectitude of mind, the ability not to sin and not to die, and other divine charisms and virtues, in which chiefly consisted that likeness of God which was lost by sin. But not the image, which pertains to the faculties of nature, as Basil witnesses in *Homily 10 in Hexaem.*, Jerome in chapter 28 of Ezekiel, Chrysostom in *Homily 9 in Genesis*. Truly the crudest error of Luther is condemned in *Gen.*, cap. 3, where he writes: "Original justice was not a gratuitous and heavenly gift, but a natural one, like light to the eyes." C
And this is what [he says] *according to*. Here he manifestly recognizes the image of God to be established in the spirit of man, not in the flesh; wherefore from that opinion, that former one which we were observing must be softened and interpreted.
*Having the image indeed*. He clearly distinguishes between the image and the likeness of God; just as the scholastics also correctly define that the former consists in natural things, that is, the three faculties of the soul; but the latter in gratuitous and supernatural gifts. Origen, in his book *De principiis*, wisely calls the image of God "the dignity of the first condition," but the likeness "the perfection and completion preserved."
*Sed aut partem*. The printed codices [read], *sed et partem*.
*Commistio autem et unio* (But the commixture and union). In the same manner Justin Martyr, at the beginning of his book *De Trinitate*, and Athenagoras, in his book *De resurr.*, describe man; but the words of Tertullian are clearer: "The word 'man' is in a manner a collection of two joined substances, under which there cannot be anything but cohesive [substances]," *De resurrect. carn.*
*Pag. 300. Templum igitur Dei*. These arguments of Irenaeus for asserting the resurrection of our bodies are treated somewhat more fully 188 and clearly by Cyril of Jerusalem in his *Catechesis* 4, and he finally shows the use of them in these words: "Spare therefore the body, as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not dirty the flesh in fornications, lest you pollute the most beautiful stole; but if you have polluted it, wash it through penance, etc. Keep the body clean for the Lord, so that the Lord may also look upon the body, etc. Treat it modestly."
substance, but willing to keep them from the kingdom of God; A or flesh and blood, if it be alone—that is, without the Spirit—so that from this he might also gather the salvation of souls.
*Carne, anima et spiritu.* He seems to establish three things, as it were distinct, for the composition of man: soul, spirit, and body. Concerning this opinion, Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa, in his book *On the Nature of Man*, chapter 4, has recorded in writing that Plotinus and Apollinaris, who have a great name among the Fathers, had arrived at this view. And it is clear enough what body and soul are, but what they mean by the term spirit is not so. Gregory proves that in the sacred Scriptures, the spirit of man signifies sometimes the soul itself, and sometimes a spiritual effect of it. Augustine reproves Didymus because he would have the spirit be some third thing in man's substance, since the soul itself is called by that name, on account of its spiritual nature, or because it breathes in the body. Tertullian admits an *hēgemonikon*, that is, a certain principle or highest degree of life in the soul, but he consistently denies that soul and spirit are two things which can be separated, or B even exist as concrete entities. Jerome, in the 20th chapter of Matthew, declares from the Scriptures that the spirit is indeed one with the soul; and he sufficiently indicates that the opinion of those who think otherwise does not please him—see *Questions to Hedibia*, 12, and the *Commentaries on Daniel*, chapter 1. I judge, therefore, that Irenaeus by the name of spirit here wishes to understand nothing other than that power of the soul which meditates on eternal and spiritual goods, and desires them above all else, and burns with a thirst for them, which in the schools we call the higher portion.
*Hæreditate possidet.* By the authority of an ancient codex, we have deleted “possedit.”
Page 302. *Conservare Spiritum Dei.* We have deleted “conservari.” Furthermore, this opinion of Irenaeus is used by name by Basil the Great in his book *On the Holy Spirit*, to confirm its divinity.
*Quæ sunt autem.* An ancient codex reads: “Who are they who are dead?” But Jerome on the 5th chapter of Matthew and the author of the *Opus Imperfectum* attributed to Chrysostom, homily nine, approve this exposition of Blessed Irenaeus, by which the earth, which our Lord promises to the meek as an inheritance, is understood as their body freed from corruption and configured to the body of His glory. I will add the opinion of Bishop Chromatius: “These meek ones,” he writes on Matthew 5, “the Lord shows to be those who, following the gentleness of the Lord’s mildness, will enjoy the inheritance of that blessed earth in perpetual possession. Mostly, however, he speaks of the earth of our body, in which the saints, transfigured into glory according to the Apostle, will reign in eternal happiness.”
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 9.
Page 303. *Portemus.* I would say that Irenaeus here and below in chapter 11 did not write *phorēsōmen* (let us bear), but that the Latin interpreter, from the ancient Italic version, placed “portemus” (let us bear) for “portabimus” (we shall bear), were it not that from the consequences and the words in both places it shines clearer than the sun that he himself read it thus in his apostolic codex, and from that accepted the words of the Apostle as hortatory to holiness of life; just as also at this day it appears in many Greek manuscripts and in the ancient Alexandrian codex as *phorēsōmen*. Nevertheless, *phorēsōmen*, as the Greek Vulgate has it, is undoubtedly the genuine reading and well approved by the most learned D. Mill on this passage.
*Ἐν τῷ αἵματι.* The ancient interpreter seems to have read *tō haimati*. Understand, however, by flesh alone, or with blood, a body that is indeed animated but not sanctified by the Spirit; which the Apostle, 1 Cor. 15, calls a natural (animal) body, and opposes to it a spiritual body.
*Κληρονομῆσαι οὐ δύναται, κληρονομηθῆναι δὲ* C *δύναται.* Irenaeus seems to have sought these from Justin M.’s book *On the Resurrection*, whose opinion, cited and approved by Methodius, I have given in Volume 1 of *Spicilegium Patrum* of the 2nd century, page 193; and what I think of it, saving the honor of the Holy Fathers and martyrs, I indicated on the following page, 194.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 10.
Page 304. *Et in ignem mittitur.* We added these four words from an ancient codex. Here, however, he teaches not obscurely that good works must be joined to faith, and yet that they can only be accomplished by the divine aid of the Holy Spirit; overturning at once the opinion of the Pelagians and the errors of Simon Magus and the later Gnostics.
*Regnum Dei.* An ancient codex reads: “existing, can the kingdom of God not possess by inheritance?”
*Immortalitatem.* We have inserted these five words, which the Apostle also has, from an ancient codex.
*Spiritus autem vita.* The common edition reads: “the spirit lives,” but Irenaeus follows the Greek reading of Paul. For it has *zōē* (life), and not *zēi* (lives), and thus likewise from the Latins read Augustine in Psalm 75, book 24 *Against Faustus*, chapter 2, Ambrose in his *Commentaries*, and Hilary, book 8 *On the Trinity*; from the Greeks, Athanasius in his book *To Serapion*, and Theophylact in his *Commentary*, so that the Apostle speaks of the Holy Spirit, who is life by Himself and bestows it upon others.
*Incipietis mori.* Thus Irenaeus reads with Cyprian in his book *On Jealousy and Envy*. The Greek is *mellēte apothnēskein*, which others translate: “it is to happen that you shall die.” The old interpreter of Theodoret reads: “If you live according to the flesh, you shall die according to the flesh.”
Annotations of the same on chapter 11.
Page 305. *Adulteria, fornicationes.* The Vulgate edition reads the first five terms in the singular number, with which the Greek codices agree. Conformable to Irenaeus is Cyprian in his book *On the Lord's Prayer*.
*Sed justificati estis.* The context of Paul recognizes these three words with our ancient codex, and therefore we have inserted them.
*Et Spiritum Dei nostri.* Since he attributes the efficiency of our salvation to the Spirit just as to Christ the Lord, he recognizes, believes, and adores His divinity, even though the Magdeburgenses contradict. Basil and Ambrose subscribe to Irenaeus in their books *On the Holy Spirit*.
*Ejus qui de limo est.* Thus he renders the word *choikon* periphrastically: whom Cyprian follows in his book *On the Habit of Virgins*, in his book *On Jealousy and Envy*, in book 2 *Against the Jews* chapter 10, and in book 1, chapter 11. Tertullian in his book *On the Flesh of Christ* reads “of the slime of the earth,” otherwise he frequently preserves the Greek word.
Annotations of the same on chapter 12.
Page 306. *Vita possidens animam.* An ancient codex reads: “human life possessing the soul.”
*Spiritus sempiternus.* He professes the Spirit to be eternal, and therefore truly God, equal and consubstantial to the Father and the Son.
*Deinde abit.* We have expunged “obiit” from an ancient codex.
*Quapropter et primus Adam.* The common Latin edition of Paul adds “man,” which Irenaeus does not have here, nor does Ambrose appear to have read it in his *Commentary*. Stapulensis warned that it was redundant; Erasmus thought it added by some interpreter for the sake of translating the Hebrew word *Adam*.
Page 317. *In agnitionem.* The Latin Vulgate edition of Paul adds “of God”; but Ambrose and the Greek codices lack that, as does Irenaeus.
*Placuit Deo.* The Vulgate edition: “to Him”; but the letters of Irenaeus agree with the Greek exemplars. Furthermore, he teaches that the same Apostle, who was the ancient Adam—that is, having been conceived in the womb and born in the common manner of men—preached those things which were objected to by heretics who interpreted them wrongly; who nonetheless was an excellent defender of the true resurrection. Therefore the words
of our Lord Jesus Christ, they said; Valentinians and a Demiurge; others truly were Gnostics by angels; therefore they write that our Lord was not in His own, but had come in another's. This is treated abundantly in lib. III, c. 11.
Truly we have given nothing. He wishes that it was not by any preceding merits of men, but solely by the gratuitous mercy of God effected, that the Son of God the Son of man might become a body on the cross for the expiation of the sins of the whole world. Paul openly says the same: A For when we were yet enemies, he says, we were reconciled to God through Christ. And elsewhere he denies the same to be conferred upon us only by works of justice. Zacharias also, impelled by the decrees of divine mercy, says that "he hath visited the Orient from on high." Augustine treats this sharply and diffusely in lib. XIII De Trinitate, cap. 16 and 19, and in Enchiridio, cap. 36.
In the bosom. The old codex; read, "in the bosom."
Those who are not capable of this incorruptibility. Various sects were wallowing in the mire of this opinion; among the Jews, the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the flesh. That it had already occurred, and was not to be expected further, Hymenæus and Philetus said. Simon Magus, Valentinus, Apelles, Cerdo, Cajanus, Severianus, Archonticus, and Proclianites impinge upon this error; as Augustine says; just as Basilides, Marcion, and the Ophites for Tertullian. Irenæus B agrees with him against Marcion, lib. I, cap. 24. But whom it pleases to choose besides these, let him prove our faith in the resurrection by the most evident Scriptures, let him consult Tertullian, De resur., Athenagoras, De resurreccione, and Ambrose, De fide resurrectionis.
But that it is according to this, namely, the old codex. But if this is not saved, etc. That whole passage of Irenæus was corrupted by Oecolampadius, and clearly explained by the learned Bishop of Rochester, lib. IV De eucharistia, cap. 23, 24, 25, when he says it is to the advantage of the singular. "Irenæus is not present," he says, "who do not believe that the resurrection will be, since they know that Christ has redeemed us with His blood, and that He communicates to us the same blood in the eucharist, and likewise His own body; C from which it is most evident, as he himself rose again." And shortly after: "Who do not expect the salvation of the flesh, this is for the future incorruptibility of the resurrection, and they despise the whole dispensation of God of the same regeneration. And they are utterly ruined; because the Lord has not redeemed us with His blood, nor do we communicate the blood of the eucharist, nor the bread which we break is the communication of his body. Wherefore, since it is the true blood, which is poured out for us, we are fed with the same true blood, and with true flesh; it follows that since we are thus redeemed, and fed, we are truly to rise again into immortality. This collection he makes with these words," Irenæus.
Truly the blood. Rochester: "He teaches that it is not a figurative blood, but true, such as is contained in the veins themselves D (which are spoken of as vessels of blood). Which is truly the Word of God become flesh."
And since we are members. Rochester: "Attend more diligently to what Irenæus says. Since, he says, we are members of his blood, therefore he did not want His blood to be lacking; just as he imparts the sun and rain to us, he testified that He gave His own true body under the species of bread, and in the chalice."
His own blood which is poured out. Seventeen words, which all the old codices have hitherto lacked, we restore from the old. Because here there is entirely nothing of sign, figure, or metonymy of the flesh.
A As the blind. From the miracles performed by the Lord upon the bodies of the blind, the withered, and other infirm persons, he concludes that these are a matter of care to God, and therefore will one day rise again.
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 12.*
Page 307. *But the despoiling of our former conversation.* Likewise, Clement of Alexandria, Book 3 of the *Stromata*, page 466, where he had cited the words of the Apostle: *Put on the new man, which is created according to God*, he adds: "But he says 'the old' not with regard to generation and regeneration, but with regard to the life which is in disobedience and [the life] in obedience." He has said "the old," not looking back to birth and new birth, but to that life which consists in disobedience and obedience.
*It pleased God.* He teaches that the same one who had existed as the old Adam—that is, having been conceived in the womb and born thereafter in the common manner of men—had become an apostle and preached the Gospel, and that he had retained that same flesh, which he had once possessed in a corrupt state, in a state of grace; whence he concludes that he would also retain it in a state of glory.
*For what cause did he have, etc.* So also Justin the Martyr, in his *Book On the Resurrection*, *Spicilegium Patrum of the second century*, page 190: "If he needed nothing of the flesh, why did he even heal it?"
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 16.*
Page 308. *For let them tell us.* Tertullian, in his book *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*, touches upon this briefly: "The examples of the dead raised by the Lord commended the resurrection of the flesh and soul, so that this gift might not be denied to any substance." Ambrose also treats this with a fuller hand in his book *On the Faith of the Resurrection*.
*And Lazarus.* Tertullian calls Lazarus the principal example of the resurrection.
*This symbol.* Not only this man of the apostolic times, but also many, and very learned as well as holy C Fathers afterward, have taught that in this symbolic—yet true—binding and loosening of Lazarus, was signified that absolution of penitent sinners, by which, after the confession of their offenses, they are absolved by the ministry of priests in the Christian Church: just as he, having been wrapped and bound in sepulchral linens, came forth set free and loosed by the hands of the apostles.
Perceiving, however, that his paradoxes about faith alone justifying, the inefficacy of the sacraments, and the emptiness of the keys handed to the Church by Christ, were being clearly condemned and overturned by this divine and most celebrated example, Calvin raged, bereft of his senses, and, utterly incensed, railed throughout the world against the authors of this interpretation, calling them Papists (thrice ridiculous), who "draw auricular confession from this," 190 and furthermore, "that they lie who affirm that the Lord commanded the disciples to loosen Lazarus from his bandages."
But let us attend to the men whom this new apostle attacks with his convictions and reproaches; whom, for his own ministerial modesty, he calls thrice ridiculous and liars. First, this most ancient auditor of the disciples Peter, John, and Paul, a most valiant martyr of Christ and a most wise expeller of heresies; who taught that Lazarus was a type of a man bound and handed over by Christ to others to be loosed. To whom did he hand him over, if not to the disciples, who stood by, ready and most prompt for every command and requirement of his?
Then, the outstanding bishop and theologian Augustine, whom we subjoin, discoursing thus on these things: "The Lord cried out: 'Lazarus, come forth.' The mass of the tomb yielded to the voice of mercy; death yielded to life; the lower regions yielded to the One from on high. Lazarus was raised, he came forth from the tomb; and he was bound, just as D those are who have already proceeded from death; for they would not confess unless they were proceeding. To confess is to proceed from that which is hidden and dark. But what does the Lord say to his Church? 'Whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' Do you hear, Calvinist men, that Lazarus was a symbol of a man performing penance? Do you understand that confession—beyond doubt auricular—is denoted by the procession from the dark sepulchre? That the command was finally given to the pastors of the Church by the Son himself to loose those bound by sins? Attend to the rest. 'When you hear,' says the same Augustine, 'that a man repents of his sins, he has already come back to life; when you hear a man bringing forth his conscience by confessing, he has already been led out of the sepulchre, but he is not yet loosed. When, and by whom, is he loosed? "Whatever you shall loose on earth," says Christ, "they shall be loosed also in heaven."'"
Let it not irk you, I pray, curious and knowledge-hungry men, to hear the same illustrious master speaking again on this matter: "The Lord offered Lazarus, already raised from the monument, to the disciples to be loosed, thereby showing the power of loosing granted to priests. For he said: 'Whatever you shall loose upon earth,' etc. And lest you deem this passage of lighter moment, weigh the other one, in which, in a few words contracted from this narrative of the raised Lazarus, the same blessed servant of God addresses any penitent whatsoever: 'Arise in your heart, come forth from your sepulchre, that is, from the evil habit of sinning by which you are burdened; believe, and confess. For he who believes has risen, he who confesses has risen; because before he confessed, he was hidden. And when he has confessed, what will be said to the ministers? What was said at the funeral of Lazarus: Loose him, and let him go; just as it was said to the apostles: Whatever you shall loose on earth, they shall be loosed also in heaven.'"
Lest, however, your blind guides mislead you, preaching and babbling as they are wont, while they are destitute of any solid response, that Augustine did not persist in this sentiment, read again if you wish well to your own salvation, where he asserts the same in *Tractate 49 on John*, in the book *On the Utility of Penance*, chapter 3, and in sermons 8 and 44 on the words of the Lord. And that every word may stand in the mouth of two or three witnesses, consult the most holy pontiff Gregory, homily 26 *on the Gospels*, and book 22 of the *Morals*, chapter 15; likewise the most illustrious prelate, the blessed Ambrose, book 2 *On Penance*, chapter 7; and may you at length be ashamed and feel regret for your Calvinistic impudence and malediction.
*Uti ejus.* So the old codex; the printed versions, *nulli*. *Nolunt conspicere.* The printed codices, *intelligere*. *Secundum tragicum Œdipodem.* So the old codex; the printed versions, *secundum tragicos*; whence appears the good faith of our same old codex. For it touches, as I think, upon what is read in Sophocles, *Oedipus Tyrannus*, with these words: *Αποσπάσας γὰρ εἱμάτων χρυσηλάτους* *Περόνας ἀπ' αὐτῆς, εἰσιν ἐξεστέλλετο,* *Ἆράς ἔπαισεν ἄρθρα τῶν αὑτῶν κύκλων,* And thereafter, that is: For when he had avulsed from the garments the golden Fibulae, wherewith she was clothed; He began, having seized them, to gouge the orbs of his eyes. Thus saying, that no longer would he behold her (the mother) Nor his own evils, nor the crimes which he had perpetrated; But blind from the light henceforth, nor whom the law would not have permitted Him to see, nor whom he needed to recognize. By which and many other places it appears that those pious Fathers did not abhor the reading of the poets, but in...
that thing turned it to their own use; which later both Clement of Alexandria in his Protrepticus and Basil in his address to his nephews have advised.
*Per illud quod detinent cadunt.* The ancient codex has, *per illud quod detinetur cadent*. It says, moreover, the ancient codex adds these two words; then it has *dicens* [saying], not *dicentem* [one saying], as I had printed.
*Aculeus*. Cyprian, in book II of *Adversus Judaeos*, chapter 58, and Jerome in his Commentary on Hosea, chapter XIII, read *aculeum* [sting] along with *frenum* [bridle]; the Vulgate edition has *stimulus* [sting/goad]; it is *τὸ κέντρον* in the Greek.
*Qui transfigurabit*. The Greek is *μετασχηματίσει*, and in the common edition it is *transformabit* [shall transform] in the future tense; we have expunged *transfiguravit* [has transformed].
Page 309. *Perficit*. Ambrose reads *perfecit*. The Greek is *κατεργασάμενος*; the common edition reads *effecit*.
*Hymnum dicens Deo. Quando caro et ipsa immortalis effecta gloriosaque surrexerit, una cum anima sua beata hymnis sempiternis Deum celebrabit*, according to what was written by David concerning the saints: *Exsultationes Dei in gutture eorum*, etc.
*Circumferentes*. We have added these nine words from an ancient codex, since Paul’s letter also contains them; we have deleted *manifestemus*.
*Cum bestiis Ephesi pugnavi*. Theophylact and Oecumenius refer this struggle to the tumult stirred up by Demetrius the silversmith on account of the Ephesian Diana; Anselm or Herveus among the Latins agrees with them. But to me it seems more probable what Nicephorus writes in book II of his *History*, c. 15, that Paul was thrown to the lions, as being the most ferocious beasts, by order of a certain governor Jerome, and that they lay tamely at his feet. And before Nicephorus, Origen had touched upon these things in book I of *Periarchon*, as had Ambrose and Theodoret in their Commentaries on 1 Cor. xv.
His annotations on chapter 14.
Page 310. *Quoniam autem*. He confirms the resurrection and salvation of the flesh, because the Son of God united true and natural flesh to Himself, just as Paul acknowledges everywhere. With the same arguments, Tertullian drives into a corner and lays prostrate the lost Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus, and Apelles, being certain that the flesh had been readied with a supreme guarantee of resurrection if it had already been assumed by Christ and resurrected in Him.
When, however, Irenaeus adds shortly after: *If the flesh were not to be saved, the Word of God would by no means have been made flesh*, etc., he seems to be of the opinion that the Son of God would not have come in the flesh if Adam had not fallen; a view which Athanasius later also firmly held in *Sermon 3 against the Arians*, Augustine in *Sermon 8 on the words of the Apostle*, Pope Leo in *Sermon 3 on Pentecost*, and finally the blessed Thomas Aquinas and his followers, if you except Catharinus, Viguerius, and Naclantus.
Contrarily, however, Albertus Magnus, the master of St. Thomas, thought and taught in his *Third book, dist. 10, art. 4*, as did Alexander of Hales, who was equal to him, and later John Duns Scotus, and those who have embraced his doctrine to this day; which opinion Peter Galatinus also corroborates with scriptures and arguments not to be despised in *book III, ch. 4*, and *book VII, ch. 13*. Nor are there lacking for these men many firm testimonies from the ancient theologians, such as Rupert in his book *On the glory and honor of the Son of man*, and book XII of his *On the most holy Trinity, ch. 20*: whose authority, that it not be despised as that of a more recent writer, I add Cyril of Alexandria, *book V of the Thesaurus, ch. 8*, who reasons as follows: Christ, God-man, is the first and head of all the predestined and the elect; and thus He is the end of all divine mysteries and works. But that number shall never be dissolved for any reason, it shall never be diminished; and divine works and plans do not depend on the sin of one little man, Adam.
Therefore, even if he had not sinned, the Word would have been nonetheless true man. Rupert confirms this reasoning from Augustine’s book *On nature and grace, ch. 25*, and book XV of *The City of God, ch. 23*. If, as Augustine attests, it would be absurd to say that, had Adam not sinned, future generations of men would not exist, and that men were born only because sin had preceded, then it will be much more alien to think so regarding this Head (Christ) and King of all the elect, both angels and men. And Augustine is rightly cited as a just witness and approver of this opinion, since in his book *On marriage and concupiscence, ch. 21*, he teaches that the marriage of Christ with the Church would have occurred even in the state of innocence, and would have possessed the same goodness, if that state had endured. Therefore, He was to be true man, and as such, the true and legitimate head of the Church and the most chosen spouse of the Bride, even if the first parents had not fallen. And writing again, he says: *Christ’s flesh would not have been in the likeness of sinful flesh, unless this flesh of His had been flesh of sin*, absolutely presupposing that it would have existed even while the first man stood; 191 although not the same in quality, that is, neither passible nor mortal: which is willingly admitted by both sides. Likewise, Cyril in book V of his *Thesaurus, ch. 3*, considers it not only absurd, but even Arian madness, to say that the Son of God was made for our sake and not for His own. For it would behoove Him, who was to be Christ for us, to give thanks for us as sinners, which He would not have been otherwise. I had almost omitted the blessed Anselm, who asserts that there is no soul in heaven that could persuade itself that, without the sin of another, it would not have enjoyed glory. Therefore, not even had Adam sinned was Christ to be future, and be blessed in His own body: and thus the Son of God as true man. To this also is believed to pertain that which Irenaeus wrote above, that God, disposing in Himself the future disposition of the human race concerning His Son, predestined the animal man, that is, Adam, so that he might be saved by the spiritual one, that is, Christ, so that the Savior might not be an empty title. Therefore, Christ was first destined to be Savior, and men were then to be saved, lest He be thought to have been destined in vain.
Therefore, do the ancient and modern theologians disagree with each other on the explanation of such a mystery? Not at all, for while Adam stood, Christ was not to be a mortal, hungry, thirsty, weeping, obedient even unto the death of the cross, as the Fathers of the first opinion affirm; but He was to be the most beloved spouse of the chosen Church, the most precious head, and the supreme glorifier; which is demonstrated by the assertions of the second opinion.
*E limo factae*. The ancient codex has *facta est successio*. It seems to me that it should be read *factae, est successio*. And shortly after, in place of *ex altera substantiae parte*, the ancient codex reads *ex altera substantia partes operatus fuisset*.
*Et inimici cogitationis ejus*. Ancient codex: *cogitationi*; the Greek is *τῇ διανοίᾳ*, that is, in mind or thought. Jerome, *Against John of Jerusalem*, reads *immunes* or *enemies of his understanding*.
*Custos et sine crimine*. The Greek of Paul is *ἀμώμους*, which Tertullian translates as *invituperabiles*, *ἀνεγκλήτους* as *incriminabiles*, or, as the common edition has it, *irreprehensibiles*.
*Quoniam illa quidem non peccavit*. The same Tertullian in his book *On the flesh of Christ*: *As we cannot say that Christ’s flesh was redundant, so neither can we say it was sinful, nor redundant, in which there was no guile. But we defend that it is not the flesh of sin that was made redundant in Christ, but the sin of the flesh; not the substance, but the fault.* And in his book *On prescription*: *To the Son of God alone was it reserved to remain without sin.*
A Page 311. *And by his blood he was redeemed.* We add this word from our old manuscript. Among jurists, *redhibere* means to make a seller have again what he previously held. Hence Festus: "It is called *redhiberi* which has been given back." Now, man had sold himself to death, to the demon, and to the underworld; but Christ, by his passion and death, restored him to life, to God, and to the heavens. From this entire chapter, and from very many other places, let the pious reader weigh how holily, how gravely, how frequently and learnedly this apostolic man urges the supreme efficacy and utility of the suffering flesh and of the blood of Christ, which was once shed for the salvation of us all. "The Word of God," he says, "was made flesh and blood, that he might save in himself what had perished in Adam." And: "The righteous flesh reconciled that flesh which was held in sin, and brought it into friendship with God." Also: "He reconciled us to himself through the body of his flesh, and redeeming us by his blood, as the Apostle says." And likewise: "In every epistle the Apostle testifies that we have been saved through the flesh and blood of our Lord," etc.
For these things most clearly confute and condemn the horrendous blasphemies of the Calvinists, who say: "Nothing of human salvation would have been accomplished if Christ had died only a bodily death. In the bodily death of Christ there is nothing to be found by which our faith might raise or sustain itself. In the spectacle of his death there is nothing but matter for extreme despair." Again, trampling underfoot the whole price of human redemption, the same men preach with their shouting to the miserable populace, and record in public writings: "The blood of Christ shed for us has long since dissipated, and is no longer inseparably united to the Word. The blood of Jesus Christ, shed for our sins, rotted on the ground 1500 years ago, and is no longer in the nature of things." For these are the words of Johannes Curæus and Thomas Erastus, disciples of Calvin: the former in his *Fundamentalis declaratio de coena*, page 29; the latter in his *Spongia*, folio 229. B This same thing they also write now from Prussia, and as much as they can, spread and amplify: Fridericus Aulakius in his *Confessio*, page 42; Andreas Osiander in his booklet *Adversus Morlinum*; and other followers of Calvinian impiety everywhere, as is clear from the *Index of Errors* attributed to them, which Gregory of Valencia fabricated and which was printed at Geneva. And are we surprised that many of these, having finally cast off and abandoned all Christian religion, profess the Koran of Mahomet? That they desert to the Turks along with the Calvinist ministers Sylvanus and Neusserus? That their satellites and legates solicit, incite, and induce the huge armies of the Turks and Tartars to devastate the remains of Christendom?
But if the blood of Christ has already rotted, "then our faith is empty," the preaching of the apostles is vain, and they are found to be false witnesses of God, because they gave testimony against God that he would not "give his Holy One to see corruption," and that we have been "redeemed, not with corruptible things, from our vain manner of life, but with the precious blood of the unblemished and undefiled lamb, Christ," that "Christ washed us from our sins in his blood," that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin," and "cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God," that we who "were once far off have been made near in his blood," that being "justified in his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him," and that finally he "truly rose from the dead, no longer to die," and that he "always lives to make intercession for us," seeing that he did not "reassume the blood shed upon the ground, which pertains entirely to the integrity of the true human body," C but permitted it to be so dissipated and to rot that it no longer exists in the nature of things. Let the Lord rebuke Satan speaking in these, his instruments; and let the Lord rebuke those who do this, for he chose for himself a bride, the Church, "which he washed in his blood," etc. A more ample place for speaking of these things will appear elsewhere.
From the Annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on Chapter 14
Page 310. *Whoso shall shed*, etc. The passage cited here is also read thus in Book II of the *Apostolic Constitutions*, chapter 42: "He who sheds man's blood, in place of his blood it shall be shed." And so also our editions of the LXX interpreters have it, except the Complutensian, which reads thus: "In place of the blood of a man, his own shall be shed." Cotelerius has gathered many more readings for this passage in his notes to Book II of the *Apostolic Constitutions*, chapter 42, where he cites Irenæus and follows the Vulgate editions, from which I have departed by the authority of the Vossianus manuscript.
Page 310. *If indeed on account of some other dispensation the Lord was incarnate.* That is, if the Son of God had taken on flesh on account of some other administration or expedition, in Greek *oikonomia*.
*Every administration of the coming of the Lord.* *Pasa oikonomia tes parousias tou Kyriou*, that is, everything which Christ did on earth to procure the salvation of the human race. For they err who restrict *oikonomia* to the sole incarnation of the Lord, since it is used of his entire life and his very passion and death. Thus Justin Martyr, in *Dialogus cum Tryphone*, page 217, speaks of "his passion that came to pass as a dispensation." See Irenæus himself above, page 68, line 9 et seq. (page 71, line 33 et seq.).
*Enemies to his thought.* Some scribe seems to have added the word "his" here from the Itala translation of the New Testament, in which the author of the *Commentary on Colossians* found among the works of Ambrose, and Jerome in his epistle against John of Jerusalem, do not permit us to doubt that it existed at least in the fourth century. And yet both take the *dianoia* of God here, when it is the darkened mind of the unregenerate Colossians that should rather be understood.
Page 311. *To obey him.* In "his concupiscences," perhaps the translator or scribe omitted this, because those words were absent from the Itala version, as is gathered from Tertullian, *De resurrectione*, chapter 47.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on Chapter 15
Page 311. *For the dew.* In the old manuscript, for "that" we have substituted "who," and for "his" we have substituted "to them." The Septuagint read the prophet's sentence thus: *He gar drosos he para sou, iama autois estin*: "For the dew which is from thee, is healing to them." The common edition: "The dew of light, thy dew."
And Ezekiel. From this vision of Ezekiel, they confirm the resurrection of the dead together with Irenæus: Clement of Rome, Book V of the *Constitutions*, chap. 8; Tertullian, the book *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*.
*In a circuit, in a gyro.* So the old manuscript, with which the reading of the Septuagint, *kyklothen kykloi*, conforms.
*Sinews.* We have restored these eleven words from the old manuscript, with the agreement of the Biblical text.
*Come, and breathe.* So the old manuscript; the printed copies have "come, let there be an insufflation." The Septuagint: *kai emphyseson*.
*He shows himself and indeed the Father.* The old manuscript: "he shows himself to be the Father, who also to the disciples," etc.
Page 311. *In the old formation.* The old manuscript: "in the womb to form; so that regarding the blind man whom God had already deprived of sight from his mother's womb, the discussion may take place."
192. *Was made in transgression.* The old manuscript ignores the word "cesto." Furthermore, that the washing of the blind man in Siloam foreshadowed the holy baptism is a view held together with Irenæus by Tertullian in the book *On Baptism*; Gregory of Nyssa in the book *On Baptism*; Ambrose in Book I.II of *On the Sacraments*, chapter 2; Augustine in Tractate 44 on John, and in chapter 6 and 27 of Matthew and in chapter 14 of John.
A and other Fathers. I shall add some not inelegant verses of Sedulius the Presbyter concerning this matter: Blind are we descendants of wretched Eve, Bearing the darkness of a long error. But God deigning to assume a mortal form, The salutary Earth was made for us from the Virgin, Which, washed by sacred fountains, Opens the clear breathings of renewing light. *And to have called him.* We restored these three words from the ancient codex, as also presently the word "to him." *The same.* The printed codices have "to him." *As for indeed.* I have added four small words from the ancient codex. Moreover, the blessed Gregory, in Book XXV of his *Morals*, ch. 2, observing with Irenaeus that God came to Adam in the afternoon, teaches that this also adumbrated that the more fervent light of truth had departed, and that the chilling of guilt was constricting the sinful soul; and that through the declination of the sun, man ought to have known that he was approaching darkness. He touches upon the same again in Book XXX of the *Morals*, ch. 3. Furthermore, that on that very evening, that is, on the same day on which he had been created and had sinned, he was cast out from the happiness of paradise into this valley of tears, is held by the Greeks Cyril, Epiphanius, and Diodorus of Tarsus. Bar-Cepha, in his book *On Paradise*, cites Philoxenus, Ephrem, Jacob of Edessa, and other Syrians, who were of the same opinion, although not a few others teach the contrary.
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on ch. 15.* P. 311. *Full of bones.* From this allegation of Irenaeus and Tertullian, in his book *On the Resurrection of the Flesh*, ch. 29, it is manifest that the word *anthropinōn*, which exists in the common edition of the LXX interpreters, was added by a recent hand. Nor does the Hebrew text recognize this word. *Lord, you know, you who have made these things.* In the LXX we read only: *Kyrie, Kyrie, sy epistē tauta*. And so also Tertullian in the cited place: *“Adonai, Lord, you know.”* Whence it is clear that the word "Lord" was omitted once here; on the contrary, "who have made these things" was added, perhaps by Irenaeus himself, for the sake of explanation. *The Lord commanded me.* "Lord," as well in this place as a little later, is absent from the LXX and Tertullian in the cited place. *To the spirit the prophet.* Tertullian and the LXX have: "The prophet to the spirit, the prophet." *By the Demiurge therefore and here being made alive.* For Jesus the man, whom the heretics called the son of the Demiurge or Creator, raised the dead.
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on ch. 16.* P. 312. *To have said to him:* "In the sweat." So the old codex. The printed [editions say]: *“To have said: And in the sweat.”* *His of God.* The old codex does not have the word "his." P. 313. *For in past times.* Damascene cites this opinion by name from Irenaeus in his *Parallels*; the Greek words of which, since we could not obtain them from those in whose possession we believed them to be, we shall set down translated by D. Jacobus Billius: *“In past times we said that man was made to the image of God, but it was not demonstrated. For if the Word was invisible, according to whose image man existed, on account of this he certainly easily cast off [the image] and the likeness.”* Thus far he. *Through that which is in the wood.* We have added these seven words from the old codex. What Irenaeus hands down here, Sedulius the Presbyter sings in these verses: Harsh death ran upon the peoples brought by the wood, Harsh death is taken away from the peoples by the wood. *We did not obey God.* The old codex: *“we heard God.”* *Which in the first indeed.* These again Damascene inserts into his *Parallels* from Irenaeus, from the translation in the words: *“For in the first indeed we offended Adam, when we did not do his (God's) commandment; but in the second we have been reconciled to Adam.”*
*Annotations of the same on ch. 17.* P. 313. *Now this Demiurge is.* He demonstrates that the same God is the Creator and Lord of this world, who gave commandments, and forgave sins through the coming of his Son Christ; who also of his own nature manifested himself to be the omnipotent God, by forgiving sins by excellent power; and by saving this world through the mystery of his cross. Moreover, in this chapter there are many things that prove the Catholic doctrine concerning original sin against the Pelagians, who rise again today in the Hugnostics. For the apostolic man, writing, *“that we were made enemies of God by the transgression of that first commandment; that Christ by his obedience loosed our disobedience, so that just as we had become debtors through the tree, we might receive the remission of debts through the tree; and that which we lost through the tree, we received through the arrangement of the tree,”* etc., asserts quite lucidly and constantly that we all sinned in Adam, and that we are not washed from this stain and saved except by the singular grace of Christ through baptism. Where then is the sanctification of infants from their mothers' wombs, which Calvin, Beza, and Marlorat so greatly boast of? With what face does Beza dare to write in his *Creophagia* that the children of the faithful are, from the formula of the covenant, holy before God from the womb? And there again: *“Infants born of faithful parents, or even from one faithful parent alone, are sanctified, even before the use of baptism?”* Likewise *Against Heshusius*: *“that infants of the faithful pertain to Christ before they are baptized, and that the grace of adoption is not begun in baptism, but only sealed?”* Indeed, it is manifest from the divine Scriptures that David was born of a sinful man, yet conceived in iniquities and sins. Paul also was by nature a child of wrath, just as the rest, who is also commanded to wash away his sins through baptism. He also later confidently taught us to be baptized in Christ Jesus; that we put on Christ in baptism; that baptism is the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit; that Christ cleanses and sanctifies his Church (that is, both the parents and the children of the faithful) by the washing of water in the word of life, that he might present it to himself without spot or wrinkle. It is therefore absolutely certain and undoubted that all the sons of Adam are by nature, from their mothers' wombs, guilty and stained before God, not holy, until they have been dipped and purified in the sacred washing. Therefore [we must adhere] to the most holy prelate Augustine saying: *“Nor are infants, born of any holy and just persons whatsoever, loosed from the debt of original sin, unless they have been baptized in Christ”*; and we must believe and adhere to this doctrine as he asserts it in the above divine words, rather than to the most impure glutton Beza, who babbles the contrary. *He restored.* The printed codices: *“He constituted.”* *Through his obedience.* We restored these three words from the ancient codex. *Remit.* In Greek *aphes*. Cyprian in his sermon on the Nativity of the Lord, and in Book III *To Quirinus*, ch. 2, and Chromatius on ch. VI of Matthew, after Irenaeus translate it as *remitte* [remit]. *And not ever.* He uses a double negation after the manner of the Greeks, so that it may be more strongly negated; perhaps it is *oudeni oudena*, etc. *In total.* The old codex, however, [has] *in the beginning*; which I do not see how it fits, unless something else is still missing, which we could not restore from the ancient codex.
In lege a prophetis* [In the law by the prophets]. The old codex [has]: “from the law and the prophets.” Page 314. *Ab eo qui est, a quo* [From him who is, from whom]. The old codex [has]: “from him who is”; both we preserve. *Fiebat remissione* [Remission was taking place]. Thus the old codex has it; in the printed copies, *fiat remissionem*. *Et quomodo Deus* [And how God]. The old codex [has]: “since God,” that is, *inasmuch as*. The same things which Irenæus writes here, Tertullian treats of more seriously [in] book IV *Contra Marc.*, numbers 13 and 14. *Debita nostra* [Our debts]. The old codex [has]: “our debt.” A Greek context of Paul, *τοῖς δόγμασιν* [by the decrees], which Augustine, epistle 59, *in decretis* [in the decrees]; Hilary, book IX *De Trin.*, *in sententiis* [in the sentences], rendered. *Per operationem ostendente propheta* [Showing by the operation the prophet]. More clearly Tertullian, book *Contra Jud.*: “Elisha, having taken the wood and thrown it into that place where the iron had been submerged, it immediately floated. What is more manifest [to] the mystery of this wood, which, having been submerged in the hardness of this age in the depth of error, is liberated by the wood of Christ, that is, of his passion in baptism: that what had perished of old through the wood in Adam might be restored through the wood of Christ?” Him follow Augustine, sermon 210 *de tempore*, and Eucherius of Lyons in book IV of *Kings*. *Bipennis* [A two-edged axe]. The Hebrew word in Jeremiah signifies “a hammer,” and thus Sanctes translates it with the Vulgate edition: the Septuagint, whom Irenæus follows, have *πέλεκυς*, which signifies an axe or a two-edged axe. *Hoc ergo verbum* [This word therefore]. The old codex: “this will be the word.” Then it does not have “through the wood,” nor does it seem necessary. A little later we added five words from the old codex. *Et quemadmodum dixit* [And as he said]. Elegant and very pious is this mystical explanation of the Lord’s cross, which he received from the elder, I think Polycarp, or Papias. Whoever might desire to delight his mind with many such things, let him consult the later *Apology* of Justin Martyr, Lactantius book IV, chapters 26 and 27; Rufinus in *Expos. Symboli*; Ambrose, sermon 55; Athanasius, book *De incarnatione Verbi*; Nazianzen, first *oratio apolog.*, Chrysostom in three homilies *de cruce*; Sedulius, book V *Carminum*; Damascene, book IV, chapter 12, etc.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 18.* Page 315. *Conditiones* [Conditions], that is, creatures produced by himself and by his own power, which perpetually serve the nods of the Creator; for in that sense Augustine frequently uses this word, book II, *De Trin.*, ch. 6, 11, 15, and book III, ch. 10, where he discourses subtly and at length concerning these searched-out reasons and Scriptures. *Neque enim iniquus* [For he is not unjust]. Tertullian without doubt alludes to this passage of Irenæus in book I *Contra Marc.*: “He,” he says, speaking of the God concocted by Marcion, “up to now has neither rejected the water of the Creator, with which he washes his own; nor the oil, with which he anoints his own; nor the society of milk and honey, with which he fosters his own, etc.” Again, book IV against the same. *Si ignorantiæ et labis* [If of ignorance and fall]. The old codex: “If anything of ignorance and fall there was,” he omitted. *Portavit Ecclesiam* [He carried the Church]. Thus we have replaced it from the old codex; the printed [copies have] “him”; soon also for “visible” we have restored “visibility.” I think some things are still missing from the old codex, which we could not restore. *Quod est conditionis* [Which is of condition]. The old codex lacks these three words. *In mundo erat* [Was in the world]. The old codex, “in this world was.” *In sua propria* [Into his own]. Thus Augustine frequently reads, as we have elsewhere observed. Page 316. *Moyses hoc ipsum* [Moses this very thing]. Thus the old codex. We have expunged “*uti universa*” [as all things]; and a little above, “*venit*” [he comes] we restored to “*proponit*” [he proposes]. By this testimony of Moses, moreover, the mystery of the Lord’s passion and the fixing on the cross are said to have been predicted, although very covertly and obscurely, with whom Irenæus contends piously and learnedly [Tertullian] book II *Testimon.*, ch. 20; Lactantius book IV, ch. 18; Augustine book XVI *Contra Faustum*, ch. 22, and others, whom we remember in chapter 23 of the fourth book. *Advocavit* [He called]. The old codex reads in the future, “will call,” and thus Sanctes translated it from the Hebrew.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 19.* Page 316. *Veniente Domino* [The Lord coming]. All the words which are read here in the ablative absolute, the old codex reads in the accusative case, namely, “the Lord coming, carrying, doing, and that seduction released.” *Et sicut illa seducta est* [And as she was seduced]. The old codex, “and although she had disobeyed God, but this is from her to obey.” *Uti virginis Evæ Virgo Maria fieret advocata* [That the Virgin Mary might become advocate for the virgin Eve]. Hence it is most evident that the ancient Fathers and martyrs, very close to the times of the apostles themselves, invoked the Mother of God, the Virgin, and were the originators for others to implore [her]; in which matter they truly had as teachers the apostles, whose auditors they had been. When the Magdeburg Centuriators could not corrupt this open testimony of Irenæus regarding this matter, they judged the statement to be awkward. Gallasius, more impudent than they, vociferates that great injury is hence being gathered and inflicted upon Christ. That good man then feigns himself to be astonished, and almost alienated in mind, while he marvels at such great efficacy of Satan, and the cunning of the serpent gradually creeping in. But here the glory of Christ is illustrated, O satellites of Vigilantius, and it is not obscured; [Christ] who proclaimed that whatever we have done to his members is done to himself: who not only calls his saints, whom he terms friends, brothers, members, co-heirs, salt of the earth, light of the world, but also taught us to honor his Father in heaven; when we attribute to those—whom from the sacred Scriptures we have learned will judge the tribes of Israel, nay even the angels—the parts of intercessors and advocates under Christ. Therefore this most pious martyr and most learned bishop most correctly names the Virgin the advocate of Eve and consequently of other sinners; to which have subscribed with great consensus as many as have felt piously and purely concerning Christian piety from his age; of whom some testimonies must be produced here. And that I may pass over those which Bernard, in his homilies on *Missus est* and in his sermons on the feast of the Assumption and Nativity, and Anselm in his book *De excellentia Virginis* urge, being abundantly devoted to the Virgin; I shall begin from Fulgentius, who preceded both by many centuries. He, in an elegant sermon on the praises of Mary, calls her the window of heaven, the heavenly ladder, the restoration of women, and exhorted virgins, those conceiving, those giving birth, mothers, those nursing, and young maidens, to take refuge in her. Narses, commander of the Roman army under Justin, never led his troops into battle unless the blessed Virgin Mary, whom he piously and holily worshipped and invoked, had first revealed [it], just as Nicephorus teaches in book XVII *Hist.*, ch. 13. Paulus Diaconus, book XVIII *Hist.*, relates that Theodorus, brother of the emperor Heraclius, defeated an army of barbarians with a small force, God assisting through the intercessions of the blessed Virgin Mary. Who in authority and age was superior to these was Augustine, [who] in sermon 2 on the Annunciation, addresses the Virgin at the end of the sermon with this ecclesiastical prayer: “Holy Mary, succor the miserable, help the faint-hearted, refresh those who weep,” etc. And because the sectaries say that they marvel at this distinguished theologian and Father above others and embrace his doctrine, let us dwell a little more copiously on citing his testimonies. In his latest *Meditationibus* [Meditations] he thus concludes one prayer: “Pious and most merciful Lord, be not rendered inexorable to me because of my sins, but because of your goodness receive the prayers of your servant, and give me the effect of my petition, the glorious Virgin Mother interceding, and praying, and obtaining.”
A Amen. He also concludes the following prayer twice: “Receive, O Lord, the prayers of your servant, and give me the effect of my petition and my desire, through the prayers and merits of the glorious Virgin Mary my lady, and of all the saints. Amen.” To the same supplication he afterwards directs this: “Holy and immaculate Virgin, Mother of God Mary, and Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, deign to intercede for me before Him, whose temple you deserved to become,” etc. Let us pursue the rest who are devoted to the most blessed Virgin.
The excellent servant of God, Jerome, in his epistle to Pammachius and Eustochium, firmly believes that she helps us by her merits and assists us by her prayers.
Chrysostom, in his Liturgy, entreats with great affection of soul that he and his own may be preserved by the intercessions of the most holy Mother of God, and that they may receive the immaculate body of Christ without condemnation.
Basil the Great asks to be visited by God through the prayers of our holy and immaculate sovereign, the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary.
Nazianzen, surnamed the Theologian, relates in his oration on St. Cyprian that the virgin Justina overcame the temptations of Satan and the arts of magicians through the intercessions of the Virgin Mary.
Equal and entirely on a par with all these, Ephrem the Syrian calls her himself the hope of the despairing, the helper of sinners, the harbor for those tossed by storms, the solace of the world, the guardian of orphans, the hope of the wandering, the glory of virgins, the herald of the Fathers, the glory of the pious, the beauty of martyrs, the hymn of the solitary, the ornament of angels, the miracle of the earth, the rampart of the faithful, the refuge of sinners, the refuge for those returning to fruitfulness, the queen and guard of men and women, the mediatrix of the world, the gate of heaven. He supplicantly implores her to be his helper at the supreme moment of life, driving away the dark visages of demons; he implores her to be his reconciler and advocate in the hour of judgment. B Orat. on the praises of Mary, and in his Lamentations.
Of an earlier age, and no less inferior in doctrine, Athanasius thus exclaims to her: “Remember us, most holy Virgin, interceding, O lady and mistress and queen, and Mother of God, for us.”
And he who surpasses all these, and Irenæus in years, James the brother of the Lord, created bishop of Jerusalem by the apostles, commands in his Liturgy that a commemoration be made of our most holy, immaculate, most glorious, blessed Lady, the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, and of all the saints; so that by their supplications and intercessions we may all obtain mercy.
Who would not choose to adhere to the footsteps of such men, if he is moved by concern for his own salvation, rather than to those of the Manichæans, Vigilantius, Eunomius, Aerius, Luther, and Calvin; whom the whole Christian world has justly afflicted with anathema and deservedly devoted to curses? But these things may suffice to suppress the clamors of Gallasius; we have noted more extensive matters in chapter 33 of book III.
“And as it is bound by death.” St. Augustine in his book *Contra Julianum Pelagianum* cites this place from Irenæus up to the words “all ignorant heretics,” etc., whom he calls an ancient man of God, who was not far from the times of the apostles.
“May it be solved.” Old codex has “may it be saved”; St. Augustine reads “may it be solved.”
194 “Through disobedience.” So the old codex, to which St. Augustine consents. The printed editions have “of disobedience.”
“Sin.” St. Augustine reads “by the sin.”
“Receiving.” St. Augustine reads “receiving.”
“And of the serpent.” St. Augustine does not have “and.”
“In the simplicity of the dove.” St. Augustine reads “by the simplicity of the dove.”
“His soul.” The old codex does not have “His own voice.”
From the annotations of J. Erne. Grabe on chapter 19.
Page 316. “Virgin Eve... was evangelized well by the angel whilst still under a husband, the Virgin Mary.” For just as she, by the angelic word, etc. Here Irenæus seems to have imitated Justin the martyr, whose sentiments are clearly these in the *Dialogue with Trypho*, page 327: “And through the virgin a man (I would prefer, because of the following infinitive *nenoikenai*, to read *anthropon*, and to refer this *comma* to the preceding verb *nenoikamen*) was born, so that by the same way by which the disobedience from the serpent took its beginning, by this same way it might receive its dissolution. For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word from the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but Mary the Virgin, having received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel brought her the good tidings... she answered: ‘Be it done to me according to your word.’” Confer above, book III, cap. 52.
“Through truth.” It pleased me to refer these two words to that “seduction solved” rather than to join them with the following “was evangelized.”
“Some indeed the other.” The Valentinians and Marcionites, of whom, book I, cap. 1 and 29, and book II, cap. 1.
“But others by angels,” Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, Carpocrates, of whom, book I, cap. 21-24.
“Some indeed furthermore and far removed... have blossomed from themselves.” It is not very easy to say which heretics Irenæus has indicated by these words; for he did not make express mention of them in the preceding books. However, regarding Cerinthus, he writes in book I, cap. 25: “He taught that the world was not made by the first God, but by a certain power very much separated and distant from that Principality which is above all things.” But if Cerinthus maintained that this power produced the world from itself, he must be said to have had him in view in this place.
“But others in these things which are contained by the Father,” etc. Understand the Valentinians, and for them see book I, cap. 1, § 7, and book II, cap. 2 and 5.
“But others clearly... not accepting.” Either Irenæus again indicated the Valentinians, of whom, book I, cap. 1, § 13, or Saturninus and Basilides, whose dogmas he reviewed in book I, cap. 23 and 24.
“But others... say that he was generated from Joseph.” Namely Carpocrates, Cerinthus, the Ebionites, according to book I, cap. 24, 25, and 26.
“And certain ones neither soul,” etc. Specifically the Valentinians, book I, cap. 1, § 11 and 12.
“But others... not to participate in a body,” etc. The Marcionites, according to book I, cap. 29.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chapter 20.
Page 317. “For all greatly.” Valentinus, Marcus, Carpocrates, Marcion, and similar heresiarchs followed the age of the apostles by many years; therefore the doctrine of the true faith had previously been preached and admitted far and wide throughout the world; and the form of the Catholic Church had been correctly constituted and preserved by them and their disciples. And since in this alone were the true and integral apostolic traditions and institutions preserved, it is no wonder if its deserters and turncoats were carried along as if mad through various and diverse precipices of errors and perished.
“Necessity.” The old codex has “therefore they have a need.”
“To those receiving one and the same God the Father.” The old codex has “to those receiving [or: to those teaching].” Then...
A it sets forth seven expressions enclosed in commas. Moreover, he discourses elegantly and piously concerning the unity of the Catholic Church, which he sets against the various dissections of heresies; since the war of heretics, as Hilary says, is the peace of the Church, whose faith they confirm while they oppose one another. For when they alternately apply themselves to novelties, and conflict among themselves like the waves of the sea—rising one against another, as Nicephorus adds—and subsiding, they pass into various forms, and at last vanish. On the contrary, the cause of truth itself gathers increments, and grows stronger day by day, and acquires a certain accession and firm strength from the insult of heretics.
*Through whom he saves.* We have added the word "all" from the old codex. He alludes to the first chapter of Proverbs, where Wisdom is said to cry out in the streets, etc. From which two things may be gathered. First, that all who have remained in the unity of the Catholic Church until the end will at last certainly be saved. Second, that this Church has always been a visible body and an observable congregation of believers on earth, as is the splendor of a lamp placed upon a lampstand, and a city built upon a hill, Matt. v.
*And this is the Seven-wicked.* He alludes to the lampstand of the Mosaic tabernacle, which had seven lamps, one at the top of the shaft, and six at the tops of the reeds, by the lighting of which the tabernacle was illuminated, Exod. xxv. He contends that this prefigured the Church, which pours the light of faith and evangelical truth upon the whole world; which is proven by Gregory, homily 6 on Ezekiel; Rupert and Bede on Exodus, and Thomas 1-2, quest. 102, art. 4, ad 6. It is called *Heptamyxos* (Seven-wicked) because it bears seven wicks. Martialis: "When I bear illustrious feasts with all my flames, And as many wicks, I am called one lamp."
*Indiscreetly.* He said the same in book 1, cap. 45; see the place. B
*And multiform.* We have deleted "multiformly" from the old codex. He means that the way of the ancient heretics is varied, multiple, and therefore dangerous and destructive, because of the dogmas that conflict within it. But how diverse, how adverse, how perverse, how absurd, and how dissident from truth and from themselves are those proposed even in the highest articles of the Christian faith, the leaders of both their armies do not deny. For Conrad Schlusselburg, superintendent of the diocese of Ratzeburg and Lutheran general inspector of the Mecklenburg churches, writes: "We are contending with the blasphemous and incredulous Calvinists, about the truth of the words of Christ, about the omnipotence of the eternal God, about the truth of the human nature in Christ, about the majesty of the flesh of Jesus Christ, about the testament made by the Son of God, about the ascension of Christ into heaven, about the presence of Jesus Christ in the Church and in the holy synod, about the session of Christ at the right hand of the Father." These controversies are certainly not of small moment; rather, the Sacramentarians themselves, struck by a spirit of vertigo and blindness, are sometimes compelled to admit that this dispute pertains to the foundation. For so Curæus, in his *Sacramentarian Exegesis*, page ninety-one, writes: "Truly, the controversy is about the foundation, namely, about two articles of faith: first, about the article which teaches that there are two natures united in Christ; second, about the article 'He ascended into heaven.'" Thus far he; to whom Joannes Pappus chimes in with these words: "It is being dealt with between us and the Calvinists concerning the omnipotence of God, concerning the personal union of two natures in Christ, concerning the communication of idioms, concerning the body of Christ glo- C rious, concerning the discrimination of the sacraments of the Old and New Testaments, concerning the power and efficacy of baptism, concerning the prerogative of infants born of faithful parents, concerning the Supper of the Lord, concerning predestination, etc." Furthermore, the aforementioned Schlusselburg writes in one work which he published on the theology of the Calvinists, that from their own books he is transcribing and refuting two hundred and twenty of their blasphemies, errors, lies, antilogies, and calumnies; preface for the defense of the Book of Concord, folio eleven, page one.
What do the Sacramentarians say to these things? Do they themselves also admit that they are fighting with the Lutherans over many principal chapters of the Christian faith? We have certainly heard Curæus confessing this a little above. The Tigurini indeed openly acknowledge it, in their apologetic preface of the Orthodox Consensus, to the German Reformed churches, in these words: "Not only concerning the Lord's Supper, but concerning the person of our Savior Christ, concerning the union and distinction of the divine and human nature, concerning the omnipresence of his body, and the corporal eating of the same by mouth by both the pious and the impious, and His ascension into heavens, and session at the right hand of the Father, it is contended with such fervor of dispute (between the Sacramentarians and Lutherans), that not a few ancient heresies, which were once condemned and extinguished, as if recalled from the underworld, are raising their heads entirely." But Jezler also, in his book *On the Eucharistic War*, recounts five most serious wars, in which he says that the fighting between among theirs and the Lutherans was carried on most bitterly—not by common soldiers and those of light armor, but by leaders and front-rank soldiers. Beza, in his book *Against Brentius*, fol. 622, only says that there is such dissension between them that, while it lasts, the churches which think such different things cannot stand together. And finally, in the year 1592, a booklet by an anonymous Calvinist was published under this name: *Serious and Pious Complaint brought to the most just Judge Christ concerning the controversy of the most holy Supper of the Lord*; by which they signify enough, as even Schlusselburg and Sturmius clearly confess, that they will never return to concord; but will vex, lacerate, and destroy themselves by the same contention of dogmas and minds until the great day of the Lord arrives, etc. And yet, Beza, Whitaker, the Genevans in their *Harmony*, the Tigurini in the preface to the *Orthodox Consensus*, the Poles in the preface to the *Sandomierz Consensus*, and the English Calvinists in their *Apology* are not ashamed to write—and so that they might impose upon the miserable common people, to profess with a great and impudent lie before the whole world—that the Zwinglians and Lutherans are friends and brothers among themselves, and do not dissent on the principles or foundations of our religion? What can be given or added to tongues so deceitful? But it is now time to return to our Irenæus.
*So that we may not be vexed.* So the old codex; the printed editions had "so that we may not be joined." *For the Church is planted.* The old codex; the sense is the same. He wishes for the Church to be signified by that paradise planted from the beginning, which Ambrose, ep. 42, and book *On Paradise*; Augustine, book XIII *De civit.*, cap. 21, and book XI *De Genes.*, cap. 25, and book XII, cap. 28 and 31, and book IV *De baptismo*, cap. 1, and Cyprian, epistle to Jubaianus, embrace and defend with a similar allegory. D
*From every tree therefore.* Hence, after Irenæus, St. Thomas gathers, p. 1, q. 97, art. 3, and opusc. 3, cap. 188, that it had been commanded to Adam that, upon the approach of hunger, he should eat of all the fruits of paradise; just as, on the contrary, it was prohibited to him that he should in any way eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; although certain others refer that only to indulgence.
Legally... legitimately. That is, by citing a statement of the Law or of holy Scripture.
As to the phrase "as for him," etc. In this somewhat obscure column, I think that by "him" is designated the devil, and concerning him it is said that he should not have tempted the Lord God, who was hidden in human flesh. For the word "should" must certainly be repeated from the preceding column if the infinitive "to tempt" is read.
[Annotatons of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 22]
Page 319. So then. One is the author of the Old Law and the Gospel, the true God and Lord, above whom no other is to be sought; and He, through His almighty Son, overcame our enemy and freed us from his tyranny. And therefore, with all humility and contempt for oneself and the world, He teaches that He is to be adored and invoked; but nothing is to be sought or hoped for from Satan, the father of lies.
This Spirit shows the Father. The old manuscript ignores the word "Spirit," as if it speaks of Christ or the Law, not of the Holy Spirit.
To absolve diabolical ignorance. The old manuscript reads, "to resolve by diabolical ignorance."
Page 320. Of the charism. We have deleted "chrism." But *charisma* is some gratuitous gift, whether for one's own benefit or that of others, from Him to whom it is conferred, such as the gift of prophecy, of miracles, or of tongues.
[From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chap. 22]
Page 320. "Placed in the sublimity of the universal charisma...," by no means to be lifted up. So also S. Clement in *Epist. ad Corinthios*, § 23: *Mē psychōmen, mēde indallesthō hē psychē hēmōn epi tais hyperballousais kai endoxois dōreais autou.* (Let us not grow faint, nor let our soul be puffed up at His surpassing and glorious gifts.)
Then because... and to Him Himself God. This is the second reason by which the author proves that it is not in the devil's power to provide those things which he promised Christ during the temptation.
[Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on chap. 23]
Page 320. For he was accustomed. Concerning the wicked suggestions of the devil, and what happened through them to our first parents, concerning the fall of Adam, his death, and his restoration.
You shall not eat. The old manuscript adds "of it," and soon also "at which hour you shall eat of it," which particles are taken from the Septuagint; Cyril and Procopius also preserve them while explaining holy Genesis.
And when she had translated the lie. First, she lied by saying that God had prohibited them from touching that tree; but the prohibition had been made only concerning eating, not touching. This, therefore, she added, exaggerating the prohibition as though it were too burdensome and grievous. Thence she added: "Lest we touch of it." The fall begins to be. Ambrose, lib. *De paradiso*, cap. 12, says: "The woman is the beginning." Secondly, by lying, she inverted and diminished the divine threat, adding of her own: "Lest by chance we die." For God had said with great asseveration: "You shall surely die," but the woman recounts it with doubt: "Lest by chance," etc. Thirdly, she lied by saying: "From the tree which is in the midst of paradise," etc. For the tree of life was also in the midst of paradise, which the Lord had not forbidden. And thus in three ways, as Rupert observes after Irenaeus, Eve sinned by lying, by adding to the divine words, and by diminishing and altering the same.
He was disputing. We have expunged "he was disputing" from the old manuscript, as we later replaced "they have ascribed" for "they have acquired."
For he was ignorant of the magnitude of God. He attributes gross ignorance to the evil spirit, namely because he did not know that God is present everywhere by His immensity. And in truth, it must not be doubted that the devils, by their sin
A fell into horrendous darkness of mind; since they utterly lost the faith which was divinely infused into them before the fall, along with the hope of their own salvation; and they are altogether deprived of the divine mysteries by which the blessed angels are constantly illuminated. Augustine discourses on these things at length, in *De civit. Dei*, book IX, chapter 21.
Thirdly, speaking a lie. Many things are contained in the serpent's discourse which are not only lies, but also impious and blasphemous against God. First, that God is a liar: "It is not true," he says, "what He said to you: 'You shall die the death'"; and therefore He is not to be believed. Second, that God is envious, because He did not wish them to be like gods, wise, which nonetheless they could have become with little effort. Third, that such power was inherent in that tree, that it could make them immortal and endowed with wisdom equal to God. Fourth, that a plurality of gods is possible in the nature of things. Fifth, that man, formed from the vilest dust of the earth, could by his own industry attain to the equality of the highest God, etc. It is necessary, therefore, as Augustine rightly notes, in his *De Genesi ad litteram*, book XI, chapter 30, that there was already in the mind of Eve a certain love of one's own excellence and ambition, and a proud presumption about herself, when she gave faith to the serpent so easily and lightly.
In the day that they ate... they died. How were they dead on that very day, when Adam is said to have lived nine hundred and thirty years afterward, and Eve nine hundred and forty? I answer first: they died a spiritual death, when they lost the original justice and grace by which man lives to God; thus they died. Second, they died when they then incurred the inevitable necessity of bodily death, whereas before they were able not to die. B "For when they were first," says Theodoret, "subjected to the sentence of death by God, during individual days and hours, like those condemned to death, they were awaiting death itself." Augustine agrees in these words: "For on that very day nature was changed for the worse and corrupted; the necessity of bodily death also became their lot, with which necessity we were born. For which reason the Apostle does not say: 'The body, indeed, will be mortal because of sin,' but says: 'The body is dead' [Rom. 8:10]; calling it dead, because it is now bound by the necessity of dying." Third, finally, according to the martyr Justin in his *Dialogue*, and Irenaeus’s current opinion, our first parents died on the very day they sinned, if the day is calculated in the manner of God, with whom a thousand years are as one day that has passed, as David and Peter recount; but not on that very day which is completed by human standards in twenty-four hours. For both of them exchanged this life for death within the thousandth year.
"In that day." Gaudentius of Brescia, in his *Tractatus in Exodum*: "On Friday, on which God had made man, He suffered for the same; and on the Lord's Day [Sunday], on which the world had taken its beginning, He rose again, etc."
Page 321. "That which is from death." Old codex: "and that which is toward death."
Annotations by the same on chapter 24.
Page 321. "All these things." We have restored these ten words, which were obviously missed, from the old codex.
"By me kings." Old codex: "By me kings will be stirred up, and tyrants through me rule the earth."
"Be subject to all higher powers." Thus Ambrose expresses this passage of the Apostle in his *Commentaries*; the common edition [reads]: "let every soul [be subject] to the authorities."
But the Lord also confirmed this. Christ approved that obedience and taxes should be rendered to the princes of the age, born at the time of the census, paying the didrachma, commanding to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and recognizing that Pilate’s power was given from above. Whence also Paul: "To whom tribute is due, let tribute be paid" [Rom. 13:7]. And Justin Martyr reports in his *Apology*, C that Christians of his time were the first and most prompt of all to pay those things due to the Caesars. We have discussed these things more broadly recently in our *Commentaries on Esther*.
"By whose command." Hence it is clear with what piety, veneration, faith, and obedience the chief ministers of our Christian religion treated emperors, kings, and political magistrates, even if they were ignorant of that piety; nay, even if they had them as their fiercest opponents; whom I wish the Gnostics of our age would imitate, at least in this regard. Moreover, what their discipline regarding civil magistracy was, Justin, Athenagoras, Tertullian in their *Apologies*, Theophilus of Antioch in his book *Ad Autolycum*, and Origen in his *Homily 4 on Judges*, recount at length alongside Irenaeus.
Page 322. "To blind the hearts of those who might attempt." Thus we restored [it] from the ancient codex; all the printed copies [read]: "he attempts to close their hearts," etc.
"Envying man." Basil writes that the demon was driven to internecine war against man out of envy, since he grieves at the excellent gifts granted by God to man. The same also, in his homilies on some places of Scripture, shows diffusely and elegantly that it is the very own vice of the devil; for that reason he calls him D μισάνθρωπον [misanthrope].
Annotations by the same on chapter 25.
Page 322. "By the things which have been said." Irenaeus discourses on many things worthy of note in this place and below regarding the Antichrist, from which this is primarily to be observed: that he teaches that he will be a real and singular man, when he pursues so diligently and individually, by the testimony and authority of Sacred Scripture, the tribe from which he will be born, the names by which he will perhaps be called, the time of the duration of his reign, his tyranny, his cunning, and his deceits; although the Magdeburgians and as many as have defected from the Roman Church in this century are defiled [by this error]. Because the learned man Nicolaus Sanderus, in his book VIII *De visibili monarchia Ecclesiae*, refutes their heresy sufficiently and more than sufficiently from Holy Scripture and the interpretations of the Fathers, and satisfies the objections of those contradicting, we therefore supersede this matter, lest we seem to do what has already been done.
"Receiving all the power of the devil." Beware lest you interpret the Antichrist himself—with Hippolytus the martyr—as the devil himself covered in a fantastic and masked human body; since the Apostle calls him the "man of sin," to be killed by the spirit of Christ's mouth. But he is said to receive all the power of the devil for the reason that he will completely accommodate himself and his own powers and arts to the will of Satan. Nay, even in his conception, says the author of the tract *De Antichristo* attributed to Augustine: "The devil will simultaneously enter into his mother's womb, and will fill her, will surround her, will overshadow her, and will possess her internally and externally." Jerome in chapter 6 of Daniel; Damascenus book IV, chapter 28; Theophylact and Oecumenius in chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians argue against the opinion of Hippolytus.
"Setting aside idols indeed." Hippolytus the martyr, after Irenaeus, in his oration on the consummation of the age: "In his beginnings he will be clement, made for love, quiet, religious, peaceful, who pursues injustice with hatred, detests gifts, does not admit idols, loves the Scriptures, etc." Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catechesis* 15; Ephrem, *Sermon on the Antichrist*; Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact in chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians; Jerome, *Questions on Algasia* 11; Damascenus book IV, chapter 28, all of whom think this is confirmed from Daniel chapters 8 and 11, and 2 Thessalonians 2, agree with this opinion. "But he will indeed do this with a fraudulent and feigned design," says Hippolytus, "so that he may circumvent all, that they may create him king, which he will easily obtain from the Jews."
Abominations. We have restored this from the ancient codex; the printed editions have A "dominations." And since he proceeds in a tyrannical manner. Hippolytus the martyr says: "Elated in heart he will begin to exalt himself and glorify himself as God, persecuting the saints and blaspheming against Christ. He will say, moreover: 'Who is a prince as mighty as I? Who is God besides me?', etc." Theodoret, Jerome in chapter vii of Daniel, the author of the treatise *On the Antichrist*, and Damascene in book IV, ch. 28, also attribute this diabolical elation to the Antichrist. I shall add the words of Hugo Etherianus: "He will offer no homage to idols; for he will not be an idolater, but in all things contrary to our God; he will shatter all the gods of the nations like mute images, and will offer worship to no image at all, because he will command that he alone be adored as God," etc. (book *On the Return of Souls*, ch. 23).
In whom the adversary shall sit. The Apostle in 2 Thessalonians 2 teaches that the son of destruction will sit in the temple of God, which Jerome, in Question 11 to Algasia, wished to be understood as that [Temple] at Jerusalem long ago built by Solomon, so often leveled to the ground and restored; Augustine, book XX *On the City of God*, and the treatise *On the Antichrist*; Chrysostom, in 2 Thess. 2. Hippolytus the martyr, agreeing with Irenæus, says: "Christ showed his flesh as a temple, and raised it on the third day; so this one will raise a stone temple in Jerusalem." And afterwards: 197 "He will build a temple in Jerusalem, which he will immediately deliver B to the Jews." Damascene, book IV, ch. 28, Methodius in *Revelations*, Anselm in 2 Thess. 2, and Ambrose in Luke 21 concur. Others conjecture that by the name of temple all the congregations of believers are designated, whom he will rule by deceiving them with various arts.
To show himself to be Christ. The ancient codex does not have the word "Christ." But it recounts the impiety of the son of perdition, the Antichrist, by which he will attempt to substitute himself in the place and name of Christ the Savior, saying: "I am Christ." He will seduce the Jews, however, who are already mostly alienated in mind, Christ having forewarned: "If another shall come, him you will receive."
A *Superabit alios (He will surpass others)*. The Septuagint, ὃς ὑπεροίσει κακοὺς πάντας, "who will surpass all the evil." Sanctes, "and he himself will be greater than the former." Vatablus, "different from the former." The common edition, "more powerful than the former." The ancient codex reads "will subvert the evil," not badly. Otherwise, he will surpass all evils, he will be superior. *Deminorabit (He will diminish)*. The ancient codex, "will dishonor." The Septuagint, ταπεινώσει. Sanctes and the common edition, "will humble." Vatablus, "will oppress." Pag. 325. *Demutare (To change)*. The ancient codex, "to change himself."
When, however, another shall come. From this testimony the ancients correctly conclude that the final Antichrist will be a singular man, who is thus directly opposed to Christ. Next, the Jews, at the beginning, will cling to him with contentious zeal, as to their Messiah, desired for so many centuries. And this, following Irenæus, is how Jerome (Quest. 11 to Algasia), Augustine (Tractate 29 on John), Ambrose (in ch. 2 of 2 Thess.), and Theodoret (in his *Epitome of Divine Decrees*) conclude it. Therefore, the final Antichrist is not and will not be some kingdom, or empire, or any church, or a long succession of pontiffs; as the newest heretics ignorantly and wickedly contend. B
He will transfer the kingdom to it. Hippolytus agrees with Irenæus that Jerusalem will be the metropolis and the very seat of the kingdom of the Antichrist, when he will raise the kingdom and temple of the Jews and hold that nation dear above all others. The author of the treatise *On the Antichrist*: "Coming to Jerusalem, he will place his seat in the holy temple."
And it is given for a sacrifice to sin. The ancient codex, "to the sinning." The Septuagint, ἐδόθη ἐπὶ τῇ θυσίᾳ ἁμαρτία, "was given against the sacrifice [as] a sin." Sanctes, "time will be given against the perpetual sacrifice, because of prevarication." And he will corrupt. Thus the ancient codex; the printed editions, "and he will corrupt and he will direct."
And as it were in one hand. The ancient codex, "as if by hands." The Septuagint, καὶ ὡς ἐκ χειρὶ συντρίψει, "as if he will crush by the hand." Sanctes and Vatablus, "as if he will crush with the hand." The common edition, "he will be crushed without hands."
Who pure sacrifice. Hippolytus the martyr and Ephrem Syrus interpret this of the most holy sacrifice of the Eucharist; which, then, by the tyranny of the Antichrist and his ministers, will either be completely interrupted, or will be celebrated furtively in hiding and secret places. Let the Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, and other sectaries of this age therefore consider what a wide path they are preparing for him and with whom they communicate.
And libation. Thus the ancient codex. The Septuagint, σπονδή, that is, "offering." Sanctes and Vatablus, "oblation." The common edition, "sacrifice." Therefore, we have removed "lifting up." C
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 25. Page 323. This is three years and six months. St. John himself is the author of this interpretation, Apocalypse chapter XII, where in verse 16 the woman is said to fly into the desert, into her place, where she is fed for "a time, and times, and half a time." And verse 6: "The woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, that there they should feed her a thousand two hundred and sixty days," which, by the style of St. John himself and the whole of Holy Scripture, in which only thirty days are attributed to each month, exactly complete three years and six months. Whence in chapter XI of the same divine Apocalypse, "forty-two months," of which verse 2 makes mention, are continuously resolved in verse 3 into "a thousand two hundred and sixty days."
In the latest of their kingdom. Irenæus did not seem to have read πληρουμένων τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, as the LXX edition now has it, along with the Hebrew text. D And wonderful. Irenæus or his interpreter
A rather cites and approves that which is named; Ecumenius, explaining the last chapter of the first canonical epistle of B. Peter. Nor do the words of the blessed Apostle Andrew bring little strength to it, by which he casts out demons into arid and unfruitful places, until they receive the debt of eternal fire due them, as Abdias the Babylonian reports in his third book; as if they had not yet fully received it. Furthermore, Epiphanius, the excellent investigator and conqueror of all errors, confirming the same opinion, says: "Before the advent of Christ, he (the devil) never dared to speak any blasphemous word against his Lord, or to think against (Him) out of pride. For he expected the advent of Christ, ever hearing the prophets announcing Him as the future Redeemer of those who have sinned and who do penance through Christ, and he thought that he would obtain some mercy," etc. But also long before Epiphanius, Clement of Alexandria had written that the devil could be led to repentance, because he has free will. B Origen followed this, as if it were the doctrine of a teacher, and not only followed it, but amplified it into fanatical opinions in the first and third books of *De principiis*. We dare not pronounce anything against so many Fathers regarding this opinion; but what seems to us to be the case concerning the fall of the demons, we treat at length in our Commentary on the epistle of the blessed Apostle Jude. "He imports as if already." Thus the old codex; the printed ones (read), "it imports," according to which opinion.
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grube on chapter 26. Page 323. "He himself the eighth among them." For Irenæus thought that the Antichrist would absolutely remove or kill three from the number of the ten kings, as he was just saying. But Daniel ch. vii, ver. 24, only says, *ταπεινώσει*, "he will humble them," that is, he will subject them as vassals. Compare Apoc. xvii, 13 et seqq. Page 324. "Until it was severed." We read *Ἐθεώρεις ἕως ἀπεσχίσθη* in the LXX.
"But after the advent of the Lord." I conclude that these are still the words of Justin M., not only from the cited passage of Ecumenius, but also from the Commentary of Andrew of Caesarea on the Apocalypse of St. John, ch. 54, where he has this: "It is said by the blessed philosopher and martyr Justin, that after the advent of Christ and the sentence passed against him in Gehenna, the devil has become most blasphemous; although before this, he had not so impudently blasphemed God." And ch. 60: "The great Justin says that at the advent of Christ, the devil first knew that he had been condemned C to the abyss and to the Gehenna of fire."
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 27. Page 525. "And by two." We added these ten words from the old codex. "Disobedient." The printed codices (read), "unheeding." "And free will." The printed codices (read), "sense similarly." But he wishes to say that impious men fail from God by their own free will, just as the demons did formerly, which he shows more abundantly in book iv, etc. A little later, he also declares the same, having taken a similar example from those who pluck out their own eyes in the flashing lightning. "His that which was chosen." Old codex, "his however that which was read." "Voluntary opinion." He ascribes the cause of the separation from God, of the blinding of the mind, and also of the damnation of the impious, to their own free will, and not to divine goodness, however much the ancient or recent Gnostics may gnash their teeth.
Of the same, annotations on chapter 28. "That the calamity may be shared by them." Old codex, "that the calamities which are in them may be shared," etc. "For that the love of God." The Greek of Paul D
A *tò tēs agápēs tēs alētheías* ("the love of the truth"), and thus Ambrose reads. By which words Theophylact considers Christ our Lord and God to be signified, who is charity and truth. Cyprian, in his Epistle to Cornelius, and in his book *De lapsis*, reads "the love of the truth."
*He shall send them.* Old codex: "God shall send to them the operation of error." Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catechesis* 15: "He says 'shall send' to mean 'shall permit to happen.' Not that they may be excused, but that they may be condemned."
*For when he comes.* He repeats the discourse instituted concerning the Antichrist, and teaches that he shall perform evils by his own free and spontaneous will; let the defenders of free will object to this.
That the Apostle John in the *Apocalypse* signifies by this beast that notable Antichrist—whether it be the Turkish empire or something else still unknown to us—has been the opinion of Hippolytus in his *Oratio de consummatione saeculi*, Gregory in the 33rd book of his *Moralia*, chapter 26, and Primasius, Haymo, and Rupert in their commentaries. It seemed good to add only the words of St. Ambrose, by which the individual parts of the vision are explained: "By the leopard," he says, "which is said to have diverse colors, the hypocrisy of the Antichrist is designated. The devil will indeed give his power to the Antichrist, because he will dwell in him, and through him he will perform whatever the malice of the devil can devise," etc.
*And one of his heads as if wounded.* By this wounded head, Ambrose understands the heresies by which, in the first ages, fanatical men tried to undermine the faith of the Church; which the holy Fathers extirpated by their writings, sermons, and disputations. This head, as if wounded for a time, will be resurrected by the Antichrist; who shall surpass all blasphemers with his blasphemies.
*And them that dwell in heaven.* Ambrose: "He shall blaspheme the name of God, saying that Christ is not God; he shall also blaspheme them who dwell in heaven, that is to say, the martyrs and other saints, saying that they can be of no benefit to anyone, and that whatever is asserted by the faithful about them is false."
Let the later Gnostics attend to this, I beseech you, by whom, after Calvin, the most holy father of our faith, Abraham, is called an idolater; most blessed Sarah, the "procuress of her husband, making her house a brothel"; the servant of God, Jacob, "incestuous and a third-time adulterer"; Rebecca, "fraudulent"; Samson, "a fornicator and bloodthirsty"; Moses and Aaron, "arrogant, proud, and impious toward God"; Elias, "exceedingly cruel and savage"; Maccabeus, "superstitious and a transgressor of the law"; all the prophets, "most grave sinners." What more? These precursors of the Antichrist do not refrain even from foul calumnies and insults against those who were once the most holy brothers and friends of Christ our Lord, and who now are fellow-sharers and co-regents in the heavens. I mean the Apostles, when in their judgment, Peter is a "schismatic and an oppressor of Christian liberty"; John, "an idolater and an apostate"; Paul, "a despiser of God and an Epicurean," etc. My soul shudders to pursue the rest of their abuse against all the holy citizens of heaven and inhabitants of the divine tabernacle, and their antichristian blasphemies. And is the world so blinded that it looks upon these as heralds of evangelical truth, and admits and favors the authors of this "restored" and "purified" religion? May the powers above wish for better things.
*After that, and of his armor-bearer.* Ambrose: "This beast signifies either one of the disciples of the Antichrist, worse than the others, or many who are about to preach him." Augustine, *Homily 11 on the Apocalypse*: "This is the heretical Church, which under the Christian name puts forward the lamb, so that it may secretly instill the venom of the dragon."
B *That he may do signs.* Old codex, "and he shall do"; in Greek, *kai poiēsei*; the Vulgate edition, Ambrose, and Primasius, "and he did." Ambrose adds: "That which we read in the book of Job, that the devil by the permission of God caused fire to descend from heaven by his own power, this he shall do through the Antichrist and his followers in the end time."
*Lest anyone.* Andreas of Cappadocia agrees with Irenaeus in these words: "By fascinating the eyes of those who look on, this precursor of the Antichrist shall do these things, so that the Antichrist may be thought to be Christ, as one who receives witness from such a worker of miracles."
But Paul also writes in by no means ambiguous words that the coming of the Antichrist shall be "according to the working of Satan in signs and lying wonders," whereby he strips him of all true efficacy and reason for miracles. For indeed, his signs shall be lies in every aspect. First, by reason of the end; since, according to Ambrose and Chrysostom, they shall lead to a lie, namely, that that impostor may prove himself to be God and Christ, just as our Christ manifested his divinity with true miracles. Second, by reason of the efficient cause, namely, Satan the father of lies, who shall so work in him, through him, and through his ministers, that even (as the holy doctor Gregory teaches) the torturers of the holy martyrs shall then work signs and prodigies of this kind. Third, the signs shall be lies by reason of the subject or matter, since they shall be merely illusions and prestige-tricks straining human senses, and not miracles in reality. He shall seem to do great things, says Cyril of Jerusalem, to raise the dead, to illuminate the blind, and to heal the lame; when, however, in truth, no healing is performed. Fourth, finally, the signs shall be lies by reason of the form, since they shall not perform them in the name of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, but in the name of that impostor, who just as he is to come in his own name, so also shall he perform those signs, etc.
*And the image.* Augustine, or Ticonius, understands by the likeness of the beast the invention of the devil, which fascinated men shall receive as though it were God; or the simulations of those who are judged as Christians, not by a true effigy, but by a fallacious image. Rupert says it is a certain likeness, such as we read Nebuchadnezzar made, which he will set up in holy places so that the son of perdition may be adored in it, and from which he will cast down the sign of the cross of Christ.
*And the mark.* Ambrose: "It may be that just as we have the mark of Christ, that is, the cross by which we are signed, so the Antichrist has his own mark, by which those who have believed in him may be signed." Hippolytus the martyr is of the same opinion, writing that the mark of that beast shall not be as the sign of the cross, but rather to execrate and abolish it, etc. In which matter the Gnostics, along with their Beza, diligently prepare the way for him as much as they can, proclaiming that they so detest all memory of the cross and the image of the Crucified that they cannot bear it; *Colloquy of Montbéliard*, page 418. But for "aut" we have replaced it with "ait," from an old codex.
Page 327. *For as many days.* This opinion of Irenaeus concerning the duration of the world has so many and such great defenders and supporters, and plausible persuasions, that I would willingly yield to it, provided that nothing be rashly prescribed to the divine power. For, first, Lactantius is witness that the most famous and ancient of all ethnic writers—Hydaspes, king of the Medes, Hermes Trismegistus, and the Sibyls—foretold and confirmed this. That the Hebrews follow the same is evidenced by the oracle which the Talmudists circulate in the name of Elias, in the book *Sanhedrin*, chapter *Helec*, and in the book *Avodah Zarah*.
[LATIN COLUMN]
A ...future things to have persuaded men. Origen indeed, explaining the words by which the Lord confronts Satan in the book of Job: "Whence comest thou?" writes: "Whence comest thou? From murders, from bloodshed, from adulteries, from thefts, from lies, being the author and inventor of these upon the earth. Whence comest thou? From the slaughter of Abel, from the unchastity of the giants, from the tower of contumacy, from the greed of Esau, from the obstinacy of Pharaoh, etc."
Page 328. *On account of a most wicked generation.* Besides those things which the sacred Genesis commemorates concerning the wickedness of men, Berosus the Annian adds that the impiety of the giants reached such a point that they procured abortions, which they prepared for themselves as food: that they cohabited with mothers, sisters, daughters, with males and brutes, and that there was no wickedness which they did not commit, the heavens thus and vengeance heavily pressing upon them for their impiety and crimes.
*Who was from the deluge.* That the origin, progress, and growth of idolatry were received from the inundation of the waters, Clement of Rome left in writing before Irenæus, book 1 of the *Recognitions*, namely from the wicked progeny of Cham. Justin in his *Oration to the Greeks*, and Athenagoras in his *Supplication*, call Orpheus, flourishing in the time of the Hebrew Gideon, as Eusebius relates, *polytheisten*, that is, the founder and teacher of a multiplicity of false gods. Epiphanius, at the beginning of the *Panarion* and in its *Anacephalaeosis*, says that idolatry originated in the age of Saruch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Abraham; to whom subscribe Augustine, book xviii *De civit. Dei*, cap. 12, and Cyril of Alexandria, books 1 and 2 *Contra Julianum*. Isidore suspects that Prometheus, who Eusebius writes lived in the times of the patriarch Joseph, first of all fashioned likenesses of men out of clay. Galatinus, book iv, cap. 20, refers the cult of idols to Nimrod, tyrant of the Assyrians, inasmuch as he forced men to perform sacrifices to fire and to worship it.
But these things regarding that coarse and external invention of idols, and their worship through bloody victims of either men or beasts, I judge should be understood in this manner; since the sin of the angels and the first parents is called spiritual and internal idolatry by Ambrose in chapter vi of the *Epistle to the Romans*, and Augustine, *Quaestiones* 83 from the New Testament. Nay, even Justin Martyr says that our first parents were cast out of paradise because they believed in gods that were not, and handed down the name of gods to their posterity. Ambrose, book *De paradiso*, cap. 13, calls the serpent the origin of idolatry. Clement also observes in the 2nd *Recognitions*, Theophilus of Antioch in 2 *Ad Autol.*, and Justin in his *Cohortatio ad gentiles*, that the serpent first of all named the gods by the number of the multitude, so as to introduce a foul error gradually among men. They opine in the *Greater Genesis* that the wicked progeny of Cain prevailed, and considered God and His promises concerning the Messiah as nothing; but that Enoch renewed the invocation of the true God, while others were more inclined to idolatry; whose judgment Oleaster Lusitanus approves and praises in his *Commentary on Genesis*.
*For which also the deluge fire shall come.* He means the fire of the final conflagration of the world, which, by the opinion of theologians, will seize and purify by its heat the middle and lowest region of the air, and thus the entire earth, and the sea itself as well. They wish the statement by the Prophet to refer to this: "Fire shall blaze in his sight," etc.; "Fire shall go before him," etc. And by Blessed Peter: "The elements shall be dissolved with heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up," 2 Pet. iii, 10. See the sermons and treatises of Blessed Ephrem the Syrian concerning the resurrection and the future judgment, and the scholastic Fathers at the end of book iv of the *Sentences*.
200 *Annotations by the same on chapter 30.* Page 328. *These things being so disposed.* Eusebius B C D
in *Hist.*, book v, chap. 8, quotes this passage specifically up to the words: *This is, equal decades*; from the old codex, for *they saw the face of John*, we have substituted *they saw the face of John*, and for *teaching us* we have restored *teaching us*.
*They who saw the face of John*. These were Polycrates, Ignatius, Polycarp, Aristion, John the Younger of Ephesus, Clement, and Dionysius, whom Irenaeus had in part as teachers, and with whom he had been able to meet for discussions on sacred matters. For while he continued in Asia, organizing and ruling the churches, until the second year of the reign of Trajan (the one hundred and first year of Christ); and Polycarp, whose auditor Irenaeus was, already nearly ninety years old, suffered martyrdom in the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius (the 169th year of Christ); there can be no doubt that Irenaeus could have heard and seen the aforementioned and many other disciples of the blessed John in person.
*Hexacontasin*. *Hexacontasin* and *monasin* are dative forms in Greek, equivalent to what would be said in Latin as "by six hundreds and units," or by "hexacontades and monades." It indicates that the same figures are used to signify hundreds, tens, and units—namely, the figure of the number six, which, being repeated three times, makes 666. Moreover, a little later, for *digits*, we have substituted *digits* in the old codex.
*Which declares the sixtieth*. Thus, from the old codex we read *sixty* for *nuntiat*. Furthermore, the letter in the Greek calculation that designates this number is §, which Irenaeus writes can be extended by the error of scribes from the letter *t*, which represents ten.
Page 329. *However, as many as follow after vain glory*. He attacks and justly condemns the rashness of those who, no less boldly than ignorantly, desired to appear to have discovered the proper name of Antichrist and brought it into the open, and attributed it to the Apocalypse, tearing out what was engrafted there.
*However, there will follow*. The old codex has: *there follows also something else*.
*And a bulwark*. In Greek, *asphaleia*, that is, when the situation is safe and no danger threatens. The interpreter of Oecumenius says: *peace and all things safe*; Ambrose translates: *steadfastness*; the common edition: *security*.
*But also the tribe from which he will come*. It is evident from this that Irenaeus was firmly convinced that that notable son of perdition would be born from the tribe of Dan. Agreeing with him among the Greek writers are Hippolytus the martyr in his book *On the Consummation of the World*, the Tiburtine Sibyl, and Theodoret in *Question 109 on Genesis*; among the Latins, Gregory, *Moralia* book xxxi, ch. 18; Augustine in his tract *On the Antichrist*; Ambrose in his book *On the Blessings of the Patriarchs*, ch. 7; Prosper, Haymo, Rupert, and more recent authors.
*We shall hear from Dan*. So reads the old codex, with which the Septuagint reading *akousometha* agrees. The printed books have: *we heard*.
*But since it is not for lack of names*. Since all things said in the Apocalypse concerning the arrival, the name, the number of the name, and the mark of Antichrist are prophetic, it is not to be wondered at if, according to the rule of Irenaeus, not having attained to a proven and certain declaration before the event, they remain enigmatic and ambiguous to men even now. It is better, therefore, as regards the present passage, to embrace the counsel of Irenaeus himself A to follow it more surely and without danger: waiting for the completion of this prophecy rather than asserting anything inconsiderately and rashly. However, it will perhaps not be untimely to propose in this place the names which other writers, following the example and practice of Irenaeus, have collected from these numbers 666. The first name which is placed here by Irenaeus is EYAN in the printed codices; but B the number 666 is deficient, and the old codex openly argues that a mistake underlies it. And so, upon the faith of the old codex and the Greek characters, we have restored EYANΘAΣ, the elements of which, taken individually, make the number sought by Irenaeus (e = 5, v = 400, α = 1, γ = 50, θ = 9, α = 1, σ = 200). The second, which with Irenaeus is acknowledged by Aretas the Cappadocian, is AATEINOΣ, since λ = 30, α = 1, τ = 300, ε = 5, ί = 10, ν = 50, ο = 70, σ = 200; when the numbers of the letters are compared, they make 666. The third, favored by Aretas the Cappadocian, as it is by Irenaeus, is namely TEITAN. For τ = 300, ε = 5, ί = 10, τ = 300, α = 1, ν = 50, by the same enumeration they yield the sum 666. The fourth, post-dating Hippolytus the martyr, Primasius sets down as APNOYME, *I deny*; since α = 1, ρ = 100, ν = 50, ο = 70, υ = 400, μ = 40, ε = 5, the sum is 666. The fifth is handed down by Aretas the Cappadocian, ΛAMΠETIΣ: for λ = 30, α = 1, μ = 40, π = 80, ε = 5, τ = 300, ί = 10, σ = 200, yield the sum 666. The sixth, on the authority of the same Aretas, may be O NIKHTHΣ, that is, *the victor*; since ο = 70, ν = 50, ί = 10, κ = 20, η = 8, τ = 300, η = 8, σ = 200, the sum is 666. The seventh, according to the same Aretas, is KAKOΣ OΔHΓOΣ, *a bad leader*. For κ = 20, α = 1, κ = 20, ο = 70, σ = 200, ο = 70, δ = 4, η = 8, γ = 3, ο = 70, σ = 200, the sum is 666. The eighth, on the same authority, is AΛHΘHΣ BΛABEPOΣ, *truly harmful*; for α = 1, λ = 30, η = 8, θ = 9, η = 8, σ = 200, β = 2, λ = 30, α = 1, β = 2, ε = 5, ρ = 100, ο = 70, σ = 200, they complete the sum 666. The ninth, the same adds, ΠAΛAI BAΣKANOΣ, *already long ago envious*; for π = 80, α = 1, λ = 30, α = 1, ί = 10, β = 2, α = 1, σ = 200, κ = 20, α = 1, ν = 50, ο = 70, σ = 200, they yield the sum 666. The tenth, finally, he adds, AMNOΣ AΔIKOΣ, *an unrighteous lamb*; certainly α = 1, μ = 40, ν = 50, ο = 70, σ = 200, α = 1, δ = 4, ί = 10, κ = 20, ο = 70, σ = 200, will make the sum 666. The eleventh is held by Primasius from Ticonius, ANTEMOΣ: α = 1, ν = 50, τ = 300, ε = 5, μ = 40, ο = 70, σ = 200, make 666. The twelfth is enumerated by Rupert, TENΣHPIKOΣ: γ = 5, ε = 5, ν = 50, σ = 200, η = 8, ρ = 100, ί = 10, κ = 20, ο = 70, σ = 200.
I add, moreover, that which certain learned men of our age, of the keenest judgment, have by no means omitted, pondering deeply the fatal disasters brought upon all Christians by the manifold and horrific schism originating from Martin Luther in 1517: likewise, how concisely all the conditions of that beast of the Apocalypse, which opened its mouth toward heaven and those dwelling in it, and to whom power is granted against the eternal sacrifice, correspond to the name of his heresy, which could be adapted to this number 666. For at the beginning he was called MARTIN LAUTER, the letters of whose name, if one calculates them pythagorically and by reason, and according to the custom of the Hebrews and the Greeks, the number of the Latin alphabet increases—first the monads, then the decades, then the hundreds—at length you will find the number of the name of the beast, that is 666. Thus: M, 30; A, 1; R, 80; T, 100; I, 9; N, 40; L, 20; A, 1; U, 200; T, 100; E, 5; R, 80. It is most certain that all heretics who arise against the Church of Christ, such as the earlier Gnostics and their offspring were, are called antichrists: consequently, the name of Luther cannot escape the name of Antichrist. But let these things not prevent the name prophesied for some future more significant son of perdition, for whom they prepare the way with such great zeal, from fitting him.
With all these matters interposed, the opinion D of the doctors and Catholic men John Annius, John Hentenius, Jodocus Clicthoveus, and D. Genebrard, theologian of Paris and royal professor of Hebrew letters, is very pleasing; who consider Mahomet, the impure false prophet, together with those who bitterly defend his debauched and lost sect, as either definitely and truly the Antichrist himself, or at least the greatest and most zealous founder of his empire.
as they thought it to be; since everyone who is not blind sees that all the conditions of the beast of the Apocalypse, and the individual things written of old concerning Antichrist, are either, for the most part, already fulfilled in him, or are being fulfilled day by day. I submit their conjectures and my own.
B It is fitting, first of all, that the number of the Greek letters of the name of the beast, designated by John, agrees; since the eight letters of this name MAOMETIS, or MOAMETIS, as Euthymius, Zonaras, and Cedrenus write it, make up the number 666.
Mahomet was instructed by lying signs and portents, such as Paul attributes to the son of perdition: for both the book of his generation and the remaining commentaries of the Saracen Chronicles weave his genealogy up to Seth and Adam with monstrous and blasphemous myths; furthermore, [they claim] that he emerged from the womb without any pain to his mother, and was born circumcised and cheerful; that at his birth all the idols of the world fell; that Lucifer, caught by the angels, was plunged into the depths of the sea Alcazum; that the winds, birds, and clouds contended over his upbringing; that a donkey with a human voice called him the seal of the prophets; that a black cloud was always seen over his head, however clear the sky; that he joined and knit together the moon, which had been divided in two; that he was lifted to heaven by Gabriel, and there learned his mysteries. Paulus Diaconus and Zonaras report that when he was seized by the comitial disease, or epilepsy, he would, upon waking, persuade others that he was then conversing with the archangel Gabriel.
It was the opinion of Jerome, Methodius the martyr, Augustine, the gloss on II Thessalonians, and many others, that Antichrist would be born in Babylon, and would have to be educated in Bethsaida, Capernaum, and Chorazin: Joannes Hentenius judged that this applied to Mahomet, insofar as the inhabitants of those cities received his sect with great zeal and fervor of spirit, defended it, and have endeavored to propagate it to this very day.
C To these things, almost all ecclesiastical writers have left in their monuments of letters that he would arise from the race of the Jews, and from the tribe of Dan. There is no obstacle to Mahomet being an Arab, since his mother Emina, otherwise Mennia, was a Jewess, and perhaps of the tribe of Dan. Moreover, the Arabs, Hagarenes, and Ishmaelites were descended from the holy patriarch Abraham through Ishmael and Esau, just as the Jews were; and at that time, marriage alliances were frequently ratified between them. What, likewise, prohibits us from saying that his mother, an impure harlot, conceived this adulterous seed from a man of her tribe, especially since the Fathers teach that he would be born from a most lustful woman; just as, conversely, Christ was born from the most immaculate and most blessed Virgin? The passage of Genesis which they use to confirm this purpose might perhaps be better explained of Samson than of Antichrist, as even Hippolytus, Procopius, Gazaeus, and many others would not deny. Or, it could be understood more conveniently in a spiritual than a literal sense that he would come from that tribe; since just as Dan was born not of Rachel or Leah, the free wives, but of the handmaid Bilhah; so the Antichrist Mahomet was born D not of true Jews, nor of Christians, who alone have been devoted and consecrated to God in the true piety of religion, but of the impure Arabs and Hagarenes.
Augustine, Jerome, Ephrem, Hippolytus, etc., affirm that the Jews would receive him as their king and Messiah. Paulus Diaconus writes that at the beginning, the Jews flowed to Mahomet in crowds, and [accounted] him as Christ and their deliverer, and they even voluntarily promised and paid him tributes and taxes, and to this day they devote and bestow all their effort and study in the destruction of the Christians, just as both recent and ancient history bear witness.
"But Antichrist," says the Apostle, "will exalt himself above everything that is called God or honored, so that he will place his seat and dwelling in the temple of God." Mahomet, someone will say, never proclaimed himself to be God, but perpetually a man, a prophet, and the messenger of God in the Alcoran: nor did he ever besiege Jerusalem; nor was he held for God in its temple. Let him bear this answer: to all the gods of the gentiles, the patriarchs, Moses, and the other prophets, nay, even to Christ our true God and Lord, and his holy Gospel, he decreed that his own profane Alcoran—composed and fashioned as a detestable and monstrous chaos from the opinions, errors, myths, blasphemies, and furies of philosophers, gentiles, Jews, Arians, Sabellians, and Manichaeans—should be preferred entirely, as if it had fallen from the highest heaven; and not only that, but he also sanctioned it. He threatens eternal punishments to those who despise the Alcoran, Azoara 12, 13, 27, 41, 44, 70; he proposes it as free from all falsehood, and contends obstinately, Azoara 20, 22, 42, that it is as if received divinely, Azoara 2 and 36; and that Christians would never obtain salvation from Christ, except by the benefit and intercession of Mahomet, in the Colloquy with the Jews. To his own followers he boldly promises the remission of sins and a manifold paradise, Azoara 2 and 5. At Mecca, he is worshipped by all the lovers of his superstition as if he were God in our own time. Many have noted that the hands and feet of Mahomet are celebrated by the Mahometans in the temple built at Jerusalem by Omar. He even sits, oh grief! in the temple of God, when the illustrious churches of Africa, Syria, Arabia, Armenia, Persia, Asia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, etc., having been deprived and despoiled of the faith and worship of Christ, are occupied by his lost sect, and from there he disturbs and hinders the constant sacrifice of the Christians, with their altars cast down.
The orthodox Fathers say with Daniel that Antichrist will reject idols. And Mahomet defeats idolaters with arguments drawn from the power and works of God, Azoara 23, 56, 62. He generally and excellently approves the unity of God, Azoara 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 16, etc. Those who have given their name to his superstition greatly avert their eyes from pictures and the effigies of images of all things.
The deceits, furies, blasphemies, and wars of Antichrist are expressed by Daniel through the small horn growing up between the ten horns of the fourth beast, and uprooting three of the former horns, having the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, to whom it is given to make war on the saints, and to overcome them for a time. Who does not see these things being fulfilled in Mahomet and the propagators of his sect?
The Roman empire was failing and being miserably dissipated, which formerly boasted of ten or more kingdoms, such as Africa, Egypt, Syria, Asia, Greece, Germany, Italy, Gaul, England, Spain, etc., as if of its strongest horns, when in a point of time a little horn, that is Mahomet, the son of the earth, and at the beginning the most vile and abject scoundrel, from being a shepherd of camels and donkeys, who had not known how even to write or read, preaches among the Arabs against Chosroes, the emperor of the Persians, and his family, [who were] justly destroyed on account of the worship of idols. Of the Christians and Ju-
- Adeorum religion, contaminated by many errors and by sects in turn repugnant to one another, he asserted it would shortly be brought to an end, and that he himself had been given to men as the interpreter of the divine will and as the sole author and champion of the true religion. He easily seduces the Arabs, who are fond of novelties; finally, having gathered forces, he manages the matter by violence; those whom he cannot win over by his arts, he compels by threats and arms to submit to the yoke of his law. Afterward, having collected an army of Saracens and Arabs who had deserted from the Romans on account of denied pay, together with those who had remained at home, moved by fury, they attack and overrun Egypt, Phoenicia, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and ravage and plunder everything as far as the Euphrates, slaughtering [the inhabitants] and compelling them to surrender, while the Romans fought unfortunately against them. Hence, they rush against the Persians, whom they had served a little before; nor do they make an end of ravaging and plundering until they bring the law and empire of the Saracens. They attack the churches of the Christians on all sides, ravaging and overturning those they can; they force upon them a contumelious dogma against the Son of God, and one contrary to the prophets and apostles, and strive with their utmost powers to blot out the name of Christ. They slaughter the Christians just as they do sheep with a great multitude, as Paulus Diaconus reports, Book XVIII of his *History*; Simoneta, Book I, Epistle 4; Sophronius, in his epistle to Sergius, in the sixth Council of Constantinople, Session 11; Vincent of Beauvais, Book XXIII; and Zonaras, in the third volume of his *Annals*.
But we expect that Elijah and Enoch will come at some time, who will call the Jews to the Church of Christ, and, as the Blessed Ephrem says, will bring piety to the human race, will openly preach the knowledge of the true God to all, and will warn mortals not to believe in or obey falsehood for fear; nay more, as Tertullian is the author, they will at last extinguish the Antichrist himself with their own blood. What then? If we understand the passage of the Apocalypse concerning the two witnesses who are to come at some time, not as Elijah and Enoch in their own person, but as the universal Church, which, illuminated and adorned by the two Testaments, as if by two candelabra and luminaries, perpetually struggles against the darkness of the Antichrist; or as two kinds of martyrdom, namely, in reality and in habit, as Primasius and Ticonius understand it? What again, if we affirm, after Rupert and Abbot Joachim, that two orders of pious men, or all the holy pastors in general—who because of their scarcity represent the binary number in a certain way—are signified, who by their piety and doctrine toil and labor for the glory of Christ against the Antichrist until the very spirit of life [fails them]? But let Enoch and Elijah be understood properly, who will indeed come, and will execrate and condemn the Mahometan impiety that is already holding almost the whole world; against whom, however, the followers of Mahomet, the instruments of the Antichrist, will execute the penalties of torture and will kill them after having tormented them in wondrous ways.
C And the time of the Antichristian tyranny, which will alarm the world with Gog and Magog’s greatest and most powerful armies and will ravage the city of the saints with immense ferocity, is extended to the final and extreme ends of the ages; and it is restricted by Daniel to a time, and times, and half a time, that is, as John interprets in the Apocalypse, forty-two months, and afterward more articulately, one thousand two hundred sixty days: which appear less consonant to Mahomet, especially since he fell nine hundred years ago, having performed the office of an emperor for the space of ten years. Joannes Hentenius satisfies these things by saying that that time is not to be referred to the person of the Antichrist Mahomet, but to that last, most terrible, most sorrowful, and most fatal war which the Turks, Tartars, Scythians, Persians, D Arabs, who all profess the name and faith of Mahomet, will inflict upon the fortunes, homes, and altars of the Christians; in which the enemies of the Christian name will be destroyed in a moment of time by divine virtue alone, and not by human arms; and [he argues] that this is confirmed by the metaphor concerning the head of the impious, the Antichrist, which will be fulfilled in his followers and members; which figure is certainly most customary in the sacred Scriptures. To these things, all the time which [intervenes since] 202 from the death of our Lord until his advent is called in sacred writings the last time, the last hour, one day, the end of the ages; in that time, however, that is, in the year of the Lord 632, according to Sigebert, the 21st of the Emperor Heraclius, the 2nd of the pontificate of Severinus, the seventieth pope, according to Palmerius, in the 63rd year of his age, or, as others wish, the 40th, Mahomet—the wickedness itself—by the avenging hand of God, fell into a disease of epilepsy, deprived of his mind, with his inner belly already swelling (should one take a conjecture, having contracted dropsy), and on the fourteenth day from the disease, he breathed out his most miserable soul.
He still lives, however, alas! that pestilential man, he lives in vigor, while the kingdom of the Turks, Moors, Persians, Tartars, etc., increases daily against the Christians: which I would that it were quickly overturned and taken from the midst by the most glorious advent of our Lord, and that the holy city of the catholic Church, having long since been continually asking for its age and consolation, might finally be handed over to its heavenly spouse without wrinkle or spot. To whom these things seem less pleasing, let free judgment stand; we prescribe to no one, nor are these things argued by us in such a way that we do not always assent to a better, provable and necessary opinion, and recall our stated words immediately, if it should seem so to our holy mother the Church, to whom we and all our things freely consecrate.
Furthermore, when I published these twelve conjectures twenty years ago, with such moderation of mind and submission, I thought I would never fall into the censure of any learned and catholic man on account of them; but far frustrated in our hope, we found [it otherwise] when, in the year 1593, in the month of September, passing through Louvain, we heard from friends there, and in the dictated works of certain students from the mouth of a public reader, a man certainly most learned and whom we both observe and honor in many respects, we read this censure excerpted and collected: "That this opinion of Feuardent is not only false but also dangerous; and the authors whom he cites never felt or wrote anything of the sort."
With your good leave, most excellent man, let it be said, you undeservedly bring me into the crime of falsehood, and you injure me by calling me the author of a false and dangerous opinion. For to begin with the most recent author, that is, our Genebrard, now the most worthy archbishop of Arles, he expressed this opinion in much clearer words than I should have dared, writing in his *Chronographia* about Mahomet: "I could easily believe this is the Antichrist, or at least the founder of the kingdom of Antichrist. For *Maometis* yields the number of the beast 666, of which [is spoken in] Apocalypse XIII, of the form *physis, phidos*. Then, the martial, sanguinary, legionary king established his law to be confirmed not by preaching, but by violence and arms." And having mentioned his foul crimes against God, the Trinity, Christ, and the Christians, he concludes with this vehement and affirmative interrogation: "What more hostile can be undertaken against Christ? What [can be] more antichristian, or more contrary to Christ?" And in the same *Chronographia*, pages 490 and 491, at the year of Christ 657, corroborating the above and refuting the new Gnostics, who impiously attach the antichristian kingdom to the Roman see, he finally adds: "The number 666, noted in the Apocalypse, is the number of the true Mahomet's
A Antichrist, or certainly of the founder of his kingdom, who is written in Greek thus, Μαομέτις, which definitively satisfies this sum." Thus speaks that man, most learned in divine and human matters; by whom Feuardentius is also absolved of the charge of falsehood, and whose conjectures receive no small measure of strength.
Ad second witness I turn, whom I have cited, namely John Hentenius of Mechlin, a most religious and most expert theologian of Louvain. In his preface to the Commentaries of Arethas on the Apocalypse, which he rendered into Latin, he writes: "It does not seem entirely absurd what John Annius of Viterbo thinks in his *Questions on the Apocalypse*, which he sent and dedicated to Pope Sixtus IV and the Christian kings; that the beast, which they commonly interpret as the Antichrist, of whom it is written in Apoc. XIII, is the false prophet Mahomet. Although he died many years ago, his sect (alas!) still lives even now, and rages excessively against the people of God." And a little later: "The signs and prodigies, the lies of the Antichrist among those who perish, are his various and manifold artifices to seduce the servants of God. And since he sets himself and his sect above Christianity and all other laws, does he not exalt himself above everything that is called God? Yet he comes in lying prodigies, because, wishing to hide his falling sickness, he said that he was falling from the illumination of an angel descending to him from heaven. B He also gave a spirit to the image of the beast, when he promulgated the law of his sect to everyone with great horror, saying that he was sent by the sword, ordering everyone killed who should not accept his sect. Nor is it an obstacle that Enoch and Elias are commonly said to be coming so that they may oppose him, etc. For it is not necessary that they fight against his person; but it is enough that they fight against his sect." The rest is too long to be conveniently inserted in this place. It is enough for me that he thought and wrote here as I have cited from him, so that he may make Annius (who is not at hand for me now) believed to have taught so, and to have dedicated and offered his writings on these matters to the supreme pontiff of the Church; finally, to have said nothing in that matter that is absurd or dangerous.
Thirdly, I had noted Jodocus Clicthoveus on the fourth book of Damascene's Commentaries, and not falsely, as I prove from these, his words: "Some most learned men think that Mahomet, that most foul author of a detestable and abominable law, is the true Antichrist in person, predicted by the sacred Scriptures: because they see that almost all things which the Scriptures predict concerning the Antichrist are fulfilled in him, and that the reason for the name of Antichrist C pertains especially to him. For who is more contrary to Christ in law and morals? Indeed, Christ’s law is repugnant to flesh and blood, and warns that our soul must be hated, so that we may keep it for eternal life; Mahomet, however, so that he might ensnare and invite the human race—prone to lust—to the acceptance of his law with these enticements, loosened the reins for pleasures and foulness, admitted the plurality of wives, the repudiation of them, and their reconciliation at will, and finally promised his followers the paradise of the pleasures and delights of the world, most brimming with them, in common with the heretic Cerinthus and his followers, etc." And after some passages: "Mahomet in his Alcoran invents many futilities, ravings, child's tales, and lies, so that from the very inspection of his nefarious law it may soon become known that he is either the Antichrist, or the principal and most immediate precursor of the Antichrist. But not without the testimony and authority of Scripture are these men moved to assert the same thing about Mahomet, that he is the true Antichrist in person. For Apoc. cap. XIII describes the beast coming up from the earth and having two horns like a lamb, about to come under D the seventh trumpet; by which beast, indeed, the Antichrist is designated by common agreement. But by that beast, without doubt, Mahomet is understood literally, on account of his bestial and most foul life, and his most shameful law," etc.
So far I have faithfully related their words, from which you now perceive, most honored sir, that I have in no way cited them falsely; then, that not only they, but other most learned men also were of this opinion, which rests even on the Scriptures and on reasons neither few nor weak, and is not condemned, but permitted, by the supreme pontiffs; so far is it from having been judged false or dangerous by them until now. Therefore, connecting my conjectures—both many and very certainly probable—with the opinions of such great men with all moderation and submission, I truly ought not to have been traduced by you in the public auditorium of the most famous schools, in words and writings, in this manner, nor, once traduced, should I ever be lacking in this most just defense and expurgation of mine. When I do this, do not think, I pray, that I have remitted anything of my perpetual observation and affection toward you; I only ask that, having dismissed the common adversaries of the faith, one theologian may not henceforth harass or bite another, a Catholic a Catholic; but on the contrary, may they join their writings whom the priesthood joins, and may nothing ever divide those whom the love of Christ joins.
Latest. We have deleted "most true," from the author of the ancient codex. For the Fathers taught that the Roman empire would be the final and last of the kingdoms of this world, upon the complete overthrow and removal of which from the midst of the world, the world itself would be entirely destroyed. Tertullian, in his book *Ad Scapulam* and chapter 32 of the *Apology*, it seemed to almost all learned interpreters that he wished to signify that in the name of the fourth and last beast fighting, likewise of the feet, the iron, and the state of that statue.
For of those things which. Old codex, "nor of those who"; of which the first word perhaps should have been restored. And it contains a certain ostentation of vengeance. They say that Titan or Titan was the brother of Saturn, born from the Titans, whom the earth, angered against the gods, created for its own vengeance against them. Whence also the Titans were said to be ἀπὸ τῆς τίσєως, which is from vengeance; to which myth of the heathens Irenæus here alludes. Since therefore so much. Old codex, "since therefore silent," etc. We, however, will not be in danger. Eusebius, lib. V *Hist.*, cap. 8, transcribed these things, up to that point: "But this number." To these things also the blessed Andreas of Cappadocia refers, Comment. on XI Apoc., whose words I will add all the more willingly because they conveniently open up the use of the present place. For he says: "Exact knowledge of the number, just as of the other things that have been written concerning the Antichrist, time and experience will reveal to those who have kept watch. For if it were expedient, as some doctors wish, for a name of this kind to be clearly known, he who saw it himself would surely have revealed it; but it did not please divine grace that the name of the pestilential man should be recorded in order in the divine book," etc. Nor indeed. Above lib. IV, cap. 37, he openly attributes the sacred Apocalypse to John the Lord's disciple; which he also repeats in chapter 50 of the same book, and in chapter 28 of this book, and finally infra in chapters 34 and 35, he ascribes it to him as the true author. It seems wonderful, therefore, how the Alogians and Theodotians, ancient heretics of whom Epiphanius, Philastrius, and Augustine have written, dared to contradict this apostolic man and impudently assign that book to the most wretched scoundrel Cerinthus. But there is far more to be astonished at, that in this most recent century Erasmus has not feared to detract from the same author and book with all his might.
A Luther, in his first Preface to the New Testament, wrote that he received that book neither as prophetic nor as apostolic; Calvin always held it as suspect; Brentius and Chemnitz asserted that it was of uncertain authority; finally, Bodin and the Anabaptists practically hissed it off the stage and exploded it from the choir of Christians.
But it is a good thing that the most weighty theologian Tertullian condemned the error of these men thirteen hundred years ago in Marcion and Cerdo, whose impiety these men are not ashamed to recall from Orcus; see his book *De Præscriptione*, cap. 51, and book IV *Adversus Marcionem*, cap. 5. Furthermore, since even Calvinists and Lutherans try to explain this book in their commentaries as a truly apostolic work, and rely precisely upon its authority against the see and Church of Rome, they would never do this regarding an apocryphal volume or one of uncertain authority.
But we strengthen its authority with firmer safeguards. In the very times of the apostles, Dionysius the Areopagite called this part of Scripture "the secret and entirely mystical vision of the beloved disciple, and the divine and most lofty theology." Justin Martyr not much later attributed it to John the apostle, one of the twelve, and taught that it was written by him almost in his own age; moreover, as Eusebius and Jerome say, Theophilus of Antioch followed it up with a very clear exposition; Melito of Sardis, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Dionysius of Corinth, according to the testimony of Eusebius, used its testimonies as divine and apostolic to prove the dogmas of our faith against heretics.
B Tertullian himself, a man of the apostolic times, praises it in more than thirty places, from which we submit a few: "Cerdo does not accept all the Epistles of the apostle Paul, nor even all of them. He rejects the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse as if they were false." Therefore, he considers the Cerdonians and Marcionites, that is, the worst of all heretics, as enemies of that book. And again he says: "For the apostle John also describes in the Apocalypse the sword proceeding from the mouth of God." And he writes again: "For even if Marcion rejects the Apocalypse, the order of bishops, traced back to the origin, will stand with John as its author." And in another place: "John exhorts us that we should lay down our lives for the brethren, denying that there is fear in love. And if he encourages this for the brethren, how much more does he teach it for the Lord, being sufficiently instructed also by his own Apocalypse." And to finish briefly, the same author in book IV of his poems *Against Marcion*, cap. 6, and in his book *De fuga in persecutione*, cap. 10, ascribing the Gospel, the first Epistle, and the Apocalypse to the same John, disciple of Christ, fights with the same weapons for the Christian dogma against its enemies. C The same is later not slothfully performed by Origen in homily 7 on Joshua, Clement of Alexandria in book II of the *Pædagogus*, Athanasius in his *Synopsis*, Epiphanius against heresy 51 and 76, Chrysostom on Psalm XC, and Damascenus in book IV *De fide orthodoxa*.
I add the opinion of Jerome alone, in place of other Latin Fathers: "In the fourteenth year," he says, "when Domitian was stirring up the second persecution after Nero, John, having been banished to Patmos, wrote the Apocalypse, which Justin Martyr and Irenæus interpret." And in his letter to Paulinus: "The Apocalypse of John contains as many sacraments as words. I have said too little: for the merit of the volume, all praise is inferior; in every single word multiple meanings lie hidden."
But no one can doubt that he speaks of John the apostle and evangelist; certainly not of Cerinthus, that most impure scoundrel, or any other man of obscure name.
Nor does this catholic assertion lack the firmest decrees and judgments of the most ancient councils, when the Council of Ancyra, celebrated under Diocletian, uses the sentences of the Apostle John’s Apocalypse to prove its dogmas. The third Council of Carthage, approved by the sixth synod, canon 7; the Roman Council under Gelasius; the fourth Council of Toledo, canon 16; finally, the Councils of Florence and Trent bring forward the Apocalypse of John as a book of divine and canonical authority, and smite contradicting heretics with anathemas.
The objections of adversaries against this opinion were, as far as I know, first dissolved by our own Franc. Titelmann in his second book *De auctoritate Apocalypsis* addressed to Desiderius Erasmus; then also by our own Michael Medina in his book *De recta in Deum fide*; thirdly, by Sixtus of Siena in the last book of his *Bibliotheca*; finally, by Robert Bellarmine, a most acute theologian from the Society of Jesus, in book I of his *Controversies*.
"And it shall ascend from the abyss." So the ancient codex. The Vulgate edition also reads: "it is about to ascend from the abyss." We have therefore expunged "it shall ascend from the abyss."
"For three years and six months." Hippolytus, Ephrem, Jerome, Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem, Theodoret, Arethas, Ansbertus, Primasius, and Rupert agree with Irenæus. It behooves the Gallican, therefore, to be exhausted of shame, and indeed to be a wicked man, who has dared to oppose himself here to the most clear words of Daniel and the Apocalypse, and to the interpretation of so many great men.
"And he shall sit in the temple of Jerusalem." Since he will be born from the tribe of Dan and is to be received by the Jews as the Messiah, it is not to be doubted but that he will sit in Jerusalem and in their temple, and will constitute that city as the primary seat of his empire. Furthermore, John in the Apocalypse says that two divine witnesses, namely Enoch and Elijah, are to be killed by the Antichrist in the city where Christ was crucified. Cyril of Jerusalem agrees with this, writing: "He shall sit in the temple of the Jews that remains." Hilary in canon 25 on Matthew, Sedulius on the second chapter of II Thessalonians, Damascenus in book IV *De fide*, cap. 28, and others whom we pointed out above in note 6 on chapter 25, concur. Therefore he shall sit there, and he never sat at Rome, as the new Gnostics prattle.
D Annotations of the same on chapter 31. Page 330. "They say they pass beyond the heavens." I refuted this impudent boast of the ancient Gnostics in book I, caps. 9 and 18. Nor is the rashness of the Hugnostics any less now, who promise themselves eternal happiness in the heavens so certainly and undoubtedly, as soon as they have migrated from here, that they think it is impossible for it to be otherwise, and deem it wicked to doubt this in any way. But Scripture condemns this presumption as often as it urges us to fear the Lord and tremble at his terrible judgments, for he can cast both body and soul into hell. Paul condemns it specifically, saying: "Thou standest by faith: be not high-minded, but fear." Peter also condemns it, commanding that "by our good works we make our calling and election sure."
"Now after three days." It clearly teaches that which the Catholic Church has firmly believed and catholically handed down regarding the descent of Christ to the underworld, namely that his soul, separated from his body, not only by a certain operation but by his own presence, as we speak in the schools, penetrated the lower parts of the earth; and to the place where the spirits of the saints...
were detained, he arrived; and with them he remained until the moment of the resurrection; whence he led out all who were fit and appropriate for the kingdom of God. A That this dogma has always been numbered among those articles of faith concerning which it is a sin to doubt, is easily gathered from the writings of both Testaments and from the books of all the Fathers. For as many authors as write on this matter, both Greek and Latin, profess the same thing with sentiments similar to those of Irenæus. And to omit the writings of the prophets and the sermons of the apostles, this is taught by Thaddeus, one of the seventy disciples, in Eusebius, *Hist.* lib. 1, cap. ult.; Dionysius the Areopagite, *De cœl. hier.*, cap. 4; Ignatius, *Ep. ad Trallian.*; Abdias, lib. 18; Nicodemus in his *Gospel*; Clement of Alexandria, *Strom.* II and VI; Origen in the 5th chapter to the Romans; Basil on Psalm XLVII; Nazianzen in his *Oration on Pascha*; Epiphanius *contra hær.* 77 and 69, and in the *Ancoratus*. And among the African Fathers, Tertullian, *De anima* and lib. IV *Contra Marcionem*; Arnobius on Psalms XV, LXXXVII, and CXXXVI; Cyprian, lib. II *Adversus Jud.*, cap. 24 and 25, *serm. de Cœna Dom.*, and *serm. de passione Christi*; Lactantius in his *Carmen de Resurrectione*. I omit St. Augustine, Fulgentius, and Primasius, just as I do Jerome, Ambrose, Leo, and other Latins, who believe and preach the same thing with the same faith and piety. From these facts, it is clear that I cannot fully approve of Rufinus, who writes that this article was not added to the Creed in the Roman Church in his own age, nor even in the Churches of the East. Furthermore, I can never sufficiently marvel at the perverse judgment of Erasmus, a man of such great learning, who somehow doubts whether this article was connected to the Apostles' Creed by St. Thomas Aquinas. I pass over the impious interpretations of later Gnostics concerning this article.
"Commemorated is the Lord." We have warned elsewhere that these words are not currently found in the sacred Bibles, having been erased long ago by the sacrilege of the Jews, a fact that Justin Martyr bitterly laments as done out of hatred for Christians.
Page 331. "As concerning the truth..." We have discussed the truth and circumstances of this prophecy at length in our Commentaries on Jonah.
"And Mary, who saw him first." He understands this of the Magdalene, to whom, as far as appears from the express Scriptures, and from those who were chosen to testify publicly to the resurrection of Christ, the same Christ appeared alive again. Irenæus does not deny, however, that he manifested himself first and privately to his most holy Mother, the Virgin Mary, since this was most firmly held from ancient tradition by the Fathers of succeeding centuries, just as our own Hilaretus (whose spirit may he be in the lot of the just) observed in his Paschal sermons. For concerning this, Ambrose wrote: "Mary (the Virgin) saw the resurrection of the Lord, and she saw it first, and believed." Sedulius also sang in his verses, lib. V *Carminum*, lines 361, 362:
Standing visible in his light, the Lord showed himself / First to her eyes...
The same sentiment is most religiously embraced and preached by Anselm, lib. *De excellentia Virginis*, cap. 6; Rupertus, lib. VII *De divinis officiis*, cap. 25; and finally by Bonaventure in the *Meditationes vitæ Christi*, cap. 87.
"To my Father." The pronoun "my" is not in the old manuscript, which furthermore reads "tell them" instead of "tell them" as printed.
B "...and also adorned that he would come for the final judgment," affirming as the blessed angels did: "Thus shall he come, as you have seen him ascending into heaven." This same thing is confirmed by the whole chorus of the ancient Fathers, as we proved long ago in the appendix and recently in our dialogues.
"Who say that there is indeed an underworld." From this it is clear that the ancient Gnostics erred greatly, even against those things which are proposed to Christians for belief concerning the location of hell and the eternal torments therein, saying that hell is this world, and consequently that the punishments owed and decreed for the reprobate are not everlasting. Perhaps they imbibed this poison from the pools of certain pagan philosophers, who, as Lactantius reports, said that souls are sent into this world and into human bodies so that they may wash away the punishments of their previous sins. Certain Albanenses and other heretics of a higher age write that they simply and absolutely denied hell; which error is being revived by many Anabaptists at this very time.
This, beyond doubt, in the schools of the Sacramentarians from which they sprang, they had learned; for they, with great zeal for contradicting purgatory, limbo, and the true descent of Christ into hell, render the word "inferi" (the underworld) as "sepulcrum" (the grave) and deprave it as often as it occurs in the sacred Bibles, as if there were no other place of the underworld in the nature of things than that where the bodies of the dead are laid and stored in this world. Next, Bucer, who long colluded with the Lutherans, is seriously accused by them of having believed and taught that there is no hell. For after citing several passages from his commentaries on Matthew and John, Conrad Schlusselburg, the superintendent of Ratzeburg, adds: "Here we see, read, and hear the patron of the Zwinglians, Bucer, boldly deny that there is a hell." The same also writes not long after: "The Heidelberg Catechism also calls into doubt whether there is truly a hell and a place destined where the impious and damned must be afflicted with eternal punishments after this life with evil spirits." Furthermore, Zwingli in *Epist.* 3, lib. I, p. 1226, and Oecolampadius in *Epist.*, p. 4, on the First Epistle of B. Peter, assert that by the descent of Christ into hell, only his death should be understood. Calvin thinks that by the name of the underworld, certain spiritual agonies, anxieties of soul, and despairs should be understood. Finally, Beza, in his *Confessio*, protests that he regards it as old wives' fables and detests from his heart whatever the Papists have thus far invented concerning the places and torments of the underworld. To all of whom it is manifest that the most wretched Anabaptists, libertines, and atheists mutter nothing against the Christian and Catholic doctrine of the places and punishments of the underworld in their dens, which they have not learned from the impious Sacramentarians.
Truly, however, to their own greatest harm and in the end they will experience and learn, though too late, after this life and in the other century that there is a true place of the underworld, a true Gehenna, true eternal fire, true outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth; with which the just Judge God avenges and punishes the crimes of all infidels, heretics, and the reprobate with the devil and his angels; and that there are true flames with which the rich gluttons are tormented, while the pious meanwhile rest in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in perpetual joy; that there is a pit of the abyss full of burning fire and sulfur; into which Core, Dathan, and Abiron already descended alive with their cohort of schismatics; and a true chasm in the center of the earth, so horrible and covered with such darkness and the horror of all things, that even to the devils themselves...
"Figures of the nails." The old manuscript has "fixures"; the Greek context of the Gospel has *typon*, that is, figure. Augustine, explaining the Epistle of John, translates it "scars." Openly, however, he teaches that Christ ascended to the Father with the figures and marks of his wounds; whence it evidently follows that he is signed with these same marks.
A Desiderium is held and affected; and the immortal [bodies], now rendered subtle, translucent, and never subject to suffering, they shall carry with them into the sight of God; and thus, clad in a twofold robe and crowned, they shall reign eternally with Christ.
And so we too must persevere. Since he gathers from the example of the rising Christ that the faithful must await the time of resurrection in order to be perfectly and completely blessed in the heavens, he explains more evidently what he had said shortly before in a more obscure manner regarding the absolute state of souls.
In the meantime, however, pious readers must be cautioned to guard themselves diligently against the leaven of the Calvinists, which is a most pernicious hypocrisy. For they hold, along with their Calvin, that "only Christ has, as of yet, entered into the sanctuary of heaven, while all the rest dwell in the atrium; that the souls of the saints are still joined to us by faith; that their glory and crowns are deferred until the advent of Christ, and that they are still awaiting the fruition of the promised glory," etc. Meanwhile, Beza in his epistles vociferates that a great injustice is being done to them when they are refuted regarding this error; and that Calvin is teaching rightly and piously that the souls of the faithful who depart from here make straight for the heavens, and there enjoy the divine sight. What he said somewhat obscurely in one place, he claims, ought to be interpreted by other more lucid and open passages. Namely, so that there be revelations upon revelations; and that that old trickster and most wicked impostor should, not in almost all dogmas, be at war both with himself and with the truth, as is the custom of heresiarchs, so that he might even be condemned by his own judgment and perish.
C Then it is not fitting that we be more iniquitous judges of him than of Augustine, whom no one to this time, so far as I know, has stained with this mark; who nonetheless frequently committed to writing that the souls of the saints are now held in hidden receptacles during the time which is interposed between a person’s death and the final resurrection; that now they are not yet where they will be when it is said to them: "Come, you blessed," etc.; that soon they rest in secret receptacles and dwellings for a time; soon, that they do not so see the immutable D good as the holy angels see it; elsewhere, that they are still awaiting the redemption of their body. For among that same author are found other testimonies which prove that the same souls of the saints, before the resurrection, perceive the reward of eternal goods and the joy of the heavenly fatherland, and stand before the throne of God, and in the sight of the Lamb, and can by no means be separated from the contemplation of his glory.
Irenaeus therefore intends—according to my capacity and so far as I can piously attain it—that the souls of the blessed do not yet possess the perfect and supreme felicity of that kingdom, but as it were a diminished and halved one, in a place most remote from our senses and our experience; since there remain much greater rewards to be received in the future at the advent of the Lord: in which the bodies, whose greatest [capacity is]...
to await the resurrection, are truly, as soon as they die, to receive their souls into heaven. »
Page 331. *Those who say that the underworld is this world.* Tertullian also rejects this same opinion in his book *De anima*, chapter 55, in these words: « For us the underworld is not believed to be a mere cavity, nor some cesspool of the world beneath the sky; but a vastness in the trench of the earth, and in its very bowels an abstruse profundity. »
*Fr. Franc. Feuardentius to the reader. Concerning the last five chapters of Irenaeus.*
The last five chapters, never before printed, we submit from our old, venerable manuscript; that they are genuine and true [works] of Irenaeus, both the very manner of writing and speaking, and Eusebius, Nicephorus, and Anastasius of Nicaea, B citing the same under Irenaeus's name in several places, as we shall indicate in their own places, prove and demonstrate beyond any controversy. Moreover, Jerome in his *Life of Papias*, in the preface to book XVIII of his Commentary on Isaiah, and in his Commentary on Ezechiel 36, notes that B. Irenaeus, together with Papias, Tertullian, Victorinus, Lactantius, Severus, Apollinaris—to whom I add Justin Martyr—taught that the sect of the Jews, the kingdom of Christ and of his elect, after the resurrection and the destruction of the Antichrist, and the judgment of all, would take place on earth, with Jerusalem restored, for a thousand years, according to the literal sense expressing all that is read in the prophets and the Apocalypse regarding these things; against whom the most eloquent Dionysius of Alexandria wrote an elegant book, ridiculing the fable of the thousand years, and the golden and jeweled Jerusalem on earth, the rest of the Sabbath, the servitude of all nations, etc. These things no one could hitherto gather from the books of Irenaeus so far published; yet from these fragments, which we are now bringing to light, it is clear that they pertain to Irenaeus. Furthermore, I candidly suspect that [these leaves] were removed, lest an opinion of this kind, though disapproved by the Church, might diminish the authority of so great a bishop and martyr, or obscure his fame among posterity, or finally, lest some, enticed by his arguments, might embrace an opinion already exploded. But that [removal] seems to me neither safe nor probable, especially to remedy risks with such arts: otherwise, a good part of the writings of the orthodox Fathers would vanish and perish. It was necessary to provide a remedy by premonition C and a faithful exposition of the distorted passages, not by erasure; with the pen, not the knife. For the slips of such a great martyr do not lessen his authority, any more than the sins of Moses, David, Solomon, Jonah, Peter, Matthew, and Paul damage or diminish the majesty of their writings. Therefore, it is enough for the pious reader to know that such an opinion, which he will run through here, is brought forward by Irenaeus, but yet had escaped that most learned and most blessed man; and that Christ the Lord himself had refuted it in the two sons of Zebedee, then in the two disciples traveling to Emmaus, and finally in his apostles, on the very day of his ascension into heaven. It was afterwards refuted and rejected in published writings by Dionysius the Areopagite in his book *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*, part 1, chapter 1; by Caius and Dionysius of Alexandria, ancient and great-named writers, Eusebius, *Hist.* book 6, chapters 22 and 33; Augustine, book XX, *De civitate Dei*, chapters 7, 8, and 9; Theodoret in *Haereticarum fabularum*; Epiphanius in *Contra haereses*, tome I. Finally, one should observe that the opinion was long dissimulated and tolerated by the Church, and was not condemned and exploded as a heresy until a certain Nepos, an Egyptian bishop, then Coracion, and finally Apollinaris of Laodicea defended and pushed it too pugnaciously and pertinaciously in their writings and sermons; as is evident from Eusebius, *Hist.* book VII, chapters 19 and 20, and Jerome, book VIII on Isaiah, and passim elsewhere. Therefore, one should depart from Irenaeus in this matter with the greatest reverence and modesty of spirit, in such a way that one retains his estimation; and one should not diminish anything from it, especially for the reason that he was by no means the first to introduce this, nor did he defend it with a pertinacious or factious spirit; but, having received it from Papias, and certain others who had not yet completely put aside Jewish traditions, he falsely cherished it in his heart.
*Annotations of the same on chapter 32.*
Page 331. *It is necessary, therefore.* He understands this of that marvelous renovation of all things which will follow the advent of Christ and the judgment. For all the species of the globe, for whose sake they were created, are said through personification to groan and grow weary with one man, that is, to be engaged in serious business, and [to wait] until his completed and perfect beatitude, which he certainly D awaits, to be wearied by troubles. For the earth indeed receives us when we are born, nourishes us when we are brought forth, and supports us once born, forever; finally, having embraced us in her bosom when we have already been discarded by the rest of nature, she then most especially covers us as a mother, bears our monuments and titles, prolongs our name, and extends our memory against the brevity of our age. On our account she is subjected to a curse, repeatedly restores perishable fruits, and is compelled to undergo horrendous tremors and devastation. Waters subside into rains, freeze into hail, swell into waves, are precipitated into torrents. The air thickens into clouds, rages with storms, is now rigid with cold, now ignited by heat, now bellows with the crashing of thunder. Flocks of animals graze, so that they may graze us; they are stripped of their hides, so that they may clothe us; they labor for us. The celestial spheres are assiduously stirred, they set, they rise, they suffer eclipses; and, to speak summarily, every creature is compelled to serve the uses and abuses of the impious, just as [it does those] of the pious: and for this reason it is said by Paul and Irenaeus to groan and suffer, being subject to vanity; and not only that, but also to be liberated from the servitude of corruption at the advent of the Lord, when the sons of God shall be asserted into liberty.
*To the North and to Africa.* *Sanctes* and the Vulgate edition, *To the North and to the South*; the Septuagint also, *πρὸς βορράν καὶ Λίβα*. For *Africa*, read *to the North and to Africa*, as in Josue xviii, 14; Psalm LXXVII, 26; Isaiah xxi, 1; Ezechiel xx, 48, etc.
*But he gave four hundred, etc.* We have expunged *forty*, and inserted *four hundred*. For the Latin Vulgate edition has *four hundred shekels of silver*. And the Septuagint, which the author follows, *τετρακόσια δίδραγμα ἀργυρίου*, *four hundred didrachms of silver*, etc.
*From Ephron the son of Seor the Hittite.* Because in the Greek Bibles it is read, *Ἐφρὼν τῷ τοῦ Σαάρ*, and in the common Latin edition, *Ephron filia Seor*, we judged that it should be read thus here. The old manuscript [says], *son of Yphaeus*.
Page 332. *From the river of Egypt.* Jerome, in his letter to Dardanus, thinks this river is the torrent which is called Rhinocorura, and he confirms the same in his Commentary on Isaiah 27 and Ezechiel 47.
*He must receive it.* Augustine, book XVI, *De civitate Dei*, chapter 24, teaches that by this only the land of Canaan is signified and promised by the Lord, which the people of Israel, the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, received, who, even if they were expelled from Jerusalem at times, nevertheless remained in other cities of the earth. He repeats and proves the same in his *Questions on Genesis*. Jerome pursues a mystical exposition, full of hidden meanings, in his letter to Dardanus.
*But they shall receive it.* If Irenaeus were understanding [this] concerning those spiritual goods, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man, he would have annexed Jerome, in his letter to Dardanus, and other orthodox interpreters as supporters of his opinion.
*For they shall possess the earth.* The possession of this earth, says Jerome, is not for the meek and the gentle, who very often lose even that which was left by their parents on account of their meekness, but for strong and violent men, who are most ready for wars. But the land of the living is promised by God, in which good things are prepared for his holy and meek men.
*From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 32.*
Page 331. *Since, therefore.* These last five chapters, which are missing in the manuscripts which Erasmus used, and consequently also in his and Gallasius's editions, were first unearthed from an old manuscript by Feuardentius; who, in addition, in a preface he composed, rightly vindicates them for Irenaeus, and candidly suspects that they were removed by many out of defense of the millenarian kingdom.
A genus reducitur. Then the prerogative of singular obedience toward others, and all those things as from God, the author and bestower of all good things. Jacob himself obtained these things in part while he lived; but they were much more abundant and desirable in Judah, Joseph, David, Solomon, and his other illustrious sons. Moreover, we attain the spiritual goods of the blessing, filled with the secrets of God, in Christ, and in the just who are daily gathered into one through him by divine praise, as Jerome relates learnedly in volume III, question 3 to Damasus; Augustine, *De civitate Dei* XVI, chapter 37; Prosper of Aquitaine, book *De promissionibus*, chapter 21; Gregory, homily 6 on Ezekiel; Rupert, and the Gloss on Genesis XXVII. Therefore, this passage does nothing for the Chiliasts.
*In every perplexity*. That is, in defeat, in hesitation, in great lack of counsel, so that they are at a loss as to where they should turn.
Page 333. *How did he inherit this*. Moses reveals this by arguing how, in such a long pilgrimage, nothing was ever lacking to this Jacob, and how, in the vision of the ladder, a path even appeared to heaven and heavenly goods; that God his father, and the angels, were present to him as brothers, friends, and companions; and that he received in response from heaven that the land of the Canaanites was reserved for his posterity, which would thereafter be multiplied like the sands, and that the Messiah would at length be born from that world in his own time. He is received willingly and kindly by Laban, who also gave his daughters to him in marriage with a very large dowry; and he who had crossed the Jordan as a pauper with a staff and a wallet, returned from there overflowing with an immense flock of sheep, camels, servants, children, and a wealth of all goods, and having become very rich.
*As the presbyters*. From this it appears that the opinion regarding a temporal kingdom for a thousand years was neither first conceived by Irenaeus, nor stubbornly defended by him as his own, but that he had contracted it as a certain stain, and as it were a mole, from certain Fathers. I would conjecture that Papias or some other inglorious men familiar to Irenaeus are meant. Furthermore, that this error had flowed from a certain ancient, yet depraved, preceding tradition of the Jews, one might not at all vainly (perhaps) suspect; by which they promised themselves that all the happiness and glory promised to the King Messiah would be earthly and temporal; and that it did not arise first from Papias, under the final times of Trajan the Emperor, as is the opinion of Baronius. For it is agreed from the Gospel that the mother of the sons of Zebedee, with others, had been detained by this same error long before, when she asked of Christ that one of them D should sit at his right hand, and the other at his left, when he had come into his kingdom. Moreover, the apostles had thought of a kingdom of this kind when they asked of him if he would at that time restore the kingdom to Israel. Nor would it be true to say that this should be understood concerning the times of the faithful and Christians, since it is entirely certain that the two superior disciples were already with their mother faithful, and the apostles on the day of the Lord's Ascension were most Christian and most faithful.
*And Papias also*. Nicephorus Callistus in his *History*, book II, chapter 20, and Eusebius, long preceding him, in book III, chapter 33, have made mention of this passage of Irenaeus and Papias: whence the faith of our ancient codex is of some number and value. The words of Eusebius, from the interpreter, are: "They say there are five books of Papias, which are inscribed *Exposition of the Oracles*; of which Irenaeus makes mention as though he were the only one of the writers." We have taken care to insert the Greek, a new translation having been made. And because those things which Eusebius subjoins in the same place are highly relevant to this whole passage of Irenaeus, it will have been useful for them to be appended. For with many things interposed, he writes thus concerning Papias: "The Kingdom of Christ after..."
A of universal flesh from the dead, he asserts that a thousand years will continue and be established on this earth in a human and bodily manner. I believe he adopted these dogmas for the reason that he had poorly understood the apostolic interpretations, which had been set forth by them through arcane figures and subobscure parables. For he was a man, as one may easily conjecture from his writings, of rather shallow intelligence. Afterwards, the same Eusebius subjoins concerning Irenaeus: "But he was the author of a very similar error to most ecclesiastical men, who cited the antiquity of the man for the defense of their own positions; so that Irenaeus, and if anyone else, seems to think the same things as he did." These are the words of Eusebius, which certainly cut short longer annotations for us here. And the wolf shall graze. Jerome, in his Commentary on Isaiah 11, reproves the Jews and Judaizing Christians (for so he frequently calls the Millenarians), because they contend that these things are to be in the future according to the letter, so that all beasts might be reduced to gentleness, and having laid aside their B original ferocity, the wolf and the lamb might graze together; and he adds that they snore in a very heavy sleep, and differ little from the tales of the poets, who have fabricated a certain golden age of Saturn. He subjoins, however, how these things should be understood according to the life-giving spirit, in a mystical and spiritual sense. Let him who wishes consult the passage. This between us. By a conjecture led, we present it to be read thus; our old codex has, *these among us*.
Annotations by the same on chapter 54. Page 334. The dead shall rise again. The words are of Isaiah, which, according to the Septuagint edition, he also quoted above in full in book V, chapter 15. Here he seems to recite from memory. And it shall be upon every mountain. Here also Jerome in his Commentaries refutes the Jewish, carnal, and literal interpretation, and at the same time those who receive the fable of the thousand years and the earthly kingdom of the Savior, C as a fabrication and fiction of Jewish error; not understanding that in the Apocalypse of John, beneath the surface of the letter, the marrowy sacraments of the Church lie hidden. And he will feed you. Jerome in his Commentary again disapproves of those who from this have invented for themselves the fable of the thousand years, in which there are again marriages, and foods, and the encounters of earthly life; whereas, with Christ as the author, the sons of the resurrection shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be like the angels. In the first resurrection. Those words of the Apocalypse, because of their obscurity, opened a great window for error to Irenaeus and many other great men. For they thought that there would be two resurrections of the flesh, the first of the good, the second of the bad after a thousand years; and that Christ would remain on earth from the first until the second, and there reign with the saints and the elect, in an incredible felicity of all earthly goods. But it must be observed that the resurrection which is here called the first by John does not pertain properly to bodies, but to souls; D which are then said to be raised, when they pass from the death of sin to the life of grace, and from the life of grace to the life of that glory, which, their bodies not yet being assumed, they meanwhile enjoy in heaven until the day of judgment, and reign with Christ. And this time of a thousand years is signified and prescribed by the number, which is frequently used in the holy Scriptures for an indefinite multitude of numbers. The second resurrection is called that general awakening of the good and bad from the tombs, in which the souls of the pious will enjoy their beatitude forever with their bodies reborn; and thus the passage is declared by Augustine or Tyconius, in homily 17 on the Apocalypse, by Ambrose, Primasius, Andrew and Arethas the Cappadocians, Ansbertus, and Lyranus, in their commentaries on the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse. Therefore, it does nothing for the opinion of the Millenarians.
Hear the word of the Lord. Jerome, in Jeremiah 31, indicates that those who sigh for a golden and jeweled Jerusalem on account of these things are altogether delirious, consecrating their avarice in the mystery of the words of the Lord; since here the good things promised are not perceived and felt in the fruits and foods of mundane flesh, but in the variety of virtues. But we have shown in the previous book. In book IV, chapter 20, he writes that the apostles and all the disciples of the Lord, who serve God and the altar, are priests; and in chapters XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, he relates that their duty is to offer the eucharist, that is, the body and blood of Christ, to God the Father; and thence, besides many other things, it is gathered that these fragments were once cut away and truncated by Irenaeus. They signify feasting. We propose this to be read thus, reserved for the judgment of others; the old codex has, *by feasting they signify*. Page 335. Blessed is he who has seed in Sion. He follows the words of the seventy interpreters, for the Hebrew truth and the Latin vulgate edition read otherwise, which Jerome also notes there: and he wishes for this divine saying to recall the Jews fleeing into Egypt back to Jerusalem, and to beget children there, to whom such security and felicity is promised, that they may be defended and ruled by the aid of the Lord. Behold, I will prepare for thee a carbuncle. Jerome, in his Commentary on this place, shows the Septuagint reading to be not a little variant from the Hebrew, which Irenaeus nevertheless follows throughout, and concerning the nature and properties of these stones, those inquiring anxiously are referred to the volume of Epiphanius, inscribed *On Gems*, and to book 37 of Pliny's *Natural History*. He also inveighs sharply against the Jews and semi-Jews (thus he calls the Chiliasts), who, lovers of the letter of the west, provide for their gullet, in place of a thousand years, luxurious and exquisite foods, and after the second coming of the Savior hope for nuptials, and infants of a hundred years, and the injury of circumcision, and the blood of victims, etc., when they ought to have sought in the heavens the city built with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and shining with the splendors of virtues, merits, and rewards. Behold, I will make Jerusalem. Again Jerome nags at the Jews and the approvers of an earthly kingdom of a thousand years, and wishes these things to be understood of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is from above, and of the various mansions deposited with the divine Father as compensation for various labors. There shall be there a youth of a hundred years. Jerome, in the preface to his Commentary on Isaiah 65, sub-indicating this place of Irenaeus, relates that Dionysius, pontiff of the Alexandrian Church, a most eloquent man, had refuted it in an elegant book, and moreover had laughed at the fable of the thousand years and the golden and jeweled Jerusalem on earth, the restoration of the temple, the blood of victims, the rest of the Sabbath, the injury of circumcision, nuptials, births, the education of children, the delights of banquets, the servitude of all nations, and again wars, armies and triumphs, and the deaths of conquerors, and the death of the hundred-year-old sinner. The same Jerome subjoins that Apollinaris had responded to Dionysius in two volumes on behalf of Irenaeus and his opinion, and that with both, a very great multitude of Catholics had agreed on this part. Augustine, book XX, *De civitate Dei*, chapter 7, says that the same opinion is somehow tolerable, if some spiritual delights are believed to be forthcoming in that Sabbath of a thousand years through the presence of the Lord; and that he himself had once held this opinion. From the annotations of J. E. Grabe on chapter 54. Page 334. To all nations. Note that the universality was perhaps added by Irenaeus for the sake of explanation, nor indeed is the word *all* held in the LXX. In the sight of the sons of nations. Irenaeus reads, *in the sight of the sons of the nations*, for *in the sight of the peoples of the nations*, as the LXX only hold.
A *Plagæ tuæ*. The LXX only have *plagæ tuæ*. *Supra omnem terram*. The LXX, *in the good things of the earth*.
*Et si venerit in vespertina vigilia... ministrabit eis*. The Vulgate interpreter recognizes this clause concerning the vespertine watch with Irenaeus in certain manuscripts, and from there Bede and other Latins; and older than them is the Greek Father Methodius, in *The Banquet of the Ten Virgins*, oration 8, page 92 of Combefis’s *Auctarium novissimum Bibliothecæ Patrum*, where the words of Luke are recited indeed without referring to the source, but it is gathered from the words immediately following that this was omitted not by Methodius himself, but by a more recent scribe. For he adds there: *For consider, that having proposed three watches of the night, the vespertine, and the second, and the third, etc.*
*Ad non inhabitandum... ut non sint homines*. Irenaeus in both clauses seems to have read *in order to*, and our copies of the LXX in both places hold *alongside*.
*Longe nos*. The word *us* is rightly absent from the editions of the LXX. *Verbum*. And so Irenaeus does not read *words*, as the LXX now have, but *word* in the singular according to the Hebrew; unless the scribe put *word* in from the Latin Vulgate. *Congregabit*. Irenaeus does not recognize the particle *and* therefore, which appears in the editions of the LXX, just as the Alexandrian codex does not. *Et... fortioris*. From this passage and the one above on page 183, it is clear that Irenaeus read in the singular *the stronger*, not *stronger*, as the LXX now sound, and that he had *and* added at the beginning of this clause. *Ad bona, et in terram*. Whether Irenaeus in the LXX, or the interpreter in Irenaeus, instead of *the good things of the Lord, upon the earth*, incorrectly read *good things, and upon the earth*. *Et vinum bibent. Et non ipsi*. No codices of the Biblical texts recognize the first three words, and therefore it is permitted to suspect that they were perhaps added by Irenaeus himself for the sake of explanation. However, the last three words agree exactly with the Alexandrian codex of the LXX, whereas in the editions of the LXX the conjunction *and* is missing.
B Annotations of Fr. Feuardent upon chapter 35. Page 335. *Dies Domini insanabilis*. He follows the Septuagint translation. Furthermore, it escapes me what this passage does for the Millenarians. Since, according to the sense of the letter, which Irenaeus examines so intensely here, Isaiah was predicting—as if with a trumpet—the destruction of that Babylon which Semiramis had built, and which the other most powerful emperors of the Chaldaeans and Assyrians had subsequently fortified; the catastrophe of this (I say) by the armies of the Persians and Medes, under the emperors Cyrus and Darius, though miserable, was yet just.
*Et ædificabunt domus*. Jerome explains this place regarding those houses which the prophetic discourse promises, saying: *God will make Zion safe, and the cities of Judah shall be built;* not carnally as the Jews persuade themselves, that Jerusalem and the cities of Judaea must be restored to their pristine state: for if we grant them this (he subjoins), let them hear that this is promised not only to Jerusalem, but also to Sodom, as Ezekiel says: *Sodom shall be restored to its ancient state.*
C *Et illos quos Dominus in carne inveniet*. I would say with the peace and reverence of such a martyr, the just who are found living by the advent of the Lord will not remain on the earth, but will be snatched up in the clouds, proceeding to meet Christ in the air, just as the Apostle wrote, and thus they will be with the Lord always.
*Jeremias propheta*. What are praised here under the name of Jeremiah exist in the fourth and fifth chapters of Baruch, from which it is manifest that those ancient Fathers numbered the book of the prophet Baruch, under the appellation sometimes of Jeremiah, whose auditor and scribe he had been, among the canonical Scriptures. But since our age has brought forth—and we have encountered—Gnostic enemies who are most hostile in this matter, as in very many others, and most bitter assailants of the truth; for this reason let us confidently oppose to them the most instructed troops of the orthodox Fathers D of the Greek and Latin Church; and above all Augustine, whom they wish to appear to respect and follow uniquely. He, in book XVIII of *The City of God*, chapter 33, discussing the advent of Christ and the calling of the nations, uses Baruch as a witness, although he acknowledges that it is attributed by others to Jeremiah. Again, the same author uses it in his book of *Questions of the Old and New Testament*, question 102; Cassiodorus on Psalm LXXXI; Rufinus in his *Exposition of the Creed*; Ambrose, book I of *On Repentance*, chapter 82; book III of *Hexaemeron*, chapter 14, and book I of *On the Faith*, chapter 2; Cyprian, book I *Against the Jews*, chapter 6; and to join the Greeks to the Latins, Hesychius of Jerusalem, homily 1 on holy Mary the Mother of God; Cyril of Alexandria, book II of *Commentary on Genesis*, in the book *On the Precise Faith to Theodosius*, and the preface to the *Gospel of John*; the sixth synod, session eight; Chrysostom in his homily on the Trinity, and book *Against the Gentiles, That Christ is God*; Basil, book V *Against Eunomius*; Clement of Alexandria, book *Paedagogus*, chapter 40, transfer many things under the name of the prophet Jeremiah from the book of Baruch and insert them into their own works. Athanasius, in orations 2 and 3 *against the Arians*, the book *That the Nicene Synod*, etc., the epistle to Serapion *against those who say the Holy Spirit is a creature*, time and again, and also question 36 *to Antiochus*, contends confidently with testimonies from that book, even by his own proper name, as if from a canonical author, and asserts them as our own, that is, Catholic. The same author again in his book *On the Salutary Advent of Christ against Apollinarius*; Epiphanius *against heresy 30*; Chrysostom on Psalm XLVI, and homily 26 *on the Romans*, fittingly cite the words in the name of that prophet. Theodoret, expounding his whole book in *Commentaries*, acknowledges it among the sacred prophets. You may connect others to these by reading, and at the same time bid those sorcerers of the ignorant and rash rabble to be of equal value.
However, against this interpretation of the Millenarians, the explanation of Theodoret and the orthodox according to the letter is to be opposed, who wish for the return of the captive Jews to be prophesied here. For God gave them *to mercies in the sight of all who had taken them*, as it is in the Psalms, when *he crushed the gates of bronze, shattered the iron bars, broke the chains of them, led them out of darkness and the shadow of death, gathered them from the regions from the rising of the sun and the setting, from the North and from the sea*. And when those who were in Babylon were returning, as if peace had been granted the people, says Theodoret, those also returned who had fled at the time of war and had gone to the southern and western parts, which is why he also remembers those returning from the west.
*Vocabitur namque nomen tuum*. Theodoret: *For thy name shall be called by God for eternity; Peace of justice and Glory of piety.* And the Church now has all these things, wherefore all flock to her. For the passion of the Savior made her splendid and illustrious.
*Decrevit enim Deus*. Theodoret: *The Lord dissolved the Babylonians who seemed to be like high mountains; but those who were held under their yoke and were like lowly valleys, he made to lift up their eyes.* He then figuratively calls the intervening nations forests, which did not bear the fruit of piety for God, yet they accompanied the returning Israel with all obedience honorably. Since, therefore, these things have been fulfilled in the earthly Jerusalem, even according to the sense of the letter, there is no reason why we should invent that they are to be fulfilled by the resurrection and judgment.
*Hoc autem est quod vocatur gehenna*. Concerning this
word's etymology and meaning, Jerome speaks sufficiently in his Commentaries on Jeremiah, chapter VII, and in his *Quaestiones Hebraicae* in Paralipomenon. *I will see a new heaven.* Primasius teaches that the figure of this world will then perish by the conflagration of worldly fires, just as the flood was brought about by the inundation of waters, so that with heaven and earth changed for the better, the bodies of the saints might be suitable in incorruption and immortality, as befits the mutual change of quality.
From the annotations of J. Ern. Grabe on chapter 35. Page 335. *Incurable comes.* So also in the Alexandrian codex it is *ἀνίατος ἔρχεται*. But in the editions it stands in reverse order: *ἔρχεται ἀνίατος*. Let it be removed so that he may not see. In the LXX it reads: *'Αρθήτω ὁ ἀσεβὴς, ἵνα μὴ ἴδῃ*, etc. *He will prolong*, that is, he will make to grow, as indeed Irenaeus explains, subjoining after some words: *growing from the vision of the Lord*, etc. *From thy God.* The pronoun *thy*, both here and a little later, repeatedly added, the modern text of Baruch does not have. *Peace of justice and glory to him who honors God.* But in Baruch it reads: *εἰρήνη δικαιοσύνης, καὶ δόξα θεοσεβείας*, "the peace of justice and the honor of piety," as the Vulgate rendered it. *From the throne.* Thus, with Irenaeus, the Vulgate translator, the Alexandrian codex, and others. But the printed editions of the New Testament have *ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ*. *He will wipe away.* The word "God" added in our New Testament codices, Irenaeus seems not to have acknowledged, nor did the Syriac and other oriental translators; indeed, it is missing not only in the old version of Irenaeus but also in Anastasius in the following place, cited on page 337.
Annotations of Fr. Feuardent on chapter 56. B Page 336. *For it is not the substance.* Jerome, in chapter 65 of Isaiah, teaches that the passing and the newness of heaven and earth predicted in these oracles by no means signify an abolition into nothingness, but a change into something better; of which opinion are Ambrose, Primasius, Rupert in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, Didymus and Oecumenius on the first chapter of blessed Peter, Chrysostom in Homily 10 to the people of Antioch, and Augustine, Book XX, *De Civitate Dei*, chapter 24. 209 Page 337. *Isaiah says thus.* Anastasius the Patriarch of Nicaea transcribed this whole passage from Irenaeus, with very few changes, in his book of *Quaestiones et Responsiones* on the Holy Scripture, question 88, which passage gives great credence to our ancient exemplar. And because it has never come to light, we have therefore committed it to the press, by the favor of a certain fragment entrusted to us by Mr. John Curterius, of which man, both learned and pious, and formerly a friend, may his soul be in the lot of the just. *And as the presbyters say.* He means Papias, in my opinion; or perhaps Aristion, and a certain John the Elder, whose auditor he had been. The opinions of these men, long since exploded and cast out by the Catholic Church, we have noted above, which nevertheless our Alfonso de Castro, having brought them forward again into the middle, refutes and suppresses with the manifold testimony of the Holy Scriptures, Book III, *Adversus Haereses*. *They who have brought forth fruit an hundredfold.* Others interpret this passage of the Gospel differently; for Cyprian assigns the hundredfold fruit to martyrs, the sixtyfold to virgins, C and the thirtyfold to the married; whom Augustine follows in Book I, *Quaest. Evang.*, question 9, and in his book *De Sancta Virginitate*, chapter 45. Jerome assigns the hundredfold to virgins, the sixtyfold to widows and those who are continent, and the thirtyfold to chaste marriage, Book I, *Contra Jovinianum*, and his Commentary on Matthew, chapter XIII. There are those who prefer that the great difference among those who receive the seed of the divine word and bring forth fruit be simply signified; just as seed, according to the nature of the soil, comes to fruition in one case sooner and in another more happily. But what relevance has this to the Chiliasts? *Then the Son himself shall be subject unto him.* Hilary, in Book VIII *De Trinitate*, writes that the Arians distorted this sentence of the Apostle, so that through the condition of subjection they might deny that Christ is Lord God by nature. To whom Jerome, or Sedulius, responds that subjection does not always pertain to a diminution of honor, but also to an office of charity, especially when the spirit of the prophets is said to be subject to the prophets, and the Lord himself is described as having been subject to Joseph and Mary. Finally, he concludes that this is said of the nature which he assumed from the Virgin, in which he is always less than the Father, and is perpetually subject to the divinity: in which opinion also stand Augustine in his book *De Octoginta Tribus Quaestionibus*, q. 69, and in his book *Contra Sermonem Arianorum*, chapter 37; Ambrose, Book V *De Fide*, chapters 6 and 7; Gregory of Nyssa in his oration on the text: *When he shall have subjected all things to himself*; Cyril of Alexandria, Book X *Thesauri*, chapter 8; Basil, Book IV *Adversus Eunomium*, etc. Therefore, Calvin clearly both arianizes and judaises, who refers that testimony to the divinity of the Son. *The creature shall be free.* That is, just as for our sake all creation was made subject to various mutations and sufferings, so it will rejoice in great purity and peace when we have been led out of these miseries, for whose sake it was created. But these things do not in any way support the case of the Millenarians. *And let him ascend unto him surpassing the angels.* Here he speaks first of the human nature of Christ our redeemer, which he carried with him into heaven above every principality and power, into which he will return at the final judgment after all his enemies have been subjected. Next, he understands the illustrious choirs of the elect, to whom he will say: *Come, ye blessed, into the kingdom of the Father*, etc. For some of these, as the most blessed Virgin, and the Baptist (perhaps) and Jeremiah, who from their mothers' wombs came into the light already made holy, he will exalt above the choirs of angels. Concerning the rest, it is to be believed that the society and glory will be equal to the angels, who call us their fellow citizens, profess themselves our fellow servants, and rejoice D over penitents; nay, they show themselves as ministering spirits to those who are to receive the inheritance of salvation with them, that is, that supreme and everlasting happiness, in which there will be no evil and no good will be lacking; for he himself will be the reward of virtue there, who gave virtue, and who promised himself, than whom nothing better and greater can be. He himself will be the end of our desires, who will be seen without end, will be loved without satiety, will be praised without fatigue. We will be full of him who will be all in all. There we will have rest and we will see; we will see and we will love, we will love and we will praise. Nor do I anxiously dispute whether that beatitude consists chiefly in the action of the intellect or rather of the will; since there will be all things full of joy, not only the will and intellect, but also the eyes, the ears, the hands, the whole body, the whole mind, and the soul finally. For which things I pray and beseech the all-good, all-great God, that when all things have been completed which certainly procure eternal salvation for each one, every kind of man, the span of life naturally run, may at length be brought forward and may eternally enjoy the divine mind. Amen, Amen.
VARIORUM NOTAE IN FRAGMENTA SANCTI IRENAEI.
A Fr. Feuardent’s brief preface. Since it is ascertained from the monuments of the ancients and the most certain testimonies of ecclesiastical history that this excellent bishop and doctor of the Church of Lyons not only published the five preceding books against the heresies of Valentinus and similar Gnostics under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherius, but also many others, which either by the injury of time or the frauds of heretics have perished, or lastly still lie hidden somewhere struggling against silverfish and moths: we have taken care to propose and exhibit in this final place at least certain fragments of them, collected from here and there with as much fidelity and diligence as I could, so that, as much as possible, the entire body of the saintly man's works might come to light at once. Among these, in the first place, are his two letters to Blastus and Florinus, not long ago presbyters of the Roman Church, but at that time removed and expelled by the most holy Pope Eleutherius on account of Valentinian impieties and certain other fanatical opinions added to them, with which they attempted to infect others and to tear apart the members of the Church by their schism.
Indeed, it is likely that these were written B second and third, after the aforementioned five books, such that, with the principal emperor and leader of that poisonous sect overcome and crushed, he might summon back the wandering and scattered soldiers and satellites from their conceived madness of mind, as much as in him lay, to the bosom of Mother Church. Add to this that Eusebius mentions them in an order prior to those books and under the pontificate of Eleutherius; which order, however, Jerome neglected, because he was composing a catalog of writers, not a history. Blastus, therefore, as it is in Tertullian, wishing to introduce Judaism covertly, and saying that the Pasch must be kept in no other way than according to the law of Moses on the 14th of the month—but who does not know that the grace of the Gospel is made void if he reduces Christ to the law?—it is not difficult to gather from Philastrius, Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodoret, and Damascene that he furnished the beginning for the schism of the Quartodecimans. Therefore, Irenæus called the letter written and intended for him *On Schism*, because in it he discusses, as I conjecture, what schism is, how grave and pernicious a crime it is, and how gravely it was once avenged in Core, so that he might return from it to the unity of the Church and bring back those drawn away with him. The letter given to Florinus, however, he entitled *On Monarchy, or, That God is unique and is by no means the author of evils*, that is, of sins. For Florinus, says Eusebius, seemed to be bitterly defending the contrary opinion.
For this reason, also, since he had fallen into the error of the Valentinians, Irenæus wrote the book *On the Ogdoad*; in which he declares clearly enough that he succeeded the times of the apostles very closely.
And since also in the first book of *Against Heresies*, chap. 29, he had promised that he would publish a singular work against Marcion, God willing; and from his writings and the sayings of the Lord and his apostles admitted by him, would overthrow the base of that heresy C from the threshold, which Eusebius also observed: I could easily persuade myself that he did not long delay that writing. But I have found nothing of this cited by the Fathers.
And so that he might confirm or raise up with sacred exhortations all those whom the assaults and frauds of heretics had caused either to waver in the true faith and religion or to fall, he wrote a book to his brother Marcianus, which he called *On the Apostolic Preaching*; and again another, *Of Various Treatises*, by which he comforted and refreshed the minds of many in sincere and holy piety, as much by the Scriptures as especially by the true and genuine traditions of the apostles, which he had diligently perceived from their hearers. Of these, indeed, Eusebius, Jerome, and Nicephorus make mention; but they have supplied no fragments.
He also, partly by calming the furies of the Gentiles, partly by refuting their calumnies and errors, edified [his work] so that he might at length subject them to the sweetest yoke of Christ, having published a book inscribed *On Knowledge*, a book indeed compendious, says Eusebius, but supremely necessary. Perhaps he imitated Justin Martyr, Quadratus, Aristides, and Athenagoras, who themselves also had striven, by brilliant and at the same time sharp writings, to turn the minds of the ethnic from the vanity of the gods to the recognition and worship of the one true and living God, and had demonstrated by many and very firm arguments that the Christian philosophy alone is true and beneficial to the human race. I find that nothing of this book also survives.
The dissension about the day of celebrating the Pasch having then most intensely recrudesced, and even now by the work of Blastus, then by Montanus the heresiarch, openly erupting into heresy and schism with multiple turmoil, dissension, and ruin of souls, Irenæus, corresponding to his name, which is "a lover of peace," D while Victor was already in the fifth year presiding over the Roman Church (for he presided over the Church for ten years), directed letters to him on behalf of the brethren over whom he presided in the Gauls, in which he urges, asks, and entreats that he do not cut off from the common unity of the faithful so many, surely, and most ancient churches of all Asia on account of an external rite. And these and other things congruent with them, says Eusebius, he wrote not to Victor alone, but also to most others and various presidents of churches concerning this controversy. We append the fragment of the *Letter to Victor* that is not to be despised; of the others, there is deep silence.
He published lastly the book *On the Pasch*, of which he makes mention before Jerome and Eusebius, and at the same time he assigns a certain particular work, *Questions and Answers to the Orthodox*, mentioned in Justin Martyr. These also we shall add, bearing it with a heavy mind that we cannot bring forward more from so holy, ancient, and learned a Father for the common utility of students. Since therefore nothing is left from the letter or commentary to Blastus the schismatic and heretic beyond the title, let us append the fragment which Eusebius truly considers the most elegant from the book *On the Ogdoad*, and which he inserts in his *History*, book 5, chap. 19. He says therefore
to the reader and copyist of that book A should act: although Christ expounds the words of Isaiah in Luke ch. 4 regarding himself.
Jeremiah ch. 11: "I as a gentle lamb," etc., Calvin says, according to a childish abuse, was transferred by the ancients to the body of Christ. And Jeremiah ch. 31: "A woman shall encompass a man," etc., Calvin asserts that Christians are deservedly mocked by the Jews, because they understand these prophecies of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Yet it is certain from ch. 11 of Matthew, 2 Cor. ch. 6, and Heb. ch. 8 and 10, that they must necessarily be understood of Jesus Christ and his kingdom.
Daniel ch. 2: "A stone was cut out without hands," etc. Daniel ch. 7: "Behold one was coming in the clouds of heaven as it were the Son of man," etc. Calvin writes that these are understood quite absurdly of the birth of the Son of God from the Virgin Mary, or of the eternal power given to him according to his human nature. The Doctors of the Church of God, however, unanimously conclude that the mystery of the incarnation of Christ is noted therein, and the evangelist John, Apoc. ch. 5, understands it of the supreme power given to the Son of God according to his humanity. Paul also expounds this passage in such a way, Philip. ch. 2, 1 Cor. ch. 15; indeed, even Christ applies it to himself, Matth. ch. 28.
Hosea ch. 13: "I will deliver them from the hand of death," etc. Calvin, page 165, impudently and blasphemously asserts that the apostle Paul understands this prophecy concerning Christ superficially and incorrectly.
Micah ch. 5: "Out of thee shall come forth he that is to be ruler in Israel," etc. Calvin, page 418, does not wish this passage to be explained precisely and properly concerning the divinity of Christ. But the Church of God, according to the explanation of Matthew, understands it of the twofold nature of Christ in one person. His exposition agrees with the first chapter of John, "In the beginning was the Word," etc. Likewise with the sayings of Paul, Rom. ch. 9, Galat. ch. 4.
Zechariah ch. 9: "Behold thy king cometh to thee meek," etc. Calvin, page 675, blasphemously writes that these words are explained by interpreters regarding Christ and his entry into Jerusalem in a nugatory or mendacious manner, and are plainly corrupted. He blasphemously derides and assails the interpretation of the Holy Spirit himself in Matth. ch. 21 and in John ch. 12.
Zechariah ch. 12: "They shall look upon me, whom they have pierced," etc. Calvin and Marloratus on John, page 597, say that this passage is distorted too violently according to the letter. Which gloss openly conflicts with the opinion of the apostle and evangelist John, who understands it simply of the side of Christ pierced by a lance.
Psalm 8: "O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name," etc. Calvin says, page 27, that the apostles, departing from the straight and native meaning of this psalm, explained it of Christ. Therefore Paul, 1 Cor. ch. 15, Eph. ch. 1, Hebr. ch. 2, sinned; indeed, even Christ acted wrongly, understanding the same of himself, Matth. ch. 11.
Psalm 21: "They divided my garments among them," etc. Calvin in the chapter 19 of John says that this passage was unseasonably transferred by the evangelists to the person of Christ, and that they departed from the true meaning of David in the explanation of this saying; which are plainly blasphemies against the Spirit who spoke through them.
Beza in the Colloquy of Mömpelgard, page 544, asserts that the saying of Christ, John ch. 3: "So God loved the world," etc., is not to be understood of all men, but only of the elect: and that in the universal promises of the Gospel, the particle "all" should not be taken according to the letter as meaning all men, but only as meaning certain ones. But this blasphemy of Beza conflicts with the saying of the Lord, by which he asserts with a double oath that he does not desire the death of the sinner, Ezech. ch. 33; likewise John, 1 epistle, ch. 2, condemns this exposition of Beza.
A The saying of Christ in John 6: "The flesh profiteth nothing," the Calvinists in their preface to the *Orthodox Consensus* interpret in such a way that, after the work of redemption had been accomplished on the cross, and the saying "It is finished" was uttered, the presence of Christ's flesh on earth was not in the least necessary; and Bullinger, in his book *On the Origin of Error*, p. 103, has said that there was no use for that body thereafter. There is no doubt that the very devil himself abhors this blasphemy. For why would he have remained suspended on the cross for a time? Why was he buried? Why did he converse with the apostles for 40 days? Why was the saying to Thomas: "Reach hither thy finger"? Why was the use of the sacrament of his flesh and blood instituted by him until he comes? Why is he to return in the same flesh, if there is no use for it? Thus, the Sacramentarians fall from one blasphemy into others.
In John 8: "Abraham saw my day, and was glad." From this, Beza attempts to prove that all the patriarchs had Christ present, no less than we do—in the *Colloquy of Montbéliard*, p. 67, that the body of Christ even existed in the time of Abraham, p. 77—that Christ wished for many kings and prophets to see and hear, and they did not attain these things. Why does the angel say: "Born to you today"? Why does Paul say, "when the fulness of the time was come," that Christ was born of a woman? 18
Gualterus, in his book *On the Incarnation of the Son of God*, fol. 61, regarding the words of Christ: "I leave the world; I am not in the world; where two or three are gathered, etc.; behold I am with you, etc.," denies that these are to be taken according to the letter, etc. But to these things, it has been answered that Christ no longer dwells with us on earth visibly and sensibly.
B Zwingli, in his book *On True and False Religion*, p. 262, so corrupts the text of the Gospel: Thus Luke has it: Christ, having taken bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it, saying: "This signifies my body, which is given for you." This depravation of the words of the Son of God, this alone, ought to deter all the pious from the fellowship and impiety of the Calvinists. This wickedness cannot be excused by any color of reason. Come forward, you unbelieving and miserable Calvinists, and defend this forger of yours.
The Calvinists, in their *Cacodox Consensus*, pp. 18, 123, 198, write concerning these words of the evangelist: "The Word was made flesh," that it is necessary to have recourse to a trope, etc. Therefore, these also are merely tropical: "This is my beloved Son"; "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet"; "It is I, be not afraid." And thus nothing is firm, nothing is ever spoken properly, which might withstand heresies, etc.
And let these things suffice to manifest the utterly diabolical audacity and impudence of the Calvinists in perverting, corrupting, and adulterating the Holy Scriptures, and in corrupting the sound understanding of them, so that they themselves might at length repent of it; or at least that those who have not yet been bewitched by them might diligently beware of their impostures. For if they admit such wickedness into the express word of God, how will they refrain from the writings of the holy Fathers, which they cannot but know so clearly and constantly contradict their errors? But of these things, elsewhere. Now let us return to the fragments of saint Irenaeus.
C From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on the conclusion of the book *On the Ogdoad*.
Page 339. *I adjure thee.* Eusebius, in the cited place, having made mention of the book *On the Ogdoad*, and being about to transcribe its conclusion, prefaces it thus: "In which also he notes that he himself had reached the first succession of the apostles. Where, at the end of the writing, having found a most charming note of his, we must necessarily include this also in this writing."
Page 339. *These doctrines.* From these things, Eusebius observes that Irenaeus was joined in great familiarity with the blessed and apostolic man Polycarp; which was not only an honor to him, but also brought a great accession of virtue, piety, and of true religion and purer doctrine.
*These things are repugnant to the Church.* If he deems it so absurd and impious to feel or teach anything against those things which the Church had held for two hundred years, what would he say if he had heard Luther vociferating after one thousand and five hundred years: "I do not care if a thousand Augustines, a thousand Cyprians, a thousand Churches stood against me"?
*These doctrines are not even the heretics'.* Certainly, Carpocrates and Marcion preferred to invent many gods, rather than ascribe the efficient cause of sins to the one and true God; from which impiety, however, the Calvinists now do not shrink, as we have shown and refuted in our dialogues. And lest they dare to deny this out of their accustomed impudence, behold again other things pronounced by Peter Martyr Vermigli, their fellow-minister, against the supreme goodness and holiness of God. In his book *On Judges*, p. 52: "God is in some way the cause of sin." Item: "God in some way wills sin." The same, in his book on *1 Samuel*, p. 21: "He not only permits, but also in a certain way wills sin." And in his *Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans*, p. 403: "God incites the devil to lie." Page 406: "God is in some way the cause of sin." Page 38: "God wills to incline and impel the wills of the wicked to grave sins." Page 40: "The will of God in some way concurs in the producing of sin." Page 74: "God wills the sins of the wicked." Beza, also, opening his mouth with him against the supreme justice and purity of our God, vociferates: "That which is evil, and therefore detestable, cannot be done by anyone, whether man or devil, without the decree of God." And again: "The fall of the first parents could not have happened without the will and ordination of God." And in his book *Against Heshusius*: "That Judas, by the decree of God, and therefore necessarily, betrayed the Lord." Item: "That Herod and Pilate necessarily condemned Christ." O if Polycarp had heard portents of this kind, how often, sighing, he would have repeated that saying of his: "O good God, to what times hast thou reserved me!" For he knew that these errors were horribly insulting to God and most pernicious to the human race. For according to this fifth gospel, not the devil, but God will be the true father of lies, the seducer, the author of all the wickedness of the world. And these oracles of the prophets will be false: D "For thou art not a God that willest iniquity"; "I desire not the death of the sinner"; "God's works are perfect"; "all things which he makes are very good"; "by the envy of the devil death entered into the world," etc.
*For I have seen thee.* Hence it is easily gathered how near Irenaeus was to the times of the apostles. For John, the apostle and evangelist, migrated to heaven in the 101st year from the birth of Christ from Asia Minor; Polycarp, his disciple, nonagenarian, in the year 168 passed from here to Christ by an illustrious martyrdom.
Irenaeus, moreover, was his auditor and witness. A Page 540. *And from that place.* He had indeed learned from the words and examples of the most holy apostle, his teacher John, that heretics were not to be welcomed into one’s house as manifest enemies of God, nor was one to associate with them in Christian salvation. Let many prelates of the Churches look to this now, they who keep such people in esteem, in their household, in their counsel, at their table, and in their intimate familiarity, and see how they treat as worthless the examples left to them by the most blessed bishops Polycarp, Ignatius, and Irenaeus.
*From the annotations of John Ernest Grabe on the fragment of the epistle to Florinus.*
Page 359. *These dogmas.* Eusebius in the aforementioned place proposes these things thus: "In the epistle to Florinus, which we mentioned before, Irenaeus again mentions his companionship with Polycarp, saying..." Now in that same epistle to Florinus, of which I have already spoken, the same Irenaeus recalls that he was intimately acquainted with Polycarp, saying: etc. *Nor did the heretics outside the Church ever dare to claim.* Thus Valentinus, when he had made mention of monstrous slaughter and adultery, and was in suspense as to what might be the origin and cause of these evils, nevertheless removes it altogether from God, saying: "To call God the maker of these things, he dared not," (behold the very words of Irenaeus), "was he able to think such things about God? For he is good and the maker of superior things; but of base things, nothing belongs to him." ... And how is it not absurd to call God the creator of these things, when he disapproves of them? To say that God is the author of these things, I could not dare. For how could such things be thought about God? For He is good and the creator of the best things; but nothing evil is in Him. And how is it not absurd to say that God is the builder of these things, when He rejects them? These and many other words of Valentinus regarding this matter, written down from Origen's dialogue B against the Marcionites and corrected by the Bodleian manuscripts, I gave in Vol. I of the *Spicilegium of Heretics of the Second Century*, page 56 sqq. Where at last, in the conclusion of this disquisition, he thought that the origin and cause of evils should be attributed to the matter which coexisted with God and from which He fashioned the world. Conversely, Ptolemy, a Valentinian heretic, Marcion, and others, invented two or three principles and deities, lest they might make the one good God the author of evils. Worse than these in this regard is Florinus, who did not fear to make God the creator of evils—that is, the cause of sin—as I have declared in the prolegomena, explaining the title and summary of this epistle to Florinus: *On the Monarchy, or, That God is not the creator of evils.*
*Annotations of Fr. Feuardentius on the first fragment of the epistle to Victor.*
Page 340. *For not.* That the Feast of the Passover should be celebrated by all Christians, and observed with great piety, no one, so far as I know, has yet denied; but in which month and on which day, this has been disputed variably and gravely, even from the very beginning of the nascent Church. For the Asians, by the tradition of John the Evangelist, who had settled among them, wished that it be celebrated by all means on the fourteenth day of the moon after the vernal equinox, on whatever day it might fall; and those who most fiercely defended this—Polycarp, Thrasea, Sagaris, Melito, and others of the same auditors of the blessed John, whom blessed Polycrates, bishop of the Ephesians, commemorates in his epistle to Pope Victor—wished this. And indeed it is very likely that John himself allowed this to the Christians recently converted from Judaism who were living in Asia, for the same reason that James permitted his people at Jerusalem to observe Jewish customs in many things; C though he himself might commend the day, as if it were a sacred synod and dedicated to the memory of the most blessed resurrection of Christ. For why else would it be called the Lord’s Day? Furthermore, Ignatius, appointed by the apostles to the Church of Antioch, who kept and taught nothing else but what he had learned from them, constantly taught Christians that the Passover was to be celebrated not on any fourteenth day of the moon, but on the Lord's Day only; lest, sharing in the custom of the Jews, they might communicate with those who had killed the Lord and His apostles. To this, Socrates adds in *Hist.*, bk. V, ch. 21, that those who inhabited Rome and other parts of the West constantly affirmed and maintained that the apostles Peter and Paul had left them the custom which they hold, of celebrating the Passover on the Lord's Day after the 14th moon. Moreover, St. Protherius, bishop of Alexandria, in his epistle to St. Leo, the Roman pontiff, writes that blessed Mark also handed down the same rite, received from the apostles, to his Alexandrians and Egyptians, just as the Venerable Bede testifies in his book *De ratione temporum*, ch. 42. So that the Church might not be torn apart because of these diverse rites, Pius, the Roman pontiff, who knew well that the rite of celebrating the Passover on the Lord's Day had been handed down and left to his predecessors and himself by the divine Peter, decreed that the same should be observed everywhere; to which all the Churches of the West and South yielded, and even those of the entire East; with the exception of a few Asians, who stubbornly persevered in their own rites until the general constitution of the Council of Nicaea concerning this matter.
D *For some.* This so-diverse observance of fasts, he later attributes clearly to the simplicity of certain people, and to those who had no power or authority to establish anything publicly concerning these matters. Therefore, nothing in this place can help the errors and contradictions of the Hagnostics against the reason for the fasts of Lent, the fourth and sixth days of the week, or even the Sabbaths; especially since it is completely certain from the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles of the apostles and their disciples and successors, through their sacred dogmas and decrees, that those had been prescribed by divine censure. We discussed these matters most copiously last year in our Commentary on the book of Esther, and then on the book of Jonah the prophet.
*Presbyters before Soter.* Although he calls the Roman pontiffs presbyters, he does not deny that they were truly bishops, and thus bishops and prelates of all other bishops and Christians, as is manifest from chapter 3 of the third book, and as we observed there; but he only indicates that all bishops are indeed presbyters, but not the contrary. For it is certain from the divine Scriptures and the sanctions of the councils that bishops are superior to simple presbyters both in the power of their order and in jurisdiction; to think the contrary is the heresy of the Aerians and Waldensians, which in this century the Lutherans and Calvinists strive to recall from Hell.
Page 341. *They sent the Eucharist.* From this truly illustrious and memorable passage, first observe the ancient and thus apostolic custom of the Roman Church, by which the pontiff would transmit the Eucharist to co-bishops who had not fallen away from his communion: but not to others, as they were aliens to the mystical body of the same Christ. Then, that from the very times of the apostles the Eucharist was accustomed to be kept in some honorable and clean place, both for the worship of those entering the temples, and for the communion of the infirm, and finally for the sake of sending it to visiting co-bishops. For this passage not only proves that, but also the apostolic constitution that is attributed to St. Clement: "After all have communicated, let the deacons carry what remains into the *pastophorion*." That truly was a sacred and honorable place.
A And he also uses these words: "For it is not regarding the day only, etc.," as above. Consult Socrates, bk. II, *Hist. eccles.*, cap. 22, p. 284.
*Of the day*. Fenard comments here in vain regarding the day of Easter, since Irenæus understood it as the day of the fast, as I shall prove a little later.
213 *For some think*, etc. Similarly in section 111, Dionysius of Alexandria wrote regarding the difference of the pre-Paschal fast in his epistle to Basilides: "They do not all remain fasting for the same number of days, nor in the same way; but some even pass over all of them, remaining without food, while others do two, others three, others four, and some none at all." And Epiphanius in his *Exposition of the Catholic Faith*, annexed to the books *Against Heresies*, after having spoken of the fast of the fourth and sixth day, and the Lenten fast, proceeds to the pre-Paschal fast, which in the Canons of Timothy of Alexandria is called "the fast of Pascha," and says that on the week preceding Pascha the faithful feed only on bread and water until evening, and adds: "But the more earnest ones pass over two, and three, and four, and some the whole week until the cock-crowing." In which *superpositio* (passing over) and fasting are distinguished; and those are said to fast who, after an entire day's abstinence, enjoy a light meal in the evening; but *those who pass over* are those who take no meal even in the evening, but abstain entirely, whether for one or more days, until the term of the fast, namely, the Paschal morning, which begins at cock-crowing. Yet it is most certain that Irenæus is speaking of the ante-Paschal fast, or rather the extreme *superpositio*, which was broken on the Paschal morning, not of the Lenten fast; to which this passage has been wrongly referred on account of the word "forty," and from that has been varied, and, not without violent distortion, explained by some, especially Bellarmine.
*One day*. There is no doubt that Irenæus understood the sixth day of the greater week, as Valesius noted on this passage; as it is the very one concerning which Tertullian writes in his book *De orat.*, cap. 14: "On which (day) there is a common and as it were public religious fast." He also brings forward other words of Tertullian, and Methodius, and even Cyril of Jerusalem to this effect, moved by which other learned men have thought the same. And yet these do indeed prove that there was a fast on that day by many, namely by those who fasted for two days or were making a *superpositio*. But truly those who observed this religious practice for only one day did so on the seventh day [Saturday], and therefore I conclude that the great Sabbath is to be understood by "this day" [*hanc diem*] from bk. V of the *Apostolic Constitutions*, cap. 18: "On the Preparation day and the Sabbath, fast in every respect, as many as have sufficient strength, tasting nothing at all until the cock-crowing; but if any one is not able to endure two days, let him at least keep the Sabbath." Nor is it probable that any of those fasting had taken food before the Paschal morning.
*But the two*. Valesius explains this correctly as the sixth day and the great Sabbath.
*But the forty hours*, etc. With a sign placed after "forty," men of exceptional learning and piety have explained these words as belonging to the forty-day fast; led by this, they undertook a defense of the Lenten fast against the new Aerians, and from this passage of Irenæus they endeavored to prove its antiquity. But neither the connection of the words, nor the authority of the manuscripts, nor the matter itself admits this distinction, which Ruffinus badly devised and upon which he built an exposition, as Dalleus and his defender Laroquanus and others have proven, and even Valesius himself in his notes to this passage. But you will say, if no distinction is made after "forty," the words yield an absurd sense; for nowhere…
any kind of human race that would measure the day by a space of forty hours. Valesius has cut this knot, not loosened it, by assuming that *nēsteian* (fasting) should be put in place of the word *hēmeran* (day). I retain *hēmeran*, but interpret it as "time"; read the usage of this signification proven by many examples, if you please, in Pso-chenius's dissertation *De siglio Novi Testamenti*, no. 51, and Vorstius's *Dissertation* 3, opposed to him. Nay, Irenaeus himself in the first verse of this fragment, "not only concerning the day," etc., understood by *hēmeran* "time," in the sense of the fast, not the paschal day, as everyone has hitherto accepted it. For if he had been about to designate this, he would not have said simply *hēmeran*, but would have added *Pascha*; or if mention of it had been made shortly before, he would have written *tautēs tēs hēmeras*. Nor does this sense fit well with the following words, wherein the difference that existed concerning the days of the fast is explained; this is certainly to be referred not to different modes of fasting, but at all points to the dispute concerning the day. Therefore, understanding the word *nēsteias* (fasting) also in the first clause of this period, I take *peri tēs hēmeras* as "concerning the day," that is, "concerning the time of the fast"; so that the sense of those words of Irenaeus is: that not only concerning the time, but also concerning the various ways of fasting before Pascha, just as around the paschal celebration itself, a controversy or doubt had arisen in the Church. To these, the following from Socrates, *Hist. eccles.*, book V, ch. 22, p. 386, are entirely twin: "For it is possible to find them disagreeing not only concerning the number of the days, but also not performing the abstinence from foods in the same way."
A But the authority of the Church lies with the bishops, not with the priests of the second order. But that no room for doubt might be left, he further subjoins: "We name Anicetus and Pius, Hyginus and Telesphorus, and Xystus." But these bishops of the Roman Church Irenaeus himself enumerated above, p. 203, line 3 sqq. (*lib. III, c. 3, n. 5*); and in the same place also, line 19 sqq. (*n. 4*), he says of St. Polycarp: "Appointed bishop in the Church which is in Smyrna by the apostles"; who, however, before the aforementioned p. 464, line 24 (in the *Epistle to Florinus*), is called by the same "the blessed and apostolic presbyter." Furthermore, p. 200, col. 1, line 18 (*lib. III, n. 2*), he mentions "the tradition which is from the apostles, which is preserved in the Churches through the successions of presbyters"; and presently p. 201, col. 1, line 13, he says: "that tradition which it has from the apostles, which reaches down to us through the successions of bishops." Where he calls those whom he had previously called "presbyters," he presently calls "bishops," and indicates them by the very word "succession"; for the succession of priests of the second order was never numbered. Nor do I restrict this acceptation of the word "presbyter" for "bishop" to bishops older than Irenaeus, and think they were so called by Irenaeus by reason of the age in which they preceded him; as indeed it has seemed to certain most clear defenders of the episcopal order, especially Pearson, B *Part II, Vindic. epist. S. Ignatii*, ch. 13. For Irenaeus writes above, p. 343, col. 2, line 43 (*lib. V, c. 26, n. 2*), concerning the bishops of his own time: "Wherefore it is necessary to obey those who are presbyters in the Church, those who have the succession from the apostles, as we have shown; who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the certain charisma of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father." And p. 344, col. 1, line 4 (*ibid., n. 3*): "But those who are believed by many to be presbyters, but serve their own desires... and are puffed up by the pride of the principal seat," etc. And col. 2, line 5 (*n. 5*), concerning good bishops: "With the order of the presbyterate they exhibit sound speech and conduct without offense." Of whom also a little later, p. 345, line 1 (*n. 5*), he adds: "The Church nourishes such presbyters, of whom the Prophet also says: 'And I will make thy princes in peace, and thy bishops in justice.' [* Psal. cxxxi, 9]." Otherwise, the innovators have no better right to collect from this that in the age of Irenaeus there was no distinction between bishops and presbyters, than they have to collect from the fact that the high priest of the Old Testament was called "priest" in the Holy Scriptures, in Philo Judaeus, and others, that one order or grade of pontificate and priesthood existed.
Nor are they found to differ among themselves only in the matter of days, but also in the abstinence from foods. For some, as he narrates in the following, abstained from all living things; some fed on fish, some also on eggs, in the evening, that is, after the fast, etc. Which difference Irenaeus also seems to have exposed in the middle part of this fragment, which has been lost. If, therefore, you take *tēn hēmeran* in this general sense of "time" here also, the sense is plain: namely, that some truly performed the *hypērētein*, or total abstinence continued for exactly forty hours, as it is better known that some did in the Church of old than that it must be proven. But those who object that the mention of forty "nocturnal" hours together with daylight hours was made here unsuitably, must needs object the same against Matt. IV, 2, where the Savior is said to have fasted not only "days," but "nights."
*Kratountōn*. I follow the interpretation of Rufinus rather than that of Musculus and Valesius, who, led by the authority of Socrates, who, as can be conjectured, had this text of Irenaeus before his eyes, understood *kratountas* as "the rulers of the Churches," imitating it in the cited place thus: "For the causes, as I think, of such a disagreement are the D rulers of the Churches of the time," etc. For I do not remember having read anywhere in the primitive writers that bishops were designated by the word *kratountōn* placed so simply; the other signification, however, occurs most frequently in the sacred code itself, Mark VII, 3, 4, and in the monuments of the Fathers, and in this place it answers well to the preceding verb *tērountōn*. But in whatever sense it is taken, the *culpa* (fault) of those *peri to akribes kratountōn* must be judged by Irenaeus to be not the religion of the ante-paschal fast itself, but the different manner of observing it.
*Oi pro Sōtēros presbyteroi* (The elders before the Savior). So also the preceding, "the elders before us." He understands those whom we now call, and whom Irenaeus himself elsewhere calls, "bishops"; which is clearly evident from this very letter, in which we are engaged, and from other places. For he does not say simply "the elders before the Savior," but adds: "the rulers of the Church, of which you now hold the leadership."