D. Erasmus, Epistola nuncupatoria ad D. Bernardum episcopum, cum Argumentis in libros Irenaei

PREFACES, PROLEGOMENA, NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE EITHER PUBLISHED OR ILLUSTRATED NEW EDITIONS OF IRENAEUS.

THE DEDICATORY LETTER OF DESIDERIUS ERASMUS, in which he explains what he has accomplished in editing the books of Irenaeus.

To the Most Reverend Father in Christ and lord, Lord Bernard, Bishop of Trent, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam sends greeting.

Behold, most accomplished prelate, under your auspices we bring forth into the light that great champion of the Church and, in accordance with the omen of his name, defender of ecclesiastical peace, Irenaeus. For εἰρήνη in Greek means peace, and in the Gospel the Lord pronounces blessed the εἰρηνοποιούς, that is, the peacemakers, because, He says, they shall be called sons of God (Matt. 5:9). For God is not the author of dissension, but of peace (1 Cor. 14:33), Who through His Son has reconciled the things that are in heaven and the things that are on earth (Col. 1:20). On the other hand, those who shake the world with dissensions take after their parent, who first sowed discord between God and man, and spoiled the saving crop of evangelical doctrine by secretly scattering tares among it (Matt. 13:25): a work of the night and fitting for the prince of darkness. Would that in these tumults of the Church also, than which we do not read even in the annals that any either more grievous or more widely spread have ever arisen, although the heresy of the Arians had spread most widely, there might arise some Irenaeuses who by an evangelical spirit would bring the world back into concord. For the books that now fly forth on both sides are almost of such a sort as sooner to stir up a new conflagration than to quench the old. Yet the Lord will accomplish this through Christian princes, after He has begun to turn from wrath and be propitious to us when we have turned to better things. I return to my Irenaeus. For why should I not call him mine, whom, when nearly buried, having wiped away the mould so far as was possible, we have restored to the light, a man truly unworthy to fade away in perpetual oblivion? For his writings breathe that ancient vigour of the Gospel, and his style proves a heart prepared for martyrdom. For martyrs have a certain diction of their own, grave, strong, and manly.

He was near to the times of the apostles, when the Church still flourished with the triumphs of the martyrs. For as a boy he heard Polycarp in Asia; and Polycarp was a disciple of John the Evangelist, by whom also he was appointed bishop for the Smyrnaeans, and was known also to the other apostles and disciples who had seen and heard the Lord, from whose accounts he was accustomed to relate many things which have not been handed down in writing. The discourses of this man concerning Christ and the disciples of Christ Irenaeus as a boy drank in with most eager ears, and deeply inscribed upon his heart, so that even as an old man he retained a vivid and present memory of all these things, just as he himself testifies at length in what he wrote to Florinus. And these things are related in the fifth book of the Ecclesiastical History, in the twentieth chapter. There remained in that age manifest traces of the ancient charisms of the Church, seeing that he himself relates in the fifth book that he had heard many brethren in the Church who had the gift of prophecy, who expounded the mysteries of God, who spoke in all tongues, who brought to light the secret things of men, not for ostentation, but for profit. And elsewhere he teaches that there were those who, calling upon the name of Jesus, drove away diseases and demons. You have the commendation of Irenaeus from antiquity. Receive now the testimonies of his piety and integrity, which indeed are the more splendid because they fell to one who deserved them in that age in which this praise had almost to be bought with tortures and deaths. Now the profession of the Christian name is a dainty thing, when there is no danger from a persecutor either to property or to body. Irenaeus, therefore, a presbyter of the Church of Lyons, is sent to Rome to settle a dissension of the Church, where Eleutherus then presided; and he is sent magnificently commended by the letters of the martyrs, both because

he excelled in zeal for the Gospel, and because he matched the dignity of the presbyterate with integrity of morals; whence he was held worthy to be chosen to succeed Photinus or Pothinus (for the manuscripts vary in the name), bishop of the Church of Lyons, who accomplished his martyrdom at the age of nearly ninety years. Of ecclesiastical concord he was so zealous that, when Victor the Roman pontiff had cut off many Churches from communion because in the celebration of the paschal day, and in the observance of fasts, they kept a custom different from the Roman usage, he with great freedom rebuked Victor because, contrary to the example of those whom he had succeeded, he was so ready to cut off Churches that differed not in faith, but in certain rites. The fifth book of the Ecclesiastical History, in the twenty-fourth chapter, relates these things more at length. Thus acted Irenaeus, whereas now certain Ptolemies stir up the calumny of heresies and schisms over however frivolous trifles. But whence could I bring forth a surer proof of his piety than from his own writings, which breathe an evangelical heart and a candidate (so to speak) for martyrdom? Now hear in a few words concerning his learning. He himself, in his preface to the first book, confesses that he is neither studious of eloquence nor skilled in it. And that it was not affected by him I could easily believe; that it was unknown to him, the very flow of his speech forbids me to believe, being in matters so thorny and intricate, nay, full of tedium, clear, orderly, and consistent with itself, save that it is not yet sufficiently clear to me whether he wrote in Greek or in Latin; though I rather think he wrote in Latin, yet was more skilled in the Greek language. Accordingly in speaking Latin he freely uses Greek idioms as though by his own right, such as noceri (to be harmed, used passively) for laedi, just as the Greeks say βλάπτεσθαι; and ἔχοντες, that is, having, for being able; of which sort we have noted several in the margins, lest the reader should be offended by them. Certainly it is established that he was most skilled in all the liberal disciplines. For Tertullian, in the book which he wrote against the Valentinians, indicating whom he followed in that work, speaks in this manner: as Justin, philosopher and martyr, as Miltiades, sophist of the Churches, as Irenaeus, most curious explorer of all doctrines. Moreover Eusebius of Caesarea, in the Catalogue of Illustrious Writers who about the time of Soter adorned the Church of God both by life and by writings, when he comes to Irenaeus, says: And chiefly Irenaeus, of all of whom most illustrious monuments of apostolic faith and sound doctrine have been brought down to us. And he flourished chiefly in the times of Commodus. For the rest, since order calls us to say something concerning the writings of so eminent a man, a certain grief steals into my mind that out of so many most praised monuments this work alone, as it seems, has remained unharmed. For he wrote a book to Blastus On Schism, another to Florinus, a presbyter who had lapsed from the Church, On Monarchy, or That God is Not the Author of Evils. For Blastus seemed to be held by the same error, who, formerly a disciple of Polycarp, afterwards fell away into the Valentinian heresy. He wrote also a book On the Ogdoad, which Saint Jerome highly approves. This is the one to which he attached the adjuration to copyists, which we also have prefixed to this work. Only these had Eusebius seen. Jerome adds a short volume Against the Gentiles, and again another On Discipline; likewise to his brother Marcianus On the Apostolic Preaching; finally, a book of Various Treatises. Out of so many labours of the man, the envy of the ages has suffered only this which we now give to remain. And would that it had been permitted to give it just as it was put forth by him! The first and second books, since they are almost wholly taken up with recounting the monstrous words and opinions of the heretics, have in some places tormented us, books which no one unless of a patient stomach will be able to read through without tedium. We have been aided by three manuscripts, one which, copied at Rome, that eminent patron of learning Joannes Faber sent to us from thence; two from monasteries

lent on loan. From Tertullian we have restored a few things, because there too there was even more corruption in the words; not a few things we have arrived at by conjecture, which, if they seemed insufficiently certain, we have noted only in the margin. Now with the defences of the Scriptures alone he fights against the troop of heretics, the chief of whom was that Simon the Samaritan, skilled in magic, who dared to proclaim himself the supreme God, and persuaded men that his harlot Selene was the supreme mind; and this impostor earned a statue at Rome with this inscription: To Simon the holy God. His disciple Menander baptized not in the name of Jesus, but in his own name, denying with Simon that this world was made by God, and saying that it was made by angels: which error he seems to have drawn from the philosophy of Plato. After him Saturninus of Antioch said that this world was made not by the supreme God, but by seven angels. Following these, Basilides of Alexandria broke out into greater madness, besides other monstrosities of doctrines bringing in a certain supreme God, and imposing upon his figment an equally fictitious name, Abraxas, who seems to have furnished Valentinus with the seed-bed of his madness. For what the former called heavens, the latter called αἰῶνας (aeons). Next Nicolaus, the teacher of turpitude, with those before him denies that this world was made by God. Moreover the Ophites also put forth certain monstrous dreams concerning aeons, and their chief Jaldaboth. To these succeeded Carpocrates, the founder of the Gnostics, openly practising magic, and boasting of παρέδρους (familiar) demons, something like what we read of Socrates. These were followed by Cerinthus, denying that the world was made by God, falsely asserting that Christ was born of the seed of Joseph, and that the law was given not by God, but by angels. Contrary to him, Ebion so builds up the law as to subvert the Gospel. To such monsters succeeded Valentinus, the most monstrous of all, a follower of the Platonic philosophy, a man otherwise powerful in learning as well as in eloquence. He aspired to the dignity of bishop, but taking it ill that another was preferred to him who had confessed the name of the Lord under torture, he turned his mind to troubling the Church, dragging the whole Christian doctrine over to fabricated words and intricate fables. To his impious inventions Ptolemy and Secundus added somewhat, namely by increasing the number of the aeons, yet in such a way as to differ from him in certain points. Heracleon taught the same things as Valentinus, but by novelty of expression strove to seem to hand down different things. After him Marcus and Colarbasus, otherwise not degenerating from Valentinus, devised a wonderfully ridiculous thing, dragging all the mysteries of the faith over to the Greek alphabet. To these succeeded Cerdon, dragging with him a whole Lerna of impieties. For he feigned two gods, the one good, the other cruel, and that the world was created by the cruel one. The law he altogether rejected; only the Gospel of Luke, and not all of that, did he receive; the Epistles of the Apostle Paul he approved neither all nor entire. Rejecting the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse as false, he taught that Christ the Son of the good God came only in an appearance, and neither truly suffered nor was truly born; approving the resurrection of the soul, denying that of the flesh. While he at times confessed his error, and again secretly, and sometimes openly too, taught impious things, at length being convicted, he was cut off from the communion of the brethren like a hopeless limb. Into his impiety succeeded Marcion, a native of Pontus, a student of the Stoic philosophy, a bishop's son, cast out from the Church on account of a debauched virgin, who nevertheless afterwards forbade marriages to Christians. The blasphemous doctrine of Cerdon and Marcion was taken up by a certain Lucanus, obscure for this reason, that he innovated nothing out of the doctrine of those whom he followed. But Apelles, Marcion's disciple, in order to make himself the founder of a new faction, rejected many of his master's dogmas, yet in such a way as to substitute things in no wise sounder. He adduced for us a girl named Philumene, in whom he feigned that a prophetic spirit was present, whom nevertheless Augustine wrote was brought in by a certain Severus,

I do not know what he followed: for Eusebius and Tertullian agree in what I relate. Among these monsters lurked Potitus and Basiliscus, who, following Marcion, taught two first principles of things. Syrenus, raving still more, brought in three principles, or three natures. Following all these, Tatian, made a heretic from a disciple of Justin, revived the pestilent dogmas of Valentinus and Marcion: he had Calistio as his disciple. To so long a series did that detestable plague, which set out from Simon Magus, stretch itself, and it is wonderful to say how hardly it ceased. For the name of Valentinus was already extinct, although Valentinians were still not lacking. Nor did there seem likely to be any end at all, had not Montanus come, who abrogated the authority of all the others, proclaiming himself to be the Holy Spirit promised by Christ, who should lead into all truth. Though Manichaeus too seems to have drawn something of error from Basilides. And here there happened what is wont to happen in a very tenacious fever, which is now milder, now sharper, now turns itself into one form and then another, and cannot cease until it issues in frenzy or in some other more immediate ill. Against these monsters wrote Justin, whom Irenaeus cites several times, Miltiades, Proculus and Tertullian: if anyone will not be loath to read the most learned books which he wrote against the Valentinians and Marcion, and besides on heresies and on the prescriptions of heretics, he will understand these books of Irenaeus more rightly.

I now seem to myself to have said enough by way of preface, most distinguished prelate, so far as concerns the plan of this work, and it was time to put an end to the prologue: which indeed I shall do, once I have disclosed in a few words what thought came into my mind while I was occupied with this subject. For I cannot sufficiently marvel at the inscrutable counsel of God, Who in wondrous ways has vindicated, purged, instructed, exalted and made illustrious His bride the Church, in all of which there is nothing that is not most foreign to human counsels, as He Himself speaks to men through Isaiah: For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are My ways your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts (Isa. 55:8–9). As therefore the Lord Himself, descending from the heavens, opened the way into the heavens, and, having taken the form of a servant, gained for Himself dominion over all things that are in the heavens and that are on earth, and through the utmost ignominy attained eternal glory, conquered the enemy by suffering, and merited immortality by death: so He advances His little and unwarlike flock by defences most foreign to the reckoning of the world: through the unlearned He refuted the wisdom of the world, through a few He subdued all the nations of the world, through the weak He overthrew the power of tyrants, through the unwarlike He stormed every fortification that raises itself against God, through the obscure and lowly He darkened all the glory of the world, through sheep He tamed lions, through doves He drove away serpents. And He did indeed allow Satan and this world to rise up against His little sheep with all their arts and strength; but by His secret counsels He turned all evils to good for His elect. For He alone, the King of kings, knows both how to use good things and how to turn evil things to account for His own glory and the salvation of the Church. Against the few and lowly disciples of Christ there raged the zeal of the Jews, the haughtiness of the Pharisees, the authority of the priests, then power armed with the laws and forces of kings, the illusions of magicians, the learning of philosophers, the sedition of heretics. With so many engines did Satan assail the sheepfold of Christ. But, the Lord governing the endeavours and actions of men, the Church grew and gained strength through punishments and deaths; by the barking of impious philosophers the evangelical philosophy was confirmed; the illusions of the magicians made illustrious the divine power of Christ working in His disciples; the efforts of schismatics bound the concord of the godly more closely, and as it were drew them up into a phalanx; the impious dogmas of heretics drove them to search the secret writings. And so it came about that, while the Jews, with zeal for the law, but not according to knowledge, fight against the Gospel, we have learnt more surely that the shadows of the law are made obsolete, and the glory of the Gospel has been made illustrious. Again, while the persecutor tries by ignominies, tortures and deaths to extinguish faith in Christ, he has increased faith, kindled charity, made hope firmer, and, while he exercises the endurance of the godly, has made it illustrious. Lastly, while [the Church] is harried by the subtleties of heretics, she has learnt to use the armour of the divine writings the more, and the truth, being assailed, has been confirmed. The first encounter of the Church was with the Jews, whose remnants would that they did not survive even today! Here the apostle Paul showed himself a vigorous champion of evangelical liberty. Peter cast down the prince of magic. The second was with the philosophers and heretics, who mostly made war against the Gospel with the defences of philosophy. Their assaults, after the apostles, were met by men excelling in learning and eloquence. Nor is the sober knowledge of philosophy to be condemned on this account, that nearly all heresies were born of philosophers, since through philosophers likewise they have been crushed. Valentinus the philosopher had attacked the Church, but Justin the philosopher, and Irenaeus the philosopher, defended it. Marcion the philosopher assailed the truth, but Tertullian the philosopher finished off the enemy. Celsus the philosopher vomited blasphemies against Christ, but Origen, a better philosopher, made the glory of Christ illustrious out of his blasphemies. Libanius the sophist defended idolatry, but Chrysostom, more eloquent than he, upheld the true worship of God. Symmachus the orator did the same as Libanius, but Prudentius, a mightier orator, ran him through. And so a certain good hope holds my mind, that the Lord by His inscrutable counsel will turn this tempest of the Church to good outcomes, and will raise up for us some Irenaei, who, having settled the dissensions, may restore peace to the world. Meanwhile you will deign to receive this Irenaeus with a glad countenance, as by way of a good omen, best of prelates, as he comes forth into the light under the auspices of your name. To do this I was persuaded not so much by a singular favour of your mind towards me, as freely given as it is lasting, as by the integrity of your morals, proclaimed by the one voice of all, joined with admirable prudence and equal humanity. But no praise is worthier of a bishop than that you everywhere devote yourself to the peace and concord of the Christian people. And these virtues in you are the more admirable in this, that in the flower of your age you show yourself a Nestor, so to speak, both to the most illustrious prince Ferdinand and to the Church of Christ. I proclaim neither things unknown nor your own endowments, but for the gifts conferred on you we both give thanks to God and congratulate ourselves. May He from Whom alone true felicity proceeds increase your eminence for us all. Given at Basle on the sixth day before the Kalends of September. In the year MDXXVI.

The Same Author's Argument on the Second Book of Irenaeus.

In the first book he reviewed and exposed the opinions of Valentinus and of the others who followed him, which are mostly such that to have dragged them into the light is to have refuted them. Here he engages with the dogmas of each, showing what the heretics have filched from which philosophers for the deception of the simple. And he fights them in such a way as to take from their own doctrine the weapons with which to finish them off. For he who devises many things can scarcely be consistent with himself. There are one or two passages in this book which require a candid interpreter. One is chapter 49, where he seems to hold that the Father alone knew the day and the hour, the Son not knowing. I shall subjoin the words of St Irenaeus: Since even the Lord Himself, the Son of God, the very day and hour of judgement

granted that the Father alone knows, saying plainly: But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the Son, but the Father alone. If then the Son was not ashamed to refer the knowledge of that day to the Father, but said what is true, neither are we ashamed, etc. There is no doubt that Irenaeus wrote this in a godly sense. But he has finely set an example before us, who are ashamed not to know anything, even in divine things. The other is in chapters 39 and 40, where he relates that the Lord did not suffer in the thirtieth year, or the thirty-first, but taught the Gospel beyond His fortieth year. This opinion he confirms by reason and by a twofold authority. The reason he brings is this: that as the Lord had come to save children, youths, men and old men, so it was fitting that He should take on the ages of all; but after the fortieth year a man inclines towards old age. The authority he cites from the Gospel of John: You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham? From this he gathers that the Lord at that time had passed the fortieth year, but had not yet reached the fiftieth. He confirms this by the testimony of the disciples who had lived with John the evangelist in Asia, who declared that they had heard this not only from John himself, but also from other apostles. This opinion differs very greatly from the one which the Church now follows. Let the reader consider.

The Same Author's Argument on the Third Book of Irenaeus.

This most holy man Irenaeus seems to have taken pains that there should be no need of scholia or arguments; so diligently does he gather the sum of the matter in the titles of the chapters, and, speaking a preface to each book, reviews in order what he said in the previous book, setting out what he is about to say in the next. If anyone, however, wishes to learn of these things more fully, let him read the five books of Tertullian Against Marcion, in which he imitates Irenaeus. The points we have noted are small, and few. In chapter 38 he quotes from Genesis: And he shall crush your head; so that he is referred not to the woman but to the seed of the woman, which is Christ. In chapter 21 he says that the son of man was commingled with the Word of God; in a godly sense indeed, but with a word from which the ears of theologians now turn away, although Augustine in his third letter did not shrink from the words for permingling and mingling: though what Augustine said is harsher than the saying of Irenaeus. For he says: since God was permingled with man; Irenaeus says that man was commingled with God. Only the word uniting pleases the schools now, though no word is more impious, unless we interpret it kindly. I mention these things on account of those who stir up astonishing tragedies over little words. Whose force they sometimes do not understand. In the same place St Irenaeus says that Christ according to human nature was adopted, so as to become Son of God. His words run thus: And He Who is the Son of God became son of man, commingled with the Word of God, so that, receiving adoption, He might become Son of God. In chapter 12, citing the passage from Acts 15, while he names things offered to idols, blood and fornication, he makes no mention of things strangled, and, unless I am mistaken, Ambrose somewhere cites it thus; the rest are too minute for it to be worth while to mention them.

The Same Author's Argument on the Fourth Book of Irenaeus.

Here Irenaeus, as though having struggled out of rugged and obstructed places, enters upon a freer field, explaining many passages of the Scriptures which the heretics had distorted. In this book, as also in the fifth, he frequently asserts free will, to which he attributes that the angels fell, and that man slipped into death, and that the impious slip daily. And this he does in more than one place. I shall set down one passage from chapter 71: And for this reason, he says, God gives good counsel to all; but He placed in man the power of choice, as also in the angels, etc. And elsewhere he says that man was made after the likeness of God in this, that free will was granted to him. Of the Eucharist he makes frequent mention, but with the reverence with which the ancients are generally wont to speak of this mystery: as in chapter 32 of this book he calls the Eucharist the new oblation of the new testament, which the Church, having received it from the apostles, offers to God throughout the whole world. Of transubstantiation he says nothing openly, except that Christ, as he relates, called bread made from grain His body, and acknowledged wine as His blood. Again in chapter 34 he speaks thus: How, then, do they say that the flesh comes to corruption and does not receive life, which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord. And soon after: As the bread which is from the earth, receiving the calling of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two things, earthly and heavenly. And he frequently uses the word offering. So great was the reverence of the most holy men in speaking of divine things, before the Church pronounced more explicitly upon mysteries of this kind. I think it was for this reason too that the early doctors spoke of many things more sparingly and covertly, lest, if they had thrown the holy thing to dogs, they should give heathens and Jews occasion for blasphemy. But you will learn better from Irenaeus himself.

The Same Author's Argument on the Fifth Book.

In this fifth book, although many passages of the Scriptures are diligently explained, there are yet certain things in it which, unless one interprets them suitably, do not seem to agree well enough with the dogmas which the Church prescribes at this time. For he approves the opinion of Justin the martyr, who said that Satan never dared to utter blasphemy against God before the Lord came to earth, because he did not yet know his own damnation. In another place he seems to hold that souls stripped of the body do not at once enjoy the glorifying vision of God, but are kept hidden until the day of resurrection: of purgatory there is no mention.

Nay rather, he seems to hold a twofold resurrection; first of souls, then of bodies. For he speaks thus at the end of the work: For since the Lord went away into the midst of the shadow of death, where the souls of the dead were, then afterwards rose bodily, and after the resurrection was taken up: it is manifest that the souls of His disciples also, for whose sake the Lord wrought these things, will go away into the invisible place appointed for them by God, and will abide there until the resurrection, awaiting the resurrection: afterwards, receiving their bodies and rising perfectly, that is, bodily, as the Lord rose, so will they come to the sight of God. Thus far Irenaeus; and in these words, when he says: Afterwards receiving their bodies, and rising perfectly, he hints at some imperfect resurrection of souls before the bodies are received back. Again, when he says: So will they come before the sight of God, he signifies that souls are not received into heavenly glory before the resurrection of bodies: in which error John, Roman pontiff, XXII of that name, seems to have been, who was compelled by the labour of the theologians of Paris to a recantation, before Philip king of the French, not without the trumpet; as John Gerson indicates in his sermon on Easter. Moreover, Jerome too somewhere testifies

he held the opinion of the Chiliasts, both elsewhere and in expounding the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel. But in many matters of this kind those ancients are to be read with candour, and sometimes even with indulgence, because at that time these things had not yet come into question, or if they had come, the Scriptures not yet having been thoroughly sifted, the Church had not yet pronounced her judgement upon them with a clear voice. In the first Preface indeed we doubted whether Irenaeus had written in Greek or in Latin, nor have we anything certain even yet, except that Jerome, in the passage which I have just cited, testifies that he was Greek: although here too one may doubt whether he called him Greek by nation, or a Greek writer. Yet it appears that he meant it regarding his writing,

since he joins him with Apollinaris, who it is agreed wrote in Greek. The words of Jerome run thus: Which both many of our writers, and especially the book of Tertullian which is entitled On the Hope of the Faithful, and the seventh volume of the Institutes of Lactantius promises, and the frequent expositions of Victorinus, Bishop of Pettau, and lately our Severus in the dialogue to which he gave the name Gallus; and, to name the Greeks, and join the first and the last, Irenaeus and Apollinaris. Thus far Jerome. The Greek titles of the books support this opinion. The only thing that tells against it is that we see some Greek verses intermingled in his books, which is customarily done by an author, not so by a translator: and further, that no one has indicated the name of a translator. Fare you well, reader.