Nicolaus Gallasius, Epistola nuncupatoria ad Edmundum Grindallum, episcopum Londinensem

OF NICOLAS GALLASIUS

Dedicatory letter to Edmund Grindal, bishop of London, in which he sets out the plan of his edition of Irenaeus.

I send you, most distinguished sir, some fruit of our labour: hear in a few words the occasion for publishing it at this time, and at the same time what storm has now driven me to Geneva. When lately in France, under the pretext of a specious peace, our Churches had been so cruelly harassed that their condition was far more wretched than while they were formerly afflicted openly by outright war and dire persecutions, I, foreseeing a sad outcome in my mind, was planning to go to England, to you: for so it seemed to me that the way would be plainer, the crossing shorter, and the management of my affairs more convenient. But a riot suddenly broke out at Orléans, which the papists had long been plotting so as to slaughter our people with impunity; many were killed, and the building in which they used to assemble was consumed by fire, so that I not only had to change my plan, but had to seize on every way and means, and watch for any chink whatever, by which one might at once escape from so great a danger. For I had more than once undergone peril of my life: the fury of the people was inflamed, the ministers were demanded for slaughter, and the gates of the city were watched so carefully that no one could get out. So in so grave a crisis whatever means of leaving offered itself had to be used. And indeed the Lord did not leave me and some colleagues destitute of His help at that very moment. For, let out of Orléans by night, we were led by byways through the midst of the woods as far as Montargis. There, having paid our respects to the most illustrious duchess, who so bound us to herself by every kindness and piety that we can never repay her nor sufficiently proclaim her virtues, I decided to go farther: and by the favour and guidance of that same heroine, after long troubles, I came all the way to this city. Then, drawing breath a little, when I had conferred about public and private affairs with my most beloved and most delightful brother Master Theodore Beza, he asked me what I now had in hand. Then I answered that I was thinking only of relieving my mind and easing it from those cares by which it had long been harassed. "It is not like you," he said, "to indulge in languor and idleness: and I know for certain that you cannot spend in leisure this time which is given you free from business." So, having urged me to sermons and lectures, he added at the same time that he had long been considering something in which I could, if it seemed good, put my effort to no useless purpose. "You know well enough," he said, "how useful is the reading of the ancient doctors, which most people nevertheless neglect, both because of their obscurity and also because of a certain impurity which those times, already in decline, brought into Christian doctrine. A remedy can easily be brought to both obstacles if, first, the books being divided into chapters, summaries of the matters and opinions are set at their head; once these have been taken in and looked over, the reader will easily grasp what each part contains: and, that chief labour being overcome, he will easily drain the rest, and, enticed by a taste of the doctrine, will also gather the hidden fruit

and store it away. Then the impurity will easily be met if at the end of each work a warning or critique is added, by which those things are shown that are less consonant with pure and sound doctrine, and the twisted, or tangled and involved, passages of Scripture are explained by their true and genuine interpretation." Then he advised me, having weighed the matter carefully, to judge whether it was a thing worth spending labour and effort on; and he urged me to put my hand to it in this leisure of mine. When I had considered it more attentively, I agreed entirely. I made trial of the thing itself, and plainly recognized that it was a work worthy that very many learned men, practised in divine things, should bend their minds to it: for scarcely would one man suffice for unrolling, annotating and revising so many volumes of the ancients. It seemed good, therefore, to make a beginning from him who is reckoned the most ancient among the Latins, namely from Irenaeus: whose writings, as they were obscure, so in very many places were corrupted and depraved. And although I do not think he should be numbered among the Latins (for the phrasing is plainly Greek), yet since he has not yet appeared clad in his own natural dress and adornment, I leave him the place which he has held until now among the Latins. Some pious and learned men testify that they read the Greek in the Venetian library: where, when it was later sought by the same men, the place was found empty. Others also report that it was seen in the Vatican. Those who take such monuments away from the Church, or begrudge them, deserve to be tormented for ever by the horrible furies of envy and the dire wound of conscience. That Irenaeus wrote in Greek, however, is attested by many pages which we find transcribed in Epiphanius. These we have inserted in this book, and set against the version, so that the pious reader might easily judge of this matter. But if anyone should object that Irenaeus could have written in both languages, and translated into Latin what he had first published in Greek, although it does not seem likely to me, I do not greatly trouble myself, nor indeed do I think it worth contending over. It is enough for me that he is Greek and wrote in Greek; which the titles of the books, the lines of Homer and Hesiod woven in, and likewise the very frequent anacolutha and unfinished constructions sufficiently show. Besides, there are words, phrases and forms of speech little used by Latins: for example the noun conditio for creation, aegrimonia for aegritudo, deminoratio for diminutio, habere for posse, quemadmodum for quomodo, "God was not well pleased in them" for "did not rest content," or "did not hold them accepted," and six hundred of the kind: which the diligent reader will easily be able to notice. And indeed the best assessor and judge of this matter is Jerome, who constantly counts him among the Greek writers. Here, however, attention and diligence are needed, so that the matters and the opinions may be grasped. For besides the fact that the matter he treats is obscure, his style is rather harsh and rather remote from the usage of Latin speech. But all things will be made easier by the summaries of each chapter

prefixed by me at the beginning, whereby the mind and aim of the author are openly and briefly declared. I have marked off everything with numbers. The passages of Scripture which he cites, I have noted in the margin: and the faults which occurred, after collating copies and passages of the author himself, I have emended. I have followed the old division of chapters in the four books: which certainly I think were neither so divided by the author, nor had summaries prefixed to them by him. For the readings are often shorter and interrupted, or even longer; while the summaries sometimes either do not touch the matter, or pass over what is chief. Moreover, the fifth book, which no one hitherto had divided, I have marked off into chapters, to which, as to the others, I have added summaries of the matters and thoughts. Truly all things had to be carefully weighed by me, and read over and examined again and again, that I might make plain now what the heretics meant in those so great labyrinths of errors, now by what arguments the pious man refuted their dogmas. And those who cannot swallow the tedium of this searching out, I do not wonder that in the reading of this and similar authors they do not advance much or long: nor do they eat the kernel, because they do not crack the nut. Yet the fruit of his labour has never accrued to any studious man save to him who has assiduously and constantly persevered in it. To me certainly the labour was most welcome, because in gathering together the things that are chief, and reducing them under main heads, I hoped that I would thus relieve the reader of trouble, so that neither obscurity nor difficulty could any longer deter or delay him. Nor, as I think, will my hope disappoint me among those who will attend more closely, and judge candidly and sincerely. Irenaeus abundantly testifies how much trouble was given him in unearthing and bringing forth into the open the errors which the Valentinians so craftily dissembled and covered up, that very few understood what they taught and upon what arguments they relied. Now therefore, in understanding those things which so great a man with great labour unearthed and uncovered, it is no wonder, now that those errors have been taken away and many centuries have passed, that some labour is expended by us also. But his zeal, vigilance, and skill are to be imitated by us. So great diligence and sagacity certainly did he employ in tracking the footprints and steps of monstrous wild beasts of that sort, that he not only found out their lairs, but drove them out thence as if from dens and thickets into the midst of the fields and the open light, and so brought them forth that they could neither lie hid nor any longer harm the unwary. By which example he warns us how carefully bishops and pastors ought to guard their flocks, lest they be infected by the pestilent venom of such serpents. For they are vehemently deceived who think that the description and refutation of those ancient heresies pertain nothing to us or to our times. And in vain do they allege that those errors were so absurd and monstrous that no one now will cleave to them. For certain fanatical men in our time have brought in dogmas neither less absurd nor less monstrous, nor with less craft have they seduced unlettered and simple men, nor with less obstinacy have they withstood the truth. Do we not see daily what fallacies and frauds Satan uses to renew heresies, and so to trick them out with a certain specious dye that they seem never to have existed before?

Who does not see that those who today impugn now the divine, now the human nature of Christ, have drawn their dregs from the very same puddles and sewers? Moreover, how many things has the sect of the Anabaptists of our time similar both in doctrine and in rites to those ancient heretics, whom nevertheless it has perhaps not even known by name? Truly that ancient

serpent who long ago harassed the Church of God with such instruments, and retarded the course of the Gospel, is no less cunning and subtle than of old in stirring up such champions and masters of the games, by whom he may trip up those who show themselves unworthy of the desired light of the Gospel. Who would ever have thought that men would degenerate into brute beasts, or rather be turned into monsters that would surpass all the savagery, baseness, and filthiness of wild beasts? For by what name shall we call those who so extinguish the use of reason as to take away the distinction between good and evil? And though they are most impure and most wicked, yet they deny that they are guilty of any impurity or wickedness; who attribute their unspeakable lusts, passions, shameful deeds, and crimes to God: and when they have indulged to the utmost the desires of the flesh, and have wallowed in all the mire of vices, they boast that they are spiritual and perfect: while those who study sobriety, continence, and purity, they trample under foot and tread down with jeers and mockeries as rude and ignorant? Yet such men have existed in our time (and would indeed that they did not still exist!) as Irenaeus describes in the first, ninth, twenty-third, and thirty-fifth chapters of his first book. For what has Satan not contrived at the rebirth of the Gospel, that he might turn aside or retard its course? With what arms and engines, however, he is to be resisted, this pious bishop and other ancient doctors have taught us by their example. For they fight with the doctrine of Christ and the apostles alone: by which they examine all dogmas, traditions, and rites. For what the heretics boasted, as the partisans and patrons of superstitions do today, that they had received their figments and ravings from the apostles, is at once easily refuted from their writings. Which I judge ought also to be done by us against all defilers of the Christian religion. And this indeed you have ofttimes experienced, most illustrious sir, and have proved in fact, as often as you had to deal with fanatical and stubborn men who were continually troubling your Churches. To this I can in great part bear witness, who myself was present, saw, and perceived with what care and vigilance you consulted the peace of the Churches over which you preside, with how great zeal you purged them both from impious rites and from the errors of the Anabaptists which had crept in: with what sedulity you quieted tumults and dissensions, whether they had arisen among your own people or among foreigners. For as much as in you lay, the Churches of the strangers which by the kindness of Queen Elizabeth have been gathered at London, you have not only preserved sound and whole without, but have rendered free within from fear, from dissension and division. You have restrained rash men greedy of innovation, you have repressed the insolent and stubborn, you have tamed the puffed up, you have protected the innocent, you have calmed quarrels and strifes, in fine you have shown yourself truly an Irenaeus and a furtherer of tranquillity. These things I could not pass over in silence or dissemble without the fault of an ungrateful mind: since a very great fruit of those troubles, which you once bore for the sake of our countrymen, has returned to me. For both when the Churches of the strangers had been purged from errors by your effort, and when the tumults which many had stirred up had been calmed, we enjoyed greater quiet and freer peace among you. Deservedly therefore do I compare you to Irenaeus, whom you have diligently imitated in the same affairs: and with the best right do I offer to you our watchings and labours upon his book, which may be witnesses of my grateful and mindful heart towards you. For since you have shown yourself a patron and guardian of our Churches against the snares of Satan and of pestilent men who were then plotting ruin against them, it is right that thanks should be rendered to you in my own name and that of our countrymen, and also to your people of London, whose humanity, beneficence, and liberality,

like your own towards exiles and banished men when they were among you, we have very often experienced in a most adverse time. I hear that at this time it is no less: on which account we confess that we owe very much to you and to them. That the Lord may repay you, and increase His gifts in you and yours, I ask and wish with the greatest prayers I can. And you I beseech and entreat that, such as you have already shown yourself to our people, both in cherishing the good, and in restraining the evil, and also in repressing the factious and those eager for innovation, so that the tranquil state of that little Church might be preserved amid the very storms, though in the midst of the sea, such you may also show yourself hereafter, nor suffer yourself to be moved from your course by the ingratitude or malice of anyone. Which although I do not doubt that you will abundantly do of your own accord, nevertheless

both my zeal for our countrymen and the dangers which continually impend render me anxious, and compel me to ask the same thing again and again. This also I ask, that with the same affection of heart towards you wherewith I offer you this prelude and specimen, such as it is, of a greater work (if the Lord shall grant it), you may receive it, nor think that I had anything else in view than to show myself mindful and grateful to you. Very many excellent men who have betaken themselves hither pray well for you, and above all our Beza salutes you, by whose companionship and goodwill I am so refreshed that this exile has now been rendered lighter to me. Fare you well, best and most respected sir. May the Lord Jesus Christ perpetually favour you, long preserve you safe, and bless your labours and cares. At Geneva, the day before the Kalends of February, 1569.