Volume, are of considerable interest, having now for the first time been placed by the side of the Latin version. Their marvellous agreement with this translation, is another very satisfactory test of its close fidelity to the original; it is also particularly fortunate that these Syriac fragments represent, not any one or two of the books, but the entire work throughout its whole course; while 'one of the rubrics shews that the work as translated in the East, was apparently as bulky as that operated upon in the West. The peculiar interest of the portion of an epistle to Victor concerning Florinus may be noted; and generally, these fragments throw some light upon the subordinate writings and treatises of Irenæus. They have been obtained præter spem, and were the Editor's reward for searching through this noble collection of Syriac MSS. of high 'antiquity. Several additions have been made to the Greek text from Hippolytus; and the transcription of passages of some extent in the Philosophumena, from this work of Irenæus, adds strength to the general argument, that they were made by a pupil of Irenæus, and more probably by Hippolytus than by any other. 6 1 Syr. Fr. v. n. I. 2 Syr. Fr. xxviii. 3 The Nitrian collection cannot fail of becoming better known. The extracts made for this edition are as the οἶνος πρόδρομος of a promising vintage. A valuable fasciculus of Ante-Nicene Theology is to be obtained from this source; and descending to a later period it is particularly rich in subjects connected with the Nestorian controversy. These Any future editor of the works of Cyril of Alexandria will find that it teems with passages and treatises, bearing the name of the master spirit of the Ephesine period. 4 A lithographed facsimile of three of the more ancient Codices that have furnished extracts will be found after p. xii. 5 See General Index, Hippolytus. * Μαθητὴς δὲ Εἰρηναίου ὁ Ἱππόλυτος. PHOT. Bibl. Cod. 121. quotations indeed will not justify the conjecture that Hippolytus was the friend, at whose instance the work was written, for the chronology of the two writers makes the supposition wholly untenable; Hippolytus must have been as young, when the work was written c. Hæreses, as Irenæus was when he heard Polycarp. If this work were written before A.D. 190, we know that Hippolytus was in his 'vigour A.D. 250, when 'he wrote against Noetus. He may have received instruction therefore from Irenæus; but he can scarcely have suggested to him the need of such a work as that now before us. These are questions however that belong rather to the Life of Irenæus in a subsequent page. The appearance of the invaluable work of Hippolytus rendered it necessary that many of our ideas upon the Gnosticising heresies of the first two centuries should be readjusted; and that some systematic account should be given of the origin and phenomena of this remarkable progression of the human intellect; 3Dr Burton in England, and Neander, 'Beausobre, "Matter, and Baur upon the continent, have all written at great disadvantage, from want of the light thrown in upon primitive obscurity by the Philosophumena. The necessarily limited space that could be devoted 1 EPIPHANIUS writing A.D. 375, says μέχρι Νοήτου καὶ Νοητιανῶν διαλαμβανό that NOETUS became heretical about 130 years before; où pò éTŴY TλELόνων, ἀλλ ̓ ὡς πρὸ χρόνου τῶν τούτων ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα, πλείω ἢ ἐλάσσω. Har. LVII. I. 3 ἦν δὲ τὸ σύνταγμα κατὰ αἱρέσεων λβ ̓ ἀρχὴν ποιούμενον Δοσιθεανούς, καὶ μενον. Syst. 3 Bampton Lecture. 4 Genetische Entwickelung des Gnost. 5 Histoire de Manichée. 6 Histoire Critique de Gnosticisme. 7 Christlische Gnosis. to the subject in the preface to the present volume, has been occupied, not so much in matters of detail, as in an attempt to chart out the ground that any future historian of the subject might be expected to traverse; and to bring under a stronger light the main principles that animated the Gnostic movement. In any case definite ideas upon these two points of investigation seem absolutely necessary, for the due appreciation of the Author's general argument. The text then of the present Edition represents the readings of those three MSS. that are alone extant and available. Generally speaking the Codex Voss. agrees with the Clermont copy, the most ancient and valuable of all. The Arundel variations mark that it belongs to a distinct family of MSS.; the divergence from one common stock having taken place apparently at a very remote antiquity. Other copies formerly existed that have since disappeared. Nothing further is known of the three Codices used by Erasmus, than that they represent MSS. of a later age. The Codex Vetus of Feuardent possesses a shadowy existence in the variations reported by him; they more usually agree with the Clermont and Voss text, than with the Arundel. This copy has now disappeared from the Vatican. Massuet cites various readings from a paper MS. of the thirteenth century in the collection of Cardinal Othobon at Rome. This too has perished; but it agreed pretty closely with the readings of the two Mercer MSS. so frequently quoted by Grabe. The marginal notes of Passeratius, made upon his copy of the Erasmian edition, throughout the first Book and the opening chapters of the second, have been presumed to express his collation of some ancient MS.; but this is far from certain. Some of the corrections are manifest conjectures. In any case the original source of them was never known. The same degree of doubt scarcely applies to the readings marked by Grabe as Merc. I. and II. They are noted in the Erasmian Edition belonging to the Leyden Library, and were used by Stieren. The readings marked 1. specify the testimony of one of two copies; while II. implies that the same word was read in both. It does not appear that one copy was marked 1. and the other II. Erasmus put forth three editions of Irenæus in the years 1526, 1528, 1534; and after his death, Stieren enumerates as many as seven reprints of the original edition between 1545 and 1570, when the edition of Gallasius appeared at Geneva, and contained the first portions of the original Greek text from Epiphanius. It was a great step in advance. In the following year Grynæus put forth an edition of a very different character, having nothing to recommend it. In 1575 Feuardent's edition appeared, the first of a series of six that preceded Grabe in 1702. In Grabe's Oxford Edition considerable additions were made both to the Greek original, and fragments; and the text was greatly improved by a collation of the Arundel MS. with additions from the Cod. Voss. Ten years later the Benedictine edition appeared, similarly enriched with the B readings of the Clermont copy, and with a few more original fragments. Massuet's three Dissertations also are a great acquisition. This edition was reprinted at Venice A.D. 1724; the only remarkable addition being the Pfaffian fragments, inserted only to be condemned upon the narrowest theological grounds. In every respect the Venetian is far inferior to the original edition of Massuet. The edition of Stieren, 1853, is a reprint of the Benedictine text, its principal original value consisting in a more careful collation of the Voss MS. than had been executed for Grabe by Dodwell. It contains the notes of Feuardent, Grabe, and Massuet, as well as the three Dissertations of the Benedictine. A few more portions of Irenæan text are added from Anecdota edited by Münter, and Dr Cramer. Finally, the present edition, with its Hippolytan owóμeva, and Nitrian1 relics, its merits and defects, is now in the reader's hands. 1 The Syriac Fragment, VII., came to hand too late for the emendation of the corresponding passage in the Latin It having been found necessary to set up the Armenian passages, pp. 448, 462, in London, the Editor returns his sincere thanks to Mr Watts, Temple Bar, London, for the use of the type and skilled work of his compositor. To Dr Rien also, Curator of the BUCKLAND RECTORY, HERTS. translation, Lib. III. c. xvii. 16. It exemplifies the high critical value of these Syriac MSS. Oriental MSS. of the British Museum, a like acknowledgment is due, for the kindness with which, as being upon the spot, he undertook the first rough revise of the passages in question, previously to the removal of the type to Cambridge. |