PREFACE.

I have attempted to explain the text as clearly as I could, adding observations from learned men wherever they seemed to help in understanding the author, though I have always credited these authors by name. If the notes sometimes appear frequent or lengthy, I attribute this to the difficulty of the subject matter. I could not explain these points more briefly, fearing that in striving for brevity I might become obscure. Additionally, because Irenaeus brings forward many testimonies from the sacred books of both Testaments which come from a different version original: "ex alia verſione," referring to the Old Latin or Septuagint variants used by Irenaeus rather than the Vulgate, they seemed to contain significant differences. I believed it was worth the effort to note these for the sake of those studying Holy Scripture. Learned readers who do not require such notes may skip them and read Irenaeus continuously, as they are placed in the bottom margin and can be easily separated from the main text.

However, I did not burden the margins with notes intended merely for a display of my own meager erudition, or those concerning dogmas and controversies of faith, unless they could be resolved in a few words. I have learned from my own experience that nothing is more annoying to readers than being forced to stop at almost every step due to constant interruptions. I decided it was better to treat matters requiring a more thorough and accurate examination in individual Dissertations rather than in the Preface itself, lest the Preface grow too large and lose its proper structure. In these Dissertations, each matter is weighed in its own order and in a continuous series.

I have placed three such dissertations at the start of the work. In the first, I have discussed everything related to the persons, age, customs, writings, and dogmas of the heretics against whom Irenaeus writes. I have opened the sources from which their impure doctrine flowed. I have searched their deepest myſteria mysteries and attempted to uncover what lay hidden beneath the enigmatic shell of their words. In the second, I have studiously collected and explained everything concerning the life, deeds, martyrdom, and writings of Irenaeus, especially the five books of the Detectionis & everſionis falſo cognominatæ agnitionis Detection and Overthrow of Knowledge Falsely So-Called, for I have shown there that this is their genuine title. I also discuss the purpose and method of this work, and whatever remains in ancient records concerning the lost writings of this holy Doctor. In the third, I have unfolded the entire series of the holy Bishop's doctrine. I have pointed out minor stumbling blocks, if there be any, so that no one might accidentally trip over them. I have illustrated what was obscure, rejected what was foreign or poorly expressed, and explained and defended what had been wickedly twisted by heterodox writers and obscured by empty quibbles. I have placed these at the beginning so that the reader might move through the books of Irenaeus with an unimpeded foot.

Perhaps someone will be displeased by such a large mass of paper preceding a work that is not itself so vast. I myself was annoyed that the number of printed pages grew beyond measure and expectation. However, the printers were deceived, and I was as well, by the inequality of the handwritten pages; otherwise, I would have provided for this inconvenience. Furthermore, a brief and clear analysis of each book has been prefixed. These were skillfully prepared and published some time ago by our most learned Domnus Lord or Master Nicolas le Nourry in his Apparatu ad Bibliothecam maximam veterum Patrum Preparation for the Great Library of the Ancient Fathers, with a few additions or changes made to suit our edition. By these, the goal and argument of the book may be surveyed in a single glance.

At the end of the work, besides the fragments of the lost writings of Irenaeus gathered from various published and manuscript books—some of which appear now for the first time in Greek or in both Greek and Latin—I have added other excerpts from the books of the ancient Gnostics as an appendix. These excerpts, which occur scattered among the ancient Fathers, will bring significant light to many passages in Irenaeus. From this sample at least, one can easily perceive that the descriptions written by Irenaeus and other Fathers regarding those monstrous opinions were not baseless. The most famous Grabe had already collected the greatest part of these and inserted them into his Spicilegio Gleanings of the ancient Fathers and heretics of the first and second centuries. He checked some against the manuscript codices of the Bodleian Library, and I myself have checked some against the manuscripts of the Royal Library. Following these are the prefaces, prolegomena, notes, and observations of those who have previously published or illustrated new editions of Irenaeus. Thus, students may obtain in one volume and at less expense what they could previously only acquire through many books and at greater cost.

Regarding the notes and observations, I have seen to it that those of Billius, Fronton du Duc, and Feuardentius are edited in full, even though I had already taken much from them for my own notes. I believed it would be more pleasing to readers if I displayed the whole of what they had previously read only in parts. I selected very few notes from Gallasius, since most of them contain nothing but vain and witless declamations. From Grabe, I selected more

specifically those which Catholic ears can tolerate. I know well that the notes of Feuardentius do not please everyone and greatly displease Protestants. Yet no one can deny without injustice that they are learned for their time and that he was a pious and learned man who deserved well of Irenaeus and the entire Catholic Church. He often wanders far from the argument and attacks heterodox writers in a style harsher than is proper. But this should be forgiven due to his zeal for the Catholic faith and the time in which he lived, when Calvinists were attacking Catholics with perpetual insults and calumnies during fervent controversies and civil wars. Anyone who reads the writings of the ministers of that time and considers how shamelessly they slandered Catholics and violated the clearest testimonies of the Fathers will easily excuse Feuardentius.

If some parts of his argument now seem untimely, it is not his fault but that of his adversaries. They were inconsistent, repeatedly changing their course and retreating, forced to add or remove many things from their poorly established system according to the circumstances and arguments of the time. Certain more recent critics have reprimanded this most learned man more sharply than is fair because he cited several forged writings as true and attributed books and treatises to various Fathers which are now recognized as supposititious original: "ſuppoſititii," meaning works falsely attributed to an author, also called pseudepigrapha. But this was a common error of those times. Since the truth had not yet been sufficiently clarified nor weighed by the stricter rules of criticism, these things were cited in good faith when there seemed to be no reason for suspicion. Anyone who examines the authors of the Magdeburg Centuries a major 16th-century Protestant church history or that famous critic among Protestants, André Rivet, will immediately discover that if they did not fall into these same errors, they fell into other more serious ones and were no more skilled in the critical art.

Finally, if Feuardentius has erred in any way, he who does not hesitate to throw a fault back at one who has confessed and corrected it as soon as possible errs more seriously in my opinion. While preparing the first edition of Irenaeus and writing on book three, chapter thirty-three (now chapter twenty-one), among various testimonies of the Fathers he collected, he added one as if from Cyril of Alexandria's sixth book on John, chapter fifteen. This is not by Cyril, but by Jodocus Clichtovei, who inserted four books of his own commentaries among those of Cyril. Having immediately recognized the error, this good man hurried to correct it. But since the page had already been printed by the typographers, no other remedy remained except to warn readers in the index of errors how it should be corrected, which he did. However, when Francisco Suárez, without having read that index, criticized Feuardentius quite harshly, he was worthily punished for his thoughtlessness in the Cologne edition of 1500. Yet behold, a more recent critic, without having read either the mentioned index or the notes added in the cited edition, still charges him with this twice-corrected error based solely on the word of Suárez or Théophile Raynaud. With what words would Feuardentius, if he were alive, receive that "accurate" censor who does not even deign to open the authors he refutes? Be that as it may, I have seen to it that the notes and observations of Feuardentius are edited as they appeared in the newest editions of Irenaeus. However, I do not wish to guarantee all the sayings and allegations of the same, and I would say the same for other editors. It should not be expected of me to weigh every testimony of the authors he brings forward or to indicate if any error crept in while citing them. That would have been a work of immense labor. Had I undertaken it, I would have given not the notes of Feuardentius themselves, but new observations on Feuardentius with little or no fruit. Since Feuardentius and others adapted their observations to the old division of chapters which they followed, I have left them so adapted to prevent confusion. I have merely indicated the chapters and pages of the new edition in the margin.

Finally, I have carried out a third task, which was to prepare and offer the reader aids by which their labor might be lessened. Besides the three Dissertations mentioned above, and all the notes and observations by which I have attempted to elucidate difficult passages in Irenaeus, and the new division of chapters, new titles, and summaries by which the author's goal and argument are shown to the eye—in all of which there may be some help for some—besides these, I say, four larger and richer Indices than have appeared before have been added. The first is a Glossary or Lexicon of Greek words. The second is of the more difficult Latin words that are further from common usage, whose meanings are either specific to Irenaeus or his translator, or are not so obvious. The third is of all the testimonies of Holy Scripture which Irenaeus brings forward, noting any diversity that sometimes occurs when citing one and the same testimony. In this way, students of Holy Scripture can easily compare the sacred codices of Irenaeus with ours and observe what differences, certainly very slight, come between them. Finally, the fourth index is of all the principal things which