vailed in the jirimitivo Church respecting many most important points." Especially valuable, and the most important of all the writings of Irenivus, is liis work 'E\iyxo(: Kal uvaTpoTn) ti^ii: \pevCori>f.wv yvwctwQ, gen- erally published under the Latin title De Refututione et liversione Falsce JScienlm (" A Refutation and Subver- sion of Knowledge falsely so called"), and more com- monly even under the shorter title oi Adversus Ilareses ("Against Heresies"). This work, which was mainly directed against the (Jnostic error of that day, was com- posed during the pontiticate of Eleutherus, and " is at once the iiolemic theological master-piece of the ante- Nicene age, and the richest mine of information respect- ing the Gnostics, jjarticiilarly the Valentinian heresy, and the Church doctrine of that age" (Schaff). The work is dividell into five books. The first of these con- tains a minute description of the tenets of the various heretical sects, with occasional brief remarks in illus- tration of their absurdity, and in confirmation of the truth to v.'hich they were opposed. In his second book, Irena!us jirocccds to a more complete demolition of those heresies wliich he has already explained, and argues at great length against them, on grounds principally of reason. The three remaining books set forth more di- rectly the true doctrines of revelation, as being in utter antagonism with the views held by the Gnostic teach- ers. " In the course of this argument many passages of Scripture are (juoted and commented on ; many inter- esting statements are made, bearing on the rule of faith ; and much impurtant light is shed on the doctrines held, as well as the practices observed by the Church of the 2d century." As an introduction to the study which he describes, and with which he manifestly had taken great pains to make himself familiar, and as an expose and refutation of them, for which the great learning of the i\riter, acknowledged by nearly all his critics, for- tunately coupled with a firm grasp of the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures, especially fitted him, this work is truly invaluable. And though it must be admitted that on some points Irenaius has put forth very strange opin- ions, it cannot be denied that, upon the whole, his A d- i-ersus Ifcm-escs " contains a vast amount of sound and valuable exposition of Scripture in opposition to the fanciful systems of inteq^retation which prevailed in his day." The A drcrsiis llcereses was written in Greek, but it is unfortunately no^v no longer extant in the original. The English translator of it for Clark's (Edinburgh) edi- tion says that "it has come down to us only in an an- cient Latin version, with the exception of the greater ]iart of the first book, whicli has been preserved in the original (ireok, through means of copious quotations made liy Hippolytus and Ejjiphanius." The text, both of the Latin and of the Greek, as far as extant, is often most uncertain, andthis has made it a difficult task for translation into English. In all only three SISS. of it are known to exist at present; but there is reason to believe that Erasmus, wlio printed the first edition of it (1520), Imd others at hand in his prej)aratiou of the ^vork for the press. Tlie Latin version, si)oken of above as the only complete version of it, was, according to Dodwell {Du.wrtt.Irm.'v,^, 10), prepared in the 4th cen- tury; but it is known that Tertullian, in his day, used the same version, and it is highly probable, therefore, that it was made even as early as the begiiming of tlie 3d century. It is certainly to be deplored that the oth- er codices which Erasmus must have used have not come down to us, or that they are, at least, not known to us, for they might, perhaps, enable us to determine more definitely his meaning in manj' passages now quite obscure to us in their liarbaric Latin. From 152G,when Erasmus printed his first edition, to 1571, several edi- tions were produced. Hut all these had depended on the ancient barbarous Latin versions, and were more- over defective towards the end by five entire chapters. Those latter were first supiilied in print by Prof. Fuar- dentius, of Paris, in an edition of 1575. which was re- printed in six successive editions Gallasius, a minis-
ter of Geneva, also had in 1570 supplied the Latin with the first portions of the Greek text from Epiphanius, In 1702, Grabe, a Prussian, resident in England, pub- lished an edition at Oxford, which contained consider- able additions to the Greek text, besides some fragments. But tlie first reaUy valuable edition was that by the Benedictine Massuet (Paris, 1712; Venice, 1724, 2 vols. foL), since (1857) added to the Migne edition of the fa- thers, of which, very unfortunately, all the stereotype plates have lately been destroyed by fire. Another edi- tion, containing the additions which ha^•e been made to the (Jreek text from the recently discovered Philoso- phoume/ia of Hippolytus, and thirty-two fragments of a Syriac version of the Greek text of Irenasus, culled from the Nitrian collection of Syriac MSS. in the British Mu- seum, all of which in several instances rectify the read- ings of the barbarous Latin version, was prepared by Wigan Harvey, at Cambridge, in 1837, under the title tS. Irernei Episcopi Lufjdunensis lihri qitinque adversus llcereses, and may be considered the best now extant. It is also enriched with an introduction of great length, which supplies much valuable information on the sources and phenomena of Gnosticism, and the life and writings of Irenieus. It furthermore contains notes, which dis- play great research and erudition, and are especially de- serving of notice on account of the hypothesis which the writer seeks to estal>Iish, that Irenseus understood Syriac, and that the version of the Scriptures used by him was in the Syriac. An attempt has also been made by H. W. J. Thiersch (in the Studien n. Kriiiken, 1845) to translate the Latin version of the first four chap- ters of the third book back into the original, in ordei! to lead to a better understanding of Irenaeus's meaning. Objections to the genuineness of this work of Irena;us were of course made by the so-called " liberal" German theologians, as it is one of the " historic links associating the Christianity of the present day with that of ouf Lord's apostles and disciples," and a work on which " we depend for satisfactory evidence respecting the canon of the New Testament" (see below, under " Doctrines of IreniEus,'' Fronde's attack against Irenaus as a witness for the Gospels). They were made first by Semler, but were " so thoroughly refuted," says Dr. Schaff {Cli. Hist. i, 489, foot-note), "bj^ Chr. G. F."Walch {De Autkentia lihrorum Irencei, 1774), that Miihler and Stiercn might have spared themselves the troidjle."