Chapter XXV.--How All came to an Agreement respecting the Passover.
1. Those in Palestine whom we have recently mentioned, Narcissus and Theophilus, [1717] and with them Cassius, [1718] bishop of the church of Tyre, and Clarus of the church of Ptolemais, and those who met with them, [1719] having stated many things respecting the tradition concerning the passover which had come to them in succession from the apostles, at the close of their writing add these words: [1720]
2. "Endeavor to send copies of our letter to every church, that we may not furnish occasion to those who easily deceive their souls. We show you indeed that also in Alexandria they keep it on the same day that we do. For letters are carried from us to them and from them to us, so that in the same manner and at the same time we keep the sacred day."
[1717] In chaps. 22 and 23. For particulars in regard to them, see chap. 22, notes 6 and 7.
[1718] Cassius and Clarus are otherwise unknown men.
[1719] i.e. in the Palestinian council mentioned in chap. 23. Upon this and the other councils held at the same period, see chap. 23, note 2.
[1720] This fragment is given, with annotations, by Routh, Rel. Sac. II. p. 3 sq. English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII. p. 774.
[1721] These epistles, like all the rest written at this time on the paschal question, are now lost (see chap. 23, note 4).
Chapter XXVI.--The Elegant Works of Irenæus which have come down to us.
Besides the works and letters of Irenæus which we have mentioned, [1722] a certain book of his On Knowledge, written against the Greeks, [1723] very concise and remarkably forcible, is extant; and another, which he dedicated to a brother Marcian, In Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching; [1724] and a volume containing various Dissertations, [1725] in which he mentions the Epistle to the Hebrews and the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, making quotations from them. These are the works of Irenæus which have come to our knowledge.
Commodus having ended his reign after thirteen years, Severus became emperor in less than six months after his death, Pertinax having reigned during the intervening time. [1726]
[1722] For a general summary of the works of Irenæus mentioned by Eusebius, see Bk. IV. chap. 21, note 9.
[1723] pros Ellenas logos...peri epistemes. Jerome (de vir. ill. 35) makes two works out of this: one Against the Gentiles, and another On Knowledge (et contra Gentes volumen breve, et de disciplina aliud). Harvey (I. p. clxvi.) states that one of the Syriac fragments of Irenæus' works mentions the work of Eusebius On Knowledge, and specifies that it was directed against the Valentinians. In that case it would be necessary to make two separate works, as Jerome does, and so Harvey thinks that the text of Eusebius must be amended by the insertion of an allos te. Unfortunately, Harvey did not name the Syriac fragment which contains the statement referred to, and it is not to be found among those collected in his edition (Venables, in Smith and Wace, states that he could find no such fragment, and I have also searched in vain for it). Evidently some blunder has been committed, and it looks as if Harvey's statement were unverifiable. Meanwhile, Jerome's testimony alone is certainly not enough to warrant an emendation of the text in opposition to all the mss. and versions. We must therefore conclude, with our present light, that the treatise peri epistemes was directed against the Greeks, as Eusebius says. The work has entirely perished, with the possible exception of a single brief fragment (the first of the Pfaffian fragments; Gr. Frag. XXXV. in Harvey's edition), which Harvey refers to it.
[1724] eis epideixin tou apostolikou kerugmatos. This work, too, has perished, though possibly a few of the fragments published by Harvey are to be referred to it (see Harvey, I. p. clxvii.). Harvey conjectures that the work discussed the articles of the early Rule of faith, which is quite possible. Of the "brother Marcian" to whom it was addressed, we know nothing.
[1725] biblion ti dialexeon diaphoron. This work (no longer extant) was probably, as Harvey remarks, "a collection of sermons and expositions of various texts and passages of Scripture." To it are undoubtedly to be referred a great many of the fragments in which passages of Scripture are discussed (see Harvey, I. p. clxvii.).
[1726] Commodus was strangled on the 31st of December, 192, and Pertinax, who immediately succeeded him, was murdered, on March 28, 193, by the Prætorian guard, which then sold the imperial power to Didius Julianus, who, at the approach of Septimius Severus, who had been proclaimed emperor by the Pannonian legions, was declared a public enemy by the Senate, and beheaded after a reign of only sixty-six days.