Irenaeus

xi

The Writings of Irenaeus

T

wo genuine works of Irenaeus survive: Against the Heresies and the Demonstration.

1. Refutation and Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So Called,
   or Against the Heresies
   The main witnesses for the text of Against the Heresies are:
   (a) extensive fragments of the original Greek, including the evidence of two damaged
   and fragmentary papyri:
   (i) P. Oxy 405, dated palaeographically to the beginning of the third century and
   containing portions of III.9.2-3;^1
   (ii) a Jena papyrus, probably of the early fourth century, containing portions of
   V.3.2–13.1;^2
   (b) a Latin version of all five books; and
   (c) an Armenian version of the whole of books IV and V, together with fragments of
   the other books.

The best edition is published in ten volumes in the Sources chrétiennes series:

Adelin Rousseau and Louis Doutreleau, eds., Irénée de Lyon, Contra les hérésies, Livre I, 2 vols, SCh 263

and 264 (Paris: du Cerf, 1979);

———, Irénée de Lyon, Contra les hérésies, Livre II, 2 vols., SCh 293 and 294 (Paris: du Cerf, 1982);
———, Irénée de Lyon, Contra les hérésies, Livre III, 2 vols., SCh 210 and 211 (Paris: du Cerf, 1974);

Adelin Rousseau, with Bertrand Hemmerdinger, Louis Doutreleau, and Charles Mercier, eds., Irénée de
Lyon, Contra les hérésies, Livre IV, 2 vols., SCh 100 (Paris: de Cerf, 1965);
Adelin Rousseau, Louis Doutreleau, and Charles Mercier, eds., Irénée de Lyon, Contra les hérésies, Livre
V, 2 vols., SCh 152 and 153 (Paris: de Cerf, 1969).

The Armenian of books IV and V was published, from a manuscript then as now in

Yerevan, by Karapet Ter-Mekerttschian and Erwand Ter-Minassianz, Irenaeus, Gegen

die Häretiker, ΕΛΕΓΧΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΤΡΟΠΗ ΤΗΣ ΨΕΥΔΩΝΥΜΟΥ ΓΝΩΣΕΩΣ, Buch IV u.