Irenaeus

126 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy

Were the Marks Original to Irenaeus (or His Scribe)?

Arguing against their originality would be the fact that the next earliest known frag-

ments of Against Heresies, the Jena fragments, from a very fragmentary third- or

fourth-century roll (portions of Haer. V.3.2—13.2) found at Apollonopolis, P. Jena. Inv.

18 and 21,^57 do not have them.^58

One might easily imagine, however, that by book V this scribe, like the scribes of
the Philo treatises mentioned above and of Sinaiticus, might have simply given up.
Also, the Jena fragments display a less careful hand than P.Oxy. 405.^60 Perhaps this
scribe did not have the skill or the interest required to produce a more scholarly vol-
ume such as P.Oxy. 405.
On the other hand, the earliest and perhaps textually most important of the Latin
manuscripts of Against Heresies, Codex Claromontanus of the ninth century, does use
marginal markings, though of a somewhat different shape, more like an elongated “s.”^61

Moreover, as observed above, P.Oxy. 405 has been dated so close to the original

writing of Against Heresies book III that it is at least a real possibility that it was pro-

duced in Lyons. If so, the diplai would almost certainly reflect Irenaeus’s own intention

(Rodgers, we recall, suggests Irenaeus himself as scribe).

Illustration 8. Jena Fragment, column three, lines 6-7, containing Haer. V.5.1 and Irenaeus’s

quotation of 1 Thessalonians 5:23.^59 Papyrussammlung Jena (Germany): P. Jen. Irenaeus.

Illustration 9. Codex Claromontanus, Haer. IV.36.1 citing Matthew 21:43.^62