186 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy
him to London to become the pastor of the French (Protestant) church in exile,
housed in St. Anthony’s chapel in Threadneedle Street. He survived some unpleas-
ant internecine squabbling within the congregation, thanks in part to the support of
Edmund Grindal, the Bishop of London, who had been designated superintendent
of the exile communities.^15
Grindal is one of those enigmatic figures of the Elizabethan settlement—charged
with enforcing conformity but deeply in sympathy with the more radically Protestant-
izing movements in England and on the Continent. He is said to have told a Puritan
group, “You see me wear a cope or a surplice in Paul’s. I had rather minister without
these things, but for order’s sake and obedience to the prince.”^16
But Gallasius did not like the London climate and went back to Geneva in June
- By September he was minister in Orleans and Professor of Theology in the
Reformed Academy there. That came to a dramatic end in 1568, when an outbreak of
bloody sectarian violence forced him to flee. “I was so often in danger of my life,” he
says. “The fury of the populace was inflamed; they were demanding the slaughter of
the ministers; and the gates of the city were being watched so closely that no one was
able to leave.” He did, however, manage to slip out by night, and a roundabout journey
through the woods took him to the safety of the lands of the Duchess Renée de France.
From there he made his way to Geneva.
Gallasius must have been rather crestfallen when he reported his adventures to the
great Reformer Theodore Beza. Beza “asked me what I now had in hand. Then I replied
that I was thinking only of easing and relaxing my mind from those cares by which it
had long been vexed.” But Beza gave the impeccably Calvinist admonition that he must
redeem the time. “It is not your part to give way to indulgence and idleness. I know for
sure that you cannot pass in leisure this free time which has been given you.”
He had a plan. “You know, he said, how useful is the reading of the ancient doc-
tors, which the many nonetheless neglect, both because of obscurity and also because
of some impurity which those times—already on the slide (labantia iam)—brought to
Christian doctrine.” The solution was twofold. First, the works have to be divided into
chapters, with key points prefixed in summary, so the reader can find his way. And,
secondly, an “admonitio seu censura” should be appended in which the unsound bits
can be pointed out and distorted exegesis of scripture set right.
We might, incidentally, remember that at the time of that rather strained interview,
Beza had in his possession the great manuscript of the Gospels and Acts that still bears
his name—Codex Bezae, the uncial D or 05. It was part of the spoils of the sack of the
monastery of Saint Irenaeus at Lyons by a Huguenot mob in 1562, and it was to remain
in Beza’s possession until 1581, when he presented it to the University of Cambridge.
What some lost in inter-communal violence, others gained.
In any event, Gallasius accepted the plan but thought that to tackle all those “vol-
umes of the men of old” was a rather tall order, so he decided to work on just one, “the
one who is reckoned the most ancient among the Latins”—Irenaeus.
Calvin himself—dead since 1564—would have approved. He had read Irenaeus by
at least 1542, often cited him, and probably himself owned a copy of Erasmus’s second
edition of 1528.^17