Irenaeus

196 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy

The much controverted passage on Rome in III.3 gives Harvey the occasion to

observe that “the holding of Apostolical tradition, quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab

omnibus, is shown to be the true ground of catholic consent” (II, 9, n. 10). He is appeal-

ing there to the so-called Vincentian Canon, the dictum, emanating from Vincent of

Lerins in the fifth century, that “that is to be believed which had been held always,

everywhere, and by all.” Except, of course, that that is not what Vincent says. His Com-

monitorium actually says everywhere, always, and by all (3.2), and it is clear from his

whole discussion that that is the order in which his three tests are meant to be applied.

But, revealingly, Harvey cites it in the order habitually used by Newman and others,

an order which, consciously or unconsciously, privileges antiquity (quod semper) over

ubiquity or Catholicity (quod ubique).

Harvey’s shortcomings should not blind us to his merits. His approach to the text

is conservative, but his judgment is often sound. The edition is convenient and user-

friendly—apart from the idiosyncratic numbering of chapters. And he is able to bring

to bear new Syriac and Armenian fragments.

His Irenaeus belongs to that twilight world of semi-critical texts, on the cusp of the

fully critical era. In that it is not unlike, say, Field’s editions of Chrysostom. And it is

not out of place in such distinguished company.

Rousseau
And that brings us back to Adelin Rousseau. He had been a seminarian in Liège, joined
the monastery in 1936, and stayed there for seventy-two years.
The ten chunky volumes of his edition are, together, more ample than even Mas-
suet. It is the first to make systematic use of the Armenian, though it often, I think,
over-privileges it at the expense of a perfectly sound Latin text. The “notes justifica-
tives” are invariably learned and often illuminating. And repeatedly they manage to
disengage from hoary controversies and move on to new ground. A classic instance
would be his balanced and sane treatment of “potentior principalitas,” the understand-
ing of which had been bedevilled by Protestant—Catholic polemic since Gallasius.
There are, though, some places where a monastic piety might just peep through
the learning. At IV.7.1, Irenaeus introduces a citation of the Magnificat with the words
“But Mary too says... [Sed et Maria ait... ].” Or at least that is what editors assumed
he wrote. The text went uncommented upon until Harvey noted that two manuscripts
(“the Clerm. and Voss. copies,” that is, C [= Berolinensis lat. 43] and V [= Vossianus lat.
F. 33]) “strangely read Elizabeth” (II, 163, n.4). Rousseau, however, knew that “Eliza-
beth” was also read by the Armenian. He, therefore, correctly drew the conclusion that
that must be the original reading—and it is in fact a reading shared with some other
Old Latin witnesses. But he could not actually bring himself to say that Irenaeus meant
to attribute a canticle he sang in the monastic office day after day and year after year
to anyone other than Our Lady. So he concludes that it is simply a slip—“an error or
inadvertence”—on Irenaeus’s part.^33