In his Ecclesiastical History (V.20.1), Eusebius lists Irenaeus’s letters as: On Schism, written to Blastus
in Rome; On the Sole Sovereignty or That God Is Not the Author of Evils, written to Florinus (much of which is
quoted in V.20.4-8); and On the Ogdoad, also to Florinus (a brief extract is provided at V.20.2). To this may also
be added the “Letter from the Churches in Gaul,” which style indicates is almost certainly by Irenaeus; and a
letter to Pope Victor, quoted at V.24.11-17. In V.26, Eusebius mentions a treatise called Concerning Knowledge,
written against the Greeks, as well as an unnamed “little book on the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Wisdom
of Solomon.”
See Grant, Irenaeus, 44, together with note 17 on p. 193.
Augustine quotes Ref. IV.2.7 and V.19.1 in C.Iul. I.3.5; and when he sums up in I.7.32, he mentions
Irenaeus by name. This text dates to 422. Augustine may also have used Irenaeus’s Ref. I.23.1 in his Haer. 1; and
Ref. IV.33.10 in his Catech. Rud. 3.6. It is more certain that he used Ref. IV.30.1 in his Doctr. Christ. II.40.60,
written chiefly in 396–397.
The influence of Irenaeus on Augustine, and the latter’s use of Irenaeus’s writings, was studied in 1949 by
B. Altaner, “Augustinus und Irenäus: Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung,” Theological Quarterly 129 (1949):
162–72; and this was followed by a great many others.
C. A. Forbes, from his commentary notes on his translation, published as C. A. Forbes, The Error of
Pagan Religions, Ancient Christian Writers 37 (New York: Newman, 1970), 213, n. 470. See Unger’s notes in
Unger and Dillon, Against Heresies, 123, n.75 for a consolidation of the passages from the Ref. that Forbes sees
as influencing Firmicus.
This ascription first appears in his Commentary on Isaiah, ch. 64, written c. 410. It is, interestingly, not
found in his De viris illustribus. See J. van der Straeten, ‘Saint-Irénée fut-il martyre?’ in Les martyres de Lyons
(177) (Paris: CNRS, 1978), 145–52; cf. Osborn, 2.
Jerome, Epi. 75.3.
Cf. Unger and Dillon, Against Heresies, 14.
Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks I.29.
For all, see Grant, Irenaeus, 193, n.17.
Ecclesiastical History V.26.
The Armenian of the Dem. was discovered by K. Ter-Mekerttschian in 1904, and published as K.
Ter-Mekerttschian and E. Ter-Minassiantz, Des heiligen Irenäus Schrift zum Erweise der apostolischen Verkün-
digung, TU 35.2 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1907[10]). The best English translation is that of J. Behr, On the Apostolic
Preaching—Translation and Introduction (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997).
For example, by Severus and Timothy Aelurus; cf. Unger and Dillon, Against Heresies, 123, n.78.
Nearly forty fragments of Ref. are transmitted in the manuscripts of the Sacra Parallela; see Karl Holl,
ed., Fragmente vornicänischer Kirchenväter aus den Sacra Parallela, TU 20.2 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899), no. 137
(58)–174 (83). The manuscript tradition is, however, very complex, and what part of the surviving texts is to
be assigned to John himself is unclear; see Andrew Louth, St John Damascene, Tradition and Originality in
Byzantine Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 24–25.
Cf. Photius, Bibliotheca cod. 120.
This view, summarized in Unger and Dillon, Against Heresies, 12, is discussed in Sources chrétiennes
100: 15; as well as by L. Doutreleau, “Saint Irénée de Lyon,” in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité (Paris, 1932– ),
VII.2 (1934).
For a close examination of the fragmentary evidence of the Greek version of Ref., see SC 263: 61–100;
293: 83–100; 210: 49–132; 100: 51–87; 152: 64–157.
See M.C. Steenberg, Of God and Man: Theology as Anthropology from Irenaeaus to Athanasius (New
York: Continuum, 2009), 161, 162.
See, e.g., the most self-evident “Irenaean” parallels at De incarnatione Verbi, 3, 4, 5, 54.
As to whether or not any of these would have known Irenaeus’s writings directly, one can only specu-
late. Certainly the two Gregories would have had ready access to the Refuation; and the fact that the Greek
version of the same was accessible to both John of Damascus and Photius suggests that it would not have been
impossible for Maximus to have access to it also.
