120 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacytext right than in any Christian writer before him. He is, as Souter said, “the earliest
surviving writer of the Christian era who quotes the New Testament both extensively
and accurately.”^6 The secondary use of scriptural texts by Irenaeus and some of his
Valentinian opponents, and in other authors engaged in exegesis, is becoming more
scrupulously exact. A stable text, or at least the perception of one, is the presupposi-
tion of this kind of citation practice and of the kind of scribal activity encouraged by
Irenaeus. The Alands say “It is not until 180 (in Irenaeus) that signs of an established
text appear.”^7 Despite his awareness of certain textual corruptions, Irenaeus seems to
believe that he possessed a text which had been preserved for him in its essential integ-
rity, speaking as he does of “the unfeigned preservation [custoditio], coming down
to us, of the scriptures, with a complete collection allowing for neither addition nor
subtraction” (Hae r. IV.33.8).^8
P.Oxy. 405
Appropriately enough, the care for textual preservation and the high regard for scrip-
ture exemplified in Irenaeus’s literary output is in an interesting way symbolized in
the earliest known fragment of his work. P.Oxy. 405 (van Haelst 671), consisting of
fragments of a papyrus roll containing parts of Against Heresies III.9.3, was first pub-
lished in 1903. At that time, Grenfell and Hunt could say that “it is probably the oldest
Christian fragment yet published.”^9 This of course is no longer the case, though P. Oxy.
405 can still claim the distinction of being the oldest Christian fragment yet published
that contains a New Testament quotation.
Written in what C. H. Roberts calls “a handsome professional hand,”^10 the fragment
has also gained notoriety for its being so close chronologically to its original. Book III
of Against Heresies was written sometime in the 180s, and Roberts was very confident
that P.Oxy. 405 should be dated to the late second century.^11 In his memorable words
the manuscript “reached Oxyrhynchus not long after the ink was dry on the author’s
manuscript.”^12 Peter Rodgers thinks, “It is not impossible that Irenaeus himself had
written the fragment.”^13 If P.Oxy. 405 did not actually originate in Lyons (penned by
Irenaeus himself or not), the manuscript surely will be a first, or at latest, second-
generation copy of one which did originate there under Irenaeus’s own direction or
supervision.
Finally, P.Oxy. 405 has been of interest to New Testament text-critical scholars
because its quotation of Matthew 3:16-17 is closer to the form of text in Codex Bezae
than even the reputedly faithful Latin translation of Hae r. allows, for it reveals, among
other things, the reading, “you are my beloved Son,” rather than, “This is my beloved
S o n .”
But P.Oxy. 405 reveals another very interesting and potentially significant scribal
phenomenon which has received almost no attention, namely, the wedge-shaped
marks, or “diplai,” in the left margin, each corresponding to a line of text.^14
This is the first occurrence in a Christian text of the marginal siglum known as a
diple. But what do they signify?