P. Parvis—Packaging Irenaeus: Adversus haereses and Its Editors 187
What we have just heard is Gallasius’s rather brightly colored account of the gen-
esis of the edition. It comes from the dedicatory epistle, signed “Geneva. 31 January
1569 (Pridie Cal. Februarii. M D LXIX),” and addressed to Edmund Grindal, Bishop
of London.
The date cannot be right, and the place needs comment. The title page gives
MDLXX and no place. But it announces that the edition was published “Apud Joan-
nem le Preux et Joannem Paruum.” Le Preux and Parvus were Parisian printers, who
must have found shelter in Geneva. But 1570 must be right rather than 1569. Gallasius
clearly worked as quickly and haphazardly as Erasmus had, but, even so, the last day of
January 1569 simply does not give time for the various adventures and misadventures
he recounted.
In January 1570 Grindal was still bishop of London, though later that year he was
translated to York, where he busied himself energetically protestantizing the North,
still infested with papistical practices; he was installed (in absentia) on 9 June but only
left London in August.
Gallasius nails his editorial colors firmly to the mast. “They are mightily deceived
who think that the description and refutation of those ancient heresies has nothing to
do with our times.” It is Anabaptists and antinomians who take most of the flak here,
though there is a sideswipe at today’s “fans and patrons of superstition (superstitionum
fautores et patroni)” as well. “For what did Satan not try, now that the Gospel is being
reborn, to divert or slow its course? But this pious bishop and other ancient doctors
taught us by their own example what arms and weapons are to be used in resisting
him. For they fight only by the teaching of Christ and the Apostles, against which they
examine all dogmas, traditions, and rites.” Finally, there is, once again, a play on the
meaning of Irenaeus’s name, but the tone is far different from that of Erasmus. Not only
did you—Grindal—protect the peregrine churches in London from without, “But you
made them immune within from fear, from dissent and division. You checked temerar-
ious men and those desirous of novelty, you repressed the insolent and refractory, you
tamed the proud, you protected the innocent, you settled quarrels and disputes, finally
you showed yourself truly Irenaeus’s and a champion of tranquility.... Therefore do I
deservedly compare you to Irenaeus, whom in the same tasks you diligently imitated.”
Where Erasmus was sickened by the prospect of a church being torn in two, Gallasius
was thinking of his own troubles in Threadneedle Street.
The editorial work was hardly thorough, though Gallasius has at least read his text
carefully. While he proclaims, “Faults which occur I emended by comparing various
copies and other passages of the author himself (collatis exemplaribus et locis ipsius auc-
toris),” it is clear that he consulted no new manuscripts. But he does help the reader—at
least the right-minded reader—in a number of significant ways.
For one thing, he now knows that Irenaeus actually wrote in Greek and argues
clearly for that conclusion. And Greek text now appears—he prints the long section of
Book I quoted by Epiphanius.
And he heeds Beza’s directions on chapters and summaries. He follows, as Eras-
mus did, the manuscript capitulation for Books I–IV, though he knows that it, like the
titles that accompany it, cannot go back to Irenaeus himself. So he provides his own