Opening the library…
Against Heresies
Irenaeus of Lyons
A five-book account and refutation of competing Christian movements that also develops Irenaeus’s positive theology of creation, Scripture, apostolic tradition, incarnation, salvation, and recapitulation in Christ.
1. If, again, they maintain that the
2. Moreover we must not keep silence respecting Paul, but demand from them after the type of what Æon that apostle has been handed down to us, unless perchance [they affirm that he is a representative] of the Saviour compounded of them [all], who derived his being from the collected gifts of the whole, and whom they term All Things, as having been formed out of them all. Respecting this being the poet Hesiod has strikingly expressed himself, styling him Pandora—that is, “The gift of all”—for this reason, that the best gift in the possession of all was centred in him. In describing these gifts the following account is given: Hermes (so he is called in the Greek language), Αἱμυλίους τε λόγους καὶ ἐπίκλοπον ἦθος αὐτοὺς Κάτθετο (or to express this in the English language), “implanted words of fraud and deceit in their minds, and thievish habits,” for the purpose of leading foolish men astray, that such should believe their falsehoods. For their Mother—that is, Leto—secretly stirred them up (whence also she is called Leto, according to the meaning of the Greek word, because she secretly stirred up men), without the knowledge of the Demiurge, to give forth profound and unspeakable mysteries to itching ears. And not only did their Mother bring it about that this mystery should be declared by Hesiod; but very skilfully also by means of the lyric poet Pindar, when he describes to the Demiurge the case of Pelops, whose flesh was cut in pieces by the Father, and then collected and brought together, and compacted anew by all the gods, did she in this way indicate Pandora and these men having their consciences seared by her, declaring, as they maintain, the very same things, are [proved] of the same family and spirit as the others.
This passage is hopelessly corrupt. The editors have twisted it in every direction, but with no satisfactory result. Our version is quite as far from being certainly trustworthy as any other that has been proposed, but it seems something like the meaning of the words as they stand. Both the text and punctuation of the Latin are in utter confusion.
“Si” is wanting in the mss. and early editions, and Harvey pleads for its exclusion, but the sense becomes clearer through inserting it.
This clause is, of course, an interpolation by the Latin translator.
The words are loosely quoted memoriter, as is the custom with Irenæus. See Hesiod, Works and Days, i. 77, etc.
Latin, of course, in the text.
There is here a play upon the words Λητώ and ληθεῖν, the former being supposed to be derived from the latter, so as to denote secrecy.
This clause is probably an interpolation by the translator.
“Cœlet Demiurgo,” such is the reading in all the mss. and editions. Harvey, however, proposes to read “celet Demiurgum;” but the change which he suggests, besides being without authority, does not clear away the obscurity which hangs upon the sentence.
Comp. Pindar, Olymp., i. 38, etc.
“Compuncti” supposed to correspond to κεκαυτηριασμένοι: see 1 Tim. iv. 2. The whole passage is difficult and obscure.