vid

I am looking for a references for dating of Irenaeus' Against Heresies, usually given 175-180, or after 180 elsewhere.

One source for dating is Irenaeus' claim that current bishop of Rome is Eleuterus (AH 3.3.3). Supposing traditional dating of this pope is correct, that would give dates ~175-190.

Another thing I found in Richard Carrier's article on NT Canon:
Passion of Scillitan Martyrs sets date of Martyrdom to 180 AD, however it is disputed (also see this).

However, I failed to find this reference to this persercution in Irenaeus writings, and I don't have access to book Richard used as source. Does anyone here have the exact reference?

Is there something else that dating of Against Heresies is based on?

mountainman

Eusebius of Caesarea, collating "the history of the Nation of Christians" between 312 and 324 CE, is everyone's one and only source for Irenaeus.

andrewcriddle

It may be relevant for the dating of Against Heresies that a papyrus fragment of this work palaeographically dated to c 200 CE was discovered in Egypt.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

This would be P. Oxy 405.

There was some discussion of that in the archives here, especially with Roger Pearse's post at #33.

PhilosopherJay opined that the fragments were quotes from gMatthew that were misidentified with a section of Irenaeus's Against Heresies that quotes gMatthew. There is more discussion there on the reliability of palaeography.

vid

Thank you very much for this info. I didn't know about that.

Toto

There is a continuation of the discussion here: Against Heresies and P Oxy 405. In this later thread, Jay appears to agree that there was a version of Against Heresies in circulation around 250 CE.