stephan huller

I know this seems like the most esoteric question for many at this forum. Why should I care what language Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies? Well, I am not so sure that Irenaeus actually wrote a book called Against Heresies. Photius mentions seeing various 'lectures' that survived until his day from Irenaeus's hand. Photius also says that the lectures had many strange ideas.

I am always biased towards strangeness in the Church Fathers. I think real people think out of the box especially at the earliest period of the Catholic tradition - this because no one knew yet how 'orthodoxy' would turn out.

Anyway, I literally spend about 10% of my free time thinking about the idea of Irenaeus writing in Syriac. Why? Well it helps explain a lot of things - the birth of Marcion for one. But that's a selfish argument which I don't necessarily want to reference here.

The issue is that there are so many ways of seeing why Irenaeus writing in Syriac makes sense and there are so many clues which suggest this that it is hard to resist the idea. Let me give only the most superficial of explanations:

1) Irenaeus's relationship with Polycarp. Polycarp was undoubtedly a native Aramaic or Syriac speaker. This manifests itself to us in many different ways. The Life of Polycarp makes this explicit but it is also suggested by the gospel reference in his Letter to the Philippians which was shown to have parallels with 1 Clement by Koester and in turn I have noted many times that both seem to also be related to the Diatessaron tradition.

Despite the difficulty of identifying anything 'pure' from the surviving tradition associated with Polycarp (I am suspicious that all surviving literary works have been reworked by a later source) the general sense is that Polycarp came from a so-called 'Jewish Christian tradition.' His interest in keeping the Passover in Easter is only the icing on the cake so to speak.

It is difficult not to see that the tradition that Irenaeus was associated was Syrian if not Syriac speaking.

2) Irenaeus's scriptural references are identified by Harvey as being related to the Old Syriac texts. Harvey puts the matter thusly:

A point of some interest will be found of frequent recurrence in the notes; which is, the repeated instances that Scriptural quotations afford, of having being made by one who was as familiar with some Syriac version of the New Testament, as with the Greek originals. Strange variae lectiones occur, which can only be explained by referring to the Syriac version. It will not be forgotten that S. Irenaeus resided in early life at Smyrna; and it is by no means improbable that he may have been of Syrian extraction, and instructed from his earliest infancy in some Syriac version of Scripture. It is hoped also that the Hebrew attainments of Irenaeus will no longer be denied.

The Syriac fragments, at the end of the second Volume, are of considerable interest, having now for the first time been placed by the side of the Latin version. Their marvellous agreement with this translation, is another very satisfactory test of its close fidelity to the original; it is also particularly fortunate that these Syriac fragments represent, not any one or two of the books, but the entire work throughout its whole course; while one of the rubrics shews that the work as translated in the East, was apparently as bulky as that operated upon in the West. The peculiar interest of the portion of an epistle to Victor concerning Florinus may be noted; and generally, these fragments throw some light upon the subordinate writings and treatises of Irenaeus. They have been obtained praeter spem, and were the Editor’s reward for searching through this noble collection of Syriac MSS. of high antiquity [p.

And again a little later:

So also the acquaintance manifested by Irenaeus with Eastern languages, involving not only a respectable knowledge of the Hebrcw tongue, but also a very perceptible familiarity with the Scriptures of the New Testament in Syriac, point directly to the same conclusion; and even the name Eiprivaio^, of no common occurrence in Greek nomenclature, may have been the substitute for some Syrian equivalent, as Saul became Paul; and as the orientally descended philosophcr Malcho, became known by the adopted name of Porphyry, the more obvious equivalent, Basileides, having already been appropriated by a predecessor from the East.

It is amazing to me at least when I discover that the guy who wrote on Irenaeus makes the same basic observations as I have made over the years. My guess is that Irenaeus's name was something like Shlomo or Solomon but that's another issue.

Where Harvey goes in the other direction is that he imagines that Irenaeus's reference to the kai peri barbaron dialekton to pleiston ascholoumenôn as a confession that as a native Syriac speaker he was having difficulty writing in Greek. I am not so sure. The same evidence that Harvey repeatedly points to from Against Heresies points to a situation where Irenaeus wrote various 'lectures' in Aramaic and then a later editor assembled them in a five volume Greek work.

So why does this matter? The bottom line for me at least is that the frequent reports that the Marcionites were attacking 'Judaizers' within the Church has always seemed to me to be a reference to the tradition of Polycarp. I have always seen Irenaeus's efforts as a 'peacemaker' between the two extreme poles and most importantly that the original Gospel of John (not the canonical text of the same name but an earlier work which it was loosely connected with) must have been associated originally with Polycarp. This is speculation certainly, but I can't be that off the mark for suggesting that Irenaeus's wasn't a fair referee. He certainly favored the Judaizing Polycarpian tradition. When you look at the canon you see Matthew and John 'sandwiching' what is effectively the Marcionite gospel (Mark + Luke). Notice also that Matthew and John are identified as disciples who saw Jesus and now Mark and Luke are given subordinate standing (even though in the case of Mark this was certainly disputed by Alexandrians).

Anyway more in a moment ...

stephan huller

And another note - an explanation of why I 'think about a Syriac speaking Irenaeus' so much. I happen to have joined a number of Yahoo groups which argue for and against the primacy of the Byzantine recension. Really stupid stuff. And these people will always act as if these later Greek texts were being used by Church Fathers in the first and second centuries. But I don't ever get an answer from them about how it is they explain that Irenaeus - the only 'real Church Father' about whom we have any substantive and direct information - seems to have preferred a Syriac Bible.

Indeed when you really think about this preference it even becomes stranger when you realize that Irenaeus LATER talks in terms of a fourfold gospel BUT this form never took off in Syriac speaking communities. The juxtaposition here all seems to suggest that Irenaeus INTRODUCED the fourfold canon rather than received it.

I mean, Polycarp doesn't use the fourfold gospel. I don't know how these imbeciles don't see this. Koester and others have demonstrated the difference between Irenaeus's master and Clement and the rest of the later Christian world after Irenaeus. I have tried to demonstrate the citation in the Letter to Philippians/1 Clement resembles a kind of proto-Diatessaron. The Diatessaron was universally used by Syriac speaking churches until the fifth century (or late fourth century at the earliest). Along comes Irenaeus, a guy doing everything he can to be the defender of this earlier tradition, who clearly thinks and speaks in Syriac but then DOESN'T POINT to these same forefathers as a precedent for this new idea of 'a gospel in four.'

It's just seems to indicate to me at least that there is this natural progression from Polycarp's one gospel to Irenaeus's fourfold gospel through a Syriac line of transmission.

judge

Just what is it that links these scriptural quotations to "some Syriac version of the New Testament"?

Of course the OS only gives us incomplete versions of the gospels and acts. So, are these clues merely relating to specifics of the OS, and thus only limited to these 5 books?
Or are the clues of another nature , that might point merely to "some syriac version"?

DCHindley

Stephen,

Per James Davila:

The problem of bilingual interference. If a native speaker of Hebrew or Aramaic were to compose a text in Greek, it is entirely possible - likely, even - that the writer would produce a Greek text containing elements of Semitic interference purely because he or she thought in a Semitic language.
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity...stracts/trans/

Some examples of "translation Greek" in the bible would be Lxx Judith (horrendously bad), and the Psalms of Solomon. Of course, the entire Old Greek translation of the OT is an example of "translation Greek."

There is a nine page essay on the subject published by the Society of Biblical Literature, but I have not read it:

J. Merle Rife , The Mechanics of Translation Greek, Journal of Biblical Literature
Vol. 52, No. 4 (Dec., 1933), pp. 244-252

Had Irenaeus' AH been composed in Aramaic/Syriac, and translated into Greek, there should be tell tale characteristics of "translation Greek." If the Greek fragments of Irenaeus' AH preserved in church fathers showed even a hint of the characteristics of "translation Greek," critics would have jumped on it, I'm pretty sure.

DCH

stephan huller

Thanks DCH

I will have to read this. But just to be fair the manufacture of any translation is entirely dependent on the translator. There are literal translations and interpretative translations. Just to make clear - I do think there are signs in Irenaeus that the original was written in Syriac. I might be wrong. Harvey knows more than I do at least theoretically. Nevertheless I am halfway there with his identification of Syriac elements throughout Irenaeus. The Greek is also 'barbarous' whether or not that's because of Syriac speaking Irenaeus trying to write in Greek or an incompitent Greek translator is an open question.

I think the evidence suggests a Greek translator is responsible.

Here's my thought for this hour. Harvey notes that Irenaeus is clearly familiar with Greek philosophy. That would suggest to me at least that he was educated. So then there is the issue of the barbarous language. Irenaeus also mentions his connection with the Imperial court [AH iv.30]. This general understanding of the Catholic Church at this time (minus direct reference to Irenaeus) is repeated in Hippolytus's story about Callixtus. Why wouldn't someone with friends in high places have written an important treatise or treatises like those of Against Heresies - one(s) which established the dogma of the Church for thousands of years into the future - in a language where he would be understood.

Clarity would be essential if one wanted to be understood. Why write in a language that you were incapable of delivering the key message(s)? Wouldn't that assure that Irenaeus would ultimately fail? How and why would anyone have jumped aboard the 'Orthodox express' if the message that defined the tradition was incomprehensible (as much of Irenaeus is right now)?

I prefer to think that scholars always want to suppose that we 'have' Irenaeus in the same way as we 'have' the gospels and the writings of Paul. The idea that we only know 'in part' is a humbling experience. It essentially leaves us acknowledging that we don't know what the fuck we're talking about, that things are actually quite uncertain with regards to the origins of Christianity. Hence the effort to 'blame' Irenaeus for the barbarous Greek.

spin

(But do ya wanna?)

DCHindley

Eh ... I can handle 9 pages (this stuff works better than Trazadone for insomnia)

stephan huller

I find the Church Fathers more interesting than the New Testament to be honest with you. At least you're dealing with historical authors - that is after 180 CE.