{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/201/2010167.htm","path":"chr/ecf/201/2010167.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/201/2010167.htm","text":"Chapter XXVI.\u2014The Elegant Works of Iren\u00e6us which have come down to us.\nBesides the works and letters of Iren\u00e6us which we have mentioned, 1722 a certain book of his On Knowledge, written against the Greeks, 1723 very concise and remarkably forcible, is extant; and another, which he dedicated to a brother Marcian, In Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching; 1724 and a volume containing various Dissertations, 1725 in which he mentions the Epistle to the Hebrews and the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, making p. 245 quotations from them. These are the works of Iren\u00e6us which have come to our knowledge.\nCommodus having ended his reign after thirteen years, Severus became emperor in less than six months after his death, Pertinax having reigned during the intervening time. 1726\nFor a general summary of the works of Iren\u00e6us mentioned by Eusebius, see Bk. IV. chap. 21, note 9.\n244:1723\n\u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1fde\u0395\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2\u2026\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7\u03c2. Jerome (de vir. ill. 35) makes two works out of this: one Against the Gentiles, and another On Knowledge (et contra Gentes volumen breve, et de disciplina aliud). Harvey (I. p. clxvi.) states that one of the Syriac fragments of Iren\u00e6us\u2019 works mentions the work of Eusebius On Knowledge, and specifies that it was directed against the Valentinians. In that case it would be necessary to make two separate works, as Jerome does, and so Harvey thinks that the text of Eusebius must be amended by the insertion of an \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b5. Unfortunately, Harvey did not name the Syriac fragment which contains the statement referred to, and it is not to be found among those collected in his edition (Venables, in Smith and Wace, states that he could find no such fragment, and I have also searched in vain for it). Evidently some blunder has been committed, and it looks as if Harvey\u2019s statement were unverifiable. Meanwhile, Jerome\u2019s testimony alone is certainly not enough to warrant an emendation of the text in opposition to all the mss. and versions. We must therefore conclude, with our present light, that the treatise \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7\u03c2 was directed against the Greeks, as Eusebius says. The work has entirely perished, with the possible exception of a single brief fragment (the first of the Pfaffian fragments; Gr. Frag. XXXV. in Harvey\u2019s edition), which Harvey refers to it.\n244:1724\n\u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03be\u03b9\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03ba\u03b7\u03c1\u03cd\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2. This work, too, has perished, though possibly a few of the fragments published by Harvey are to be referred to it (see Harvey, I. p. clxvii.). Harvey conjectures that the work discussed the articles of the early Rule of faith, which is quite possible. Of the \u201cbrother Marcian\u201d to whom it was addressed, we know nothing.\n244:1725\n\u03b2\u03af\u03b2\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd. This work (no longer extant) was probably, as Harvey remarks, \u201ca collection of sermons and expositions of various texts and passages of Scripture.\u201d To it are undoubtedly to be referred a great many of the fragments in which passages of Scripture are discussed (see Harvey, I. p. clxvii.).\n245:1726\nCommodus was strangled on the 31st of December, 192, and Pertinax, who immediately succeeded him, was murdered, on March 28, 193, by the Pr\u00e6torian guard, which then sold the imperial power to Didius Julianus, who, at the approach of Septimius Severus, who had been proclaimed emperor by the Pannonian legions, was declared a public enemy by the Senate, and beheaded after a reign of only sixty-six days.","title":"Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol I: The Church History of Eusebius.: Chapter XXVI","type":"page"}