I Am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that Irenaeus DID NOT Develop a Text Called 'the Five Books Against the Heresies'

I am almost certain that it was actually edited by Hippolytus. I was looking at Book Three in order to develop a follow up to that earlier article where I argued that Book Four was an adaptation of an anti-Alexandrian argument of Irenaeus by Hippolytus. But Book Three makes explicit the connection with Hippolytus explicit.

It's just that scholars have perfected the art of how to read a document BADLY.

Every book AFTER Book One in the five book series basically has the author announce that he is adding a new book to the series. Scholars then have been left scratching their heads as to how to account for this and the change of style and subject matter and have concluded that Irenaeus kept adding new material to his original work.

Yet the ascription at the beginning of Book Three can't be reconciled this way. It refers instead to Hippolytus' Refutation of the Heresies. For in the opening words of that work we hear:

Thou hast indeed enjoined upon me, my very dear friend, that I should bring to light the Valentinian doctrines, concealed, as their votaries imagine; that I should exhibit their diversity, and compose a treatise in refutation of them. therefore have undertaken -- showing that they spring from Simon, the father of all heretics -- to exhibit both their doctrines and successions, and to set forth arguments against them all. Wherefore, since the conviction of these men and their exposure is in many points but one work, I have sent unto thee [certain] books, of which the first comprises the opinions of all these men, and exhibits their customs, and the character of their behaviour. In the second, again, their perverse teachings are cast down and overthrown, and, such as they really are, laid bare and open to view. But in this, the third book I shall adduce proofs from the Scriptures, so that I may come behind in nothing of what thou hast enjoined; yea, that over and above what thou didst reckon upon, thou mayest receive from me the means of combating and vanquishing those who, in whatever manner, are propagating falsehood.

Of course everyone THINKS that Book One is an account of how the various class of Valentinians were a sect of Simon Magus. But the text, even as it stands now, never once says that.

Simon Magus isn't even introduced until Chapter 23 and never once is connected with the origins of the Valentinians. Indeed Irenaeus actually opens his book with a statement of purpose in Book One which is quite different with that which begins Book Three:

I have deemed it my duty (after reading some of the Commentaries, as they call them, of the disciples of Valentinus, and after making myself acquainted with their tenets through personal intercourse with some of them) to unfold to thee, my friend, these portentous and profound mysteries, which do not fall within the range of every intellect, because all have not sufficiently purged their brains. I do this, in order that thou, obtaining an acquaintance with these things, mayest in turn explain them to all those with whom thou art connected, and exhort them to avoid such an abyss of madness and of blasphemy against Christ. I intend, then, to the best of my ability, with brevity and clearness to set forth the opinions of those who are now promulgating heresy. I refer especially to the disciples of Ptolemaeus, whose school may be described as a bud from that of Valentinus.[AH i.2.1]

There is absolutely no mention of the various Valentinian sects deriving their origins from the teachings of Simon Magus ANYWHERE in Book One. This only appears in the subsequent books in the series which is very significant because I think it was Hippolytus who assembled the writings of Irenaeus in a five book volume so that they 'meshed' with the view that Simon was the father of all the heresies.

Indeed Hippolytus' contemporary Tertullian can be seen to operate in exactly the same manner. He clearly develops his 'Five Books Against Marcion' by bringing together material from previous writings against the Marcionites and assembles them in to a book of five parts. In the introduction to that book there is clear evidence that the work evolved over time and through various original authors. Book Three is clearly developed from a text by Justin which was also used to make Against the Jews. Books Four and Five were written by the same author who happened to use a Diatessaron. The editing in Tertullian is very sloppy. Much of the original argument still shines through and doesn't 'mesh' with Tertullian's adoption of a 'gospel in four.'

The immediate question of course is why was everyone in the middle of the third century developing five part books against the heresies? This I can't answer right now other than to mention the obvious parallels with the number of books in the Pentateuch. Let's instead go back to the question of whether Hippolytus rearranged the earlier material by Irenaeus into one five book 'set.'

The first mention of Irenaeus in Hippolytus' Refutation of the Heresies appears in Book Six where he mentions interestingly that the Church Father wrote a 'refutation' (i.e. a single book rather many) against the Valentinians):

For also the blessed presbyter Irenaeus, having approached the subject of a refutation in a more unconstrained spirit, has explained such washings and redemptions, stating more in the way of a rough digest what are their practices. (And it appears that some of the Marcosians,) on meeting with (Irenaeus' work), deny that they have so received (the secret word just alluded to), but they have learned that always they should deny. [Ref Har vi.37]

I have always thought that this language - i.e. that Irenaeus wrote something rushed or 'unconstrained' - indicates that Hippolytus was dissatisfied with his original 'Refutation.' This in itself of course does not prove that he assembled the five books as the now stand but it at least helps provide a motive.

Yet later in the same book Hippolytus goes on to say:

These assertions, then, those who are of the school of Valentinus advance concerning both the creation and the universe, in each case propagating opinions still more empty. And they suppose this to constitute productiveness (in their system), if any one in like manner, making some greater discovery, will appear to work wonders. And finding, (as they insinuate,) each of the particulars of Scripture to accord with the aforesaid numbers, they (attempt to) criminate Moses and the prophets, alleging that these speak allegorically of the measures of the Aeons. And inasmuch as these statements are trifling and unstable, it does not appear to me expedient to bring them before (the reader. This, however, is the less requisite,) as now the blessed presbyter Irenaeus has powerfully and elaborately refuted the opinions of these (heretics). And to him we are indebted for a knowledge of their inventions, proving that these heretics, appropriating these opinions from the Pythagorean philosophy, and from over-spun theories of the astrologers, cast an imputation upon Christ, as though He had delivered these (doctrines). But since I suppose that the worthless opinions of these men have been sufficiently explained, and that it has been clearly proved whose disciples are Marcus and Colarbasus, who were successors of the school of Valentinus [ibid vi.50]

Now I can't help but read this reference as if it says that Irenaeus wrote an original work which JUST dealt with the various Valentinians (i.e. Book One of what now appears as a five volume work) proving that they, Valentinians, stole their ideas from the Greek philosophical school of Pythagoras. This idea is an allusion to the passage in Book One of Irenaeus' work where he explicitly says that "this Nous they call also Monogenes, and Father, and the Beginning of all Things. Along with him was also produced Aletheia; and these four constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad, which they also denominate the root of all things" [AH i.1.1]

Now it is important to note that Hippolytus himself develops this connection of the Valentinians being rooted in Pythagoreanism one step further. In Book Four Chapter Fifty One of his Refutation of All Heresies Hippolytus introduces the idea that Simon FIRST derived his teachings from the Pythagoreans AND THEN Valentinus followed him:

But since almost every heresy (that has sprung up) through the arithmetical art has discovered measures of hebdomads and certain projections of Aeons, each rending the art differently, while whatever variation prevailed was in the names merely; and (since) Pythagoras became the instructor of these, tint introducing numbers of this sort among the Greeks from Egypt, it seems expedient not to omit even this, but, after we have given a compendious elucidation, to approach the demonstration of those things that we propose to investigate.

Arithmeticians and geometers arose, to whom especially Pythagoras first seems to have furnished principles. And from numbers that can continually progress ad infinitum by multiplication, and from figures, these derived their first principles, as capable of being discerned by reason alone; for a principle of geometry, as one may perceive, is an indivisible point. From that point, however, by means of the art, the generation of endless figures from the point is discovered ... Of this hebdomad Simon and Valentinus, having altered the names, detailed marvellous stories, from thence hastily adopting a system for themselves. For Simon employs his denominations thus: Mind, Intelligence, Name, Voice, Ratiocination, Reflection; and He who stood, stands, will stand. And Valentinus (enumerates them thus): Mind, Truth, Word, Life, Man, Church, and the Father, reckoned along with these, according to the same principles as those advanced by the cultivators of arithmetical philosophy. And (heresiarchs) admiring, as if unknown to the multitude, (this philosophy, and) following it, have framed heterodox doctrines devised by themselves.

... And respecting this there is an enlarged discussion, whence both Simon and Valentinus will be found both to have derived from this source starting-points for their opinions, and, though they may not acknowledge it, to be in the first instance liars, then heretics. Since, then, it appears that we have sufficiently explained these tenets likewise, and that all the reputed opinions of this earthly philosophy have been comprised in four books; it seems expedient to proceed to a consideration of the disciples of these men, nay rather, those who have furtively appropriated their doctrines. [Ref Her iv.51]

It was Hippolytus who developed the original argument of Irenaeus SOLELY AGAINST THE VALENTINIANS into a new framework which saw Simon Magus as the head of all the heresies which included Valentinus as a subset. In Book Six Hippolytus introduces his discussion of the Valentinians ONLY AFTER CONCLUDING his discussion of Simon Magus's borrowing from Pythagoras and then introduces the followers of Valentinus by saying:

This constitutes the legendary system advanced by Simon, and from this Valentinus derived a starting-point (for his own doctrine. This doctrine, in point of fact, was the same with the it Simonian, though Valentinus) denominated under different titles: for "Nous," and "Aletheia," and "Logos," and "Zoe," and "Anthropos," and "Ecclesia," and Aeons of Valentinus, are confessedly the six roots of Simon, viz., "Mind" and "Intelligence," "Voice" and "Name," "Ratiocination" and "Reflection." But since it seems to us that we have sufficiently explained Simon's tissue of legends, let us see what also Valentinus asserts. [Ref Her 15]

The point then is that by the extension of this logic it couldn't have been Irenaeus who developed his own material into a five volume book against the heresies. It was rather Hippolytus who edited our present work and always reinforcing in the SUBSEQUENT texts of Irenaeus that Irenaeus' system agreed with his own.

So the introduction of Book Two begins with:

I have also related how they think and teach that creation at large was formed after the image of their invisible Pleroma, and what they hold respecting the Demiurge, declaring at the same time the doctrine of Simon Magus of Samaria, their progenitor, and of all those who succeeded him. I mentioned, too, the multitude of those Gnostics who are sprung from him, and noticed the points of difference between them, their several doctrines, and the order of their succession, while I set forth all those heresies which have been originated by them. I showed, moreover, that all these heretics, taking their rise from Simon, have introduced impious and irreligious doctrines into this life; and I explained the nature of their "redemption," and their method of initiating those who are rendered "perfect," along with their invocations and their mysteries.[AH ii. preface]

Again, we have to emphasize that Book One DOES NOT reinforce the belief that all heresies derived from Simon Magus. Simon doesn't appear until the book is over half way complete and never is it ever said that the Valentinians derived from Simon.

I think it is easy to see the section that begins with Simon Magus and ends with the Cainites as a separate list added to Irenaeus' original work against the Valentinians by a later editor, possibly even Hippolytus.