942. SANCTI IRENEI EPISCOPI LUGDUNENSIS Libros quinque adversus Haereses TEXTU GRÆCO IN LOCIS NONNULLIS LOCUPLETATO, VERSIONE LATINA CUM CODICIBUS CLAROMONTANO AC ARUNDELIANO THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. IN preparing for the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press this edition of the Works of S. Irenæus, it has been deemed advisable to collate afresh the two most ancient representatives of the Latin translation; the Clermont and the Arundel MSS., both of which are in England. The former is one of the gems of the rich collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps at Middlehill; the second, as the property of the nation, is in the British Museum. The result of these collations has shewn that Grabe and Massuet performed their work with fidelity; not many readings of importance having escaped their observation. The Clermont MS. upon which principally Massuet formed his text, is fairly written in an Italian hand of the 'tenth century; possibly however two transcribers were employed upon it, a second hand being observable, as it is imagined, from fol. 189 to 274. The entire MS. is in good preservation, though it is defective at the end, and exhibits occasional omissions from careless copying, with a more 1 Those who are conversant with early European MSS. will agree that it is difficult to judge of the period in which writing was executed, before the tenth century, but easy after the twelfth. The CLERMONT MS. is an early production of the transitional period, 2 It ends abruptly near the commencement of V. xxvi. |