ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 analyzes the textual transformations of the Martyrdom of Irenaeus in all the known variants: several Greek variants (BHG 948–951), two Greek liturgical canons, one Latin version in many manuscripts (BHL 4466), one Old Slavonic (BHBS 508), one Georgian, and one Armenian translation (BHO 537). These transformations commonly point to the different phases of the textual metaphrasis; they hardly tell us anything about the communities that used the text(s). A few other versions contributed to enforcing specific ideas within contemporary political and religious contexts, such as in the text where Irenaeus suffered martyrdom with two other saints or when his posthumous relics performed healing miracles. Either as a rewriting phase or a “usable past,” this martyrdom narrative and its transformations further influenced the remembering and forgetting of Irenaeus.
