Irenaeus

Irenaeus (ca. 130-202) was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, which is now Lyon, France. His writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology, and he is recognized as a saint by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church; the latter considers him a Father of the Church. He was a disciple of Polycarp, who himself was a disciple of John the Evangelist. His feast day is 28 June.

Biography

Born in the first half of the second century (the exact date is disputed, between the years 115 and 125 according to some or 130 and 142 according to others), Irenaeus is thought to have been a Greek from Polycarp's hometown of Smyrna in Asia Minor, now Izmir, Turkey. He was raised in a Christian family, rather than converting as an adult, and this may help explain his rigid adherence to orthodoxy.

During the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, Irenaeus was a priest of the Church of Lyon. The clergy of that city, many of whom were suffering imprisonment for the faith, sent him (177 or 178) to Rome with a letter to Pope Eleuterus concerning Montanism, and on that occasion bore emphatic testimony to his merits. Returning to Gaul, Irenaeus succeeded the martyr Saint Pothinus, becoming the second Bishop of Lyon.

During the religious peace which followed the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, the new bishop divided his activities between the duties of a pastor and of a missionary (as to which we have but brief data, late and not very certain). Almost all of his writings were directed against Gnosticism, the sect of Christianity which was spreading at the expense of what later became the Christian orthodoxy. The most famous of these writings is Adversus Haereses (against heresy). In 190 or 191 he interceded with Pope Victor to lift the sentence of excommunication laid by that pontiff upon the Christian communities of Asia Minor which persevered in the practice of the Quartodeciman celebration of Easter.

Nothing is known of the date of his death, which must have occurred at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. In spite of some isolated and later testimony to that effect, it is not very probable that he ended his career with martyrdom. He was buried under the church of Saint John's in Lyon, which was later renamed St. Irenaeus in his honour; the tomb and his remains were destroyed in 1562 by the Calvinist Huguenots. His feast is celebrated on 28 June in the Latin Church, and on 23 August in the Greek.

Writings

Irenaeus wrote a number of books, but the most important that survives is the five-volume On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, normally referred to by the Latin title Adversus Haereses ("Against Heresies"). Only fragments of the original Greek text exist, but a complete copy exists in a wooden Latin translation, made shortly after its publication in Greek, and Books IV and V are also present in a literal Armenian translation. Irenaeus: Against heresies

The purpose of Against Heresies was to refute the teachings of various Gnostic groups; apparently, several Greek merchants had begun an oratorial campaign praising the pursuit of "gnosis" in Irenaeus' bishopric. Until the discovery of the Library of Nag Hammadi in 1945, Against Heresies was the best surviving description of Gnosticism.

In Book II, chapter 22 of his treatise, Irenaeus asserts that the ministry of Jesus lasted from when he was baptized at the age of 30 until at least the age of 40:

the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord, [affirming that John conveyed to them that information. And he remained among them up to the times of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also, and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the of the statement.''

Elsewhere, Irenaeus asserts that:

they have apostatized in their opinions from Him who is God, and imagined that they have themselves discovered more than the apostles, by finding out another god; and that the apostles preached the Gospel still somewhat under the influence of Jewish opinions, but that they themselves are purer [in doctrine, and more intelligent, than the apostles. (Book III, ch. 12, par. 12)

Irenaeus cites from most of the New Testament canon, as well as the noncanonical works 1 Clement and The Shepherd of Hermas; however, he makes no references to Philemon, 2 Peter, 3 John or Jude - four of the shortest epistles.

Irenaeus changes history

Irenaeus was the first Christian writer to list all four of the now canonical Gospels as divinely-inspired, possibly in reaction to Marcion's edited version of the Gospel of Luke, which he (Marcion) asserted was the one and only true gospel.

Irenaeus' works were published in English in 1885 in the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection.

Irenaeus' theology

The central point of Irenaeus' theology is the unity of God, in opposition to the Gnostics' division of God into a number of divine "Aeons", and their distinction between the utterly transcendent "High God" and the inferior "Demiurge" who created the world. Irenaeus uses the Logos theology he inherited from Justin Martyr. Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp, who was tutored by John the Apostle. John used Logos theology in the Gospel of John and book of 1 John. He prefers to speak of the Son and the Spirit as the "hands of God". Christ, according to him, is the invisible Father made visible.

His emphasis on the unity of God is reflected in his corresponding emphasis on the unity of salvation history. Irenaeus repeatedly insists that God began the world and has been overseeing it ever since this creative act; everything that has happened is part of his plan for humanity. The essence of this plan is a process of maturation: Irenaeus believes that humanity was created immature, and God intended his creatures to take a long time to grow into or assume the divine likeness. Thus, Adam and Eve were created as children. Their Fall was thus not a full-blown rebellion but a childish spat, a desire to grow up before their time and have everything with immediacy.

Everything that has happened since has therefore been planned by God to help humanity overcome this initial mishap and achieve spiritual maturity. The world has been intentionally designed by God as a difficult place, where human beings are forced to make moral decisions, as only in this way can they mature as moral agents. Irenaeus likens death to the whale that swallowed Jonah: it was only in the depths of the whale's belly that Jonah could turn to God and act according to the divine will. Similarly, death and suffering appear as evils, but without them we could never come to know God.

According to Irenaeus, the high point in salvation history is the advent of Jesus. Irenaeus believed that Christ would always have been sent, even if humanity had never sinned; but the fact that they did sin determines his role as a savior. He sees Christ as the new Adam, who systematically undoes what Adam did: thus, where Adam was disobedient concerning God's edict concerning the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Christ was obedient even to death on the wood of a tree. Irenaeus is the first to draw comparisons between Eve and Mary, contrasting the faithlessness of the former with the faithfulness of the latter. In addition to reversing the wrongs done by Adam, Irenaeus thinks of Christ as "recapitulating" or "summing up" human life. This means that Christ goes through every stage of human life, from infancy to old age, and simply by living it, sanctifies it with his divinity. Irenaeus argues that Christ did not die until he was older than conventionally portrayed (see above).

Irenaeus conceives of our salvation as essentially coming about through the incarnation of God as a man. He characterises the penalty for sin as death and corruption. God, however, is immortal and incorruptible, and simply by becoming united to human nature in Christ he conveys those qualities to us: they spread, as it were, like a benign infection. Irenaeus therefore understands the atonement of Christ as happening through his incarnation rather than his crucifixion, although the latter event is an integral part of the former.

Irenaeus is also known as one of the first theologians to use the principle of apostolic succession to refute his opponents.

External links

Early Christian Writings Irenaeus
Religious Texts Index: Irenaeus
Catholic Encyclopedia Irenaeus
- Against Heresies
- Fragments from his lost works
A nineteenth-century translation of Irenaeus' work
- Book II, ch. 22, where Irenaeus argues his unconventional views about the age of Jesus and the length of his ministry.
Excerpts from Irenaeus
EarlyChurch.org.uk Extensive bibliography.
Gregory S. Neal: "The Nature of Evil and the Irenaean Theodicy" Grace Incarnate (1988)
Irenaeus: Against heresies

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Biography

Writings

Irenaeus changes history

Irenaeus' theology

External links