Irenaeus

Irenaeus (c. 120-202) was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, which is now Lyons, France. His writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology. The Roman Catholic Church considers him a Father of the Church. He was a disciple of Polycarp, who himself was a disciple of the Apostle John.

Biography

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 strong sense of orthodoxy. Irenaeus was one of the first Christian writers to use the principle of apostolic succession to refute his opponents.

Irenaeus is remembered as the second bishop of Lyons, although there is no clear evidence that he ever officially assumed the episcopal duties. The first bishop, Pothinus, was martyred around 177 during persecutions under Marcus Aurelius, when Irenaeus was visiting Rome.

Irenaeus is remembered as a martyr. Although there is no evidence for how he died, he presumably did so shortly after the turn of the 3rd century. He was buried under the church of Saint John's in Lyons, which was later renamed St. Irenaeus. His tomb and his remains were destroyed in 1562 by the Calvinist Huguenots. The remains of Leonardo da Vinci and Kepler, among others, also were lost in the religious wars of those times.

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 as Against Heresies. Only fragments in its original Greek exist, but a complete copy exists in a wooden Latin translation, made shortly after its publication in Greek, and Books IV and V are present in a literal Armenian translation.

The purpose of Against Heresies is to refute the teachings of various gnostic groups he found in Lyons. Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945, Against Heresies was the best surviving description of Gnosticism.

In Book II, ch. 22, he asserts that the ministry of Jesus lasted from when he was baptized at age 30 until at least until the age of 50, and that he remained among his disciples until the reign of Trajan, i.e. at least until the year 98 CE. It is not clear from the context whether Irenaeus believed Jesus was crucified in his old age, or was crucified at around the age 50 and then remained on earth long after his resurrection: "... but from 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 [validity of] the statement."

In Book III, ch 12, par. 12: "... 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 [maintained] 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."

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

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

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 "High God" and the wicked "Demiurge" who created the world. Irenaeus uses the Logos theology he inherited from Justin Martyr, but prefers to speak of the Son and the Spirit as the "hands of God". Christ, for 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 created the world and has been overseeing it ever since. Everything that has happened is part of his plan for humanity. The essence of this plan is maturation: Irenaeus believes that humanity was created immature, and God intended his creatures to take a long time to grow into his 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 now.

Everything that has happened since has therefore been planned by God to help humanity overcome this and grow up. The world has been designed by God as a difficult place, where human beings are forced to make moral decisions - only in this way can they mature. 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 do his will. Similarly, death and suffering appear evil, but without them we could never come to know God.

The high point in salvation history is Jesus. Irenaeus believes 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 about the fruit of a tree, 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 is therefore forced to argue that Christ did not die until he was quite old!

Irenaeus thus thinks that our salvation comes about, essentially, through the incarnation of God as 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 is an integral part of the former.

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original article was at Irenaeus. The list of authors can be seen in the page history.

External links

• Early Christian Writings: Irenaeus
• 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 biography