By Fr. George Florovsky
St Irenaeus of Lyons was probably born in Asia Minor
between 125 and 145, perhaps in Smyrna — in his letter to the Roman
presbyter Florinus St. Irenaeus tells us that in his early youth he had
listened to the sermons of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna: "When I was still
a boy, I knew you, Florinus, in lower Asia, in Polycarp’s house… I remember the events of those days more clearly than those, which happened recently…
so that I can speak even of the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat
and disputed, how he came in and went out, the character of his life,
the appearance of his body, the discourses, which he made to the people,
how he reported his relationship with John and with the others who had
seen the Lord, how he remembered their words, and what were the things
concerning the Lord, which he had heard from them, and about their
miracles, and about their teachings, and how Polycarp had received them
from the eye-witnesses of the Logos of Life, and reported all things in
agreement with the Scriptures. I listened eagerly even then to these
things through the mercy of God, which was given me, and made notes of
them, not on paper, but in my heart, and ever by the grace of God do I
truly ruminate on them." This text is preserved by Eusebius in his Εκκλησιαστική ιστορία 5, 20. But the fact that St. Irenaeus was in Smyrna as a boy does not necessitate that he was born there.
St. Irenaeus is one of the most important
theologians or Church writers of the second century. Some scholars
consider him "the most important of the theologians" of the second
century. Nygren in his Agape and Eros asserts that "Irenaeus is
chief of the anti-Gnostic Fathers." The fact remains that his importance
is enormous. It is not known why St. Irenaeus left Asia Minor and went
to Gaul. One conjecture is that he accompanied St. Polycarp to Rome in
155, stayed for a while, and then from Rome went to Gaul. What is known
is that through Polycarp St. Irenaeus was in contact with the Apostolic
Age.
The first historical mention of St. Irenaeus is in
the year 177. At that time he was a priest of the Church of Lyons
[Lugdunum] under the elder bishop, St. Pothinus. A certain group of
Christians coming from Phrygia had come to Lyons with the news that,
according to the Phrygian prophets, the second coming of Christ was at
hand. At this time, Pope Eleutherius (175-189) had been solicited to
confirm the condemnations, which the bishops of Asia had passed on the
Montanists. The Church of Lyons wrote a letter on this subject to the
pope and entrusted it to St. Irenaeus who was to take it to Rome. The
letter contained an excellent recommendation, as found in Eusebius: "We
have asked our brother and companion Irenaeus to bring this letter to
you, and we beg you to hold him in esteem, for he is zealous for the
covenant of Christ." It was fortuitous for St. Irenaeus because while he
was gone a persecution broke out in Lyons (177-178), one of the victims
of which was St. Pothinus. On his return from Rome St. Irenaeus was
chosen to succeed St. Pothinus as bishop.
St. Irenaeus became involved with Rome once again
when Pope Victor I (189-198) took a strong stand against the Church of
Asia Minor — Proconsular Asia, the metropolis of which was Ephesus — in
the Paschal controversy. The Church in Asia Minor, following a tradition
alleged to come from St. John, celebrated the feast of the Christian
Passover, Easter, on the day of the Paschal full moon; whether that day
fell on a Sunday or on any other day of the week. The rest of the
Church, both East and West, celebrated the Christian Pascha on the
Sunday following the Paschal full moon. The Church at Rome, as the
capital of the empire, had Christians living or visiting there from all
parts of the empire. The Christians from Asia Minor celebrated Easter
according to their tradition in Rome. This created disharmony in the
liturgical life of the Church but it was tolerated by five popes from
about 118 to 165 — Xystus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus. It
was this liturgical and calendrical issue, which was discussed in Rome
in 155 by St. Polycarp and Pope Anicetus without a resolution of the
problem. It appears that Pope Soter, who followed Anicetus, required all
Christians in Rome to celebrate Easter simultaneously. But Pope Soter
did not interfere with the custom in Asia Minor where that tradition
continued. Pope Victor determined to bring uniformity to the entire
Church. Such a step required the suppression of the custom of Asia
Minor. It appears that Pope Victor sent letters from the Church of Rome
to the metropolitans in Asia Minor requesting them to summon local
councils to discuss the proper day for the celebration of Easter. That
Pope Victor requested rather than commanded seems to be the meaning that
Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, attaches to the word ... his letter to Pope Victor, although άξιόω can be used in the sense of “to require.” In compliance with the request
from the Roman Church, councils were held in many provinces — in
Palestine, in Asia, in Pontus, in Osrhoene, in Gaul and elsewhere. Pope
Victor held his own council in Rome. The decision was unanimous — except
for Polycrates’ province — that Easter should be celebrated on Sunday.
It appears that Pope Victor, in communicating the result of his council
to Polycrates, threatened to excommunicate the Church in Asia if they
continued in their custom. Polycrates’ reply is historical interesting
in shedding light on the attitude of other churches to Rome at this
time; it is also defiant. Eusebius relates that Pope Victor then
"endeavoured" to cut off the churches "of all Asia, along with their
neighbouring churches, as heterodox, from the common unity." Eusebius
also relates that Victor sent letters to the other churches proclaiming
that the Church in Asia was "utterly — άρδην — separated from communion.” Victor received
letters from other bishops exhorting him to pursue a policy of unity,
peace, and love. Some of these letters sharply upbraid Victor. St.
Irenaeus entered the conflict, admonishing Pope Victor. Eusebius relates
that Irenaeus lived up to his name, for he was a real "peace" maker — ειρηνοποιός. After this incident St. Irenaeus is not heard about again — even the date of his death is unknown, although tradition fixes it about 202 or 203.
St. Irenaeus had a breadth of knowledge, a depth of
faith, and a love and knowledge of Scripture. In addition to his
Episcopal duties, he was, as Tertullian writes about him, "a curious
explorer of all doctrines." He made it a kind of official duty to know
all the heresies with the explicit purpose of refuting them so that the
received faith, the faith from the tradition of the Apostles would
triumph. He was highly educated and had read numerous Greek writers,
both literary and philosophical. But he was not attracted to abstract
speculation, precisely because he believed this to be the main source of
Gnosticism, which at that time was ravaging Gaul as it was also
ravaging Italy and the East. For him, the very fact of revealing the
system of the Gnostics "was to vanquish them." In addition to his
Episcopal duties and his writings, St. Irenaeus worked to spread
Christianity in the provinces adjacent to Lyons. The Churches at
Besangon and at Valence claim that St. Irenaeus was the first to
announce the Gospel to them.
St. Irenaeus’ main work is έλεγχος και άνατροπή της ψενδονόμου γνώσεως — The Detection and Overthrow of the Pretended but False Gnosis, more commonly known as the Adversus Haereses.
This work has been preserved not in its Greek original but in a Latin
translation which was in circulation soon after the original Greek
because not only St. Cyprian worked from it but also Tertullian.
Fragments of the Greek original have been preserved by Eusebius,
Hippolytus, and Epiphanius. From these three writers almost the entire
text can be re-established. A literal translation of the fourth and
fifth books exists in an Armenian translation and fragments also exist
in Syrian translations. From Eusebius we knew that another work of his,
the Επίδειξις του Αποστολικού κηρύγματος [The Demonstration of the Apostolic Teaching],
had been written by St. Irenaeus but nothing more than the title was
known until 1904 when the entire text was discovered in an Armenian
translation. Only fragments exist of the other works by St. Irenaeus.
Eusebius mentions a work called Περι έπιοτήμητς [On Knowledge], which he considers a "short but necessary book." A substantial fragment from his work On the Monarchy or How God is Not the Cause of Evil
is preserved by Eusebius. This work was directed against Florinus, a
former friend who had become a Gnostic. St. Irenaeus wrote another work
against his former friend Florinus, the closing words from which are
preserved by Eusebius — On the Ogdoad [of Valentinus]. The title of a letter St. Irenaeus wrote to Blastus, On Schism,
is found in Eusebius. A fragment is extant in Syrian of a letter he
wrote to Pope Victor requesting that he takes measures against Florinus
and suppresses Florinus writings. Eusebius has preserved excepts from
St. Irenaeus’ letter to Pope Victor on the Paschal controversy.
St. Irenaeus clearly enunciates both his position of "apostolic faith" and the Church’s Trinitarian faith early on in Adversus Haereses.
"Now the Church, although scattered over the whole civilized world to
the end of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples its
faith in one God, the Father Almighty… and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit… Having received this preaching and this faith…
the Church, although scattered in the whole world, carefully preserves
it, as if living in one house. She believes these things everywhere
alike, as if she had but one heart and one soul, and preaches them
harmoniously, teaches them, and hands them down, as if she had but one
mouth. For the languages of the world are different but the meaning of
the tradition is one and the same… For since the faith is one and
the same, he who can say much about it does not add to it, nor does he
who can say little diminish it… the real Church has one and the same
faith everywhere in the world" (I, 10), "For we learned the plan of
salvation from no others but from those through whom the gospel came to
us, they first preached it abroad, and then later… handed it down
to us in writings" (III, 1). How important the "received tradition" is
for St. Irenaeus is clear when he discusses "the writings." The Gnostic
heretics attack "the writings," saying they are "nor correct, or
authoritative." St. Irenaeus then turns to his defence from the received
and preserved tradition, a defence, which becomes the crucial test for
orthodoxy and heterodoxy. He must present a specific defence because, as
he writes, "what it comes to is that they will not agree with either
Scripture or tradition" (III, 2). "The tradition of the apostles, made
clear in the entire world, can be clearly seen in every church by those
who wish to behold the truth. We can enumerate those who were
established by the apostles as bishops in the churches, and their
successors down to our time, none of whom taught or thought anything
like their mad ideas. Even if the apostles had known of hidden
mysteries, which they taught to the perfect secretly and apart from
others, they would have handed them down especially to those to whom
they were entrusting the churches themselves… But since it would be very
long in such a volume as this to enumerate the successions of all the
churches, I can by pointing out the tradition which that very great,
oldest, and well-known Church, founded and established at Rome by those
two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul, received from the apostles,
and its faith known among men, which comes down to us through the
successions of bishops, put to shame all of those who in any way...
gather as they should not. For every church must be in harmony with [or
resort to] this Church because of its outstanding pre-eminence, that is,
the faithful from everywhere, since the apostolic tradition is
preserved in it by those from everywhere" (III, 20). St. Irenaeus uses
the Church of Rome as the example because it was founded by Peter and
Paul and was hence apostolic, because it possessed some type of
"pre-eminence" or primacy, and because it was visited, as the capital
city of the empire, by Christians from everywhere and therefore
possessed the existential reality of knowing the faith of those from all
parts of the world, a faith, which was the same as that of Rome. He
then continues by using the Church at Smyrna and the Church at Ephesus
as further examples of the "apostolic tradition." "Since there are so
many clear testimonies, we should not seek from others for the truth,
which can easily be received from the Church. There the apostles, like a
rich man making a deposit, fully bestowed upon her all that belongs to
the truth, so that whoever wishes may receive from her the water of
life" (III, 2). St. Irenaeus raises the vital issue addressed by St.
Ignatius, the issue about, which Karl Adam has written — what if there
were no Scriptures? "Even if the apostles had not left their writings to
us, ought we not to follow the rule of the tradition which they handed
down to those to whom they committed the churches?" St. Irenaeus gives
an example of where this actually applies — among "many barbarian
people" who follow the rule of tradition "written in their hearts by the
Spirit without paper and ink." These Christians "diligently follow the
old tradition." He then briefly summarizes the essence of this "old
tradition:" "they believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth and of
all that is in them, through Christ Jesus the Son of God, who on account
of his abundant love for his creation submitted to be born of a Virgin,
himself by himself uniting man to God, and having suffered under
Pontius Pilate, and risen. Those who believe in this faith without
written documents are barbarians… if anyone should preach to them the inventions of the heretics…
they would at once stop their ears and run far, far away, not enduring
even to listen to such blasphemous speech." It is, writes St. Irenaeus,
"the old tradition of the apostles" that preserves them in the true
faith.
St. Irenaeus describes how the heretical Gnostics
taught about Jesus — "according to none of the views of the heretics was
the Logos of God made flesh" (III, 11). "Some say that this Jesus…
incarnate and suffered, and that he had passed through Mary like water
through a tube. Others say that it was the son of the Demiurge, on whom
the Jesus… descended. Others again say that Jesus indeed was born
of Joseph and Mary, and that Christ who came from above descended on
him, being without flesh and free from suffering… If one should
read over all their credal statements, he would find that they always
bring in the Logos of God and the Christ who is from above as without
flesh and free from suffering. Some think that he was manifested as a
transfigured man but say that he was neither born nor incarnate. Others
say that he did not even take the form of a man, but descended like a
dove on that Jesus who was born of Mary" (III, 11). "Vain also are the
Ebionites, who do not accept in their souls by faith the union of God
and man, but remain in the old leaven of human birth — not wishing to
understand that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and the power of the
Most High overshadowed her, and so what was born of her is holy and the
Son of God Most High, the Father of all who thus brought about his
Incarnation and displayed the new birth so that as we by the former
birth were heirs of death, by this birth we should be heirs of life" (V,
3).
St. Irenaeus delineates the legitimate areas of theology in his Adversus Haereses.
The "basic idea" remains the same — by this he means that the original
deposit remains always one and the same. Theology consists of "working
out the things that have been said," of "building them into the
foundation of faith." This is done by "expounding the activity and
dispensation of God for the sake of mankind," by "showing clearly" God’s
long-suffering, by "declaring why one and the same God made some things
subject to time, others eternal," by "understanding why God, being
invisible, appeared to the prophets, not in one form, but differently to
different ones," by "showing why there were a number of covenants with
mankind," by "teaching the character of each of the covenants," by
"searching out why God shut up all in disobedience that he might have
mercy on all," by "giving thanks that the Logos of God was made flesh,
and suffered," by "declaring why the coming of the Son of God was at the
last times," by "unfolding what is found in the prophets about the end
and the things to come," by "not being silent that God has made the
forsaken Gentiles fellow heirs and of the same body and partners with
the saints," and by "stating how this mortal and fleshly body will put
on immortality, and this corruptible incorruption" (I, 10). Clearly St.
Irenaeus does not consider this enumeration to be exhaustive and
comprehensive. Rather, it is no more than a sketch, a guide of some of
the areas in which speculative theology can be utilized. He himself
discusses far more areas of theological concern.
God, for St. Irenaeus, is the Creator, the "Father
of all," the "Source of all goodness." He is "simple, uncompounded,
without diversity of parts, completely identical and consistent, beyond
the emotions and passions" of created existence (II, 13). God as Creator
gives existence to everything; creation was an act of his freedom, a
free act, for "he was not moved by anything" (I, 1). God in his
"greatness" cannot be known to man, he cannot be "measured" (IV, 20). It
is God’s love, which brings man within the grasp of knowledge of God
but this knowledge is limited, it is not knowledge of God’s "greatness"
or his "true being." Our knowledge of God comes from the revelation of
the Logos of God (IV, 20; III, 24). God is without need. He did not
create because he had need of man and creation. Neither does he need our
love, obedience, and service. God gives, confers, and grants (IV, 14).
God is "absolute and eternal." Creation is
"contingent" and, being contingent, having their beginning in time,
created beings "fall short of their maker’s perfection" (IV, 38). Akin
to the thought of Theophilus of Alexandria and other Apologists, St.
Irenaeus thinks of man at creation as "immature" — "being newly created
they are therefore childlike and immature, and not yet fully trained for
an adult way of life. And just as a mother is able to offer food to an
infant, but the infant is not yet able to receive food unsuited to its
age, so also God could have offered perfection to man at the beginning,
but man, being yet an infant, could not have absorbed it" (IV, 38).
Not only is man’s participation in the redemptive
work of Christ a process but the very plan of redemption is a process
and — moreover, the very Incarnation, the reality of God becoming man,
begins a process in the life of the God-Man that sanctifies every aspect
and stage in the life of man. This is his well-known teaching of
"recapitulation," of άνακεφαλαίωσις: There is no notion
in the thought of St. Irenaeus of any form of passive holiness or
passive righteousness. Everything is process, everything is dynamic, and
everything is moving toward the goal of rebirth in Christ, of rebirth
into incorruptibility, of rebirth into eternality, of rebirth leading to
a vision and knowledge of God, of rebirth leading to transfiguration.
The theme of the later Greek and then Byzantine fathers of the vision of
God and of deification is also the thought of St. Irenaeus. As St.
Irenaeus asks, what is the deification of created beings if not their
participation in the divine life? Men will "see God in order to live;
men will become immortal by the vision and will progress on the path to
God" — per visionem immortales facti et peregrinantes usque in Deum. St. Irenaeus writes that "it is impossible to live without life, and the foundation or existence — ΰπαρξις — of life comes from participating — μετοχή — in God. To participate in God is to know — γιγνοσκειν
— him and to enjoy his goodness” (III, 20). In the thought of St.
Irenaeus everything is accomplished by God and by the will of God and
yet man participates by a spiritually free acceptance of everything accomplished and revealed by God.
Since God is the cause of the being of all things,
these created things, in order to participate in "incorruptibility,"
must remain "subject to God." Subjection and obedience to God conveys
incorruptibility and "continuance in incorruptibility is the glory of
eternity." "Through such obedience and discipline and training, man, who
is contingent and created, grows into the image and likeness of the
eternal God. This process the Father approves and commands; the Son
carries out the Father’s plan, the Spirit supports and hastens the
process — while man gradually advances and mounts towards perfection;
that is, he approaches the eternal. The eternal is perfect and this is
God. Man has first to come into being, then to progress, and by
progressing come to manhood, and having reached manhood to increase, and
thus increasing to persevere, and by persevering be glorified, and thus
see his Lord. For it is God’s intention that he should be seen: and the
vision of God is the acquisition of immortality; and immortality brings
man near to God" (IV, 38). It has been observed and commented upon that
St. Irenaeus taught in The Demonstration of the Apostolic Teaching
(15) that man before the Fall was immortal by nature. What appears to
be contradictory is not necessarily the case if one analyzes the two
different perspectives from which St. Irenaeus was writing in the
respective texts. The interpretation involves that important "if" in St.
Irenaeus — if man had kept the commandments of God if man had remained
subject to incorruptibility. But in his thought, it is clear that this
"if" is completely speculative and theoretical, not real and
existential. The very nature of created existence and the depth of
spiritual freedom in his thought render this "if" existentially
meaningless.
God, invisible by nature, reveals himself, manifests
himself to man by the Logos, the principle of all manifestation. And
here there is simultaneity and reciprocity of knowledge and vision, for
the Logos reveals God to man while simultaneously revealing man to God.
And the Logos has become man so that men might become gods (V, preface).
Eternally the Son is the "Only-Begotten" of the
Father. "His Begetting" is "in truth indescribable… Only the Father
knows who begat him, and the Son who was Begotten" (II, 28). "The Son
always co-exists with the Father" (II, 30). The "Son of God did not
begin to be" (III, 18). "Through the Son who is in the Father and who
has the Father in himself, He Who Is has been revealed" (III, 6). "The
Son is the measure of the Father because he contains the Father" (IV,
4). "All saw the Father in the Son, for the Father is the invisible of
the Son, the Son the visible of the Father" (IV, 6).
"There is one God, who by his Logos and Wisdom made and ordered all things…
His Logos is our Lord Jesus Christ who in these last times became man
among men so that he might unite the end with the beginning, that is,
Man with God" (IV, 20). "God became man and it was the Lord himself who
saved us" (III, 21). "He united man to God… If he had overcome
man’s adversary as man, the enemy would not have been justly overcome.
If it had not been God, who granted salvation, we should not have it as a
secure possession. And if man had not been united to God, man could not
have become a partaker of immortality. For the mediator between God and
man had to bring both parties into friendship and harmony through his
kinship with both, and to present man to God and to make God known to
man. In what way could we share in the adoption of the sons of God
unless through the Son we had received the fellowship with the Father,
unless the Logos of God made flesh had entered into communion with us?"
(III, 18). "The Lord redeemed us by his blood and gave his life for our
life, his flesh for our flesh, and poured out the Spirit of the Father
to unite us and reconcile God and man, bringing God down to man through
the Spirit, and raising man to God through his Incarnation" (V, 1).
The Holy Spirit, the "unction," is referred to
constantly by St. Irenaeus not only in credal forms but in terms of his
activity — the "Spirit prepares man for the Son of God," the "Spirit
supplies knowledge of the truth," the "Spirit has revealed the oikonomiai of the Father and the Son towards man," the Spirit is the "living water" which the Lord pours forth.
From The Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth Century, ch. 5.