Who was Saint Irenaeus of Lyons?

Irenaeus, a Christian of great celebrity, who succeeded Pothinus as bishop of Lyons, A.D. 177, has left us much information on the subject of the early heresies. He is supposed to have written about the year 183. His great book "against heresies" is said to contain a defence of the holy catholic faith, and an examination and refutation of the false doctrines advocated by the principal heretics.*

In the same year (A.D. 202) died Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, a sincere lover of souls, and a zealous defender of the truth. He withstood the then bishop of Rome, a man of great arrogance and little piety, in whom the foul spirit of the Papacy was, alas! but too manifest, and wrote him a synodical epistle in the name of the Gallic churches. The following extract from another letter which Irenaeus addressed to one Florinus, a schismatic of Rome, will doubtless be read with interest. "I saw thee," he says, "when I was yet a boy in the lower Asia with Polycarp, moving in great splendour at court, and endeavouring by all means to gain his esteem. I remember the events of those times much better than those of more recent occurrence. As the studies of our youth, growing with our minds, unite with them so firmly that I can tell also the very place where the blessed Polycarp was accustomed to sit and discourse; and also his entrances, his walks, his manner of life, the form of his body, his conversations with the people, and his familiar intercourse with John, as he was accustomed to tell, as also his familiarity with those that had seen the Lord. How also he used to relate their discourses, and what things he had heard from them concerning the Lord. Also concerning his miracles, his doctrine, all these were told by Polycarp, in consistency with the holy scriptures, as he had received them from the eyewitnesses of the doctrine of salvation."

Irenaeus had many conflicts with the false teachers of his time, who, alas! were increasing but too rapidly; and his zeal presently drew upon him the resentment of the emperor. He was led out to the summit of a hill in company with some other Christians, and on refusing the usual test, to sacrifice to idols, was beheaded.

294 I must except from this the pious and faithful Irenaeus, though feebleness and some superstition may be found in him. It is a refreshment to read him after looking at the rest: what a difference from the wild imagination of a speculative, but (I believe) true-hearted, Origen; the loose and loosely expressed doctrine of a Justin Martyr, willing after all to die for Christ; or the turbulent orthodoxy and doubtful Christianity of an ambitious Cyril! What a difference, I say, in all this from that piety which flows from the personal knowledge of Christ by the scriptures, and respect for the word as the word of God! We find a clear recognition of fundamental truths, such as Christ's being the true God, and a true and heartfelt refusal to go on beyond what is written, in the prying impotency of the human mind; and this, with whatever defects, we do find in the good Irenaeus. The reader, who has the opportunity, may read chapters 27-28 of his second book (46, 47 in Feuardentii). Yet, and for this very reason of his humble submission to scripture, he is simple and firm in what scripture does teach; though perhaps, like all, the full divinity of the Lord Jesus has not an adequate place in his mind, for he occasionally owns it unequivocally. But one sees he has "the truth itself as a rule," hoping still to receive something more, and learn from God, because He is good and has unlimited riches. And thus he adds, "if, according to the measure we have spoken of, we commit some questions to God, we shall both keep our faith perfect and shall persevere without danger; and all scripture given to us of God will be found by us harmonious [consonant with itself], and parables will agree with what is said plainly, and what is said plainly will explain the parables." I may add, as to the fathers and scripture, "But we ought to refer such things as these to God" (what we cannot solve of things which are sought out in the scriptures) "who has made us, also knowing most surely that the scriptures, indeed, are perfect, as uttered by the word of God and by His Spirit, but we, inasmuch as we are inferior and the meanest (novissima) compared with (or the farthest from) the word of God and His Spirit, by so much are we wanting the knowledge of His mysteries."

Irenaeus was a Christian worthy of respect, though not sound in the faith after all, but our question with him is as an historian. Now the first point to be remarked is, that he had a controversial object in his facts, which alters the force even of his testimony: but we shall besides find that he states on the subject what certainly is not the fact. I do not doubt he believed it. He was tormented, as was the whole church, with Gnosticism, which denied that the true God of the Christians was the Creator, and he appeals to the universal faith of the churches everywhere, and specially of Rome, to prove that such a notion was never held amongst Christians. And he traces back the list of prelates, particularly at Rome, to prove this, that it was handed down by these worthy men from the beginning. He appeals to the scriptures, but, the heretics cavilling and appealing to tradition too, finding himself baffled by their cavils (instead of doing as the Lord did when Satan quoted scripture to Him, answering by another plain scripture), he turns to the common faith of the churches, and what the most esteemed leaders of the church had held, and hence gives their succession; but I am sorry to say, he himself was, what Rome and all orthodox persons would call, a heretic. But his appeal is really to meet the use of it by the Gnostics who pleaded, as Rome does now, that there were doctrines known by tradition, not contained in scripture. He answers, None of these successors of the apostles had such as you allege. What I have just said as to his testimony to tradition is clearly stated, lib. 3, c. 2, 3. We have only a very bad translation of most of Irenaeus' works.

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, is the first of the Fathers that alludes to infant baptism. He died about the year 200, so that his writings are placed towards the close of the second century. The apostolic fathers never mention it. By this time superstition, to a great extent, had taken the place of faith, so that the reader must be prepared to hear some extravagant notions advanced by some of the great doctors; yet many of them, we doubt not, were true earnest Christians. "Christ came to save all persons by Himself," says Irenaeus, "all, I mean, who by Him are regenerated — baptized — unto God: infants and little ones, children and youths, and elder persons. Therefore He went through the several ages: for infants being made an infant, sanctifying infants: to little ones He was made a little one, sanctifying those of that age: and also giving to them an example of godliness, justice, and dutifulness: to youths He was a youth," etc. Baptism was thus taught to be a complete lustration of the soul for all ages and conditions of mankind. But the controversy soon resolved itself into the one question — infant or adult. Regeneration, born again, baptism, are used as interchangeable terms, and as meaning the same thing, in the writings of the Fathers.*

But it is surprising that a pious and learned man, as I gladly believe Dr. W. to have been, should so mis-state the views in the most ancient remains on the Millennial prophecy. Why cite Bede (8th cent.) and Haymo (9th)? He knew perfectly well that Justin Martyr, as well as the pseudo-Barnabas, Irenaeus (an Asiatic godly bishop of Lyon in Gaul A.D. 177) who wrote in Greek and Tertullian who wrote in Latin, Hippolytus bp. of Portus Rom., Methodius bp. of Tyre, and Victorinus, all the three martyrs, and Lactantius the rhetorician father, believed and taught a literal reign of Christ and the risen saints over the earth. Origen, learned but heterodox, was the only one (those excepted who denied the genuineness of the book) of the pre-Constantinian writers who differed in principle as an extreme allegorist, though he did not live to comment on the Revelation. From Constantine's time indeed writers began to imagine, as it was not to be wondered at perhaps, a present millennium, though not all in the same sense. But it is unnecessary to speak of later Fathers, as I attach not the smallest authority to any of them, however early.

One of the most important things in the early history of the church, is the evil doctrines that were manifested in its midst. These were usually called Heresies. Irenaeus and Hippolytus name about thirty different heresies from the days of the apostles to their times.

Irenaeus, writing of Polycarp, says, "I have yet present in my mind the gravity of his demeanour, the majesty of his countenance, the purity of his life, and the holiness of the exhortations with which he fed his flock. I almost think that I can still hear him relating how he had conversed with St. John and many others who had seen Jesus Christ, and repeating the words he had received from their lips, and the accounts they had given him of the Saviour's miracles and doctrines; while his zeal for the purity of the faith was such that, when any error was advocated in his presence, he was wont to close his ears and to retire, exclaiming, "Merciful Lord, for what times hast thou reserved me?"

Irenaeus, the pious Bishop of Lyons in the latter part of the second century, cites repeatedly this alleged text, under the name of Isaiah and of Jeremiah, as well as with no name attached to it (Adv. Haer. iii. c. 20, § 4; iv. c. 22, § 1). The notion that the Jews effaced such a verse from the Hebrew is baseless; especially as they have left other testimonies to Christ incomparably clearer and more at issue with their traditions. Even Massuet confesses this to be a knot quite beyond his power to untie, bound though he was to sustain, had it been possible, the credit of patristic traditions. "Vereor ut Justino primum, ac deinde Irenaeo fucum fecerit apocrypha quaepiam scriptura." The unbiassed reader will have no scruple in affirming what the Benedictine feared — that it is a mere apocryphal gloss, loosely imputed to a prophet, and a little expanding as it goes down; for Irenaeus adds (or at least the barbarous Latin version, which alone here represents his Greek) "ut salvaret eos" or "ad salvandum eos." That is, He preached in hades not merely to announce but to save. Irenaeus, strange to say, seems unusually attached to this pseudograph; for he cites it again in his book, iv. c. 33, § 1. Only in § 12 of the same chapter the Latin translation gives the notable variation, "in terra limi … uti erigeret," with the addition named in both, though differently expressed. Lastly, in his fifth book too he once more falls back on his prophet, but recurs to the earlier form, "in terra sepelitionis" (so Feuardentius, etc., instead of the Erasmian reading, "stipulationis"), though even so with some change, "extrahere eos et salvare eos." Comment is scarce needed. When a man quotes so carelessly in the same work of no considerable extent, we need not be surprised if he were loose as to scripture and indistinct as to doctrine.

But we may go a step farther. There is no ancient ecclesiastical writer more worthy of credit in his place than Irenaeus. Yet thus he writes in his third book against heresies (chap. 14:2): "In Mileto enim convocatis episcopis et presbyteris, qui erant ab Epheso et a reliquis proximis civitatibus," etc. Now here we have the same inspired document (Acts 20) which was before the Bishop of Lyons; and we know beyond controversy that he fell into a twofold error. For, 1st, the comparison of verses 17 and 28 proves, not that bishops and presbyters assembled at Miletum, but that the elders were bishops; and, 2nd, they were the elders or bishops of the Church in Ephesus, and not a conclave of bishops from Ephesus and the cities near it, each city yielding its own bishop. Is it insinuated that so true a saint deliberately warped the Word of God and falsified the facts? I think nothing of the sort; but that, on the most charitable supposition, the ecclesiastical government then existing blunted the writer's vision to such an extent that he was unconscious of his own distortion of the Scriptural account. Does any Anglican tax me with a theory that leads me to misjudge Irenaeus? They will forgive me for thinking that I have incomparably less to influence my judgment than a professional divine, dissenting or nationalist; but if they doubt still, let them hear their own Dean Alford's comment on the discrepancy between Acts 20 and Irenaeus. "This circumstance began very early to contradict the growing views of the apostolical institution and necessity of prelatical episcopacy." Then, after pointing out the double misrepresentation substantially as I have done, he adds, "so early did interested and disingenuous interpretations begin to cloud the light which Scripture might have thrown on ecclesiastical questions. The E. V. has hardly dealt fairly in this case with the sacred text, in rendering ἐπισκόπους, ver. 28, 'overseers,' whereas it ought there, as in all other places, to have been 'bishops,' that the fact of elders and bishops having been originally and apostolically synonymous might be apparent to the ordinary English reader, which now it is not."