During their fall assembly, the U. Irenaeus ministered — to have the second-century bishop declared a doctor of the church. Once declared, St. Irenaeus would be the second doctor of the church named by Pope Francis after St. Gregory of Narek, who was given the designation in He would bring the total number of doctors of the church to Conference of Catholic Bishops.
His writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology. He was a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna , who himself was a disciple of the Apostle John the Theologian. His feast day is August He was brought up 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 refer to 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 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, presumably shortly after the turn of the third century. He was buried under the church of Saint John in Lyons, which was later renamed St.
His tomb and his remains were destroyed in by the Calvinist Huguenots. The remains of Leonardo da Vinci and Kepler, among others, also were lost in the religious wars of those times. 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 Adversus Haereses in English, 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. Until the discovery of the Library of Nag Hammadi in , Against Heresies was the best surviving description of Gnosticism.
Additionally, Irenaeus' descriptions of Gnostic teachings had long been doubted by scholars as the product of polemical hyperbole, but the find at Nag Hammadi confirmed Irenaeus' descriptions in the words of the Gnostics themselves. Irenaeus was the first Christian writer to list all four and exactly four of the canonical Gospels as divinely inspired, possibly in reaction to Marcion 's edited version of Luke , which Marcion asserted was the one and only true gospel.
His works were published in English in in the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection. 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. He was particularly acquainted with a group known as Valentinians, who were part of the widespread phenomena we today refer to as Gnosticism. Irenaeus took time to study Gnostic writings and to talk to Gnostics in person.
At the encouragement of a friend, Irenaeus wrote his reflections in a series of five books, which he titled The Refutation and Overthrowal of Knowledge Falsely So-Called today known as Against Heresies , a project he continued for a number of years, between A. He might have started writing before moving to southeastern Gaul, where he served as presbyter or bishop, since the two words were used interchangeably.
He mostly operated in Vienne and Lyon, two cities about 20 miles from each other. It was a prosperous region, particularly important as a center of trade and Celtic religious rites.
Every year, Lyon hosted a meeting of the 60 tribes from the area and a popular festival in honor of the sun god Lugh equivalent of the Roman Mercury. It was just before this festival, in , that the Lyonnaise attacked the Christians. Irenaeus was probably in Rome, where he had been sent to carry a letter to Bishop Eleutherius and discuss the controversial teachings of Montanus in Asia Minor.
When he returned, the questions facing Irenaeus were urgent and complex. While the faith of some survivors had been strengthened through the persecution, many others were wearied by the struggle. Beyond the threat of violence from those who still followed traditional Roman beliefs, Irenaeus had to address heresy within the church. Gnosticism, in its various forms, had encouraged people to look for higher knowledge and a more sophisticated understanding of Christian belief than what the apostles and the local churches could offer.
While adherents organized themselves in separate communities, they often gained a hearing within the churches. The Gnostic message had a wide appeal. First of all, the prospect of obtaining a higher, secret knowledge is always tempting. Second, Gnosticism provided a plausible explanation of the problem of evil as the result of the impulsive and vindictive whims of an inferior god, and this struggle between two deities made sense.
They could in good conscience accept the demands of the Roman government and escape persecution. For Irenaeus, the main problem with Gnosticism was that it was not historical Christianity. To them, salvation was obtained through enlightenment and was only available to a chosen few. Their writings were earnest and poetic but quite different in scope and spirit from the canonical gospels.
Since the biblical narrative was not important to them, they could cast doubts on some of the basic tenets of the Christian faith. For example, some taught that the man on the cross was not the same as the miracle-working Christ, because it was not fit for Christ to suffer.
This was problematic on both soteriological and practical levels. To persecuted Christians, it would have raised the question of why Christ asked his followers to accept abuses to the point of death when he himself escaped all suffering.
Besides, while most Gnostics were sincerely convinced of possessing the truth, a few used the appeal of higher knowledge as a means of exploitation. He targeted wealthy women, urging them to give messages from God by saying the first thing that came into their minds. When they did, he proclaimed them prophetesses, accepting their valuable gifts and sexual favors as tokens of their gratitude. Only a few women recognized the deception and returned to the church.
Some believed that the world was created by a dual god who emitted another single or dual being, forming a unit that generated a succession of Aeons or spiritual beings or powers who performed different functions in the universe.
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