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Jun 27, 2023 · St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Irenaeus suffered greatly in their lives and were deeply “acquainted with grief.” Instead of leading to despair, suffering made them fully alive to the beauty of the world and to the gift of God’s grace.
- Overview
- Early career
- Irenaeus’s writings: conflict with the gnostics
St. Irenaeus (born c. 120/140, Asia Minor—died c. 200/203, probably Lyon; Western feast day June 28; Eastern feast day August 23) bishop of Lugdunum (Lyon), Apologist, and leading Christian theologian of the 2nd century. His work Adversus haereses (Against Heresies), written about 180, was a refutation of gnosticism. In the course of his writings I...
Though his exact birth date is unknown, Irenaeus was born of Greek parents in Asia Minor. His own works establish a few biographical points, such as that he, as a child, heard and saw St. Polycarp, the last known living connection with the Apostles, in Smyrna, before that aged Christian was martyred in 155. Eusebius of Caesarea also notes that after persecutions in Gaul in 177 Irenaeus succeeded the martyred Pothinus as bishop of Lugdunum. According to Eusebius, who wrote a history of the church in the 4th century, Irenaeus, prior to his becoming bishop, had served as a missionary to southern Gaul and as a peacemaker among the churches of Asia Minor that had been disturbed by heresy.
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The known biographical data—if taken together with his published works—are sufficient to give a picture of an unusual life. Historical sources testify to a close cultural connection between Asia Minor and southern France (the Rhône valley) during the 2nd century. According to tradition, St. John the Apostle, as a very old man who had “seen the Lord” (i.e., Jesus), lived at Ephesus in the days when Polycarp was young. Thus, there were three generations between Jesus of Nazareth and Irenaeus of southern France.
Irenaeus adopted a totally negative and unresponsive attitude, however, toward Marcion, a schismatic leader in Rome, and toward gnosticism, a fashionable intellectual movement in the rapidly expanding church that espoused dualism. Because gnosticism was overcome through the efforts of the early Church Fathers, among them St. Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus, gnostic writings were largely obliterated. In reconstructing gnostic doctrines, therefore, modern scholars relied to a great extent on the writings of Irenaeus, who summarized the gnostic views before attacking them. After the discovery of the gnostic library near Najʿ Ḥammādī (in Egypt) in the 1940s, respect for Irenaeus increased: he was proved to have been extremely precise in his report of the doctrines he rejected.
All his known writings are devoted to the conflict with the gnostics. His principal work consists of five books in a work entitled Adversus haereses. Originally written in Greek about 180, Against Heresies is now known in its entirety only in a Latin translation, the date of which is disputed (200 or 400?). A shorter work by Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, also written in Greek, is extant only in an Armenian translation probably intended for the instruction of young candidates for baptism.
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Irenaeus asserted in a positive manner the validity of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament), which the gnostics denied, claiming that it upheld the laws of the Creator God of wrath. Though Irenaeus did not actually refer to two testaments, one old and one new, he prepared the way for this terminology. He asserted the validity of the two testaments at a time when concern for the unity and the difference between the two parts of the Bible was developing. Many works claiming scriptural authority, which included a large number by gnostics, flourished in the 2nd century. By his attacks on the gnostics, Irenaeus helped to diminish the importance of such works and to establish a canon of Scriptures.
The development of the creed and the office of bishop also can be traced to his conflicts with the gnostics. On the basis of the New Testament alone, which is concerned with the salvation of humankind, the creed would not be expected to begin with an article about the creation of the world and humans. But, because the gnostics denied that the God revealed in the New Testament was the Creator, the first article of the creed was for polemical reasons directly connected with Genesis (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”). Irenaeus refers to the creed as a “Rule of Truth” used to combat heresy.
- Gustaf Wingren
Irenaeus (/ ɪr ɪ ˈ n eɪ ə s /; Greek: Εἰρηναῖος Eirēnaios; c. 130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by combating heterodox or Gnostic interpretations of ...
- The Father of Mariology. While Francisco Suarez is noted as the Father of Systematic Mariology, many have called St. Irenaeus the early Father of Mariology.
- The Early Church Thought About Mary. In his work, A Complete Mariology, C.X.J.M. Friethoff, O.P. states that the “oldest depositions we possess of tradition place Mary in an antithetic parallel with Eve, and therefore call her the New Eve” (33).
- Mary is the Vanquisher of Heresies. Mary is often called the destroyer or vanquisher of heresies. This is one way Irenaeus employs the Blessed Mother in his writings.
- Irenaeus Lays the Groundwork for Marian Co-Redemption. Mariology in the 20 and 21 century has seen a great divide over Mary’s role in redemption. At its height in the early 1900’s, Cardinal Mercier sought a fifth Marian dogma calling Mary the Co-Redemptirx and Mediatrix of All Grace.
Apr 12, 2024 · On Jan. 21, 2022, Pope Francis issued a decree declaring St. Irenaeus as a Doctor of the Church, having accepted a related proposal of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He is the first Doctor of the Church believed to have been a martyr, and, having died around 202, he holds the distinction of being the most ancient of the 37 Doctors ...
Mary, the mother of the New Adam. Mary transmitted to Christ the entire human reality of Adam, so that he could become the new Adam, the Son of man, the « summary» of all men from the first. Cf. IRENAEUS OF LYONS, Demonstration of the Apostolic Predication § 32.
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2 days ago · Irenaeus was born in Asia, most probably in the city of Smyrna, in the first part of the 3rd century; in 177, he went to the Roman region of Gaul in Western Europe. As a young man he was a disciple St Polycarp, who had learned the Gospel from St John the Apostle.
