Irenaeus lived between 135-200 AD. He was considered an apologist as well as a dynamic theologian. He was raised as a young child in Smyrna and then moved to Lyons where he witnessed an extremely severe persecution of Christians there, including the death of his father at a very early age. They say that fifty to seventy people in two small towns were tortured and executed. Fifty to seventy people executed in public is a devastating destruction.[1]   

He was a student of Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John. He served as Bishop of Lyons during the latter part of the middle second century (circa.155-180 AD).  He is not believed to have been a martyr for the Christian faith.

Read Irenaeus’s Against the Heresies on line at:

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm

Irenaeus wrote a five volume set of books titled “Adversus Haeresus - “Against the Heresies” of which some fragments of the original autograph still exist. A complete contemporary Latin manuscript dated to his era is in existence.

In these books he speaks out strongly against Marcion of Rome and against another notorious Gnostic teacher named Valentinius, who also teaching in the city of Rome. Both Marcion and Valentinius taught extremely heretical forms of Gnostic Christianity. Both distorted the theology of the Old Testament from its original position with the nation of Israel.  

Valentinian Gnostics believed there are three types of humans. The “material people” who were wretched, and had no chance of obtaining salvation. These type of humans were doomed to live in debauchery and lead pointless lives. .  

The “psychics” were those searching for salvation through their own works of faith. They would occasionally find salvation through some form of esoteric enlightenment.

And finally there are the “spirituals” who had the special gift of esoteric knowledge that made them superior to other people. It was believed that these “spirituals” had a “spark of the divine within them and that is why they were the greatest of the three human groups.    

Marcion’s version of Gnosticism taught that there were two Gods. The one God of the Old Testament was evil and created the material world that we live in as mortals. The Old Testament God was often represented as an angry blind fallen angelic being who hated his own creation. 

The New Testament God who was a loving God that sent His light into our world in the form of the one we know as Jesus. Jesus was an aeon that enlightened His believers with a form of recondite knowledge that would help them escape the evil materialism of this world.

In general, all Gnosticism was “dualistic”. This meant that there was a constant battle between the material world and the spiritual world. All materialism was evil and needed to be avoided. The goal of the Gnostic was to transcend materialistic ideals and become a complete spiritual being.        

In addition to his arguments against the heresy of Gnostrocism, Irenaeus was the first to initiate the formation of the current model of the New Testament canon we use today – particularly the selection and limitation of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to the Christian New Testament canon. He defended the fact of four and only four Gospels in a proposed canon because of the four living creatures around the throne of God listed in Revelation.  Generally speaking, from the time of Irenaeus the New Testament contained practically the same books as we receive today, and were regarded with the same reverence that we bestow on them today.[2]

In addition, Irenaeus taught the contrast of Adam and Jesus Christ. Adam ate of the fruit of a tree and Christ died on a tree for our redemption. These parallels are seen in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth in the 15^th chapter.

He endorsed the doctrine of “Apostolic Succession” and the authority of the Church on earth. In the society and culture Irenaeus experienced, this was almost a mandated style of government that helped bring discipline into the process of establishing the Church’s authority against the forces of unrighteousness in the world. .    

Using Galatians 3:28,29 he identified Israel as the Christian Church and the Christian Church as the Israel of God, the seed of Abraham “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”

Eschatologically, he was the first theologian amongst the Apostolic Fathers that interpreted a literal one thousand year reign of Jesus Christ on earth at the end of the age. He is often considered to be pre millennial in his teaching of the second coming of Jesus Christ, even though that term would not have meant anything to him, had he been exposed to its usage in today’s theological discussions.

IN ADDITION FOR THIS COURSE:

Read the works of Papias - Bishop of Heiropolis and Friend of Polycarpon line at:

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0125.htm

Papias wrote a five volume commentary on the “Logos” (Jesus Christ) of which a few fragments remain. What we knowof this work we learn through 4^th century

historian Eusebius.