Saint Irenaeus

Bishop of Lyons, and Father of the Church.

Information as to his life is scarce, and in some measure inexact. He was born in

Proconsular Asia, or at least in some province bordering thereon, in the first half

of the second century; the exact date is controverted, between the years 115 and

125, according to some, or, according to others, between 130 and 142. It is

certain that, while still very young, Irenaeus had seen and heard the holy Bishop

Polycarp (d. 155) at Smyrna. During the persecution of Marcus Aurelius,

Irenaeus was a priest of the Church of Lyons. The clergy of that city, many of

whom were suffering imprisonment for the Faith, sent him (177 or 178) to Rome

with a letter to Pope Eleutherius concerning Montanism, and on that occasion

bore emphatic testimony to his merits. Returning to Gaul, Irenaeus succeeded

the martyr Saint Pothinus as Bishop of Lyons. During the religious peace which

followed the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, the new bishop divided his activities

between the duties of a pastor and of a missionary (as to which we have but brief

data, late and not very certain) and his writings, almost all of which were directed

against Gnosticism, the heresy then spreading in Gaul and elsewhere. In 190 or

191 he interceded with Pope Victor to lift the sentence of excommunication laid

by that pontiff upon the Christian communities of Asia Minor which persevered in

the practice of the Quartodecimans in regard to the celebration of Easter.

Nothing is known of the date of his death, which must have occurred at the end

of the second or the beginning of the third century. In spite of some isolated and

later testimony to that effect, it is not very probable that he ended his career with

martyrdom. His feast is celebrated on 28 June in the Latin Church, and on 23

August in the Greek.

Irenaeus wrote in Greek many works which have secured for him an exceptional

place in Christian literature, because in controverted religious questions of capital

importance they exhibit the testimony of a contemporary of the heroic age of the

Church, of one who had heard St. Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, and who, in

a manner, belonged to the Apostolic Age. None of these writings have come

down to us in the original text, though a great many fragments of them are extant

as citations in later writers (Hippolytus, Eusebius, etc.). Two of these works,

however, have reached us in their entirety in a Latin version:

A treatise in five books, commonly entitled Adversus haereses, and

devoted, according to its true title, to the "Detection and Overthrow of the

False Knowledge" (see GNOSTICISM, sub-title Refutation of Gnosticism).

Of this work we possess a very ancient Latin translation, the scrupulous

fidelity of which is beyond doubt. It is the chief work of Irenaeus and truly

of the highest importance; it contains a profound exposition not only of

Gnosticism under its different forms, but also of the principal heresies

which had sprung up in the various Christian communities, and thus

constitutes an invaluable source of information on the most ancient

ecclesiastical literature from its beginnings to the end of the second

century. In refuting the heterodox systems Irenaeus often opposes to

them the true doctrine of the Church, and in this way furnishes positive

and very early evidence of high importance. Suffice it to mention the

passages, so often and so fully commented upon by theologians and

polemical writers, concerning the origin of the Gospel according to St.

John (see JOHN, GOSPEL OF SAINT), the Holy Eucharist, and the

primacy of the Roman Church.

Of a second work, written after the "Adversus Haereses", an ancient literal

translation in the Armenian language. This is the "Proof of the Apostolic

Preaching." The author's aim here is not to confute heretics, but to

confirm the faithful by expounding the Christian doctrine to them, and

notably by demonstrating the truth of the Gospel by means of the Old

Testament prophecies. Although it contains fundamentally, so to speak,

nothing that has not already been expounded in the "Adversus Haereses",

it is a document of the highest interest, and a magnificent testimony of

the deep and lively faith of Irenaeus.

Of his other works only scattered fragments exist; many, indeed, are known only

through the mention made of them by later writers, not even fragments of the

works themselves having come down to us. These are

a treatise against the Greeks entitled "On the Subject of Knowledge"

(mentioned by Eusebius);

a writing addressed to the Roman priest Florinus "On the Monarchy, or

How God is not the Cause of Evil" (fragment in Eusebius);

a work "On the Ogdoad", probably against the Ogdoad of Valentinus the

Gnostic, written for the same priest Florinus, who had gone over to the

sect of the Valentinians (fragment in Eusebius);

a treatise on schism, addressed to Blastus (mentioned by Eusebius);

a letter to Pope Victor against the Roman priest Florinus (fragment

preserved in Syriac);

another letter to the same on the Paschal controversies (extracts in

Eusebius);

other letters to various correspondents on the same subject (mentioned

by Eusebius, a fragment preserved in Syriac);

a book of divers discourses, probably a collection of homilies (mentioned

by Eusebius); and

other minor works for which we have less clear or less certain

attestations.

The four fragments which Pfaff published in 1715, ostensibly from a Turin

manuscript, have been proven by Funk to be apocryphal, and Harnack has

established the fact that Pfaff himself fabricated them.

Albert Poncelet

Transcribed by Sean Hyland

Dedicated to John O'Brien and Jackie Sheehan

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org