according to chronological order, st. justin martyr should be considered next,
as his average date is 30 years earlier than that of irenaeus;
but he represents altogether a different school, that of the apologists;
whereas I is linked through polycarp to the apostolic age.
his life, though he was not an apostolic father, is a kind of supplement to theirs;
while as the first great constructive theologian, he himself forms a link
between the simple sub apostolic age and that of the great doctors of the church.
his early life was apparently spent in smyrna.
in middle life he was a presbyter at lyons, and afterwards bishop,
the intercourse between asia minor and gaul,
especially the porrt of lyons, being very close.
he was probably often in rome, where hegesippus reports having heard him lecture.
once expecially he visited rome, to explain to eleutherus the position of the montanists;
and while he was there the fearful persecution broke out in gaul (177),
when bishop pothinus, blandina the save girl, whom the beasts would not attack,
and many other christians were slaughtered,
as described in the circular letter of the churches of lyons and vienne,
which is the second authentic Act of martyrdom.
then in 180 he became bishop of lyons and was probably consecrated at rome by eleutherus,
since at that time there seems to have been only one see (the center of authority of a bishop)
in gaul.
from 182 to 188 he was engaged on his great work in refutation of gnostic heresies
as bishop of lyons he wrote a celebrated letter to victor of rome,
protesting against his excommunicating all churches
who did not conform to his own rule about observing easter.
st irenaeus is constantly appealed to in the controversy between rome and protestants
on two grounds.
one it this letter to victor;
and another is a statement in his great work that all churches must be in agreement with rome.
first, as to the letter
the quarto deciman controversy, already alluded to in the last chapter,
had by 188 become a burning question;
and although it seems to us rather strage that the church
should have been so distracted over a matter of ritual,
the proper day for keeping easter;
yet when the church was struggling under persecution for her very existence,
unity in externals in the face of the enemy was of the utmost importance.
(note: why is unity important in doctrines that are not central-the person and work of Christ?
unity in essentials, in all else liberty? why do we waste time with the misplaced focus of trying
to set each other straight on things that are not essential to the faith of Christ?
satan's oldest method..separating our heart from God and not loving every person..)
it was the necessity of a united front that was most prominent in the mind of ignatius,
when he upheld the bishop's office;
and later on it was a leading thought with cyprian.
victor was probably wise in trying to enforce uniformity,
though excommunication was a strong measure,
especially as the asiatic churches followed the example of st. john.
...the often quoted saying of irenaeus about the roman church is this:
'for with this church it is necessary that every church should agree
on account of its more potent principality,
that is, the faithful everywhere,
inasmuch as the apostolic tradition has been preserved in it by those who exist everywhere.
...a recent roman catholic book, (the faith of catholics) translates the passage quite differently.
'to this church it is necessary that all others should resort (convenire ad, not, cum.
in other words, all roads lead to rome.
to rome, as the metropolis, representatives of all the churches come from time to time,
and as she is a mirror reflecting the views of them all;
so in her the tradition has been preserved continuously by those who exist everywhere.
but in any case, it is always dangerous to quote isolated passages from the Fathers
apart from their context.
...what I was enforcing here was the apostolic tradition.
he showed that all the churches traced their bishops back to the apostles
and as it would take too long to recount all the successions,
he gives rome as the best example, ending with the above remark.
on the apostolic tradition I is very strong.
he is the first of several Fathers who state the creed of the church,
each in their own words,
showing that apparently there was as yet no written formula.
but their statements all substantially agree and are in effect the Apostles' creed.
this is the form in which I gives the Tradition:
'the Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth,
has received from the apostles and their disciples this Faith.
in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them;
and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation;
and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensation of God
and the advents and the birth from a virgin
and the passion and the resurrection from the dead,
and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord,
and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father
to gather all things in one, and to raise up anew the flesh of the whole human race,
in order that to Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour and King,
according to the will of the Invisible Father
every knee should bow etc. etc. and that every tongue should confess to Him
that He should execute just judgment upon all,
that He may send spiritual wickednesses and the angels who transgressed and became apostate
together with the ungodly and unrighteous and wicked and profane among men
into eternal fire,
but may in the exercise of His grace confer immortality
on the righteous and holy and those who have kept His commandments and persevered in His love,
some from the beginning and others from repentance, and may surround them with glory.
the Church having received this preaching and faith,
though scattered throughout the world, yet as if occupying but one house carefully preserves it
....for though the languages of the world are dissimilar,
yet the import of the tradition is one and the same...'
the chief reason we have for believing that the christian church was essentially the same
at the end of the second century as at first, both in faith and practice,
is the tenacity with which the tradition of the apostles was maintained.
Irenaeus says,
'polycarp at rome proclaimed himself to have received from the Apostles the one and only tradition
which hath been handed on by the Church.
'yes, and the church at ephesus, having had paul for its founder
and john abiding among them till the time of trajan, is a true witness of the apostles' tradition.
'the apostles having in the church as in a rich storehouse most abundantly deposited
whatever appertains to the truth.
and what if the apostles themselves had not even left us any scriptures,
ought we not to follow the course of that tradition,
which they delivered to those to whom they entrusted the churches?
'many barbarous tribes have salvation written in their hearts without ink and paper.
in fact the apostles delivered to their successors a certain rule of faith
which they were always to remember and which they infallibly remembered.
whether or not there was a definite formula
(a 'FORM of sound words,' as paul wrote to timothy)
we know not; probably not.
gradually the Church collected the sacred writings, and selected from them the canon.
but if the new testament had at the beginning been the main authority
without the tradition behind it,
there would have been much more error.
...besides the fact that the main articles of the faith were handed down by tradition,
the main institutions, such as the sacraments, relied on tradition.
origen says, for instance, that INFANT BAPTISM
(note: WHAT? was anyone baptized in the bible who was an infant?
is there another parallel verse to soften the edges of 'BELIEVE and be baptized'
...can an infant believe...end of discussion?!
this point alone decides in the direction of looking askance at any man as AUTHORITATIVE.
bottom line:
truth is ascertained by not one verse
nor by a billion men
nor by the closest men to Jesus
but by comparing scripture with scripture.
period.)
was in accordance with apostolic tradition;
and while there is no theory of the eucharist in the new testament,
a fairly uniform theory runs through the early Fathers.
it seems clear that they all believed that the elements were the Body and the Blood,
and that the Eucharist was an offering or sacrifice
they do not attempt to explain the Real Presence ..
but they continually used the analogy of the eucharist as an illustration of essential truths,
such as the twofold nature, human and divine, of Christ, or the reality of His humanity...
..whatever confusion there may have been at first between the orders of presbyter and bishop,
irenaeus, tertullian, clement of alexandria, origen, cyprian and eusebius
all make a strong point of the successions of bishops.
(note: this is a moot (of little or no practical value) point as the succession has long ago been lost.
the important point seems to be that every pastor preaches the whole bible as truth.)
...as bishop wordsworth pointed out, until the time of constantine,
the church fought the outside world;
when the Church became established, the world poured into the church
and she then had to fight distinct heresies, like arianism, that sprang up from within.
(note: why does the church ever have to fight heresies?
proclaim what the bible says and all who believe and follow it,
PRACTICE IT.
my, how we are moved IN SO MANY WAYS from the simplicity that is in Christ.)
at the same time there was a tendency in quite early days for christians,
especially if of jewish origin,
to get entangled in oriental speculations;
while the current heathen philosophy, platonic at root,
absorbed to some extent jewish and christian thought among other oriental systems,
platonism from the first having been tinged with orientalism.
this is why ignatius is probably attacking the same error,
when in one letter he alludes to Docetics and in another to Judaizers.
it was the error of the jewish mind dabbling in GNOSTICISM.
what was exactly meant by Gnosticism,it will be always difficult to explain;
especially as hardly any gnostic works remain.
we can only reconstruct them through their christian antagonists
and by the fifth century all trace of them had died out,
except the followers of marcion, who lingered on till the seventh.
all metaphysical schemes of that time were forms of gnosticism,
that is Theories of Knowledge.
christianity, as clement of alexandria afterwards claimed, being the highest of all.
but through all the other systems ran one main thought,
that MATTER IS EVIL;
the material world having been created by an inferior deity or a fallen angel,
whom they called the demiurge or world maker.
there was one Eternal Spirit, from whom emanated a graduated series of existences, called aeons;
each was a personification of some particular attribute of the deity;
and they all together made up the Pleroma or the Fullness of the Godhead.
the eclectic spirit of the gnostics tempted them to meddle with christianity.
they represented Christ
(not the Man Jesus, but the Logos or Word which dwelt in Christ)
as an Aeon. and while they adopted the theory of redemption,
they said the redeeming work was not life, suffering and death,
but the imparting of a saving knowledge (Gnosis).
the idea that a divine being could be tortured was abhorrent to them
and they invented various ways of getting over it,
such as the Docetic explanations combated by ignatius.
now the jewish sect, known as ebionites, only half accepted christianity.
to them Christ was the messiah, but not divine.
still He was the messiah; and as such could not have died on the cross.
they therefore adopted the Docetic views and it is specially against them that Ig was writing.
as time went on, they drifted more and more into Gn, the extremist views being held by the essenes.
..probably first appeared at the beginning of the second centry
and was rather a jewish than a christian sect, though constantly presenting temptations to christians.
paul's contention with judaizers was rather
that they should throw off the trammels of the law and ceremonial
with a view to the conversion of the gentiles, than with their erroneous doctrines;
yet his emphasizing the resurrection of the body as well as certain phrases like,
'the fullness (or Pleroma) of the Godhead bodily',
seem to point to a nascent Gn.
...warning the Church against its development.
the expression 'knowledge (Gnosis) falsely so called'...occurs..at once.
..it was reserved for irenaeus to make the first intellectual refutation,
and for the doctors of carthage and alexandria to follow it up;
till at last the Church arrived at the crowning refutation of docetism,
NOT BY CONVERSION OF THE GODHEAD INTO FLESH,
BUT BY THE TAKING OF THE MANHOOD INTO GOD.
it is starling that even in the reign of augustus the jewish population of the empire was 7%..
it is strange to think of the jewish as a missionary church,
though our Lord spoke of them as 'compassing heaven and earth to make one proselyte'.
both these statements, however, are true.
of course the 7% was not made up of jews by race.
there were many grades of judaism,
ranging from other semitic neighbouring tribes to the educated Roman who accepted the doctrines
and to some extent adopted the ritual, but remained uncircumciqed.
but in judaism the hellenic mind found much of absorbing interest;
a rational system of creation,
a just monotheism,
and also the oldest and most wonderful book in the world.
to a large extent, therefore, it adopted jewish philosophy;
while the jewish mind, flattered by the social and intellectual importance thus acquired,
turned its attention to founding schools of philosophy,
of which the most important professor was philo of alexandria.
but there were two great drawbacks for the greek in judaism;
one was that the jewish Jehovah created the material world
and was therefore, as it seemed, responsible for something evil
-creation was in fact rather a blunder-
and also judaism was at heart national and not universal;
even the circumcised proselyte had not, at any rate in the first generation, full privileges.
it was to meet the first difficulty that the Gnostics imagined two Gods;
the supreme and perfect God and the altogether inferior God, or demiurge, who created Matter.
the lower God was not a direct emanation from the higher;
but came after a long interval, which was bridged over by a succession of
Aeons or personifications of abstract ideas, such as Wisdom, Reason (the Logos) and the like.
whether the demiurge was a fallen and malicious angel or a well intentioned semi deity,
who was unconscious of any one higher than himself
and did his best, but did it imperfectly, is of no consequence;
Matter and Evil remained and from these Man must be redeemed.
but when the Gnostics had in this fashion settled accounts with judaism,
thy found themselves confronted by another religion,
advancing behind judaism and often confounded with it,
which was a world wide system and offered the fullest privileges to all;
which told them of a redeemer, and knew of no sacrifices or rites,
except the pure and simple mysteries
by which the scheme of the redemption could be applied to their souls.
here then was at last the true Gnosis.
Christ was to them the power that was to redeem them from the demiurg:
the New testament was to redeem them from the old.
the jews had been called the Second Race;
here then was the Third Race (tertium genus), whose nationality was the world.
as a natural consequence of their views, the greek gnostics looked on paul as the one great apostle;
because, though himself a jew of the jews, he was always fighting against judaism,
on the ground that judaism had found its completion in christianity;
the new testament had supplanted the old,
and the old now existed as a witness to the new.
on the other hand the essenes, the later ebionites, who became entangled in Gn fancies,
but still maintained the law as the basis of all religion,
gave great prominence to james and peter, in order to throw paul,
whom they considered the enemy, into the background.
Gn, while it lived, was of great service to the Church;
for it taught the Church to think and to equip herself
for an intellectual struggle with the educated classes.
it forced the church to formulate a theological system;
it gave her a literature and art.
then it utterly died, except the school of marcion which lingered on for some centuries...
as to irenaeus' theological position, we must note
that the catholic church never taught abstruse dogmas by choice;
she was forced into dogmatic positions by the attacks of rivals or heretics,
who wanted to bring christian truths within the logical limits of the human understanding.
in this respect Gn is the forerunner and type of most heresies.
what Irenaeus did,..was to establish a theology of facts;
he did not enter into the deeper questions while occupied, say, athanasius or augustine,
a century or two later.
he laid down facts:
that God is One
the the supreme God created the world out of nothing
that God was the God of the old testament
that the old testament was a revelation of the Most High
that Evil arose out of the free will of Man
the Christ was God Man
he shows the unity of His personality,
the essential character of His divinity
and the reality of His humanity
that there was nothing in matter that was irredeemable
and finally he asserts the resurrection of the entire man..the resurrection of the body.
irenaeus frees thought from abstractions.
God is not a creation of the mind, but a living unity,
combining purity, holiness, glory, intellect, love
and He is perceived by love, which emanates from Him to us.
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