Irenaeus of Lyons

Background

Irenaeus (c. 130–202), bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, is the second century's most important theologian of tradition. Originally from Asia Minor — where, per the tradition Eusebius preserves, he had known Polycarp, John's disciple — he wrote the five-book Against Heresies (c. 180) against Valentinian Gnosticism and Marcion, articulating three instruments that would define catholic Christianity: the fourfold gospel, the rule of faith, and apostolic succession. Quoted at length by Eusebius, he is the hinge witness for what the churches were reading and claiming a century after the apostles.

Positions held in this wiki

• Canon Formation — New Testament — the earliest extant author to argue the fourfold gospel as a closed set: "The Gospels are four in number, neither more nor less. Mystic reasons for this" (Irenaeus, AH III.11, chapter synopsis); Book III argues seriatim from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and no others (III.1–15 synopses). On the maximalist view he anchors, a gospel canon functioning by c. 180 cannot be a product of fourth-century politics.
• The same article's Marcion dossier preserves Irenaeus' account (apud Eusebius) of the Marcionite theology: the God of the law and prophets distinguished from the Father of Jesus Christ, "the former was just, but the latter good," with Marcion of Pontus developing Cerdon's doctrine (Eusebius, HE IV.11).

Key works in our corpus

• Against Heresies — in corpus as chapter synopses only: the ingested file is the New Advent index (chapter-by-chapter summaries), not body text. The fourfold-gospel claim is therefore cited at the level of its chapter heading; the famous "four zones of the world… four pillars" passage (III.11.8) is flagged {{UNSOURCED}} in Canon Formation — New Testament pending full-text acquisition. The synopses also attest his anti-Marcionite program (I.27; IV.8, IV.34).
• Substantial verbatim Irenaeus survives in corpus indirectly through Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, which quotes him on Marcion, Polycarp, and the gospels.
• Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching — not in corpus.

Principal critics

• Adolf von Harnack — on the development view, Irenaeus' triad of canon, rule of faith, and succession is precisely the machinery of the new "church of doctrine and of law" forged in the anti-Gnostic struggle, not a datum prior to it (Canon Formation — New Testament, view 2).
• Bart D. Ehrman — the contemporary popular-critical heir of the Bauer thesis, on which Irenaeus is the voice of one (winning) party among diverse early Christianities.
• Marcion of Sinope and the Valentinians — his own explicit targets.

See also

• Justin Martyr — the previous generation's apologist, whose "memoirs of the apostles" prefigure Irenaeus' fourfold gospel.
• Tertullian — takes the succession argument into legal idiom a generation later.
• Eusebius of Caesarea — the historian who preserves and canonizes Irenaeus' testimony.