⛪ Saint of the Day : June
⛪ Born :
c.130 in Smyrna, Asia Minor (modern Izmir, Turkey)
⛪ Died :
• Martyred in 202 in Lyons, France
• Tomb and relics were destroyed by Calvinists in 1562
• Head in Saint John's church, Lyons, France
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 Saint Polycarp, the disciple of Saint John, and who, in a manner, belonged to the Apostolic Age. None of these writings has 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 Saint John (see GOSPEL OF SAINT JOHN), 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)
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.
1- “The initial step for us all to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature.”
2- Since it is impossible, without God, to come to knowledge of God, he teaches men through his Word to know God.”
3-When we stand in the light it is not we who illumine the light and cause it to shine but we are illuminated and made shining by the light… God grants his blessings on those who serve him because they are serving him and on those who follow him because they are following him, but he receives no blessing from them because he is perfect and without need.
4- Because of his boundless love, Jesus became what we are that he might make us to be what he is.
5-We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith
6-But following the only true and stedfast Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.
7- And when we come to refute them, we shall show in its fitting place that this class of men [i.e., the gnostics] has been instigated by satan to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God, and thus to a denial of the whole faith (by denying all physical aspects of spirituality, including the incarnatian and bodily resurrection of Jesus).
8- The church has been planted as a paradise in this world.
9- It is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth.
10- A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.
