Irenaeus of Lyons

Yet the unity of faith constituting the “Great Church” not only tolerated a variety of practices, but found in it a cause for celebration.

The Way to Nicaea, John Behr

At this time, there was a “tangle of roads” represented by figures such as Ignatius, Marcion, Valentinus, Justin, and others. These roads all came to a head in Rome in the latter part of the second century, and Behr introduces Irenaeus, coming from Lyons to Rome, as the one to bring some peace to this situation.

While immediately from Lyons, Irenaeus was originally from the East; as a youth, he was exposed to Polycarp of Smyrna, who reportedly received things from the apostle John. It was on this basis that Irenaeus sought to bring unity to the primitive Church. His work was the basis for what would become the accepted framework for normative Christianity, at least during the period contemplated in this book.

This was the most significant transition in early Christianity.

Thereafter Christians were committed to a common body of Scripture (while not fully finalized), the canon of truth, tradition and succession. It was this unity of faith that marks out the “Great Church.” A Church that, as noted in the opening, tolerated and even celebrated a wide variety of practices, while holding on to this accepted framework.

Oh, that we were so tolerant…

Only two works of Irenaeus survive: the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, and the five books of Against the Heresies. In the Demonstration, he offers a coherent exposition of the apostolic preaching, but without making extensive use of their writings. Instead, he grounds this work in the Scriptures – the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets. Just the way the apostles would come to understand what they heard and saw, and just the way through which they would proclaim Christ.

Three articles of faith: God the Father; one Lord, the crucified and risen Jesus Christ; and the one Holy Spirit, bringing baptismal regeneration. Irenaeus would demonstrate that what was recorded in Scripture was fulfilled in Christ Jesus. He was seen in Scripture, present throughout Scripture, spoken of in anticipation by the prophets.

In his work, Against the Heresies, Irenaeus does make extensive use of apostolic writing. He demonstrates the continuity from the Scripture to these writings, directly addressing challenges presented by Marcion and the Gnostics. With the exception of Philemon and 3 John, he uses the full range of apostolic work that is today considered canonical.

Irenaeus departs from Justin’s position, where the Word is a second God able to manifest himself, to reiterate the earlier position, that the Son reveals the Father.

This “second God” language is found in the work by Boyarin, looking at the Jewish understanding of the second God (as they put it) found in, for example Daniel 7. While it does demonstrate that a narrow monotheism was not the only Jewish view, that wording was crude as “God” would come to be understood in Christianity.

His [Irenaeus’s] characteristic position is that “the Father is the invisible of the Son, but the Son the visible of the Father.”

As seen in Ignatius, Irenaeus confirms that it is only in Jesus Christ that God is revealed. All Scriptural theophanies and visions are prophetic; all are pointing forward to Christ. This is not to suggest that Jesus of Nazareth was visible before the Incarnation.

Christ is not yet present, but his saving Passion, proclaimed in the Gospel, is already the subject of the prophets’ words and visions.

My aside, regarding these pre-Incarnation theophanies: don’t ask me how that works or why it works. Setting aside every other issue regarding how to understand theophanies before the Incarnation, an issue remains: what does “before” mean when it comes to God?

Returning to Behr, Jesus Christ is not only the subject of Scripture, from beginning to end, He is also the author. He is the Word, and He is the word. When Christ claims that Moses wrote of Him, Irenaeus explains that the writings of Moses are Christ’s words.

That is, the preexistence of Christ, the Word of God, is inextricably connected with his seminal presence in Scripture, the word of God.

How to relate the Gospel to Scripture? Irenaeus does not see a timeline, a continuous history of the Word through time; instead, he sees the unchanging and eternal identity of the Word of God as the crucified and risen Christ. In my understanding, God is outside of time, present and active throughout.

He exhorts Marcion: give a careful reading the Gospel, and then do the same with the Scripture and the prophets; you will find that the conduct, doctrine, and suffering of our Lord was there all the time.

Those who are familiar with the word of God (the Scripture) are ready to be instructed regarding the Word of God. Irenaeus gives Joseph and the Ethiopian eunuch as examples of this. And, again, Boyarin suggests that many Jews in Jesus’s time understood this as well. We know them as the first Christians.

So, then what new thing did the Lord bring by His advent? Irenaeus simply answers: “Christ Himself!” Just as a king is announced before he actually arrives, so was Christ announced before His arrival. It is the arrival that makes the story, that fulfills the announcement. The Word of God is hidden throughout the word of God, the Scriptures.

It is through the Cross, the Passion of Christ, that light is shed on these writings, revealing what they in fact mean and how they are thus the Word of God.

It is on the Cross that the mechanism turns, giving the Scriptures their proper exegesis. Irenaeus suggests that this manner of reading and understanding the Scriptures was revealed only after the Passion. Again, referring to the work by Boyarin, there were those in the Jewish community who understood at least something of this manner of reading even before the Passion. If Irenaeus was unfamiliar with this, he is, in any case, discovering the same truths.

The Cross is the definitive event in the revelation of God, occurring within our history yet with a significance that is eternal; the only perspective from which one can speak of the Word of God is that of the Cross.

The subject is always the crucified and risen Christ, from beginning to end. In this way, the Gospel is the recapitulation of Scripture and its fulfillment. It is through this recapitulation that Christ can summarize the entirety of the Law: love the Lord your God; love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus Christ is, without question, everything it is to be God, and everything it is to be man.

He is both the one who creates, and the one who is obedient and fulfills. The one Jesus Christ is what it is to be both God and man. Irenaeus sees the Incarnation also as a recapitulation: the Word was eternally with the Father, recapitulating in Himself the long narration of human beings.

He would also recapitulate Adam, writing:

“The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, through his transcendent love, became what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is himself.”

Conclusion

There is nothing new in the Gospel, except that Christ has arrived. This gives us the proper way to understand all of Scripture: He is the one who was to come, who came, and who will come again.

Irenaeus’s theology is very sophisticated, refusing to distinguish between the two beings or elements in one and the same Jesus Christ. Instead, he saw two states of the same Word: the invisible and incomprehensible Word becoming visible and comprehensible.

The unique revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the Word become flesh, is located specifically in the apostolic preaching of him, the Gospel which refracts Scripture through the Cross, and in which the Word hidden in Scripture becomes visible and comprehensible – becomes flesh.