Irenæus

Irenæus
Born between A.D. 115 and 225?
192 (last heard of),  202? (proposed death)

We know little about the life of Irenæus, and that which is known is learned primarily from his own writ­ings. Irenæus was very fortunate to have as his teacher Polycarp of Smyrna, who was a student of the Apostle John.  This would indicate that of all the Church fathers, we should be able to expect more apostolic teaching from Irenæus; I state this with skepticism because Schaff reports that he had a Greek educa­tion.

On the one hand we read: 

Irenæus is the leading representative of catholic Christian­ity in the last quar­ter of the second century, the champion of orthodoxy against Gnostic heresy, and the mediator be­tween the Eastern and Western churches….Irenæus is an en­emy of all error and schism, and, on the whole, the most orthodox of the ante-Nicene fathers…Irenæus is the first among the patristic writers who makes full use of the New Testament. [1]

On the other hand we read:

He united a learned Greek education and philosophi­cal pen­etration with prac­tical wisdom and modera­tion…He is familiar with Greek poets (Homer, Hes­iod, Pindar, Sopho­cles) and philosophers (Thales, Pythagoras, Plato) whom he occasionally cites….With all his zeal for pure and sound doctrine, Irenæus was liberal towards subordinate differences [emphasis mine]…

Though he is the most orthodox of all the ante-Nicene fathers, “we must except [take exception to] his eschatol­ogy.”[2]

Irenæus is reported to be inconsistent in his subordi­nation of the Son to the Father.  “In expres­sions such as ‘My Father is greater than I’ which re­fer to the Christ of history, he refers also, like Justin and Ori­gen, to the eternal Word.”[3]  He has been ac­cused of leaning towards the be­liefs of the Patripas­sianists and Sabellians, and both the Arians and Socinians have sometimes claimed him as a sup­porter.[4] It is very diffi­cult to determine the amount of influence that philosophy had on Irenæus. 

Patripassian means  “the Father suffered.” It was a monotheistic view, believing that the Father lived in Jesus and suffered with him.  Sabellians also possessed a monotheistic belief that “the one divine substance simply assumes three forms (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost) in its threefold relation to the world). [5] Arians be­lieved in the absolute monotheism of God and “taught that Christ, while he was indeed the creator of the world, was himself a creature of God, therefore not truly divine.”[6] Socinians deny “the doctrine of the Trin­ity, and positively assert that the Godhead is one in person as well as in essence.  Socinians not only deny the proper divinity of Je­sus Christ, but pos­itively assert that he was a mere man–that is, a man, and nothing else or more than a man.” [7]

[1] Schaff, Volume II, pp. 750, 751.

[2] Ibid., Volume II, pp. 747-756.

[3] Ibid., Volume II, p. 554.

[4] McClintock and Strong, Volume IV, p 649-651.

[5] McClintock and Strong, Volume IX, p.203.

[6] Schaff, Volume III, p. 620.

[7] McClintock and Strong, Volume IX, p. 844.