St Irenaeus was a 2nd century bishop who wrote extensively against the Gnostic heresies prevalent in his time. In his major work Against Heresies, he reaffirmed key Christian doctrines such as the incarnation of Christ as both fully God and fully man, and the salvation of humanity through Christ's life, death and resurrection. He drew up one of the earliest lists of books that formed the biblical canon. St Irenaeus emphasized the unity between the Old and New Testaments and taught that humanity can recover paradise through Christ. He was an important early defender of core orthodox Christianity against the alternative teachings of Gnosticism.

2. Today we will learn and reflect on St Irenaeus and his main work, On Heresies.
In his preface St Irenaeus warns us the error of heresy often “is attractively
decked out in an attractive dress, so it appears to the ignorant to be more true
than truth itself.” The Gnostics want to deny the saving powers of the Incarnation
and Resurrection of Jesus.
Many modern-day Gnostics are quick to say they want to be spiritual, not
religious, which either means they are disillusioned because the so-called
Christians they have met are not Christian at all, or it may mean that they want to
follow moral rules of their own making, denying Christianity as something archaic,
or subservient to some sort of grander set of universes or dimensions.
In response to the heresies of his day, St Irenaeus reaffirmed the place of the Old
Testament scriptures in Christianity, affirming the works that would eventually
coalesce into the New Testament, affirming that Christ is both truly man and truly
God, born of the Virgin Mary, and part of the Trinity.

3. At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources used
for this video, and the history behind this ancient work,
like how many manuscripts have survived. Feel free to
follow along in the PowerPoint script we uploaded to
SlideShare.
Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!

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5. Pope Francis has announced that St. Irenaeus of Lyon
will soon be declared a Doctor of the Church with the
title “Doctor Unitatis,” meaning doctor of unity.

6. Pope Francis addressed the
members of the St. Irenaeus
Orthodox-Catholic Joint Working
Group: "I will willingly declare
your patron a Doctor of the
Church,” as St Irenaeus is “a
great spiritual and theological
bridge between Eastern and
Western Christians.” “His name,
Irenaeus, contains the word
‘peace,” the Pope stressed,
recalling its Greek root
Ειρηναίος (Eirenaios), which
means ‘peaceful,’ ‘peacemaker,’
and ‘seraphic’.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-10/st-irenaeus-doctor-of-the-church-pope-francis.html

7. St Irenaeus is known for his work against the Christian heresies, especially the
Gnostic heresies of Marcion and Valentinus. When confronting these heresies, St
Irenaeus shapes the future course of Christian beliefs and theology.
Marcion called the Old Testament God the Demiurge, and said he was a punishing
God, and that Jesus was the son of another more compassionate God. He also said
that since Jesus was wholly divine that he really did not suffer in his earthly body, a
common Gnostic heresy. To make the theology fit his Gnostic notions Marcion
declared that the Old Testament books were not canonical, and he said the only
legitimate gospel was a version of Luke he edited himself to fit his false teachings.
Valentinus developed a more full-blown Gnostic system with Aeons and syzgies in
multiples of magical numbers, he said that he and his followers had the secret
knowledge to return to the divine Pleroma so they do not need to stay in the
Kenoma, which should not be confused with the Sharona.

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1T71PGd-J0

9. You might ask, what is a Sharona? The real question is not what, but who is Sharona? Actually,
Sharona was the girlfriend of the lead singer in the band The Knack, and she is now a successful
realtor in West LA.
Am I making fun of Gnosticism? Well, the scholar McGuckin says that when a new student
suggests studying the Gnostics, he directs him to read the Nag Hammadi writings, which were
uncovered near an Egyptian monastery in 1945, which form the bulk of the original Gnostic
writings known to scholars. They are either so fantastical, incredulous, or downright boring that
usually students lose interest. That was also the strategy of Irenaeus, he sought by explaining their
beliefs to show how ridiculous and specious their beliefs were. McGuckin also states that though
Irenaeus is polemic in his writings opposing the Gnostics, based on the Nag Hammadi writings, his
descriptions of their beliefs is reasonably accurate.
When we examine what the scholars say about St Irenaeus, we must begin with the ancient
church historian Eusebius who lived during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. Eusebius
quotes St Irenaeus in many places when discussing the heresies faced by the Church, how the
Church should rely on the faith as handed down by the bishops.

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi_library

11. St Irenaeus himself has a connection to
the Apostles, when he was a young man,
he met the elderly bishop Polycarp.
Eusebius quotes Irenaeus, “I remember
how Polycarp spoke of his friendship with
St John the Apostle and with the others
who had seen the Lord; how he repeated
their words from memory, and how the
things that he had heard them say about
the Lord, His miracles and His teaching,
things that he had heard direct from the
eyewitnesses of the Word of Life, were
proclaimed by Polycarp in complete
harmony with Scripture.”

12. Like most Church Fathers, we are missing many details of his life. Irenaeus
was likely born in Syria and grew up in Smyrna in Asia Minor. When and
where he was ordained into the priesthood is unclear. Sometime in his
midlife he relocated to Gaul where he was a missionary, preaching to
them in their native tongue. He became a bishop in what is today Lyon,
France, and lived until his seventies. Although there was no concept of
East and West during the time of the Apostolic Fathers, we can now look
back and say that, along with St John Cassian, he was a bridge between
the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West.

13. Eusebius explains, “Irenaeus, whose name means
‘peaceable’ and who by temperament was a peacemaker,
pleaded and negotiated for the peace of the churches.”
There was a dispute between Bishop Viktor of Rome and
the Asian dioceses over the length of a church fast, he was
threatening excommunication over this dispute. Irenaeus
interceded, arguing that “the dispute is not only about the
day, but also about the actual character of the fast.” He
pointed out the variations were differences in practice
extending back to their forefathers. Although they had their
differences, “they all lived in peace with one another, and
so do we: the divergences in the fast emphasizes the
unanimity of the faith.”

14. Henry Chadwick states that “Irenaeus’ scheme does
not begin with the Gnostic question: How a world
which is the perfect work of a perfect creator can
have gone wrong as the present world obviously has.
He grants from the start there is imperfection in the
world, but it is like the blunders of a growing child,
and the purpose of our existence is the making of
character by the mastery of difficulties and
temptations.”
Irenaeus accepted the canonicity of the Four Gospels;
Chadwick says that Irenaeus believed it “was essential
to keep the path laid down by authority in scripture
and in the clear tradition of the apostolic churches
which was the guarantee of resistance to innovation
and dangerous speculation. Heresy was born of the
itch for something new.”

15. St Irenaeus clarified the ancient Christian doctrine of recapitulation
on how Christ saved mankind. The scholar Jaroslav Pelikan, with
quotes from Irenaeus, says that “for Irenaeus, the imitation of
Christ by the Christian was part of God’s cosmic plan of salvation
which began with Christ’s imitation of the Christian or, more
precisely, with Christ’s imitation of Adam. The Logos ‘assimilated
Himself to man and man to Himself’ in His life and in His passion.
After Christ’s incarnation He passed through every stage of human
growth, hallowing and redeeming each by ‘being made for them
an example of piety, righteousness, and submission.’ The
disobedience of the first Adam was undone through the complete
obedience of the second Adam, so that many could be justified
and attain salvation.” “Christ became the example for men, as
Adam had been the example for Christ; being the Logos of God,
Christ was not only the example, but the exemplar and prototype
of the image of God according to which man had been created.”
The Resurrection, by El Greco, circa 1600

16. CCC 518 Christ's whole life is a mystery
of recapitulation. All Jesus did, said and
suffered had for its aim restoring fallen
man to his original vocation, quoting
from Irenaeus:
When Christ became incarnate and was
made man, he recapitulated in himself
the long history of mankind and
procured for us a "short cut" to
salvation, so that what we had lost in
Adam, that is, being in the image and
likeness of God, we might recover in
Christ Jesus. For this reason, Christ
experienced all the stages of life,
thereby giving communion with God to
all men.

17. In other words, Christ condescended to descend to Earth to take
on flesh and live among us, so we could become like God and
ascend to the heavens and become adopted sons of the Father.
(REPEAT) The Orthodox scholar John McGuckin points out that
Irenaeus lived during a time of sporadic intense persecution.
Once his ruling bishop was martyred while he travelled on
church business. As McGuckin states, Irenaeus “returned to find
a congregation devastated by fatal persecution, which explains
his conservative call for obedience and liturgical discipline,” he
simply “wants to protect and build up again what has been
traumatized.

18. The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer by Jean-Léon Gérôme, late 1800’s
The Orthodox scholar John McGuckin points out that Irenaeus lived during a
time of sporadic intense persecution. Once his ruling bishop was martyred
while he travelled on church business. As McGuckin states, Irenaeus
“returned to find a congregation devastated b fatal persecution, which
explains his conservative call for obedience and liturgical discipline,” he
simply “wants to protect and build up again what has been traumatized.

19. Balthasar explores why Gnosticism was appealing to early
Christians. They claimed they were the true authentic
Christians; they saw themselves as the elite Christians.
They were “craving for higher initiation and had an almost
unbounded arrogance since they had moved from mere
faith to a real, enlightened knowledge.” The Gnostics saw
the world as flesh that would be vanquished while “the
spiritual world was all that was excellent, the only thing
worth cultivating. Sometimes extreme licentiousness was
permitted or recommended, for after all ‘to the pure all
things are pure’; at other times, the rule would be a god-
hating ascetism.” We see these Gnostic tendencies today
in the fantastic Mormon cosmology and the intricate
initiation rites of the Masons and Elks and other fraternal
organizations.

20. St Irenaeus teaches us, “The redemption depends
on the real Incarnation, the real suffering on the
Cross, and the real resurrection of the flesh. All
three of these are a scandal for Gnosticism. On
their view, Mary is not really Mother of God, and
Christ did not really suffer, NO, the heavenly
Christ escaped before the man Jesus suffered, and
there can be no question at all of an actual
resurrection of the flesh. Underlying this refusal
of the flesh and its saving role in the Incarnation
is a confusion between the human spirit (nous)
and the divine Holy Spirit.” The Gnostics want to
replace the Holy spirit with the human spirit.
Irenaeus preaches “the salvific character of the
Incarnation of God’s Son and Word.”
The Annunciation, by El Greco, 1603

21. St Irenaeus mentions the heresy of the Ebionites. The Ebionites are Jewish
Christians who typically deny the divinity of Christ. They recognize the Gospel of
Matthew and repudiates St Paul and the other Gospels, including the Gospel of Luke
and Acts, saying that St Paul was an “apostate from the law.” When St Paul and the
early Church Fathers warn us of the beliefs of the Judaizers, they are usually
referring to the Ebionites.
In response to these heresies St Irenaeus drew up the first canonical list that was
similar to today’s canon, including the four gospels and Acts, thirteen Pauline
epistles, Revelation of John, and also the Shepherd of Hermas. He also includes
reasons why the canon should only include the four gospels and the reason for the
inclusion of the other books. When St Paul and the early Church Fathers warn us
against Judaizers, there are often referring to the Ebionites.

22. https://youtu.be/NFQ3fGocis0

23. St Irenaeus also defends the authority of the
books of the Old Testament. Chadwick tells us
that St Irenaeus shows us “the manifest unity
of the Old and New Testaments apparent in
the fulfilment of ancient prophecy, stressing
the parallelism between Adam and Christ
which he found in Paul’s epistles.” St Irenaeus
teaches that we can recover the innocent
paradise of Adam through salvation, and since
“he believed that in the Fall only the moral
likeness to God was lost, not the basic image,”
his Christian optimism contrasted to the dark
pessimism of the Gnostics.
Creation of Adam, by Livio Mehus, 1600's

24. Also, in response to the Gnostics, St Irenaeus explained the
puzzle of Christ as God who descended to assume flesh and
live as a man, while He was yet God, which was a puzzle to
both Jews and Greeks. St Irenaeus teaches, “Christ became
man to undergo temptation, and He was the Word that He
might be glorified; the Word remaining quiescent, that He
might be capable of being tempted, dishonored, crucified, and
suffering death. His human nature was swallowed up in the
Divine, when it conquered, and endured without yielding,
performing acts of kindness, and was received up into
Heaven.” There are brackets indicating possible dropped
words in the manuscript, and later Church Councils would
improve on this formulation, but this shows that the early
Church already had a mature view of Jesus as being both
human and divine.
Saint Remy Catholic Church (Russia, Ohio)

25. CCC 460 Creed: Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary
( Bold: St Irenaeus )
The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine
nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son
of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into
communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship,
might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man
so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God,
wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so
that he, made man, might make men gods."

26. CCC 494 Creed, Born of Virgin Mary
As St. Irenaeus says, "Being
obedient she became the cause of
salvation for herself and for the
whole human race." Hence not a
few of the early Fathers gladly
assert. . .: "The knot of Eve's
disobedience was untied by
Mary's obedience: what the virgin
Eve bound through her disbelief;
Mary loosened by her faith."
Comparing her with Eve, they call
Mary "the Mother of the living" and
frequently claim: "Death through Eve,
life through Mary."
Likewise, St Irenaeus teaches us that “the knot of Eve’s
disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the
virgin Eve has bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin
Mary set free through faith.”

27. St Irenaeus teaches us that there was but
“one author of the Old and New Law,” and
reminds us that Jesus teaches that the
Law and the teachings of the prophets
hinge upon the commands to Love God
and to love our neighbor. Likewise, St
Paul exhorts that there remain “faith,
hope, and love, but the greatest of all is
love.” St Irenaeus teaches that “love
makes man perfect, and that he who
Loves God is perfect, both in this world
and in the world to come.”
The Conversion of Saint Paul, North Italian School, 1500’s

28. St Irenaeus tells us that he met and conversed with St
Polycarp as a young man, the same Polycarp who was taught
by the original apostle John. He also tells us that Peter was
the first bishop of Rome, followed in the succession of
bishops by Linus, then Clement who wrote the epistle bearing
his name, listing the names of twelve bishops of Rome “who
hold the inheritance of the episcopate,” a clear indication of
apostolic succession through the bishops. St Irenaeus
teaches, “The truth is to be found nowhere else but in the
Catholic Church, the sole repository of Apostolic Tradition.”
The Church “is the entrance to life, all other (heresies) are
thieves and robbers.” “Where the Church is, there is the
Spirit of God; and where the Spirit is, there is the Church, and
every kind of grace, and the Spirit is truth.”

29. St Irenaeus teaches that love is the way to God. “St Paul
says that without Love for God, there is no value in
knowledge, nor in the understanding of mysteries, nor in
faith, nor in prophecy. They are all hollow and in vain
without love. It is love that makes man perfect, and he
who Loves God is perfect in this world and in the world
to come. We should never cease to Love God, the more
we behold God, the move we shall Love God.”
Faith and Love go together for St Irenaeus. “Faith in our
Master will remain ever firm, assuring us that there is
only one true God, and that we should Love Him forever,
for He alone is our Father, and that we should hope to
receive and learn more and more from God, because He
is good, and possesses boundless riches, a kingdom
without end, and knowledge beyond measure.”

30. In this section on forgiveness, St
Irenaeus teaches us that it is folly to try
to separate Jesus the Son of God from
Jesus the moral teacher, Jesus the Son
of Man. “In forgiving sins, the Lord not
only healed man, He also showed
clearly who He was. If no one can
forgive sins but God alone, and if the
Lord did forgive them and did heal
men, it is plain that He was Himself the
Word of God made the Son of Man.”

31. St Irenaeus comments on several issues that continue to be
debated up to the present day. St Irenaeus contrasts
Christians and heretics; Christians believe that good works are
necessary for the saved, but heretics say that they are “saved,
not by their conduct, but because they are spiritual in nature.”
Also, a passing comment indicates the early church practiced
infant baptism. St Irenaeus warns against “inquiring about
God using numbers, syllables and letters.”
If good and evil did not both exist, and if what men considered
to be righteous and unrighteousness were only their opinion,
“God would have never taught, ‘The righteous shall shine forth
as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,’ but He shall send
the unrighteous ‘into everlasting fire, where their worm shall
not die, and the fire will not be quenched.’“
Irenaus, Church of St Irenaeus, Lyon

32. PLATO AND REINCARNATION
Plato, in his dialogue Timaeus, speculates about transmigration of souls, or reincarnation. He has
some of the Greek heroes of Troy choose to become eagles or other beasts of prey, and he has
Odysseus choose to be a simple farmer so he can lead a simple, quiet life. St Irenaeus has two
main objections to this doctrine, the first is that it conflicts with early Christian teaching about the
physical resurrection of the body. The second is the Platonic notion that there is no creation, that
the world has no beginning and will never end, a belief that fits in well with the notion of
reincarnation. The early Christian belief is that God created the world ex nihilo, from nothing.
Irenaeus questions if we were reincarnated, why we do not remember our prior lives. Plato’s
explanation for the forgetfulness of the prior life is that the souls must drink from the cup of
oblivion before they start their new life, which leads to the question, if Plato drank from the cup of
oblivion, how can he remember drinking from the cup of oblivion? Wouldn’t he be oblivious?
(REPEAT) St Irenaeus asserts that “God is not so poor or destitute that He cannot provide each
individual body its own proper soul with its own special character.”

33. Socrates Address by Belgian artist Louis Joseph Lebrun, 1867

34. Socrates Address by Belgian artist Louis Joseph Lebrun, 1867
St Irenaeus asserts that “God is not so poor or
destitute that He cannot provide each individual body
its own proper soul with its own special character.”

35. IRENAEUS ON HOLY SCRIPTURE
St Irenaeus warns us that the coming of the Lord
would be pointless if Christ “intended to tolerate and
preserve each man’s idea regarding God.” St Irenaeus
was influential in determining exactly how Christians
should view the Old Testament teachings, saying that
those Christians are perverse who deceive others by
saying the Mosaic laws are contrary to the teachings of
the Gospels.
Irenaeus, like St Justin Martyr, teaches that it is Jesus
in His pre-incarnate form who speaks to Moses, and he
says God in Isaiah 43:10 exhorting that “I too am
witness, and the Son whom I have chosen, that you
may know, and believe, and understand that I AM.”
Modern translations render this “the Servant who I
have chosen,” but the early Church Fathers understand
this verse to refer to the Son of God.
The Icon of the Theotokos "Unburnt Bush“,
19th century, Polissya, Ukraine

36. Why were there four gospels? Irenaeus states that
from the earliest times the Church Fathers accepted
John as the spiritual gospel, and including the synoptic
Gospels, that makes four, there were no other
universally accepted Gospels being commonly used in
the Liturgy.

37. Irenaeus provides mystical reasons for the four
Gospels, relating them to the four zones of the
world, the four principal winds, the four-faced
cherubim, and the four covenants. The early
Church Fathers search for types of Christ in the Old
Testament. For the four-faced cherubim of Ezekiel,
the lion represents the royal power of God, the calf
the “sacrificial and sacerdotal order,” the face of a
man shows that Jesus took on flesh, and the fourth
eagle face is the “gift of the Spirit hovering with His
wings over the Church.” The four covenants are the
covenants with Adam, Noah, Moses and Christ in
the Latin translation, and Abraham, Noah, Moses
and Christ in the Greek translation.
Vision of Ezekiel, by Raphael, circa 1518

38. St Irenaeus and the early Church Fathers view
the Greek Old Testament as scripture, which
renders Isaiah 7:14 as, “the Lord Himself shall
give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son, and you shall call his name
Emmanuel.” He is aware that the Masoretic
Hebrew text differs, he accuses the Jews of
altering the text to read, “a young woman
shall conceive and bear a son.” St Irenaeus
argues that a virgin giving birth would be truly
a sign, but that young women give birth all the
time, so that would not be an impressive sign.
Nativity scene, by Charles Poerson, 1667

39. Later, scholars studying the Dead Sea Scrolls found a Hebrew
manuscript family in the Old Testament scrolls that more closely
matched the Septuagint Greek translation, which had been
criticized for its departure from the Masoretic Hebrew text.
We scanned the five books of the Heresies ourselves for
interesting nuggets of wisdom, then we scanned the anthology of
his sayings collected by Balthasar, and then we scanned the US
Bishop’s Index for places where the Catechism quoted St
Irenaeus, and we found yet more nuggets of wisdom we had
overlooked.

40. ONLY ONE FAITH
CCC 172 Through the centuries, in so many
languages, cultures, peoples and nations,
the Church has constantly confessed this
one faith, received from the one Lord,
transmitted by one Baptism, and grounded
in the conviction that all people have only
one God and Father. St. Irenaeus of Lyons,
a witness of this faith, declared:
CCC 173 "Indeed, the Church, though
scattered throughout the whole world,
even to the ends of the earth, having
received the faith from the apostles and
their disciples. . . guards [this preaching
and faith] with care, as dwelling in but a
single house, and similarly believes as if
having but one soul and a single heart, and
preaches, teaches and hands on this faith
with a unanimous voice, as if possessing
only one mouth."

41. St Irenaeus continues:
CCC 174 "For though languages
differ throughout the world, the
content of the Tradition is one and
the same. the Churches established in
Germany have no other faith or
Tradition, nor do those of the Iberians,
nor those of the Celts, nor those of the
East, of Egypt, of Libya, nor those
established at the center of the world. .
The Church's message "is true and
solid, in which one and the same way
of salvation appears throughout the
whole world."
CCC 175 "We guard with care the
faith that we have received from the
Church, for without ceasing, under
the action of God's Spirit, this
deposit of great price, as if in an
excellent vessel, is constantly being
renewed and causes the very vessel
that contains it to be renewed."

42. This sense of constant renewal explains the calling of the church
councils, in particular Trent, Vatican I, and Vatican II, which
proclaimed afresh the teachings of the Catholic Church to the
modern world.

43. A procession of Cardinals enters St. Peter's in Rome, opening the Second
Vatican Council. Painting by Franklin McMahon
CCC 294 The glory of God
consists in the realization of this
manifestation and
communication of his goodness,
for which the world was created.
God made us "to be his sons
through Jesus Christ, according
to the purpose of his will, to the
praise of his glorious grace", for
"the glory of God is man fully
alive; moreover man's life is
the vision of God: if God's
revelation through creation
has already obtained life for
all the beings that dwell on
earth, how much more will the
Word's manifestation of the
Father obtain life for those
who see God."

44. CCC 438 Creed: Believe in Christ
Irenaeus: Jesus' messianic consecration reveals his divine mission,
"for the name 'Christ' implies 'he who anointed', 'he who was
anointed' and 'the very anointing with which he was anointed’. The
one who anointed is the Father, the one who was anointed is the
Son, and he was anointed with the Spirit who is the anointing.'"

45. CCC 797 The Holy Spirit makes
the Church “the temple of the
living God”: Ireneaus:
Indeed, it is to the Church
herself that the "Gift of God"
has been entrusted.... In it is in
her that communion with Christ
has been deposited, that is to
say: the Holy Spirit, the pledge
of incorruptibility, the
strengthening of our faith and
the ladder of our ascent to
God.... For where the Church is,
there also is God's Spirit; where
God's Spirit is, there is the
Church and every grace.

46. CCC 1000 Our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a
foretaste of Christ's transfiguration of our bodies: Irenaeus:
Just as bread that comes from the earth, after God's blessing has
been invoked upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist,
formed of two things, the one earthly and the other heavenly:
so too our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer
corruptible, but possess the hope of resurrection.

47. CCC 1722 Beatitudes
"Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.“
Irenaeus: It is true, because of
the greatness and
inexpressible glory of God,
that "man shall not see me and
live," for the Father cannot be
grasped. But because of God's
love and goodness toward us,
and because he can do all
things, he goes so far as to
grant those who love him the
privilege of seeing him.... For
"what is impossible for men is
possible for God."

48. Decalogue
CCC 2063 Ending with quote from
Irenaeus:
The Lord prescribed love towards
God and taught justice towards
neighbor, so that man would be
neither unjust, nor unworthy of
God. Thus, through the Decalogue,
God prepared man to become his
friend and to live in harmony with
his neighbor.... the words of the
Decalogue remain likewise for us
Christians. Far from being
abolished, they have received
amplification and development
from the fact of the coming of the
Lord in the flesh.

49. St Irenaeus elegantly summarizes his
refutation of Gnosticism, “If Christ was not
born, neither did He die. If Christ did not die,
neither did He rise from the dead. If He did
not rise from the dead, He did not conquer
death and abolish its reign. If Christ did not
conquer death, how are we to ascend to the
light, we who from the beginning have been
subject to death? Those who rob man of
redemption do not believe that God will raise
man from the dead.”

50. SOURCES: Most of St Irenaeus’ main work “Against Heresies,” which he titled “The Detection and
Refutation of False Knowledge,” survives in a few Latin translations, the Greek original survives
only in fragments, and there are surviving sections in Syriac and Armenian. The translators
complain constantly about the uncertain meaning of many passages, sometimes they have to
imagine what the original Greek was to puzzle through its meaning. An Armenian translation of a
second work, “Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching,” was discovered in 1904. Irenaeus’
many other works have been lost in the sands of history.
If you try to read St Irenaeus without any prior knowledge you may neither be encouraged or
initially impressed. His work is not totally without error, in one place he claims Jesus was fifty
when he died, and that his ministry lasted for ten years, which he said was the testimony of
someone who conversed with an apostle. His main work “Against Heresies” consists of five rather
long and rambling books, you can skip through the first half that contains a very detailed summary
of the heretical belief systems. Like St Justin Martyr’s writings, pay attention when you read
teachings you may have heard many times, this may be the original teaching.

51. We highly recommend reading Balthasar’s Book on Irenaeus’
teachings, The Scandal of the Incarnation. He takes excerpts
from the two extant works of Irenaeus, Against the Heresies and
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, arranged by topic,
with a short discourse by Balthasar. Since St Irenaeus jumps
around quite a bit, like many ancient authors, and since you will
probably be skipping over big chunks as you pick out what you
want to read, this is an invaluable source so you do not miss the
best of St Irenaeus.

52. https://youtu.be/L5KLUjK7SCQ

53. https://youtu.be/I_2q4BiRBlU

54. https://youtu.be/i8WXS7l4OzE

55. https://amzn.to/36S0UHV
www.christianbook.com
https://amzn.to/3hXiBfq
The Didache is in Volume 1
of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
https://amzn.to/3eRbZgK Early Christian Writings, Maxwell Staniforth,
(Andrew Louth has a similar compilation)
The Apostolic Fathers, Greek and English, Michael
Holmes, translator, Bruce Metzger’s Doctoral Student
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7
(1870’s translation), Excellent Introductions
Eusebius, Ancient Church Historian
History of Early Christian Literature, Edgar Goodspeed
The Early Church, Henry Chadwick
https://amzn.to/2V84r1S
YouTube Video: St Irenaeus, On Heresies
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58. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg/