Irenaeus’s Against Heresies Book 3
This episode contains part of a voluminous work by Irenaeus. He was a disciple of Polycarp, placing him two generations from the apostles. He lived between A.D. 120 and A.D 202. Irenaeus wrote as a bishop in Lyons, France, and found himself part of a global church embroiled in heresy and schism. Because of this he devoted much of his life to understanding and refuting the heretics of his day. This has been preserved in a five volume series, titled “Against Heresies.”
In his third volume, Irenaeus turns to Scripture to refute the heretics. He begins by explaining the importance of this collection of writings that we now call the Bible along with the history of its writing. Here we find an early account of who wrote the Gospels and their intended audience. It is also particularly interesting that Irenaeus places Matthew as the first gospel written whereas many scholars today accept that Mark was written first due to textual evidence. This highlights one of the issues in Biblical interpretation, that Church tradition and scholastic exploration do not always see eye-to-eye.
It is also revealing that Irenaeus felt the need to explain how the Gospels work together. One of the errors of the heretics was to misuse these books, either by ignoring some altogether, arguing that certain passages were in error, or to recognize new books as equal in authority to these inspired texts. In refuting this, however, Irenaeus made it a point to show that, even though the gospels don’t contain exactly the same description of events, they nevertheless paint a cohesive picture of Christ, each emphasizing a different aspect of his nature and ministry.
Finally, this begins to set the scene for the council of Nicea in A.D. 325, where the global Church met to agree on doctrine surrounding the nature of Christ. One commonality among the heretics recorded in this work is that they teach that Christ had a different nature than was taught in Scripture.
If you would like to read more of the writings of the Early Christian Fathers, please visit ccel.org to view the full collection.
