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Irenaeus of Lyons: source notes

Irenaeus of Lyons: source notes

Works: Against Heresies (c. 180). Edition/translation: ANF vol. 1 (Roberts–Rambaut), as on New Advent. The Latin text survives (SC 100); Greek largely lost.

Back to justification · reasoning · conventions

S1: Against Heresies IV.16.2

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103416.htm
  • Text: “And that man was not justified by these things, but that they were given as a sign to the people, this fact shows — that Abraham himself, without circumcision and without observance of Sabbaths, believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.” The Latin has reputatum est (to verify in SC 100).
  • Context: “These things” are circumcision and Sabbath. The righteous before Moses were “justified independently of the things above mentioned, and without the law of Moses” (same section).
  • Bears on: Q2, Q6
  • Status: verified (English)

S2: Against Heresies IV.13.1

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103413.htm
  • Text: “the Lord did not abrogate the natural [precepts] of the law, by which man is justified, which also those who were justified by faith, and who pleased God, did observe previous to the giving of the law, but that He extended and fulfilled them”.
  • Context: Irenaeus speaks of the natural precepts (the Decalogue and love) “by which man is justified” and in the same breath speaks of those “justified by faith”. He does not separate faith from the obedience it produces, and his framework is recapitulation and growth.
  • Bears on: Q1, Q2, Q5
  • Status: verified (English)

Topic: baptism

See baptism reasoning.

BAP S1: Against Heresies II.22.4

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103222.htm
  • Text: “For He came to save all through means of Himself — all, I say, who through Him are born again to God — infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants”.
  • Context: “Born again to God” (renascuntur in Deum, Latin to verify) is very likely baptismal language, given Irenaeus’s usage in AH III.17.1 (to verify). Read this way, it is an early witness to infants being reborn. That reading is an inference.
  • Bears on: B2, B1
  • Status: verified (English); baptismal reading inferred

Topic: salvation

See salvation reasoning.

SAL S1: Against Heresies IV.37.1

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103437.htm
  • Text: “God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the behests of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God”.
  • Context: Written against Gnostic determinism by nature (“some are by nature good, and others bad”).
  • Bears on: S2
  • Status: verified (English)

Topic: eucharist

See eucharist reasoning.

EUC S1: Against Heresies IV.17.5

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103417.htm
  • Text: “He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, and said, This is My body. And the cup likewise … He confessed to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant; which the Church receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout all the world” (citing Mal 1:10–11).
  • Context: The Eucharist is an “oblation” received from the apostles.
  • Bears on: E2
  • Status: verified (English)

EUC S2: Against Heresies V.2.3

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103502.htm
  • Text: “When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God…”
  • Context: Written against Gnostic denial of the resurrection of the flesh. The argument depends on the Eucharist really being Christ’s body and blood.
  • Bears on: E1
  • Status: verified (English)

Topic: atonement

See atonement reasoning.

ATN S1: Against Heresies III.18.1

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103318.htm
  • Text: “when He became incarnate, and was made man, He commenced afresh the long line of human beings, and furnished us, in a brief, comprehensive manner, with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam — namely, to be according to the image and likeness of God — that we might recover in Christ Jesus.”
  • Context: Recapitulation (recapitulavit, Latin to verify).
  • Bears on: A2
  • Status: verified (English)

ATN S2: Against Heresies V.1.1

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103501.htm
  • Text: “redeeming us by His own blood in a manner consonant to reason, gave Himself as a redemption for those who had been led into captivity. And since the apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly … the Word of God … did righteously turn against that apostasy, and redeem from it His own”.
  • Context: Ransom and victory, carried out “righteously” and not by force.
  • Bears on: A1
  • Status: verified (English)

ATN S3: Against Heresies V.21.1

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103521.htm
  • Text: “He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam” (Gen 3:15).
  • Context: Recapitulation and Christus Victor joined.
  • Bears on: A1, A2
  • Status: verified (English)

Topic: original-sin

See original-sin reasoning.

OSN S1: Against Heresies V.16.3

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103516.htm
  • Text: “God Himself, whom indeed we had offended in the first Adam, when he did not perform His commandment. In the second Adam, however, we are reconciled, being made obedient even unto death.”
  • Context: Solidarity in Adam (“we had offended”). The mechanism is not developed.
  • Bears on: O1, O2
  • Status: verified (English)

Topic: afterlife

See afterlife reasoning.

AFT S1: Against Heresies V.27.1

Topic: scripture-and-tradition

See scripture-and-tradition reasoning.

SCT S1: Against Heresies III.1.1

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103301.htm (NPNF/ANF English translation)
  • Text: “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.”
  • Context: Scripture as the written form of the apostles’ preaching.
  • Bears on: C1
  • Status: verified (English)

SCT S2: Against Heresies III.3.1

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm (NPNF/ANF English translation)
  • Text: “tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. …”
  • Context: Against the Gnostics: the public succession of bishops guards the apostolic tradition.
  • Bears on: C1, C3
  • Status: verified (English)

SCT S3: Against Heresies III.4.1

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103304.htm (NPNF/ANF English translation)
  • Text: “Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition …”
  • Context: Recourse to the most ancient churches in a dispute.
  • Bears on: C3
  • Status: verified (English)

Topic: church-authority

See church-authority reasoning.

PAP S1: Against Heresies III.3.2

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm (public-domain English translation)
  • Text: “his, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops.”
  • Context: Rome founded by Peter and Paul; succession list as proof of tradition.
  • Bears on: P1
  • Status: verified (English)

PAP S2: Against Heresies III.3.2

  • Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm (public-domain English translation)
  • Text: “For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority [potiorem principalitatem].”
  • Context:
  • Bears on: P1, P2
  • Status: verified (English)