Ben Brumund45

Irenaeus: Not a Lucky Winner

Abstract:

Contemporary writer and lecturer Bart Ehrman has achieved great notoriety over the past decade by espousing his view that the Christian church of the early centuries was a variegated enterprise. Consolidated only by a series of political and ideological victories, the victors of these theological battles bestowed upon themselves the title “orthodox,” while the losers, deemed “heretics,” were erased from the history books. Ehrman’s idea is not original. In fact, the 1934 treatise by Walter Bauer which gave the thesis it’s fullest expression has taken severe criticism which has flowed constantly since the 1950’s. Yet, postmodern skepticism has kept the ground fertile for contemporary writers to continue the promulgation of the theory. Perhaps the greatest recipients of this skepticism have been the early Fathers of the Church. Among these, none is more central than Irenaeus, the second century bishop of Lyons and author of Against Heresies, the anti-Gnostic polemical work. In the face of insinuations that Christianity lacked any unique identity and that Irenaeus’ motives were to enforce his own version of Christianity in order to increase his power base, this paper will demonstrate the contrary. An objective orthodoxy can be established and Irenaeus was a man of both high competence and noble motive.

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Irenaeus: Not a Lucky Winner

Introduction

For most of its history, the Christian church has operated with the assumption that

orthodoxy and heresy were fairly apparent and objective terms. Despite many serious struggles

with heresies through the centuries, orthodoxy maintained that the only form of true

Christianity was that expressed in the twenty-seven canonical books of the New Testament and

the message of the apostles contained therein. Further, it had been generally accepted that

defenders of orthodoxy such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Athanasius and others had blessed the

church in their dogged efforts to preserve this message as it had been transmitted. However,

increasingly in recent times, these assumptions have been challenged. There are those who

would no longer view Irenaeus and others as “defenders of the faith,” but who regard them,

pejoratively, as “heresy hunters,” and call for the recognition of many expressions of ancient

heresy as parallel forms of Christianity, of which none was more legitimate than the other.1

This paper seeks to (1) investigate this relatively new approach to competing ideologies of the

early church era, (2) articulate the main points of criticism against Irenaeus registered by

challengers to the traditional view, (3) present Irenaean doctrine germane to these criticisms,

and (4) affirm the traditional relationship between orthodoxy and heresy along with the

traditional position of Irenaeus as a valuable defender of the faith within the context of these

early conflicts.

1 Stanley E. Porter and Gordon L. Heath. The Lost Gospel of Judas. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 97.

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The Thesis of Walter Bauer

The recent popularity of a radically revised history of Christianity is not a new

phenomenon, but has rather been “a perennial phenomenon within Western culture since the

Enlightenment.”2 In recent times, speculation has been a product not so much from new data3

as from a philosophical/ideological shift in Western culture. The anti-authority thrust of

postmodernism and the skepticism against documentary authority, in particular, has paved the

way for a widespread acceptance of various conspiracy theories against the church (especially

the Roman Catholic Church) of suppressing primitive truth. Ironically, this leads to the same

result, only with the process inverted: the “lost gospels” are canonized while NT texts are

reviled.4 It is “a kind of inverted fundamentalism, a loving consecration of the noncanonical.”5

Though the underpinnings of his ideas are perhaps even older,6 Walter Bauer’s thesis in

Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (1934) “has shaped an entire generation of

2 Philip Jenkins. Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 15, in Rodney J. Decker. The Rehabilitation of Heresy: ‘Misquoting’ Earliest Christianity. Presented to the Bible Faculty Summit, 2007. www.NTResources.com, 2.

3 Though new data certainly has been discovered. Whereas, for much of history, we have been reliant on the writings of orthodox opponents to heresy (such as Irenaeus) for descriptions of these ideologies, many twentieth century discoveries have allowed us to read these heresies in their own words, so to speak. Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King. Reading Judas. (New York: Penguin, 2007) xv. And the finds have been numerous. The Nag Hammadi library (and there are others), discovered in 1945, contains fifty-two Gnostic works. Porter, 32-33. Such discoveries continue, as well. The Gnostic Gospel of Judas was just published for the first time in 2006, and introduced amid no small fanfare.

4 Decker, 3.

5 Jenkins, 20.

6 Decker, 5f.

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scholars since its first appearance.”7 He created “a new paradigm,”8 and is still a foundational

influence to a number of contemporary scholars such as Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels.

In attempting to differentiate between orthodoxy and heresy, Bauer says:

[If we] simply agree with the judgment of the anti-heretical fathers for the post-New Testament period, do we not all too quickly become dependent upon the vote of but one party – that party which perhaps as much through favorable circumstances as by its own merit eventually was thrust into the foreground, and which possibly has at its disposal today the more powerful, and thus the more prevalent voice, only because the chorus of others has been muted?9

His answer is “yes,” and says it cannot simply be assumed that orthodoxy temporally preceded

heresy. As in a court case, the judge must strain his ears to fairly hear the voice of the

vanquished defendant, so as not to simply find for the stronger and more articulate plaintiff.

Perhaps. . . certain manifestations of Christian life that the authors of the church renounce as ‘heresies’ originally had not been such at all, but, at least here and there, were the only form of the new religion – that is, for those regions they were simply ‘Christianity.’ The possibility also exists that their adherents constituted the majority, and that they looked down with hatred and scorn on the orthodox, who for them were the false believers.10

It is this thesis which Bauer sets out to test, although his professed neutrality frequently slips

into the role of defender for the heretics. He considers evidence geographically to see what

forms of Christianity are discernible in Edessa, Egypt, Antioch, Asia Minor, and Rome.11

7 J.J. Pelikan. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 365 as cited by Paul Trebilco. “Christian Communities in Western Asia Minor into the Early Second Century: Ignatius and Others as Witnesses Against Bauer.” JETS 49/1 (March 2006), 18.

8 R.L. Wilken. “Diversity and Unity in Early Christianity.” SecCent 1 (1981), 103, in Trebilco, 18.

9 Walter Bauer. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1934; first paperback edition, 1979), xxi.

10 Ibid, xxii.

11 Decker, 7.

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Bauer finds that what has been known as orthodoxy since the fourth century was

originally the dominant form of Christianity only in Rome. Able to extend itself eastward

through its financial resources and political influence, Rome was able to at first help and then

draw other churches into its own ecclesiastical structure.12 Bauer concludes that “it is indeed a

curious quirk of history that western Rome was destined to begin to exert the determinative

influence upon a religion which had its cradle in the Orient, so as to give it that form in which it

was to achieve worldwide recognition.” 13 None of the heretical forms of Christianity “could

have received such recognition.”14 The essence of his thesis, then, is twofold: in the beginning

there were many varieties of Christianity, and it was the victory of the church of Rome which

established official dogma and suppressed all competing views.15

Critiques Against Bauer

In the three-quarters century since Bauer’s work, numerous monograph length critiques

have been produced. Following is a small sample of the conclusions of some of these authors.

Turner (1954) finds:

The evidence is too scanty and in many respects too flimsy to support any theory so trenchant and clear-cut as Bauer proposes. Yet his skepticism on many points of detail appears excessive, and his tendency to postpone the development of recognizably orthodox life far from conclusive.16

12 Bauer, 231.

13 Ibid, 240.

14 Ibid.

15 Decker, 11.

16 H.E.W. Turner. The Pattern of Christian Truth: A Study of the Relations between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church. Bampton Lectures. (London: Mowbray, 1954; reprinted Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2004), 45.

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He believes that more recent discoveries since Bauer’s work have moved Alexandrian

Christianity further to the right than what Bauer allows. Further, probabilities seem to be that

the evidence Bauer has examined is more indicative of “splinter groups on the fringe of the

Church.”17 In Asia Minor, nothing “supports the more daring features of Bauer’s

reconstruction,”18 and the picture he paints of Corinth, Rome, and 1 Clement “is at best non-

proven.”19 Turner concludes that Bauer’s “fatal weakness appears to be a persistent tendency

to over-simplify problems, combined with the ruthless treatment of such evidence as fails to

support his case.”20

Chapman (1965) criticizes Bauer for frequent argument from silence, and “habitually

coercing ambiguous pieces of evidence” to fit preconceived notions. He also rejects Bauer’s

portrait of “power politics and sociological pressures” in Rome, suggesting instead that “certain

broad lines of interpretation may have triumphed because of their theological adequacy.”21

Subsequent studies have typically focused on aspects of Bauer’s thesis rather than its

entire scope. Heron (1973) investigated Bauer’s use of 1 Clement and the alleged influence of

Rome as a “power broker” who established a dominant position over weaker churches and

alternative interpretations of Christianity through force. He finds that there is no evidence that

Rome succeeded in imposing a monarchical bishop on Corinth or that opposition leaders in

17 Ibid, 57.

18 Ibid, 63.

19 Ibid, 67.

20 Ibid, 79.

21 G. Clarke Chapman. “Some Theological Reflections on Walter Bauer’s Rechtglaubigkeit und Ketzerei im altesten Christentum: A Review Article.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 7 (1970): 564-74, in Decker, 13.

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Corinth were bribed, and believes there to be no evidence to assume that power (as opposed

to love and concern, which 1 Clement suggests) was the motive for Roman involvement in the

Corinthian Church. Heron concludes that:

when all the components of an argument are as weak as those we have to deal with here, the argument as a whole, however plausible or attractive in itself it may appear, cannot be taken very seriously. . . . The theory as a whole indeed depends more on his powers of imagination than on the facts available to us.22

Substantial critique has continued to come against Bauer’s thesis. McCue (1979) argued

“Bauer is simply wrong” in his assertions on Valentinianism, finding Valentinian thought to be

an exponent of orthodoxy.23 Yamauchi agrees, stating that “Gnosticism always appears as a

parasite. . . it is always built on earlier, pre-existing religions or on their traditions.”24 Robinson

(1998) argues that “Bauer’s understanding of orthodoxy and heresy does not provide the kind

of insight into the character of earliest Christianity that is widely attributed to it.”25 Counter to

Bauer’s belief in heresy as early and dominant, “it is the catholic community, not the Gnostic,

that represents the character of the majority in western Asia Minor in the early period.”26

Robinson concludes that “Bauer’s reconstruction of the history of the early church in western

22 A.I.C. Heron. “The Interpretation of 1 Clement in Walter Bauer’s Rechtglaubigkeit und Ketzerei im altesten Christentum.” Ekklesiastikos Pharos 55 (1973): 517-45, in Decker, 13-14.

23 James F. McCue. “Orthodoxy and Heresy: Walter Bauer and the Valentinians,” Vigiliae Christianae 33 (1979): 119-120 in Decker, 16.

24 Edwin M. Yamauchi. Pre-Christian Gnosticism: A Survey of the Proposed Evidences,” (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983; second edition), 185, in Decker 16.

25 Thomas A. Robinson. The Bauer Thesis Examined: The Geography of Heresy in the Early Christian Church. Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, vol. 11. (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1988), 27, in Decker, 16.

26 Ibid, 203.

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Asia Minor is faulty – not just in minor details – but at critical junctures.”27 Davidson (2004)

believes that Bauer’s thesis:

. . . fails to consider the wide diversity of opinion with which the church of Rome itself was affected in the first two centuries and beyond, and the degree to which political cohesion in the Roman Christian communities actually evolved quite slowly. [It also] exaggerates the extent to which any believers were in a position to repress their peers during the period in question, given that Christianity in its entirety remained a technically illegal movement.Above all, however, Bauer’s theory overlooks the degree to which there clearly was from the beginning a certain set of convictions about Jesus that bound a majority of believers together, and it underestimates the intrinsic impetus that existed within these convictions to work out the logical parameters within which the gospel and its advocates could be said to exist. The process of discerning truth and falsehood that evolved in the late first and second centuries was implicitly grounded in the attempts by the first followers of Jesus to think through the consequences of their newfound faith with regard to personal salvation and practical living.28

Hurtado offers this summary of the substantial criticism of Bauer:

Over the years. . . important studies have rather consistently found Bauer’s thesis seriously incorrect. . . In fact, about all that remains unrefuted of Bauer’s argument is the observation, and a rather banal one at that, that earliest Christianity was characterized by diversity, including serious differences of belief. Those who laud Bauer’s book, however, obviously prefer to proceed as if much more of his thesis is sustainable. Unfortunately, for this preference, Bauer’s claims have not stood well the test of time and critical examination.29

Bart Ehrman

As, then, can be seen, the idea of multiple competing “Christianities” instead of one

orthodox Christianity and multiple heretical influences in the early centuries of the Christian

27 Ibid, 204.

28 Ivor J. Davidson. The Birth of the Church: From Jesus to Constantine, A.D. 30-312. Baker History of the Church, vol. 1. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 158.

29 Larry W. Hurtado. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 520-21.

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church is not an original idea to contemporary writers. Bauer’s thesis is three-quarters of a

century old. Yet, it has received renewed attention due to the popularity of contemporary

writers, foremost among them being Bart Ehrman. Through his credentials as a scholar and his

success as a communicator through numerous best-selling books, he has given new life to

Bauer’s old ideas.

In Lost Christianities (2003), after providing examples of varied Christian or professing

Chrisitian groups, Ehrman writes:

All this diversity of belief and practice, and the intolerance that occasionally results, makes it difficult to know whether we should think of Christianity as one thing or lots of things, whether we should speak of Christianity or Christianities.What could be more diverse than this variegated phenomenon, Christianity in the modern world? In fact, there may be an answer: Christianity in the ancient world. . . .Most of these ancient forms of Christianity are unknown to people in the world today, since they eventually came to be reformed or stamped out. As a result, the sacred texts that some ancient Christians used to support their religious perspectives came to be proscribed, destroyed, or forgotten – in one way or another lost. . . .

Virtually all forms of modern Christianity. . . go back to one form of Christianity that emerged as victorious from the conflicts of the second and third centuries. This one form of Christianity decided what was the ‘correct’ Christian perspective; it decided who could exercise authority over Christian belief and practice; and it determined what forms of Christianity would be marginalized, set aside, destroyed. It also decided which books to canonize into Scripture and which books to set aside as ‘heretical,’ teaching false ideas.And then, as a coup de grace, this victorious party rewrote the history of the controversy, making it appear that there had not been much of a conflict at all, claiming that its own views had always been those of the majority of Christians at all times, back to the time of Jesus and His apostles, that its perspective, in effect, had always been ‘orthodox’ (i.e., the ‘right belief’) and that its opponents in the conflict, with their other scriptural texts, had always represented small splinter groups invested in deceiving people into ‘heresy.’

It is striking that, for centuries, virtually everyone who studied the history of early Christianity simply accepted the version of the early conflicts written by the orthodox victors. This all began to change in a significant way in the nineteenth century as some scholars began to question the ‘objectivity’ of such early Christian writers as the fourth-century orthodox writer Eusebius, the so-called Father of Church History, who

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reproduced for us the earliest account of the conflict. This initial query into Eusebius’ accuracy eventually became, in some circles, a virtual onslaught on his character, as twentieth-century scholars began to subject his work to an ideological critique that exposed his biases and their role in his presentation. This reevaluation of Eusebius was prompted, in part, by the discovery of additional ancient books. . . other Gospels, for example, that also claimed to be written in the names of apostles.30

Ehrman is quite right that this is not the traditional picture of early Chrisianity. However,

despite the tidal wave of critique that Bauer’s thesis has taken and continues to take, Ehrman,

as is seen here, accepts it fundamentally.31 He delights in criticizing “orthodoxy” and its later

developments. Chapter 11 of Lost Christianities is titled “The Invention of Scripture.” His

condescension is ever-present.

Ehrman concludes Lost Christianities by expressing gratitude that the church today has

largely outgrown the ugly intolerance of the first centuries of its existence, and is thankful that,

through our modern rediscovery of these “lost Christianities,” these ideologies can be

“cherished” today, restored to the place of informing men and women about their place in the

world.32

Criticisms of Irenaeus

This curious rehabilitation effort of heresy caused Henry to ask “Why Is Contemporary

Scholarship So Enamored Of Ancient Heretics?” Two of his conclusions are particularly

interesting:

30 Bart Ehrman. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 1, 4, 5.

31 Decker, 26, even refers at one point to the ‘Bauer/Ehrman hypothesis.’

32 Ehrman, 257.

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[1. The] romantic notion that those who are rebellious are honest and self-aware. . . . Heretics, then, become the models of liberated, self-aware persons. . . . If we find a heretic, we have found a rebel, and if we find a rebel, we have found an authentic human being. [And 2.] We tend to see everything in terms of power struggles, manipulations, negotiations, [etc.]. . . so we assume that whatever happens is most adequately explained by the dynamics of politics. And recent experience. . . has given us a very jaundiced view of those who come out on top in political contests. . . . In the early church, the Fathers are, for the most part, those who came out on top. Given our assumptions, their very identity as Fathers puts them on trial. 33

As has been seen, the departure from the traditional view of early Christianity to that of Bauer

or Ehrman requires a great degree of skepticism toward that early Church. Of course,

espousing conspiracy theories to the Church is a rather vague proposition. The real culprits had

to have been individuals. The early Fathers bear the brunt of this mistrust, and as one of the

great anti-heretical writers of the Church, Irenaeus has become the ace of spades in the

revisionists’ most-wanted deck of cards.

Simply stated, the history proposed by revisionists does not work if Irenaeus was both of

pure motive and correct in his judgments on the legitimacy of heretical teachings. Since it is

this legitimacy of the heretical teaching which is the substance of this debate, it is the motives

of Irenaeus which are routinely questioned by opponents. Examples of this can be readily seen

in the writings of Elaine Pagels, who appears on the front cover of Ehrman’s Lost Christianities

endorsing it as “fascinating, lively, enjoyable, and accessible.” In reaction to Irenaeus’ writings

on the church as the custodian of truth, and the succession of bishops, Pagels remarks:

Only this system, Irenaeus says, stands upon the ‘pillar and ground’ of those apostolic writings to which he attributes absolute authority – above all, the gospels of the New Testament. All others are false and unreliable, unapostolic, and probably composed by heretics. . . . As spokesman for the church of God, Irenaeus insists that those he calls

33 Studia Patristica 17.1 [papers from the 8th International Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford, 1979], ed. E.A. Livingstone, 123-26 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982), in Decker, 41-42.

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heretics stand outside the church. All who reject his version of Christian truth are ‘false persons, evil seducers, and hypocrites’. . .34

In the midst of discussing Irenaeus’ belief that truth is inseparable from the church, Pagels’

language severs Irenaeus from the church completely. “Irenaeus says. . . he attributes. . .

Irenaeus insists. . . he calls. . . his version”: if the implications of Pagels’ words here are true, he

is the most powerful man the world has seen in 1900 years. The New Testament canon was his

determination. He established truth and untruth. It was his judgment who stood inside the

church and outside. And the implication is that he did this with no one else really around. Not

bad for a missionary transplant turned bishop operating out of the humble backwater of the

Roman empire.

She also accuses Irenaeus of suppressing the accurate picture of early Christianity with

his unfavorable reviews of The Gospel of Judas.

The only primary sources available to historians [prior to recent discoveries] were from those Christians like Irenaeus, who had written against works like The Gospel of Judas. So modern scholars’ views are defined by their characterizations of heresy. As a result, we continue to hear only one side of the debates – the view of the winners – making it almost impossible to imagine what Christianity was like at the time of The Gospel of Judas was written, when Christianity was developing and it was not clear whose views would dominate.

Now that we possess not only Irenaeus’ refutation but copies of some of the works he wrote against – including The Gospel of Judas – we can see how one-sided his presentation is.35

In other words, Irenaeus cannot be trusted to give us an accurate depiction of reality. What is

needed is an appeal to The Gospel of Judas as a corrective. This is troubling. James M.

34 Elaine Pagels. The Gnostic Gospels. (New York: Random House, 1979), 105-106. And lest there be any doubt on where Pagels stands regarding Bauer’s thesis, the opening words of her conclusion to this book should suffice: “It is the winners who write history – their way,” 142.

35 Pagels, Reading Judas, xv, 7.

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Robinson, a Jesus Seminar member (so not exactly a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical, either) and

arguably the most notable Nag Hammadi scholar of the twentieth century, said of the Gospel of

Judas: “[it] tells us nothing about the historical Jesus and nothing about the historical Judas. It

tells only what, 100 years later, Gnostics were doing with the story they found in the canonical

Gospels.”36 Robinson confirms Irenaeus’ assertions completely. It is difficult to avoid the

conclusion that, by appealing to a document so thoroughly regarded as fiction to provide a

corrective to Irenaeus, Pagels simply does not want to believe Irenaeus.

In a final example:

Historians have noted, too, that the teachings Irenaeus labeled as ‘orthodox’ tend to be those that helped him and other bishops consolidate scattered groups of Jesus’s followers into what he and certain other bishops envisioned as a single, united organization they called ‘the catholic (universal) church.’37

Here, again, the accusation is that Irenaeus acts in self-service. Irenaeus was someone who we

today (and back in his own day if people had only been more aware) should be (or should have

been) very suspicious of because legislation he was able to institute without accountability,

uncoincidentally, brought about his own gain.

The Defense of Irenaeus

One factor which points to the purity of Irenaeus’ motives is the writing of his great

work, Against Heresies. Described as “one of the most precious remains of early Church

antiquity,”38 its goal was twofold: “(1) to render it impossible for anyone to confound

Gnosticism with Christianity, and (2) to make it impossible for such a monstrous system to

36 James M. Robinson quoted in David Gates. “Sealed With a Kiss.” Newsweek, April 17, 2006, as cited by N.T. Wright. Judas and the Gospel of Jesus. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 64.

37 Pagels, Reading Judas, 9.

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survive, or ever rise again.”39 At the time of its writing, likely a span of years in the 180s, he was

overseeing his own diocese. Yet, he took time away from the administrative and missionary

tasks, which he enjoyed, to take on this tremendous undertaking.40 The extent of his effort on

behalf of the Church at large, combined with his potential for personal gain (especially in

Lyons), are much more indicative of a well-intentioned man than one working to indulge selfish

motives.

It is view of a man with noble intentions that encapsulates the traditional view of who

Irenaeus is.

His name signifies the Peaceful, and in the spirit of an Old Testament saint he accepted it as an omen for the guidance of his life. Gentle but firm, persuasive rather than imperious, he ever used his great authority on the side of moderation and peace. As an opponent of heresy he is uncompromising, but not uncharitable. He strives to describe without misrepresenting views which he does not understand, and as he had access to and used the best available sources, his statements are accepted with confidence by writers of every school.41

His leading characteristics [as a Christian writer] are, on one hand, thoroughness of apprehension; on the other, accuracy of representation and temperance of expression.42

This depiction of Irenaeus is that of a very different person than is presented by Elaine Pagels.

For most of its history, Irenaeus has been seen in this light: a brilliant man, one who believed in

the existence of truth and one who defended it passionately, yet did so with tact and

temperance.

38 Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, editors. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1885; reprinted 1975), 311.

39 Ibid, 310.

40 Charles Thomas Cruttwell. A Literary History of Early Christianity. (New York: AMS, 1971), 379.

41 Ibid, 375.

42 Ibid, 389.

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Another point which deserves mention in defense of Irenaeus against those who would

be suspicious of his motives is the circumstances surrounding his ascension to the office of

bishop of Lyons. He succeeded a martyr. The Letter of the Gallican Churches43 provides in

agonizing detail one of the most brutal accounts of early persecution on record, that of the

churches of Vienne and Lyons under Marcus Aurelius in 177. The elderly bishop of Lyons,

Pothinus, died as a result of the extreme torture to which he was subjected. It should go

without saying that stepping into the office of one who was just martyred for their work in that

office hardly seems like an act of self preservation. Quite to the contrary, it is an act of

selflessness which demonstrates absolute commitment to the cause which that office

represents.

How would Irenaeus respond to Bauer, or Ehrman, or Pagels? Probably not with

anything that he has not already said. His polemic writing against the Gnostics of the second

century would function well as an apologetic to the postmoderns of the twentieth and twenty-

first centuries. Let us summarize his relevant thoughts.44

For Irenaeus, Christ was the ultimate source of Christian doctrine. He was the true

Word who had been revealed by the Father, but He had entrusted this revelation to the

apostles, and it was through them alone that knowledge of His revelation could be obtained. 45

43 Provided as an appendix in Cruttwell, 393-403.

44 I follow here the outline of J.N.D. Kelly. Early Christian Doctrines. (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1960; revised 1978), 36-39, 192.

45 Against Heresies, 3.preface, 3.1.1: “The Lord of all gave his apostles the power of the Gospel, and by them we have known the truth, that is, the teaching of the Son of God. To them the Lord said, ‘He who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me and Him who sent me’ (Luke 10:16). For we have known the ‘economy’ for our salvation only through those through whom the Gospel came to us. . .”

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Unlike Gnostic heresy, the tradition of the apostles was entirely public and open.46 Christ

entrusted the apostles with His message, they entrusted their own successors with the same

message, and so on, and all of this transmission was done in plain view, for both believers and

unbelievers to see. The importance of this was mimicked in the formal succession process of

the bishops,47 and as an example, Irenaeus walks through the succession of the bishopric of

Rome from Peter through his own day. There had never been any grand doctrinal conspiracies.

The Gospel had passed from its origin into the present day through broad daylight.

This apostolic teaching defined the Church, uniting it into a single, worldwide entity.48 It

is the sole repository of truth, and is thereby the unique domain of the Holy Spirit, who has

been especially entrusted to it.49

46 AH, 3.4.3: “Before Valentinus there were no disciples of Valentinus; before Marcion there were no disciples of Marcion. . . Each of [the Gnostics] appeared as the father and mystagogue of the opinion he adopted. All these arose in their apostacy much later, in the middle of the times of the church.”

47 AH, 3.3.1: “Thus the tradition of the apostles, manifest in the whole world, is present in every church to be perceived by all who wish to see the truth. We can enumerate those who were appointed by the apostles as bishops in the churches as their successors even to our time. . .” After recounting the succession of the Roman bishopric from Peter through his own day, and going on to provide witness to the apostolic tradition of Polycarp and the church in Asia. He finds, in AH 3.4.1, that “Since these proofs are so strong, one need not look among others for the truth that it is easy to receive from the church, for like a rich man in a barn the apostles deposited everything belonging to the truth in it so that whoever will might take the drink of life from it (Rev. 22:17). For it is the way of life, while ‘all’ the others ‘are thieves and robbers’ (John 10:8). Therefore one must avoid them (Tit. 3:10) but love what belongs to the church and hold fast to the tradition of truth.”

48 AH, 1.10.2: “The church, having received this preaching and this faith, as we have just said, though dispersed in the whole world, diligently guards them as living in one house, believes them as having one soul and one heart (Acts 4:32), and consistently preaches, teaches, and hands them down as having one mouth. For if the languages in the world are dissimilar, the power of the tradition is one and the same.”

49 AH, 3.24.1: “Where the church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the church and all grace; and the Spirit is truth (1 John 5:6).”

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The Church, then, holds a monopoly of the apostolic oral tradition,50 and also the

apostolic writings, for what the apostles first proclaimed by word of mouth, they afterwards, by

God’s will, wrote down as Scripture.51 Of particular note is his stress of the continuity between

the Old and New Testaments. He believed that the life and teaching of Christ had been

foreshadowed in the Old Testaments. The heading for AH, 4.3 reads:

Whosoever confesses that one God is the author of both testaments, and diligently reads the Scriptures in company with the presbyters of the Church, is a true spiritual disciple; and he will rightly understand and interpret all that the prophets have declared respecting Christ and the liberty of the New Testament.

Perhaps it is here, in Irenaeus’ belief about the relationship between the Old Testament and the

New, where his ability to silence critics ancient and modern is most efficient. The following

discussion I imagine as being quite realistic:

Irenaeus: The orthodox faith can demonstrate a direct lineage from the teaching of the Apostles.

Second Century Gnostics: So can we, and we argue that ours is the rightful lineage.Irenaeus: My interpretation of the writings of the Apostles is orthodox.

50 The apostolic tradition had been inherited by the Church (most likely orally, at first) and handed down from one generation to the next. AH, 5.preface: “We have thus made known the truth and proclaimed the message of the church, which the prophets had already announced, which Christ perfected, which the apostles transmitted, from whom the church received it and, alone keeping it safe throughout the world, delivers to its children.” It was, in principal, a living tradition which was independent of written documents, for even illiterate barbarians could be saved by believing the truth and shunning heresy. AH, 3.4.2: “Many barbarian peoples who believe in Christ assent to this sequence [the apostolic succession], and possess salvation, written without paper or ink by the Spirit in their hearts, diligently observe the ancient tradition. . . . Those who have believed this faith without letters are ‘barbarians in relation to our language’ (2 Cor. 14:11) but most wise, because of the faith, as to thinking, customs, and way of life, and they please God as they live in complete justice, chastity, and wisdom. And if someone told them, speaking in their own language, what has been invented by heretics, they would immediately shut their ears and flee far way, not even enduring to hear this blasphemous discourse. Because of that ancient tradition of the apostles they do not admit even to thought any of the lying inventions of these people [the heretics].”

51 AH, 3.1.1: “And what they then first preached they later, by God’s will, transmitted to us in the scriptures so that would be the foundation and pillar of our faith (1 Timothy 3:15).”

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Bart Ehrman: Irenaeus, your interpretation is only one of many possible interpretations. Yours is no more correct than anyone else’s, and therefore, your form of religion is no more valid than anyone else’s.

Irenaeus: No, a guide to interpreting the writings of the Apostles does exist, and it is the Old Testament. You invalidate your reading of the writings of the Apostles by denying the authority of the Old Testament, for the Apostles themselves looked to the Old Testament as a hermeneutical key to the life of Jesus. Without accepting the Old Testament, you reject the identity of God which He gave to Himself, and you reject the words spoken about His Son, Jesus Christ. The key to interpreting the writings of the Apostles is not in hidden gnosis or obsessions with obscure signs and numbers. The central message, in fact, is very straightforward. Anyone who desires to understand the truth has the capacity to do so. Let him do so with the guidance of the presbyters, the fellowship of believers, and the Holy Spirit. Please, examine our message and see that this is true. You will find that it has not changed, for it has been passed down from one generation to the next, in broad daylight, since the days of Christ Himself.

Without the acceptance of the Old Testament, Irenaeus’ second century opponents effectively

liberated themselves from any hermeneutical anchor which would restrict the results of their

interpretive forays. The definitive Christian event, the resurrection of Christ, could not be

interpreted the same way with and without the guidance of the Old Testament, and by

asserting the dependence of the New Testament on the Old, Irenaeus provided a means for

justly condemning the theological trajectory of his opponents.

Conclusion

Wherever two people or more are gathered, multiple opinions will exist. And this is as

true with the Bible as it is with baseball. Bauer, Ehrman, and Pagels can all be thanked for

reinforcing this point. The Church Fathers, including Irenaeus, provide evidence of this diversity

of opinion (Irenaeus, oddly, believed that Jesus died at an old age). However, this does not

mean that a body of fundamental beliefs in the Christian faith had to be a process of

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evolutionary cohesion instigated by jealousy and greed. The criticisms which have been leveled

against orthodoxy, and against the early bishops such as Irenaeus in particular, disregard the

consistency of the core Christian message which has been openly transmitted since its

inception. These criticisms also disregard the hermeneutical tools which have been associated

with that message from the beginning.

It stands to reason that, by definition, a right understanding of any idea is dictated by its

originator. It follows, then, that a right, or orthodox, understanding of Christianity is one

consistent with that of its founders, the Apostles, and any departure of this understanding may

appropriately be deemed as heresy. Irenaeus, the second century bishop of Lyons, articulated

for us the same good news regarding Jesus Christ as that which founded the Christian faith, and

exposed that which was a subsequent derivative of this message in a tumultuous time when

that differentiation was sometimes hard to make. For this, we must be grateful.

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Cruttwell, Charles Thomas. A Literary History of Early Christianity. New York: AMS, 1971.

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