Irenaeus
served as the bishop of Lugdum (now Lyons), in France. He was born c. 130 CE
and died c. 202 CE, serving during the Apostolic era, and he is listed in the
ranks of the martyrs of the Church, though the details of martyrdom are
unknown.
Irenaeus was a prolific writer. He was connected to the Bishop
Polycarp who was himself connected to the Apostle John, making him only three
steps removed from the ministry of Jesus.
Irenaeus’ surviving works show how he was deeply committed to
the unity of Christian doctrine. He ardently opposed the heretical sects of
groups like the loosely affiliated Gnostics, as well as the Montanists, and he
was among the first to argue for the doctrine of apostolic succession, positing
that a bishop of the church should stand in an unbroken line of succession that
goes back to the first apostles.
What is most important about Irenaeus’ work is something
referred to as the Irenaean theodicy, this is why I lift him up and write about
him.
Theodicy is the specific field of theological work devoted to understanding
the problem of evil, and its ultimate resolution by God.
The Irenaean theodicy was the leading doctrine in the church up
until the time that it was supplanted by Augustine’s teaching on original sin,
three centuries later, after which Saint Augustine’s teaching became normative
throughout the Christian world.
St. Augustine suggests that creation was made perfect and
without blemish, and then there was a fall into sin, which came from nowhere
and nothing resulting in a degree of chaos and disorder which completely
separates creation from God. Whereas Irenaeus posited that the though the world
is fallen it is not wholly fallen, making it so that the breach is not
irreparable, putting forward that God’s plan for the resolution of evil is to
slowly draw all things to the divine.
For saint Irenaeus the perfection of the created order happens
as a process of assimilation, which he calls recapitulation, imagining that each
individual-being is on a journey, coming ever closer to God; as we draw near our
imperfections fall away.
Irenaeus’ theology, which was never condemned, provides a strong
theological grounding for the theology of universal salvation which has
persisted as a teaching among Christians from the very beginning of the Church,
though only among a stark minority.
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