The Feast of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons

Saint Irenaeus served as the bishop of Lugdum (now Lyons), a Celtic city in Cisalpine Gaul, named for Lug the chief god of the Celtic pantheon.

Irenaeus was born c. 130 CE and died c. 202. His leadership in the Church took place during a time commonly referred to as the Apostolic Era. He was an acolyte of Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, a Greek city in Anatolia (modern Turkey), who was himself acquainted with the apostle John, making him only three steps removed from the life and ministry of Jesus. He was a martyr of the Church, though the details of his martyrdom are unknown.

Irenaeus was a prolific writer; his surviving works demonstrate a deep commitment to the unity of Christian doctrine. He was among the first of the Ante-Nicene theologians to argue for the doctrine of apostolic succession, positing that a bishop of the church, and through the bishop all of the priests that he ordains, should stand in an unbroken line of succession that goes back to the first apostles, who were the disciples of Jesus. And he was ardently opposed to heterodox sects like the so-called Gnostics that were prominent in his day.

What is most important in Irenaeus’ work is something referred to as the Irenaean Theodicy.

Theodicy is the specific field of theological study devoted to understanding the problem of evil, and its ultimate resolution by God.

The Irenaean Theodicy was the leading doctrine in the church for three-hundred years; from the time that Christians were a persecuted minority, through the transformation of Christianity into the Imperial church. The Irenaean cosmology and the metaphysics that supported it were preeminent until late fifth and early sixth century when they were supplanted by Saint Augustine’s sacramental theology and its reliance on the novel doctrine of original sin, after which Saint Augustine’s teaching became normative, and still holds sway throughout the Christendom today.

 Augustine taught that creation was made perfect and without blemish, and subsequent to creation the fall into sin occurred, teaching that the inclination toward sin, corruption and depravity comes out of nowhere and nothing, resulting in a degree of chaos and disorder which completely separates the created order from God.

Irenaeus did not deny the fall, though he posited that the world is not wholly fallen. He understood the reality of sin, but he taught that creation, including the fall, takes place within God, and that God is in the fallen world.

His argument was for unity, making it so that the fall (as we understand it) is not an irreparable breach that requires supernatural or divine power to overcome it; he put forward the notion that God’s plan for the resolution of evil is to slowly draw all things to God’s self and that this takes place within the context of the natural order, according to the specific nature which God has relegated to all things and being.

For Irenaeus the perfection of the created order is a process of assimilation, which he calls recapitulation, imagining that each individual-being is on a journey, coming closer to the divine over-time, and that our imperfections fall away as we approach the eternal, a process which culminates in the atonement, at which point we become one with God

Irenaeus’ theology, which was never condemned, provides a strong theological grounding for a theology of universal salvation, the teaching of which has been my mission since I first discovered that I had something to say on the matter.

Thanks to the work of Irenaeus eighteen-hundred years ago, this hopeful theology has persisted as a teaching of the church…though only among a minority of believers.