St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in France, was born in Asia Minor around 132 AD, went west to Lyons sometime before 177, and died around 203 AD. His feast is 28 June. As a young man, he knew Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (one of the "seven churches in Asia"--see Revelation 2:8-11), who had known the Apostle John. Irenaeus is often claimed by Roman Catholic controversialists as an early witness for the supreme teaching and ruling authority of the Church of Rome. I propose to examine that claim.
His best known work is THE REFUTATION AND OVERTHROW OF GNOSIS, FALSELY SO CALLED, commonly known as AGAINST HERESIES. It is directed against the Gnostics, who held that spirit is good and matter is evil, and therefore God could not possibly have made the material universe. For a fuller account of their teachings, see the article on Irenaeus under 28 June in the BIO series on the Web at http://www.louisville.edu/~bscurr01/christia/chrcal.htm or send the message GET BIO JUN to the address listserv@asuvm.inre.asu.edu
The Gnostics also said that Jesus preached two Gospels: (1) an exoteric Gospel intended for the multitudes who could grasp only simpler notions, and (2) an esoteric Gospel preached secretly to a handful of spiritually elite, who had the sensitivity and refinement of soul to understand and appreciate its subtleties. The first they identified with the sermons of the clergy, the second with their own teaching. Typically, they would say to a promising recruit: "We recognize in you signs of spiritual greatness. You have learned the basics of Christianity in your local church. Now it is time for you to move on and take the advanced course from us. It is not for everyone, which is why we teach in secret. But you are clearly a superior thinker, a refined, sensitive soul, ready for the whole truth."
Irenaeus replies that Jesus commissioned His followers to preach the Gospel to everyone. Irenaeus popularized the term "Catholic Church," which he used in three ways: (1) to distinguish the world-wide Church from a local congregation, such as the Church at Corinth; (2) to distinguish the mission of the Christian community, which was commissioned to preach the Gospel to all nations, from that of the Jewish community, which was commanded to keep inviolate the covenant that God had made with their father Abraham and confirmed through Moses, but was not commanded to bring Gentiles into the covenant, or even to dissuade them from idolatry; (3) to distinguish the Christian Church, which preached the Gospel to all men and welcomed all into fellowship, from the Gnostics, who said that they were sent only to the elite, and that the higher Gospel was only for a select few.
Irenaeus says: If Jesus did have a special message of particular importance and delicacy, to whom would He have entrusted it? Obviously, to the twelve Apostles who were His closest intimates. Can we draw a distinction between Paul and the Twelve? Clearly not, for the Book of Acts (Acts 15) makes it clear that Paul's teaching had the full backing of the Twelve. And to whom would Paul and the other Apostles pass on this special teaching? Clearly, to the local congregations that they founded, and in particular to the men they put in charge of those congregations (Acts 20:17,26-27). Therefore, if we want to know the authentic Christian Gospel, we have only to inquire at a local congregation founded by an Apostle, with an unbroken line of bishops from the Apostle's time to our own, a line which guarantees continuity of the community and its organization, and hence continuity of doctrine. And if we do this, we find the same doctrine preached by the Bishop of Rome, and the Bishop of Jerusalem, and of Antioch, and of Alexandria, and Ephesus, and Smyrna, and Corinth, and Thessalonika, and all the other bishops of congregations founded by apostles. (He might have added that congregations like his own in Lyons were not founded by apostles, but had received their first bishops from congregations that had been so founded, and that they preached the same doctrine that was preached in those congregations.)
It would take too long, Irenaeus says, to list the episcopal successions for all the congregations founded by apostles, so he will content himself with those of three: Rome, Smyrna, and Ephesus. He starts with Rome, remarking:
We point to the tradition of that very great and very ancient and universally known church which was founded at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul--we point, I say, to the tradition which this church has from the apostles, and to her faith proclaimed to men, which comes down to our time through the succession of her bishops.
He then continues with a sentence which we need to examine closely, and which I therefore quote in Latin. (Irenaeus wrote in Greek, but this sentence survives only in an early Latin translation.)
Ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio.
We will consider the English translation of this in a moment.
Irenaeus goes on to give a list of the Bishops of Rome, from Linus in the time of the Apostles to Eleutherus (AD 173-188) in his own day. He then proceeds to consider the Church at Smyrna, and gives a list of its bishops, beginning with Polycarp, who had been taught by the Apostle John, and points out how unlikely it is that the Church of Smyrna should have strayed from the faith delivered to it by the Apostles. He then does the same thing with the Church at Ephesus, showing how Paul had taught there for three years, and had declared to them the whole counsel of God (Acts 20), and had entrusted the care of the church there to chosen elders, and then he gives the line of the bishops of Ephesus from Paul's day to his own. Here he stops, saying that three examples are enough to make the point. (Why these three examples? Perhaps he wanted to mention one church founded by Peter (actually Peter and Paul), one by Paul, and one by John. Perhaps he is simply using examples of churches with which he had had some personal experience.)
Now let us return to the Latin sentence quoted above. Some Roman Catholic controversialists translate it thus:
It is necessary that every church, that is, the faithful who are everywhere, should agree with this church; in which that tradition which is from the apostles has been preserved by those who are everywhere.
They argue that, according to Irenaeus, all churches must agree with the See of Rome, so that if you know the faith of Rome, then you know the faith of the Church. If all orthodox churches are NECESSARILY in agreement with Rome, what can that mean except that Rome is infallible?
I offer what I think to be a more accurate translation:
For to this church, on account of its stronger pre-eminence, it must needs be that every church resorts (that is to say, the faithful from all quarters); and in this church the tradition that comes from the apostles has ever been preserved by those who come from all quarters.
Or, word for word (and in English word order, not Latin):
For ENIM it must be the case NECESSE EST that every church OMNEM ECCLESIAM (that is, (HOC EST, faithful individuals EOS QUI SUNT FIDELES from every quarter) UNDIQUE) will come together CONVENIRE at this church, AD HANC ECCLESIAM, because of PROPTER (its) more powerful POTENTIOREM pre-eminence, PRINCIPALITATEM, in which (church) IN QUA that which is EA QUAE EST handed down from the apostles AB APOSTOLIS TRADITIO has always been preserved SEMPER CONSERVATA EST by those AB HIS who come from every direction QUI SUNT UNDIQUE
Irenaeus says that every church must CONVENIRE AD Rome. Some persons have translated this as "agree with." Now, taking the Latin Vulgate as a handy guide to popular Latin usage of the time, we see that (as in classical usage) CONVENIRE CUM normally means "agree with" (Mt 20:13), but that CONVENIRE AD means "resort to" or "assemble at". It implies physical motion. Thus Mark 1:45 tells us that Jesus was in a deserted place "and they came to him from every quarter" ("et conveniebant ad eum undique"). A friend of a friend (no longer, alas, available for questioning) states that he has found 26 passages in the Vulgate where CONVENIRE AD X is used, and that in every instance the meaning is clearly that a group of persons assembled or gathered at some place X or in the neighborhood or presence of some person X. Hastily flipping through the pages of my Latin Bible (thank you, Evelyn Wood), I have found 21 such passages (the last two being instances where "ad" introduces a gerund of purpose), viz., Judg 20:11; 1Sa 22:2; 3Ki 8:2,5; Ezr 9:4; Dan 3:2; 1Ma 5:38,64; 7:12,22; 11:47; 15:10; 2Ma 14:16; Mt 27:62; Mk 1:45; 5:21; 6:30; 7:1; 10:1; Lk 8:4 (?); Ac 20:7; and 1Co 11:33. The reader can readily verify for himself that in every one of these passages, CONVENIRE refers to a physical coming together, not to an agreement. (If the reader also locates one or more of the five missing passages, I should like to learn of them. I suspect that the discrepancy is due to the fact that the Vatican revised the official text of the Vulgate around 1950, and that he was working from the older edition.)
Note that Irenaeus, having said that every church must CONVENIRE AD Rome, goes on to explain that he is referring to the faithful Christians who travel to Rome from everywhere. If he meant that every local church must agree with Rome in doctrine, it would not be necessary to explain the phrase; but since he has said that every local congregation will travel to Rome, he explains that he means that individual Christians from every local congregation will be visiting Rome. Note also that he speaks, not of the faithful IN every place (UBIQUE), but of the faithful FROM every place (UNDIQUE). If they were agreeing with Rome, they could do that without leaving home, and so he would speak of the faithful UBIQUE. But his point is that by regularly visiting Rome, the faithful contribute to the stability of doctrine there, and so he speaks twice of the faithful UNDIQUE. He has already made the point that in each individual congregation, the continuity of the bishops and of their council of presbyters preserves the faith (an argument that applies with equal force to all local congregations founded by apostles). Here he is pointing out the additional importance of the intercommunication among congregations as a bulwark against innovation.
Irenaeus' plain point is that bishops and presbyters are kept true to the faith they have received from the Apostles not only by continuity with their predecessors, but also by the continual cross-fertilization and cross-checking provided by the network of travel and correspondence among congregations. In those days, whenever a Christian from, say, Ephesus traveled to Antioch, he carried with him a letter of introduction from his bishop to the bishop of Antioch, vouching for him as a member in good standing--important in the early days, when Christianity was illegal and it would have been dangerous to admit a stranger to Christian meetings without identification. But the letter was seldom confined to introducing the bearer. It also conveyed greetings to the congregation, and words of encouragement and moral exhortation or preaching on matters of doctrine. For examples, see the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, written in the reign of Trajan (AD 98-117) to various congregations, and included in most collections of Early Christian Writings (see Penguin editions).
In this constant interchange of letters and visitors, Irenaeus sees a safeguard against doctrinal innovations and deviations. In an isolated congregation a bishop preaching every Sunday might, without conscious dishonesty, preach on his favorite texts and ignore those he liked less, emphasize some aspects of the Gospel at the expense of others, or introduce some far-fetched interpretation of a text to support some notion that appealed to him; and there would be nothing to prevent his notions from being accepted by his admiring hearers as simply "what the Church teaches." But if he was constantly receiving letters from other bishops--letters that would naturally be read aloud to the congregation--the danger of a one-sided interpretation or presentation of the Gospel would be greatly reduced. The effectiveness of such a safeguard would be proportional to the volume of traffic between his city and others. An isolated congregation (such as a fishing village off the coast of Scotland) might develop singularities of doctrine, just as birds on the Galapagos Islands, isolated from birds on the mainland, might develop beak shapes or colorations different from those of their mainland ancestors. But cities that sent many visitors to other cities, and received many visitors from other cities, would be well protected by that traffic against idiosyncrasies. And no congregation would be better protected than Rome. "All roads lead to Rome," it was said, and rightly so. Merchants, artisans, poets and playwrights, tent-makers, those with political ambitions, social climbers, young men whose parents sent them there for education and a touch of cosmopolitan polish--all sorts of travellers, and among them many Christians, would be arriving in Rome every week. And if they were Christian, they would head for the bishop to present their credentials and be awarded the hospitality of the local congregation and admittance to the celebration of the Liturgy. And their bishops' letters would be read aloud to the congregation, and if the letters taught a different doctrine from that of the local bishop, whether in terms of outright contradiction or simply a diference of emphasis, the local congregation would notice it, and the bishop himself would notice it. And so, the congregation at Rome would be guarded against doctrinal innovations by its constant stream of visitors from other congregations. Other congregations would be similarly guarded, of course, but the Roman congregation more than others because of its strategic location at the heart of the Empire and of the Mediterranean world--because (as Irenaeus says) of its greater pre-eminence--PROPTER POTENTIOREM PRINCIPALITATEM: hence Irenaeus's statement that the faith is preserved in Rome "by [the faithful] from all quarters.". Note that in this sentence, Irenaeus says nothing about any role that Rome performs in keeping the provinces on track. As far as his present argument is concerned, it is a matter of the letters and visitors from the provinces keeping the Roman congregation on track.
If Irenaeus thought the Church of Rome uniquely infallible, why does he treat it as one instance among many? We might have expected him to say something like the following: "It is enough to point to the Church of Rome, since it is plainly declared in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter, and since the Bishops of Rome are the successors of Peter in that office (see the enclosed list from Peter to the present). However, we will pile on more evidence than we need by adding to the certain and infallible authority of the Chair of Peter the uncertain but highly probable authority of the Bishops of Ephesus and Smyrna (see enclosed lists of their bishops from Paul to the present, and from John to the present), and we add that there are many other congregations founded by apostles, with an orderly succession of bishops from the apostles to the present, which we might list if space permitted. We note that these congregations and the bishops in charge of them all teach the same doctrine, and we ask you to consider how improbable it is that they would all go astray in the same way. But of course the primary argument is that we have Christ's own promise that Peter, and his successors in the See of Rome, can never depart from the true faith. This guarantee is more than historically probable. It is certain." This is exactly the argument as one hears it from modern Roman Catholic apologists (except that they usually omit mention of other apostolic sees altogether). And it is exactly the argument that Irenaeus would have used if he had shared their beliefs about the Roman Supremacy. But instead, he lists Rome and Ephesus and Smyrna side by side, with no clear indication that he sees anything more than a difference of degree in the value of their testimony. If Irenaeus does believe that the Church of Rome has a special gift of infallibility, he has gone to some lengths to obscure his belief.
Irenaeus here says nothing whatever about a special teaching authority or a special grace of infallibility given to the local congregation at Rome or to its bishop. But why does he not, if in fact he believes that the Bishop of Rome, or the congregation at Rome, has some unique and divinely bestowed status? He has been quoting the Scriptures to prove other points. Why not quote "Thou art Peter," if he thinks it shows that the Bishop of Rome is the deputy of Christ? One possible reply is that he confines himself to arguing from premises that his Gnostic opponents accepted. However-- (a) Elsewhere in his book, Irenaeus freely relies on proof-texts from the Four Gospels. He argues for the authority of the Twelve Apostles by quoting the words of Christ as recorded in the Gospels. It is strange that he would not quote Christ's words to Peter in Matthew 16:18 ("Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church...") if he understood them as a modern Roman Catholic understands them. (b) Irenaeus was writing not only to convert Gnostics, but also to strengthen the faith of Catholic Christians who were under attack from the Gnostics, and needed to be reminded why they should trust the teaching of their bishops. Surely a modern Roman Catholic theologian, writing a book to help Roman Catholic laity answer the question, "Why should I trust the teaching authority of the Roman Catholi Church?" would be very quick to quote Matthew 16:18 and to claim that here Christ plainly promises that Peter's successors, the Bishops of Rome, can never depart from the faith, and that therefore any bishop in communion with Rome is automatically a trustworthy bishop. But Irenaeus never uses this argument or any other argument for a divinely given special status for the Church of Rome. And the most straightforward explanation is that he never heard of such a doctrine.
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Let us now consider what Irenaeus had to say about the authority of Rome on another occasion, in the dispute about the date for celebrating Easter. We get our information from the ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY of Eusebius, completed about AD 324.
When Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, visited Anicetus, Bishop of Rome (AD 154-165), he found that they differed on the date for celebrating Easter. Polycarp and his congregation celebrated it on the eve of the Jewish Passover, the 14th of Nisan (the first full moon on or after the equinox on 21 March), from which practice those who follow it are called quartodecimans, or "fourteeners." Anicetus and the Roman congregation celebrated on the following Sunday. Each bishop claimed a tradition from the apostolic founders of his church. Neither could persuade the other to change, but they remained in fellowship, and when the Roman congregation met for worship during Polycarp's stay in Rome, Anicetus invited the visitor to preside over the worship in his stead.
This amicable difference continued for several decades, until Victor, Bishop of Rome (AD 188-198) attempted to impose uniformity. He began by writing to the metropolitans of the various provinces, inquiring of each when the bishops of that province celebrated Easter. He found that, outside Proconsular Asia and its immediate neighbors, the Sunday observance was universal. He therefore wrote to Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, and demanded that he conform, threatening to break off relations between Rome and Ephesus if he did not. Polycrates replied that such threats did not frighten him, since "We ought to obey God rather than man" (Acts 4:19).
[Advance warning: when I type Greek words, I render Eta and Omega as J and W respectively. My other conventions will, I hope, give no trouble.]
Eusebius writes (HE v 21-24): "Upon this, Victor, the Bishop of the Church of the Romans, forthwith endeavors to cut off the churches of all Asia, together with the neighboring churches, as heterodox, from the common unity; and he denounces them by letters, and proclaims that all the brethren there are utterly separated from communion. However, these measures did not please all the bishops. They exhort him, therefore, on the other side to pursue peace and unity and love towards his neighbors. Their writings too are extant, somewhat sharply upbraiding (PLJKTIKWTERON KATHAPTOMENWN) Victor. Among these also was Irenaeus, who, in the name of those brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintains indeed that the mystery of the Lord's resurrection should be celebrated only on the Lord's Day; but he also becomingly exhorts Victor not to cut off whole churches of God, which preserve the tradition of an ancient custom.... He also wrote, not to Victor alone, but to very many other churches respecting the question which was agitated." The historian Socrates Scholasticus (AD 450) says (HE v 22) that Irenaeus "chivalrously inveighed (GENNAIWS KATEDRAMEN) against Victor." (I understand the Greek to mean that he rebuked Victor in the manner of an aristocrat telling someone off.)
It is sometimes said by Romanist controversialists that Irenaeus, although he humbly petitioned Victor to be merciful, did not question his authority to excommunicate Polycrates and the churches of Asia. Since we do not have his actual words, we cannot directly disprove those who conjecture that he began, "Prostrate at the feet of your Holiness, I venture to beg that your just wrath against those rebellious bishops who have presumed to reject your command may be tempered with mercy...." However, Eusebius and Socrates did have his actual words. And they describe his tone to Victor as "upbraiding" and "inveighing," rather than humbly petitioning. Moreover, he wrote not just to Victor, but to many other bishops. Did these letters go to Polycrates and the bishops of Asia, urging them to submit? Eusebius gives us the substance of Victor's message to Polycrates, and of Polycrates' reply to Victor, and tells us that Irenaeus wrote to Victor "rather sharply upbraiding" him and advising retreat; if he also wrote to Polycrates, pointing out to him the very great sin he was committing by defying the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ, one would expect the historian to say so. But he says only that Irenaeus wrote to many other bishops, and the natural way of understanding Eusebius' statement is that he urged them NOT to support Victor, or follow his lead by breaking communion with the churches of Asia.
How was this dispute resolved? Eusebius does not tell us explicitly, but we have two indications. (1) He says Victor ENDEAVORED to cut off the churches of Asia from the common unity: the implication is that he did not succeed. Victor could cut them off from his own congregation--as any bishop might sever relations with another, by refusing to send or receive letters, refusing even the hospitality of his own congregation to members of the other's--but his attempt to cut off the Asians from the common unity required the participation of the other bishops, and from the "endeavored" it appears that the others did not follow. (2) Moreover, about 60 years later St. Firmilian of Caesarea in Cappadocia writes that Rome and Caesarea keep Easter on different dates. This makes it clear that at least some quartodecimans retained their customs, and as it is also clear that Rome and Caesarea were not out of communion for all those years, we conclude that Victor abandoned his efforts.