Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Church History of Eusebius/Book IV/Chapter 21

The Ecclesiastical Writers that flourished in Those Days.

1. that time there flourished in the Church Hegesippus, whom we know from what has gone before, and Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, and another bishop, Pinytus of Crete, and besides these, Philip, and Apolinarius, and Melito, and Musanus, and Modestus, and finally, Iren&#230;us. Iren&#230;us was born in Asia Minor, probably between the years 120 and 130. There is great uncertainty as to the date of his birth, some bringing it down almost to the middle of the second century, while Dodwell carried it back to the year 97 or 98. But these extremes are wild; and a careful examination of all the sources which can throw any light on the subject leads to the conclusion adopted by Lipsius, and stated above. In Asia Minor he was a pupil of Polycarp (cf. the fragment of Iren&#230;us&#8217; letter to Florinus, quoted by Eusebius, Bk. V. chap. 20). The Moscow of the Martyrium Polycarpi states that Iren&#230;us was in Rome at the time of Polycarp&#8217;s martyrdom (155 or 156 ), and appeals for its authority to a statement in Iren&#230;us&#8217; own writings, which does not exist in any extant work, but may have been taken from an authentic work now lost (cf. Gebhardt, in the Zeitschrift f&#252;r die hist. Theologie, 1875, p. 362 sqq.). But whatever truth there may be in the report, we find him, at the time of the great persecution of Lyons and Vienne (described in the next book, chap. 1), a presbyter of the church at Lyons, and carrying a letter from the confessors of that church to the bishop Eleutherus of Rome (see Bk. V. chap. 4). After the death of Pothinus, which took place in 177 (see Bk. V. pr&#230;f. note 3, and chap. 1, &#167;29), Iren&#230;us became bishop of Lyons, according to Bk. V. chap. 5. The exact date of his accession we do not know; but as Pothinus died during the persecution, and Iren&#230;us was still a presbyter after the close of the persecution in which he met his death, he cannot have succeeded immediately. Since Iren&#230;us, however, was, according to Eusebius, Pothinus&#8217; next successor, no great length of time can have elapsed between the death of the latter and the accession of the former. At the time of the paschal controversy, while Victor was bishop of Rome, Iren&#230;us was still bishop (according to Bk. V. chap. 23). This was toward the close of the second century. His death is ordinarily put in the year 202 or 203, on the assumption that he suffered martyrdom under Septimius Severus. Jerome is the first to call him a martyr, and that not in his ''de vir. ill., but in his Comment. in Esaiam'' (chap. 64), which was written some years later. It is quite possible that he confounded the Iren&#230;us in question with another of the same name, who met his death in the persecution of Diocletian. Gregory of Tours first gives us a detailed account of the martyrdom, and in the Middle Ages Iren&#230;us always figured as a martyr. But all this has no weight at all, when measured against the silence of Tertullian, Hippolytus, Eusebius, and all the earlier Fathers. Their silence must be accepted as conclusive evidence that he was not a martyr; and if he was not, there is no reason for assigning his death to the year 202 or 203. As we have no trace of him, however, subsequent to the time of the paschal controversy, it is probable that he died, at the latest, soon after the beginning of the third century.

Iren&#230;us was the most important of the polemical writers of antiquity, and his works formed a storehouse from which all subsequent heresiographers drew. He is quoted very frequently by Eusebius as an authority for events which happened during the second century, and is treated by him with the most profound respect as one of the greatest writers of the early Church. Jerome devotes an unusually long chapter of his ''de vir. ill.'' to him (chap. 35), but tells us nothing that is not found in Eusebius&#8217; History. His greatest work, and the only one now extant, is his &#8142;&#917;&#955;&#949;&#947;&#967;&#959;&#962; &#954;&#945;&#8054; &#7936;&#957;&#945;&#964;&#961;&#959;&#960;&#8052; &#964;&#8134;&#962; &#968;&#949;&#965;&#948;&#969;&#957;&#8059;&#956;&#959;&#965; &#947;&#957;&#969;&#963;&#949;&#969;&#962;, which is commonly cited under the brief title &#960;&#961;&#8056;&#962; &#8190;&#913;&#953;&#961;&#8051;&#963;&#949;&#953;&#962;, or Adversus H&#230;reses (&#8220;Against Heresies&#8221;). It consists of five books, and is extant only in a very ancient and literal Latin translation; though the numerous extracts made from it by later writers have preserved for us the original Greek of nearly the whole of the first book and many fragments of the others. There are also extant numerous fragments of an ancient Syriac version of the work. It was written&#8212;or at least the third book was&#8212;while Eleutherus was bishop of Rome, i.e. between 174 and 189 (see Bk. III. chap. 3, &#167;3, of the work itself). We are not able to fix the date of its composition more exactly. The author&#8217;s primary object was to refute Valentinianism (cf. Bk. I. pr&#230;f., and Bk. III. pr&#230;f.), but in connection with that subject he takes occasion to say considerable about other related heresies. The sources of this great work have been carefully discussed by Lipsius, in his Quellenkritik des Epiphanios, and in his Quellen der &#228;ltesten Ketzergeschichte, and by Harnack in his Quellenkritik der Geschichte des Gnosticismus (see also the article by Lipsius mentioned below). Of the other works of Iren&#230;us, many of which Eusebius refers to, only fragments or bare titles have been preserved. Whether he ever carried out his intention (stated in Adv. H&#230;r. I. 27. 4, and III. 12. 12) of writing a special work against Marcion, we cannot tell. Eusebius mentions this intention in Bk. V. chap. 20; and in Bk. IV. chap. 25 he classes Iren&#230;us among the authors who had written against Marcion. But we hear nothing of the existence of the work from Iren&#230;us&#8217; successors, and it is possible that Eusebius is thinking in chap. 25 only of the great work Adv. H&#230;r. For a notice of Iren&#230;us&#8217; epistle On Schism, addressed to Blastus, and the one On Sovereignty, addressed to Florinus, see Bk. V. chap. 20, notes 2 and 3; and on his treatise On the Ogdoad, see the same chapter, note 4. On his epistle to Victor in regard to the paschal dispute, see below, Bk. V. chap. 24, note 13. Other epistles upon the same subject are referred to by Eusebius at the close of the same chapter (see note 21 on that chapter). In Bk. V. chap. 26, Eusebius mentions four other works of Iren&#230;us (see notes on that chapter). In addition to the works referred to by Eusebius, there are extant a number of fragments which purport to be from other works of Iren&#230;us. Some of them are undoubtedly genuine, others not. Upon these fragments and the works to which they belong, see Harvey&#8217;s edition of Iren&#230;us&#8217; works, II. p. 431 sq., and Lipsius in the ''Dict. of Christ. Biog. article Iren&#230;us'', p. 265 sqq.

The best edition of Iren&#230;us&#8217; works is that of Harvey (Cambridge, 1857, in 2 vols.). In connection with this edition, see Loof&#8217;s important article on Iren&#230;ushandschriften, in Kirchengeschichtliche Studien, p. 1&#8211;93 (Leipzig, 1888). The literature on Iren&#230;us is very extensive (for a valuable list, see Schaff&#8217;s Ch. Hist. II. 746), but a full and complete biography is greatly to be desired. Lipsius&#8217; article, referred to just above, is especially valuable. From them has come down to us in writing, the sound and orthodox faith received from apostolic tradition.