St Irenaeus, Gnosticism, and Apostolic Succession

 Today is the feast of St Irenaeus.     Irenaeus was a remarkable saint since almost single handed he took on the Gnostic heresy, which at a time when faith in Roman Gods was waning was welcomed with some excitement.    Even Christians became Gnostics and began to argue from the many wrings in the early Church that the saviour only came to rescue the few enlightened people who had a spiritual presence in them and not everyone.   It borrowed from Greek philosophy and Persian writings.    It claimed that the Gods were not interested in creating anything of matter but a lesser God called the Demiurge had created the world.  This had been a great mistake for the world was corrupt.    A few people though carried spirits in them, fallen angels imprisoned in flesh, which they had to free, and that was the work of the Saviour.    But only a few people knew this secret, an elite,  and they passed it on to others who were worthy.   As the author of the book I read remarked  "It sounds just like the Da Vinci code"     The search for a secret group not known to all Christians.

Since so many Christians however were being lost Irenaeus decided to tackle the Gnostics.   There were many scriptural writings in the early Church and it was from these writings the heretical Christians would quote and dispute among one another.   Irenaeus felt he had to put right this absurd and ridiculous cult.

Irenaeus started from the founding of the Church.   If there was indeed a secret to share would He not have confided it in the twelve apostles?   And as they died would they not have entrusted the secret to those they appointed to the Churches they had once held as bishops.     It was the year 189 AD and yet Irenaeus could point to the Apostolic Churches such as Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome and yet these bishops, the successors knew nothing about these silly doctrines of the Gnostics did not come from Jesus.    He especially mentions Rome the See of Peter and Paul, and naming every Pope who succeeded the Apostles.     "For every Church must be in harmony with this Church because of its outstanding pre-eminence, that is the faithful from everywhere, since the Apostolic tradition is preserved in it by those from everywhere."   He entreated them to use only the scriptures that these Apostolic Church use.

The above was written in the third century long before the Emperor Constantine, whom some have reputed to have organised the administration of the Catholic Church.  Each Church was ruled by a bishop, presbyters and deacons, and recognised the authority of Rome long before the Emperor existed.