Voices and influences
Irenaeus
The bishop of Lyons who traced his teaching to the apostle John and wrote the great takedown of the gnostics.
Summary
This site quotes Irenaeus 323 times across 35 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 202.
- Quoted here most in Luke: 46 of 323.
Irenaeus
- Lived
- died 202
- Tradition
- Early Church
5 of 323 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Irenaeus died in 202 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
And they arose and came from the land of the east; and, as they went through the land, they chanced upon the land of Shinar, which was exceeding broad; where they took in hand to build a tower.
The rest of the quotation
They sought means thereby to go up to heaven, and be able to leave their work as a memorial to those men who should come after them.
Genesis 11:4 “Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.” BSB
If, then, neither Moses, nor Elias, nor Ezekiel, who had all many celestial visions, did see God; but if what they did see were similitudes of the splendour of the Lord, and prophecies of things to come; it is manifest that the Father is indeed…
The rest of the quotation
invisible, of whom also the Lord said, "No man hath seen God at any time."
Daniel 3:25 “Look!” he exclaimed. “I see four men, unbound and unharmed, walking around in the fire—and the fourth looks like a son of the gods!” BSB
And Zechariah also, among the twelve prophets, pointing out to the people the will of God, says: "These things does the Lord Omnipotent declare: Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion each one to his brother.
The rest of the quotation
And oppress not the widow, and the orphan, and the proselyte, and the poor; and let none imagine evil against your brother in his heart." And again, he says: "These are the words which ye shall utter.
Zechariah 7:10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’ BSB
And that we may not have to ask, Of what God was the Word made flesh? he does himself previously teach us, saying, "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
The rest of the quotation
The same came as a witness, that he might bear witness of that Light. He was not that Light, but [came] that he might testify of the Light." By what God, then, was John, the forerunner, who testifies of the Light, sent [into the world]?
Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple—the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight—see, He is coming,” says the LORD of Hosts. BSB
Let our opponents-that is, they who speak against their own salvation-inform us [as to this point]: The deceased daughter of the high priest; the widow's dead son, who was being carded out [to burial] near the gate [of the city]; and Lazarus, who had lain…
The rest of the quotation
four days in the tomb, -in what bodies did they rise again? In those same, no doubt, in which they had also died. For if it were not in the very same, then certainly those same individuals who had died did not rise again.
Mark 5:22 A synagogue leader named Jairus arrived, and seeing Jesus, he fell at His feet BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Irenaeus 323 times across 35 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Irenaeus was born in Smyrna, in Asia Minor, around 130. As a boy he sat and listened to Polycarp, the old bishop of that city, and he never forgot it. Writing decades later to a former friend who had drifted into heresy, he described the scene from memory: where Polycarp sat as he taught, how he walked, how he looked, and how he told what he had heard from John and from the others who had seen the Lord with their own eyes. That is the chain Irenaeus stood in — John to Polycarp to Irenaeus — and it is the thing he leaned on hardest when the fight came. He went west, to Lugdunum in Gaul, the city now called Lyons, and served as a presbyter there. In 177 the church of Lyons was torn apart by a savage local persecution; the bishop Pothinus, over ninety years old, died in prison, and Christians were tortured in the amphitheatre before crowds. Irenaeus was away when the worst of it happened. The confessors in prison had sent him to Rome with a letter, on a peacemaking errand about Montanism. He came back to find his bishop dead, and was made bishop in his place. His great work is Against Heresies, in five books. The gnostic teachers, above all the school of Valentinus, taught an elaborate scheme of thirty divine beings, a botched creation by a lesser god, and a secret knowledge that saved an elite few. Irenaeus's method was to set their systems out in full, in their own words — the first two books are largely description — on the theory that the plain statement would do half the work. Then he answered: one God, who made the world and called it good; one Christ, truly human and truly divine; a resurrection of the body, not an escape from it; and no secret teaching anywhere, because the apostles founded churches and appointed successors whose names anyone could look up. He also fixed the number of the Gospels at four, no more and no fewer, and argued Christ as the second Adam who runs the whole human story again and gets it right — what he called recapitulation. A second work, the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, was lost for centuries and turned up in an Armenian manuscript in 1904. When Victor of Rome moved to excommunicate the churches of Asia over the date of Easter around 190, Irenaeus wrote to him and told him to stop — the difference in practice, he said, had never broken the peace before, and the man whose name means peaceable ought to keep it. He died about 202. Later writers, Jerome among them, call him a martyr; Eusebius does not say so, and the record of how he died is not firm. Sources: Irenaeus, Against Heresies and Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching; Eusebius, Church History V.1–8, V.20, V.24; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2.
323 quotations across 35 books
Where this voice is quoted
Then should not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be released from her bondage on the Sabbath day?”
“And not only in the case of this woman have the years of her infirmity (which they affirm to fit in with their figment) been mentioned, but, lo!”
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are thrown out.
“Vain, too, is [the effort of] Marcion and his followers when they [seek to] exclude Abraham from the inheritance, to whom the Spirit through many men, and now by Paul, bears witness, that "he believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness."”
But Jesus replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘Look, I will keep driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach My goal.’
“And therefore did the Lord term those whom He knew to be the offspring of men "a generation of vipers;" because after the manner of these animals they go about in subtilty, and injure others.”
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under…
“And, without using a parable, the Lord said to Jerusalem, `O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest those that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens trader her wings, and…”
Then Jesus said to the man who had invited Him, “When you host a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or brothers or relatives or rich neighbors.
“And for this reason the Lord declared, "When thou makest a dinner or a supper, do not call thy friends, nor thy neighbours, nor thy kinsfolk, lest they ask thee in return, and so repay thee.”
and you will be blessed. Since they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
“John, therefore, did distinctly foresee the first "resurrection of the just," and the inheritance in the kingdom of the earth; and what the prophets have prophesied concerning it harmonize [with his vision].”
“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one that is…
“Blending in one the production of their own Aeons, and the straying and recovery of the sheep [spoken of in the Gospel], these persons endeavour to set forth things in a more mystical style, while they refer everything to numbers, maintaining that the universe has…”
I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.
“For, because He knew that we would make a good use of our substance which we should possess by receiving it from another, He says, "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him…”
The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the gospel of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.
“Since, then, the law originated with Moses, it terminated with John as a necessary consequence. Christ had come to fulfil it: wherefore "the law and the prophets were" with them "until John."”
Now there was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor.
“Now, He has not merely related to us a story respecting a poor man and a rich one; but He has taught us, in the first place, that no one should lead a luxurious life, nor, living in worldly pleasures and perpetual feastings, should be…”
Then Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
“But since the writings (literae) of Moses are the words of Christ, He does Himself declare to the Jews, as John has recorded in the Gospel: "If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me.”
“In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected men.
“The Lord also spoke as follows to those who did not believe in Him: "I have come in my Father's name, and ye have not received Me: when another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive," calling Antichrist "the other," because he…”
Will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He continue to defer their help?
“And as, in those times, vengeance came from God upon the Egyptians who were subjecting Israel to unjust punishment, so is it now, the Lord truly declaring, "And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him?”
“Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
“Then, in the case of the publican, who excelled the Pharisee in prayer, [we find] that it was not because he worshipped another Father that he received testimony from the Lord that he was justified rather [than the other]; but because with great humility, apart…”
Then a certain ruler asked Him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“And to the person who said to Him, "Good Master," He confessed that God who is truly good, saying, "Why callest thou Me good: there is One who is good, the Father in the heavens;" and they assert that in this passage the Aeons receive…”
But Jesus said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
“But in respect to His greatness, and His wonderful glory, "no man shall see God and live," for the Father is incomprehensible; but in regard to His love, and kindness, and as to His infinite power, even this He grants to those who love Him…”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God
“And again He says, "Whosoever shall have left lands, or houses, or parents, or brethren, or children because of Me, he shall receive in this world an hundred-fold, and in that to come he shall inherit eternal life."”
After taking the cup, He gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves.
“When he came to his passion, he wanted to declare to Abraham and those with him the good news of the opening of the inheritance.”
Then Jesus said to them, “O foolish ones, how slow are your hearts to believe all that the prophets have spoken!
“Therefore did the Lord also say to His disciples after the resurrection, "O thoughtless ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?"”
Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and then to enter His glory?”
“If any one, therefore, reads the Scriptures with attention, he will find in them an account of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling (vocationis).”
Look at My hands and My feet. It is I Myself. Touch Me and see—for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
“When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the…”