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…
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them proceeds the human descent of Christ, who is God over all, forever worthy of praise! Amen.
“Paul, when writing to the Romans, has explained this very point: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, predestinated unto the Gospel of God, which He had promised by His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was made to Him of the seed…”
Not only that, but Rebecca’s children were conceived by one man, our father Isaac.
“The history of Isaac, too, is not without a symbolical character. For in the Epistle to the Romans, the apostle declares: "Moreover, when Rebecca had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac," she received answer from the Word, "that the purpose of God according…”
As He says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My People’ who are not My people, and I will call her ‘My Beloved’ who is not My beloved,”
“For this reason did Hosea the prophet take "a wife of whoredoms," prophesying by means of the action, "that in committing fornication the earth should fornicate from the Lord," that is, the men who are upon the earth; and from men of this stamp it…”
Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
“He does not call the law given by Moses commandments of men, but the traditions of the elders themselves which they had invented, and in upholding which they made the law of God of none effect, and were on this account also not subject to…”
For Christ is the end of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.
“For this is what Paul says concerning these men: "For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.”
But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down)
“For as it was not possible that the man who had once for all been conquered, and who had been destroyed through disobedience, could reform himself, and obtain the prize of victory; and as it was also impossible that he could attain to salvation who…”
But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:
“True knowledge, then, consists in the understanding of Christ, which Paul terms the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which "the natural man receiveth not," the doctrine of the cross; of which if any man "taste," he will not accede to the disputations and…”
If the first part of the dough is holy, so is the whole batch; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
“And that the Saviour received first-fruits of those whom He was to save, Paul declared when he said, "And if the first-fruits be holy, the lump is also holy," teaching that the expression "first-fruits" denoted that which is spiritual, but that "the lump" meant us…”
Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root,
“This truth, therefore, [he declares], in order that we may not reject the engrafting of the Spirit while pampering the flesh.”
For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will certainly not spare you either.
“For if these men of old time, who preceded us in the gifts [bestowed upon them], and for whom the Son of God had not yet suffered, when they committed any sin and served fleshly lusts, were rendered objects of such disgrace, what shall the…”
“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”
“For in no other way could we have learned the things of God, unless our Master, existing as the Word, had become man. For no other being had the power of revealing to us the things of the Father, except His own proper Word.”
Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
“Those who have become acquainted with the secondary (i.e., under Christ) constitutions of the apostles, are aware that the Lord instituted a new oblation in the new covenant, according to [the declaration of] Malachi the prophet.”
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but enjoy the company of the lowly. Do not be conceited.
“He taught by His commandment that we who have been set free should, when hungry, take that food which is given by God; and that, when placed in the exalted position of every grace [that can be received], we should not, either by trusting to…”
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which is from God. The authorities that exist have been appointed by God.
“As therefore the devil lied at the beginning, so did he also in the end, when he said, "All these are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give them."”
For he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not carry the sword in vain.
“For since man, by departing from God, reached such a pitch of fury as even to look upon his brother as his enemy, and engaged without fear in every kind of restless conduct, and murder, and avarice; God imposed upon mankind the fear of man…”
Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
“But that this is the first and greatest commandment, and that the next [has respect to love] towards our neighbour, the Lord has taught, when He says that the entire law and the prophets hang upon these two commandments.”
For this reason Christ died and returned to life, that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
“As it has been clearly demonstrated that the Word, who existed in the beginning with God, by whom all things were made, who was also always present with mankind, was in these last days, according to the time appointed by the Father, united to His…”