O God, who called the Bishop Saint Irenaeus to confirm
true doctrine and the peace of the Church, grant, we pray, through his
intercession, that, being renewed in faith and charity, we may always be intent
on fostering unity and concord.A fascinating thing is to chart the influence
of one on another. To whom do you owe a deep sense of gratitude for showing you
the way to follow? With Irenaeus, his beloved master was Saint Polycarp (d. 155), from whom he learned about Christ, himself the disciple of Saint John the Apostle. From here we set out to revere
the person of a martyr who met his end in AD 202 after serving the Lord and the
Church for nearly 80 years.
Irenaeus is honored by the Catholic Church as a
Doctor of the Church from the Apostolic age. Being a doctor of the Church is given to few (most recently the Doctor's honor was given to Saint Hildegard) because of his learning and publications, but much has been lost. What remains are significant fragments of the original text. His works are mainly in Greek, a few in Armenian but there are several texts that were given to us in Latin; He's likely to
be most known for his famous Adversus Haereses (Against the Heresies), in which
he gives reasons for his hope, that is, an explanation of the Faith. This text is renown because he combated gnosticism, that is, false knowledge. Only truth triumphs.
In the field Scripture and dogma studies Saint Irenaeus indicated that an orthodox Christian uses the canon sacred Scripture in the explanation of the faith. He asserted the rightful use of the four gospels and not merely one as was popular at that time. You may recall that Irenaeus contradicted the heretic Marcion with the doctrine of canonocity of scripture, apostolic authority, and began to develop a theology of Mary viz. salvation history and the Incarnation. A significant and lasting contribution the Saint made to Christian life is the dating of Easter: the Latin Church celebrated the Lord's resurrection on adhering to what Saint Peter did; the Eastern Church celebrated the feast with respect to Passover. Both traditions are respected today, even if a little more nuanced.
That said, Irenaeus' preaching was brilliant which contributed to conversion to Christ
almost the all of France to the Faith. One writer speaks of the Christians of
Lyons as models in Christian living because of their candor, rejection of
ambition, poverty, chastity and temperance.
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