Today the Church remembers and
honors St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, was born around the year 125 and died
around the year 202. Unlike many of his
contemporaries, he was brought up in a Christian family rather than converting
as an adult.
During the persecution of
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor from 161-180, Irenaeus was a priest of the
Church of Lyon. The clergy of that city, many of whom were suffering
imprisonment for the faith, sent him in 177 to Rome with a letter to Bishop Eleuterus
concerning the heresy known as Montanism (teaching that God in the Old
Testament and God in the New Testament were different), and that occasion bore
emphatic testimony to his merits. While Irenaeus was in Rome, a massacre took
place in Lyons. Returning to Gaul, Irenaeus succeeded the martyr Saint Pothinus
and became the second Bishop of Lyon.
During the religious peace
which followed the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, the new bishop divided his
activities between the duties of a pastor and of a missionary. Almost all his
writings were directed against Gnosticism (which believes that certain people
have secret knowledge regarding God and salvation). The most famous of these
writings is Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies).
The purpose of Against Heresies was to refute the
teachings of various Gnostic groups; apparently, several Greek merchants had
begun an oratorial campaign in Irenaeus’ bishopric, teaching that the material
world was the accidental creation of an evil god, from which we are to escape
by the pursuit of gnosis (knowledge). Irenaeus argued that the true gnosis (knowledge)
is in fact knowledge of Christ, which redeems rather than escapes from bodily
existence. Until the discovery of the library of Nag Hammadi (the Dead Sea
Scrolls) in 1945, Against Heresies
was the best-surviving description of Gnosticism.
The central point of Irenaeus’
theology is the unity and the goodness of God. His emphasis on the unity of God is reflected
in his corresponding emphasis on the unity of salvation history. Irenaeus
repeatedly insists that God began the world and has been overseeing it ever
since this creative act; everything that has happened is part of his plan for
humanity. The essence of this plan is a process of maturation: Irenaeus
believes that humanity was created immature, and God intended his creatures to
take a long time to grow into or assume the divine likeness. Thus, Adam and Eve
were created as children. Their Fall was thus not a full-blown rebellion but
rather a childish spat, a desire to grow up before their time and have
everything with immediacy.
According to Irenaeus, the high
point in salvation history is the advent of Jesus. Irenaeus believed that
Christ would always have been sent, even if humanity had never sinned; but the
fact that they did sin determines his role as a savior. He sees Christ as the
new Adam, who systematically undoes what Adam did: thus, where Adam was
disobedient, Christ was obedient even to death on the cross. Irenaeus thinks of
Christ as “recapitulating” or “summing up” human life. This means that Christ goes through every
stage of human life, from infancy to old age, and simply by living it,
sanctifies it with his divinity.
CALENDAR REMINDERS
INSTALLATION OF THE
RECTOR AT TRINITY: Sunday, 1 July at 5
p.m.
SUMMER ART PROGRAM: Please pick up
a flier and registration sheet in the narthex of the Church.
PLEASE REMEMBER
EVERYONE ON OUR PRAYER LIST, especially Donna Greene (Carol Hogan’s cousin) who is
fighting cancer, Steve Poirier who is struggling with cancer but also
approaching death.
Your servant in Christ,
Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo
Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas
77550
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