The nature of Jesus Christ was one of the most controversial theological discussions in early Christianity, and was progressively defined over the centuries through creeds and councils. Irenaeus of Lyon (c.130-200 CE), an early Christian writer, attempted to reconcile the human and divine natures of Christ. He lived in a pre-Nicene world, so it was left to individual authors, not creeds and councils, to advance Christological thought. In his work Adversus Haereses (c.180 CE), he challenges Gnostic Christology. According to Irenaeus, Gnostics viewed Jesus as fully divine, but rejected his humanity. In the view of some, for example, he only appeared human, but on the cross he suffered no pain (a Docetic view).[1] In response, Irenaeus contends that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human. Further, he argues that through his life as a human, Jesus “recapitulates” the life of Adam, and frees humanity from sin.[2]
Irenaeus did not set out to engage in philosophical debates or speculative argumentation. He was a pastor and bishop, and was writing to refute Gnosticism, which he saw as a heresy.[3] At this time, Gnosticism was rapidly spreading into the west in places such as Lyon, France, where Irenaeus was serving.[4] He believed that the Gnostics were distorting the core of Christian identity and theology, and wrote to address it as a pastoral issue. As indicated, according to Irenaeus, Gnostics claimed that “Christ suffered in appearance only.”[5] He responded, “If he did not really suffer, it is no credit to him, since there was no passion.”[6] He also affirms the humanity of Jesus throughout his text, noting that Jesus “became a human being subject to hurt,” that “he was enfleshed and became a human being,” and that “Christ himself suffered.”[7-8]
Irenaeus also notes that if Jesus merely “flew away” and did not feel pain, it does not fit the narrative in which Jesus tells his disciples to carry their cross and follow him. In other words, he says, “If it was not the Christ himself who was going to suffer…. why did he exhort his followers…. [if] he himself did not carry it but rejected suffering as a part of his work?”[9] This theme of suffering makes little sense with the Docetic perspective that many Gnostics (or at least "Docetists") held. In his time, Irenaeus was aware of many who had been martyred as Christians, and undoubtedly this was tied into his understanding of suffering. If Jesus did not himself take up the cross, why would his followers be compelled to?
Irenaeus’ soteriological position could be articulated as such: since humanity is enslaved by sin, redemption must come from one of the same nature (human), but this being must also be divine in order to maintain the salvific action.[10] This is also integrally tied to his theme of “Recapitulation.” For Irenaeus, Christ’s purpose in recapitulating Adam is to live out a human relationship with God as originally intended. Being human and divine, Jesus unites both natures in his own person through his life. In his Incarnation, then, Christ “sums up and recapitulates all that humanity is and will be for God.”[11] The view that Jesus is a Second Adam of sorts did originated in the Pauline corpus itself (see Romans and 1st Corinthians). Irenaeus expands on this Pauline thought, using antithetical parallelism to show that “what we had lost in Adam… we might recover in Christ Jesus.”[12-13] Note that for Irenaeus, it is Jesus life that is integral to this recapitulation, not necessarily his death and resurrection - and he could not have recapitulated Adam if he did not share in human nature. Jesus reverses the original disobedience of Adam by his very life.[14]
While Irenaeus makes a strong case, there are also a few weaknesses in his approach. The first weakness is his view that “The Word, having been made flesh… went through every stage of human life, restoring all of them to communion with God.”[15] In one sense, he did endure many aspects of humanity, including birth, family life, work, community, death, and others. But it would not be proper to say that Jesus went through “every stage of human life.” He died in his early 30’s, and never experienced middle age or old age (including old age related illnesses). He did not - so far as we are aware - marry and have children, although there appears to be later Christian speculation on that point. He also incarnated as a male, and never experienced what life was like at that time for females. There are a vast range of realities and identities and that Jesus never experienced in life, so while this does not discount Irenaeus’ argument about recapitulating Adam based on Jesus’ life as a human, his point about living “every stage” is rather moot.
Another weakness for Irenaeus is also one of his major guiding frameworks, that is, the New Testament (NT) canon.[16] He frequently cites these texts, which held authority to the pre-Nicene Christianity of Irenaeus.[17] However, he is appealing to texts that Gnostics do not consider authoritative, particularly the canonical Gospels.[18] This would be a case of circular reasoning, appealing to a textual authority that they did not recognize as authoritative. Irenaeus is also writing as an outsider, and not having firsthand experience of the Gnostic texts and community, he appears to only know through word of mouth what they believed. He also did a disservice to Christian Gnosticism by lumping all the various expressions and branches together, including Docetism, which could be seen on its own terms. Thus, Irenaeus is writing from and espousing a limited perspective on Gnosticism, which can be seen as one of his weaknesses.
Despite these various weakness, Irenaeus stood in a line of early Christians such as Justin Martyr who helped to shape the pre-Nicene and proto-orthodox expression of Christology. Others followed in Irenaeus’ theological footsteps and took up the cause, debating with Arians, Donatists, Nestorians, and other varieties of early Christianity.[19] His theology of Recapitulation continued to be influential, and his Against Heresies was one of the few entry points we had into the world of Gnosticism prior to the recovery of texts at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945.[20] Irenaeus of Lyon may not have been perfect in his grasp of Gnosticism or in its articulation, but it can be said that he successfully wrote as a pastor protecting his “flock,” just as he viewed Jesus as the shepherd who watches over his people - a shepherd who was, in his view, both fully human and fully divine.
Endnotes
[1] This Docetic view is also reflected in a number of apocryphal works of the time, such as the Gospel of Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Acts of John, the Gospel of Judas, and others.
[2] Norris, Richard A., trans. The Christological Controversy: Sources of early Christian Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 57.
[3] Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity Volume I: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 84.
[4] Carter, J. Kameron. "Prelude on Christology and Race: Irenaeus as Anti‐Gnostic Intellectual." In Race: A Theological Account, Chapter 2 (Oxford University Press, 2008), 14.
[5] Norris, 53.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid., 49.
[8] Ibid., 51.
[9] Ibid., 52.
[10] Ibid., 54.
[11] Ibid., 12.
[12] Irenaeus also develops the thought further than Paul, by discussing Mary as a Second Eve. As noted by Mark A. Noll, for Irenaeus, “Mary’s faithful service was viewed as recaptiulating Eve’s unfaithfulness” (Noll, Mark A. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 117.).
[13] Norris 49.
[14] Irenaeus is writing nearly two centuries before Augustine of Hippo, so Irenaeus’ concept of Adam’s disobedience is not articulated in the same manner as Augustine’s later concept of Original Sin.
[15] Norris 54.
[16] It may be better to speak of a proto-canon, as the canon as it came to be was not formed yet. Irenaeus was among the first to consider the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as canonical (Noll 59).
[17] Such as Matthew, John, Romans, and 1st Corinthians, and others.
[18] This is not true in every case. Marcion kept the gospel of Luke in his canon (or proto-canon), but took out large pieces of it that referred to or directly quoted from the Hebrew Bible.
[19] Irenaeus does discuss other “heresies” in his work, such as the Ebionites, but that is beyond the purview of this paper.
[20] Before this find, we were aware of texts such as the Gospel of Thomas, but it was really only the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Mary that had been rediscovered in prior years and seemed to hold a Gnostic perspective. This is similar to what occurred with the Gospel of Judas, in that we were aware of a text bearing that name by a reference from Irenaeus, but did not have access to it until it was discovered in the late 20th century, and finally published in 2006.
Bibliography
Carter, J. Kameron. “Prelude on Christology and Race: Irenaeus as Anti‐Gnostic Intellectual.” In Race: A Theological Account, Chapter 2 (Oxford University Press, 2008).
Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity Volume I: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: HarperOne, 2010).
Noll, Mark A. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012).
Norris, Richard A., trans. The Christological Controversy: Sources of early Christian Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980).
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