Frauds and Follies of the Fathers

VI

The accounts of this father which are given in various biographies are purely conjectural. His very existence has been disputed in a little book published by Thomas Scott, of Ramsgate,6 the author of which contends that the Greek word Eirenaios, meaning "peaceful" is simply the title of a treatise against heresies, the object of which was to allay sectarian discord, and that Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, is a purely mythical personage. Certain it is that very little is known of this old saint. But in that respect he in no way differs from the other early founders of Christianity.

Dodwell makes him to have been born in the year 97, but Dupin and the best modern authorities place his birth about 140; a number, however, strike a medium at about 120. The importance of his date is evident since the work against heresies is the first writing which makes any mention of the four Gospels, and Irenæus claims to have been a disciple of Polycarp, who was a hearer of John. This claim can only be made at all plausible by giving each of these holy martyrs an exceedingly long life, for we have the word of Eusebius, that the book against heresies was composed in the time of Eleutherius, the twelfth Pope, between 177 and 192, and Irenæus lived until the third century. He is said to have been made bishop of Lyons in 178, but how he managed to get transplanted from Asia Minor to Gaul, is one of those things which are left to our faith and wonder.

The fact is, it is extremely doubtful if the author of the book against heresies ever saw Polycarp, and still more doubtful if Polycarp ever saw John. He says John leaped out of the bath when he saw Cerinthus. Now Cerinthus was a heretic, who lived about the middle of the second century. He described John as wearing the petalon, the bishops insignia of office. Fancy the retired fisherman, the beloved disciple, who was told by his master to carry neither purse nor scrip, wearing the priestly robes of office! George Reber, in his curious book, "The Christ of Paul," (New York, 1876), says (p. 178): "The studied dishonesty of Irenæus in attempting to palm off the Presbyter John for the Apostle, is as dark a piece of knavery as is to be found in the history of a church, which has encouraged such practices from the time it claimed to be the depositary of all the divine wealth left by the apostles."

Irenæus is alleged to have suffered martyrdon about 202, but there is no evidence of this prior to the ninth century, when Gregory of Tours first circulated a story to that effect. Even such orthodox writers as Cave, Basnage, Dodwell, and others, doubt the martyrdon, since neither Tertullian, Eusebius, Theodoret, nor other early writers refer to it. Two churches in Lyons dispupted for centuries about the possession of his relics, which the Catholics allege were afterwards sacriligeously despoiled by the Calvinists: a story often refuted. His sacred head is said to have been kicked about in the gutters, but of course it was miraculously restored to its place, and the skull, we believe, may be seen for a consideration at the present day. The original Greek text of the book against heresies is lost, and it exists only in a barbarous Latin version. At whatever time it was written, and it may probably be dated between 182 and 188, it testifies to the existence of numerous heresies in the Church. It contains many statements respecting the Gnostics, particularly the Valentinian heresy. There we may read of their peculiar theories concerning God and Christ. Some thought the Hebrew Jahveh a malignant deity whom Christ had come to destroy. Others were foolish and wicked enough to ask whence God got the matter for his creation. Cerinthus and his followers denied the virgin birth. Carpocrates and his school held that Jesus was the son of Joseph, and just like other men with the exception that inasmuch as his soul was stedfast and pure a power descended on him from the Father that by means of it he might escape from the creators of the world. Basilides taught that Jesus did not suffer death, but Simon of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross and was crucified in his stead. Irenæus does not forget to denounce these heretics as blasphemers and shameless sophists who speak not a word of sense. He calls them slippery serpents and other choice epithets such as the orthodox usually have in store for heretics, so that the reader is tempted to wish that the wretches could show cause why they should not summarily be damned. It is a notable fact that none of the heretical books or heretical gospels have been preserved; they come to us only through the medium of such representations as their opponents chose to make of them.

George Reber says: "The Fourth Gospel was written with no other purpose than to prove the incarnation, and that purpose is so persistently kept up in every line and verse, from the beginning to the end, that if we strike out this, and the miracles which are mere supports of the main idea, there is nothing left, and so with the third book against Heresies—it has but one theme. The writer sets out with the Logos idea of this gospel, which is never lost sight of. He finds proof in the traditions of the Church—in every page of the Old Testament—in the Synoptics as well as in the fourth Gospel; and as we read his misapplication of words and sentences, we should conclude that he was a lunatic if we did not know he was something else" (p. 188). "As we read whole pages in Irenæus, charging his adversaries with forgeries and false interpolations, we smile at the impudence and audacity of the man, who has done more to pollute the pages of history than any other, and whose footprints we can follow through the whole century, like the slime of a serpent" (p. 216).

Reber, it will be seen, can be as abusive as Irenæus himself. He calls him "one of the most dishonest historians of any age" and "the great criminal of the second century;" and endeavors to make out, on quite insufficient grounds, that he was the forger of the Gospel according to John.

Dr. Samuel Davidson, in his able work on "The Canon" (p. 155; 1880), says "Irenæus was credulous and blundering," and our case against him will be sufficient if we prove these charges.

The orthodox Dr. Donaldson observes: "What he says about the apostle John has the appearance of being, to say the least, highly colored" ("History of Christian Literature," vol. i., p. 157; 1864). The whole purport of his account concerning John was to refute heretics by the allegation of an apostolical succession which rests on his unsupported testimony alone. The author of the work against Heresies was essentially a priest, dwelling much on the authority of the priesthood and priestly traditions. He did more perhaps than any other to lay the foundations of the Romish hierarchy. In his third book, chapter four, he gives the opinion that every Church should agree with the Church of Rome on account of its pre-eminent authority.

He considers oral traditions of no less importance than Scripture, and cites Clement, Polycarp, and those who were alleged to have heard the apostles as decisive authorities. Hermes he calls divine Scripture. To be outside the Church is to be outside truth. Holy Scripture is only safely interpreted under control of the bishops.

Our Father cites the authority of John, and all the elders in Asia, for the assertion that the ministry of Jesus lasted twenty years, and that he was over fifty years of age when he was crucified. In the twenty-second chapter of his second book, he discusses the question at considerable length, and quotes John viii., 56-57, as establishing his opinion. For he argues the Jews would not have said to Jesus "Thou art not yet fifty years old," if he had only been thirty. Their object being to remind him of the short period he had been on earth, they certainly would not extend it eighteen or twenty years. If Irenæus was right in this important matter, the evidence of the Gospel history is falsified; if wrong, what is the worth of his testimony as to the origin of the four Gospels?

In regard to these he tells us there are mystic reasons why there could only be four Gospels. "It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds [or four Catholic Spirits] while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the pillar and ground of the Church is the gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh" (Book iii., chap, xi, sect 8., p. 293). Dr. Giles in his "Christian Records" (p. 137), points out that as this work was written many years after the apologies of Justin Martyr, there was ample time in the interval for the compilation of our Gospels, out of the authentic "Memoirs of the Apostles" and "Sayings of our Lord."

In his third book, chapter xxi., Irenæus follows Justin in his foolish tale about the seventy Jewish elders, who made separate translations of the Bible into Greek in the very same words from beginning to end. He further tells us there was nothing astonishing in this since God inspired Ezra to re-write all the words of the former prophets and to re-establish the Mosaic law, destroyed during the captivity in Babylon. The object of making the Septuagint version of Divine authority, was because the quotations in the Christians' Scriptures were taken from it, strangely enough, had the writers of those Scriptures been Jews. But despite their boasted accuracy, Irenæus (book iii., chap, xx., sec. 4) quotes Isaiah as saying, "And the holy Lord remembered his dead Israel, who had slept in the land of sepulture; and he came down to preach his salvation to them that he might save them." In another place he quotes this same passage as from Jeremiah, but it is in neither prophet Justin in his dialogue with Trypho had brought it forward as an argument against him, and accused the Jews of having fraudulently removed it from the sacred text. The passage is, however, found in no ancient version or Jewish Targum, which fact may be regarded as a decisive proof of its spuriousness.

He follows Justin also in his tales of miracles asserting "some do certainly and truly drive out devils. Others have foreknowledge of things to come, they see visions, and utter prophetic expressions. Others still, heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole. Yea, moreover, the dead even have been raised up, and remained among us for many years." As with the other Fathers, he gives only general statements not particular instances. He allows that the heretics Simon and Carpoerates and their followers also perform miracles, "but not through the power of God but for the sake of destroying and misleading mankind, by means of magical deceptions." None of these Christian miracles were known to the heathen, and, as Dr. Conyers Middle ton pointed out, in his "Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers in the Christian Church," at this very same time when one Autolycus, an eminent heathen, challenged his friend Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, a convert and champion of the Gospels, to show him but one person who had "been raised from the dead, on the condition of him turning Christian himself," Theophilus made plain by his answer that he was not able to give him that satisfaction.

Irenæus follows Justin in making the angels mix with the daughters of men, and also in his absurd typology. He even makes Balaam's ass a type of the Savior. The cohabitation of Lot with his two daughters was providential and typical of the two sister synagogues, the Jewish and the Christian.

In common with all the early Fathers he asserts the doctrine of the millenium, and this in the grossest sense. We have already seen the quotation which he gives from Papias as the actual words of Jesus upon this matter. He believed it would be a purely earthly glory and felicity after the sort depicted in the Jewish apocalypses. This portion of his writings, having been utterly discredited, is very often omitted. He believed the end of all things was near at hand. The world would last six thousand years because made in six days. Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan and reign three years and five days in Jerusalem, when he would be vanquished. The fall of Antichrist and the end of the world would coincide with the fall of the Roman Empire, for the mysterious name of the beast is Latinus. Then the Lord was to come, and there would be no more labor "but unlimited wine swilling."

Irenæus affirms also on the same authority of tradition delivered to him by those who had received it from the apostles, that Enoch and Elias were translated into that very Paradise from which Adam was expelled, and that this was the place into which St. Paul was caught up. This is affirmed also by all the later Fathers, both Greek and Latin.

Our space will not permit us to further enlarge on the vast appeals to faith made by Irenæus. Nor can we pause to deal with Tertullian, who, with more impetuosity and no less acerbity, championed the same orthodoxy, shrinking not from the "credo quia absurdum est," and who ended by turning heretic. Nor with the learned Clement of Alexandria, whose high speculations led also into contempt of the world and its ways of science, art, and civilisation. Nor with the ascetic and self-emasculated Origen, at once profound and prolific, who, in his attempt to reconcile Christianity with reason, fell into such errors as believing in the pre-existence and pretemporal fall of souls, and the redemption of the inhabitants of the stars and even of Satan himself.

We must reserve a brief space for the great ecclesiastical historian.

It is to this eminent Father that we are indebted for almost all we know of the lost Christian literature of the time preceding the establishment of Christianity by Constantine. He was born about 264 or 270, and was a priest in the time of Diocletian.

During the persecution in that reign he retired to Egypt, where, however, he was imprisoned, but speedily released. This gave rise to a suggestion that he had apostatised. "Who art thou, Eusebius?" exclaimed Potamon, Bishop of Heraclea, at the Council of Tyre, where Eusebius violently conducted the "persecution of Athanasius," "to judge the innocent Athanasius. Did'st thou not sit with me in prison in the time of the tyrant? They plucked out my eye for the confession of the truth. Thou comest forth unharmed. How didst thou escape?"

In 315 he became Bishop of Cæsarea. His friendships were among the Arian party in the Church, and his views, to say the least, inclined that way, and Dr. Newman, in his "History of the Arians in the Fourth Century," speaks of him as "openly siding with the Arians, and sanctioning and sharing their deeds of violence." This, however, did not stand in the way of his sitting beside the Emperor Constantine, at the Council of Nice, to anathematise and put down the Arians. He subscribed the Nicene Creed, apparently with some reservations, as to the word consubstantial. It is noticeable that his history breaks off abruptly before the Council of Nice. Perhaps it was one of those matters he thought best to suppress as little to the credit of the Church or himself. Athanasius, Petavius, Baronius, Montfaucon, and Moller consider him an Arian. Bull, Cave, and Hely, defend his orthodoxy.

On account of his Arianism he has been violently attacked by Cardinal Baronius, who impugns the faith of the bishop, the character of the man, and the sincerity of the historian. He makes out Eusebius to have been simply an ambitious and cruel courtier; calls him a calumniator, a panegyrist rather than an historian, and accuses him of falsifying the edicts of Constantine.