§ 181. Dionysius of Corinth.

§ 181. Dionysius of Corinth.

Euseb.: H. E. II. 25; III. 4; IV. 21, 23. Hieron.: De Vir. ill. 27.

Routh: Rel. S. I. 177-184 (the fragments), and 185-201 (the annotations). Includes Pinytus Cretensis and his Ep. ad Dion. (Eus. IV. 23).

Donaldson III. 214-220. Salmon in Smith and Wace II. 848 sq.

Dionysius was bishop of Corinth (probably the successor of Primus) in the third quarter of the second century, till about a.d. 170. He was a famous person in his day, distinguished for zeal, moderation, and a catholic and peaceful spirit. He wrote a number of pastoral letters to the congregations of Lacedaemon, Athens, Nicomedia, Rome, Gortyna in Crete, and other cities. One is addressed to Chrysophora, "a most faithful sister." They are all lost, with the exception of a summary of their contents given by Eusebius, and four fragments of the letter to Soter and the Roman church. They would no doubt shed much light on the spiritual life of the church. Eusebius says of him that he "imparted freely not only to his own people, but to others abroad also, the blessings of his divine (or inspired) industry." [1390] 390 His letters were read in the churches.

Such active correspondence promoted catholic unity and gave strength and comfort in persecution from without and heretical corruption within. The bishop is usually mentioned with honor, but the letters are addressed to the church; and even the Roman bishop Soter, like his predecessor Clement, addressed his own letter in the name of the Roman church to the church of Corinth. Dionysius writes to the Roman Christians: "To-day we have passed the Lord's holy day, in which we have read your epistle. [1391] 391 In reading it we shall always have our minds stored with admonition, as we shall also from that written to us before by Clement." He speaks very highly of the liberality of the church of Rome in aiding foreign brethren condemned to the mines, and sending contributions to every city.

Dionysius is honored as a martyr in the Greek, as a confessor in the Latin church.

[1390] entheou philoponias, Euseb. IV. 23.

[1391] humon ten epistolen. Euseb. II. 23.

§ 182. Irenaeus

Editions of his Works.

S. Irenaei Episcopi Lugdun. Opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. A. Stieren. Lips. 1853, 2 vols. The second volume contains the Prolegomena of older editors, and the disputations of Maffei and Pfaff on the Fragments of Irenaeus. It really supersedes all older ed., but not the later one of Harvey.

S. Irenaei libros quinque adversus Haereses edidit W. Wigan Harvey. Cambr. 1857, in 2 vols. Based upon a new and careful collation of the Cod. Claromontanus and Arundel, and embodying the original Greek portions preserved in the Philosoph. of Hippolytus, the newly discovered Syriac and Armenian fragments, and learned Prolegomena.

Older editions by Erasmus, Basel 1526 (from three Latin MSS. since lost, repeated 1528, 1534); Gallasius, Gen. 1570 (with the use of the Gr. text in Epiphan.); Grynaeus, Bas. 1571 (worthless); Fevardentius (Feuardent), Paris 1575, improved ed. Col. 1596, and often; Grabe, Oxf. 1702; and above all Massuet, Par. 1710, Ven. 1734, 2 vols. fol., and again in Migne's "Patrol. Graeco-Lat." , Tom. VII. Par. 1857 (the Bened. ed., the best of the older, based on three MSS., with ample Proleg. and 3 Dissertations).

English translation by A. Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, 2 vols., in the "Ante-Nicene Library," Edinb. 1868. Another by John Keble, ed. by Dr. Pusey, for the Oxford "Library of the Fathers," 1872.

Biographical and Critical.

Ren. Massuet (R.C.): Dissertationes in Irenaei libros (de hereticis, de Irenaei vita, gestis et scriptis, de Ir. doctrina) prefixed to his edition of the Opera, and reprinted in Stieren and Migne. Also the Proleg. of Harvey, on Gnosticism, and the Life and Writings of Iren.

H. Dodwell: Dissert. in Iren. Oxon. 1689.

Tillemont: Mêmoirs, etc. III. 77-99.

Deyling: Irenaeus, evangelicae veritatis confessor ac testis. Lips. 1721. (Against Massuet.)

Stieren: Art. Irenaeus in "Ersch and Gruber's Encykl." IInd sect. Vol. xxiii. 357-386.

J. Beaven: Life and Writings of Irenaeus. Lond. 1841.

J. M. Prat (R.C.):Histoire de St. Irenée. Lyon and Paris 1843.

L. Duncker: Des heil. IrenaeusChristologie. Gött. 1843. Very, valuable.

K. Graul: Die Christliche Kirche an der Schwelle des Irenaeischen Zeitalters. Leipz. 1860. (168 pages.) Introduction to a biography which never appeared.

Ch. E. Freppel (bishop of Angers, since 1869): Saint Irénée et l'éloquence chrétienne dans la Gaule aux deux premiers siècles. Par. 1861.

G. Schneemann: Sancti Irenaei de ecclesiae Romanae principatu testimonium. Freib. i. Br. 1870.

Böhringer: Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen, vol. II. new ed. 1873.

Heinrich Ziegler: Irenaeusder Bischof von Lyon. Berlin 1871. (320 p.)

R. A. Lipsius: Die Zeit des lrenaeus von Lyon und die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche, in Sybel's "Histor. Zeitschrift." München 1872, p. 241 sqq. See his later art. below.

A. Guilloud: St. Irenée et son temps. Lyon 1876.

Bp. Lightfoot: The Churches of Gaul, in the "Contemporary Review" for Aug. 1876.

C. J. H. Ropes: Irenaeus of Lyons, in the Andover "Bibliotheca Sacra" for April 1877, p. 284-334. A learned discussion of the nationality of Irenaeus (against Harvey).

J. Quarry: Irenaeus; his testimony to early Conceptions of Christianity. In the "British Quarterly Review" for 1879, July and Oct.

Renan: Marc Aurèle. Paris 1882, p. 336-344.

TH. Zahn: art. Iren. in HerZog2, VII. 129-140 (abridged in Schaff-Herzog), chiefly chronological; and R. A. Lipsius in Smith and Wace III. 253-279. Both these articles are very important; that of Lipsius is fuller.

Comp. also the Ch. Hist. of Neander, and Baur, and the Patrol. of Möhler, and Alzog.

Special doctrines and relations of Irenaeus have been discussed by Baur, Dorner, Thiersch, Höfling, Hopfenmiller, Körber, Ritschl, Kirchner, Zahn, Harnack, Leimbach, Reville, Hackenschmidt. See the Lit. in Zahn's art. in Herzog2.

A full and satisfactory monograph of Irenaeus and his age is still a desideratum.

Almost simultaneously with the apology against false religions without arose the polemic literature against the heresies, or various forms of pseudo-Christianity, especially the Gnostic; and upon this was formed the dogmatic theology of the church. At the head of the old catholic controversialists stand Irenaeus and his disciple Hippolytus, both of Greek education, but both belonging, in their ecclesiastical relations and labors, to the West.

Asia Minor, the scene of the last labors of St. John, produced a luminous succession of divines and confessors who in the first three quarters of the second century reflected the light of the setting sun of the apostolic age, and may be called the pupils of St. John. Among them were Polycarp of Smyrna, Papias of Hierapolis, Apolinarius of Hierapolis, Melito of Sardis, and others less known but honorably mentioned in the letter of Polycrates of Ephesus to bishop Victor of Rome (A. D. 190).

The last and greatest representative of this school is Irenaeus, the first among the fathers properly so called, and one of the chief architects of the Catholic system of doctrine.

I. Life and Character. Little is known of Irenaeus except what we may infer from his writings. He sprang from Asia Minor, probably from Smyrna, where he spent his youth. [1392] 392 He was born between A.D. 115 and 125. [1393] 393 He enjoyed the instruction of the venerable Polycarp of Smyrna, the pupil of John, and of other "Elders," who were mediate or immediate disciples of the apostles. The spirit of his preceptor passed over to him. "What I heard from him" says he, "that wrote I not on paper, but in my heart, and by the grace of God I constantly bring it afresh to mind." Perhaps he also accompanied Polycarp on his journey to Rome in connexion with the Easter controversy (154). He went as a missionary to Southern Gaul which seems to have derived her Christianity from Asia Minor. During the persecution in Lugdunum and Vienne under Marcus Aurelius (177), he was a presbyter there and witnessed the horrible cruelties which the infuriated heathen populace practiced upon his brethren. [1394] 394 The aged and venerable bishop, Pothinus, fell a victim, and the presbyter took the post of danger, but was spared for important work.

He was sent by the Gallican confessors to the Roman bishop Eleutherus (who ruled a.d. 177-190), as a mediator in the Montanistic disputes. [1395] 395

After the martyrdom of Pothinus he was elected bishop of Lyons (178), and labored there with zeal and success, by tongue and pen, for the restoration of the heavily visited church, for the spread of Christianity in Gaul, and for the defence and development of its doctrines. He thus combined a vast missionary and literary activity. If we are to trust the account of Gregory of Tours, he converted almost the whole population of Lyons and sent notable missionaries to other parts of pagan France.

After the year 190 we lose sight of Irenaeus. Jerome speaks of him as having flourished in the reign of Commodus, i.e., between 180 and 192. He is reported by later tradition (since the fourth or fifth century) to have died a martyr in the persecution under Septimus Severus, a.d. 202, but the silence of Tertullian, Hippolytus, Eusebius, and Epiphanius makes this point extremely doubtful. He was buried under the altar of the church of St. John in Lyons. [1396] 396 This city became again famous in church history in the twelfth century as the birthplace of the Waldensian martyr church, the Pauperes de Lugduno.

II. His Character and Position. Irenaeus is the leading representative of catholic Christianity in the last quarter of the second century, the champion of orthodoxy against Gnostic heresy, and the mediator between the Eastern and Western churches. He united a learned Greek education and philosophical penetration with practical wisdom and moderation. He is neither very original nor brilliant, but eminently sound and judicious. His individuality is not strongly marked, but almost lost in his catholicity. He modestly disclaims elegance and eloquence, and says that he had to struggle in his daily administrations with the barbarous Celtic dialect of Southern Gaul; but he nevertheless handles the Greek with great skill on the most abstruse subjects. [1397] 397 He is familiar with Greek poets (Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles) and philosophers (Thales, Pythagoras, Plato), whom he occasionally cites. He is perfectly at home in the Greek Bible and in the early Christian writers, as Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Papias, Ignatius, Hermas, Justin M., and Tatian. [1398] 398 His position gives him additional weight, for he is linked by two long lives, that of his teacher and grand-teacher, to the fountain head of Christianity. We plainly trace in him the influence of the spirit of Polycarp and John. "The true way to God," says he, in opposition to the false Gnosis, "is love. It is better to be willing to know nothing but Jesus Christ the crucified, than to fall into ungodliness through over-curious questions and paltry subtleties." We may trace in him also the strong influence of the anthropology and soteriology of Paul. But he makes more account than either John or Paul of the outward visible church, the episcopal succession, and the sacraments; and his whole conception of Christianity is predominantly legalistic. Herein we see the catholic churchliness which so strongly set in during the second century.

Irenaeus is an enemy of all error and schism, and, on the whole, the most orthodox of the ante-Nicene fathers. [1399] 399 We must, however, except his eschatology. Here, with Papias and most of his contemporaries, be maintains the pre-millennarian views which were subsequently abandoned as Jewish dreams by the catholic church. While laboring hard for the spread and defense of the church on earth, he is still "gazing up into heaven," like the men of Galilee, anxiously waiting for the return of the Lord and the establishment of his kingdom. He is also strangely mistaken about the age of Jesus from a false inference of the question of the Jews, John 8:57.

Irenaeus is the first among patristic writers who makes full use of the New Testament. The Apostolic Fathers reëcho the oral traditions; the Apologists are content with quoting the Old Testament prophets and the Lord's own words in the Gospels as proof of divine revelation; but Irenaeus showed the unity of the Old and New Testaments in opposition to the Gnostic separation, and made use of the four Gospels and nearly all Epistles in opposition to the mutilated canon of Marcion. [1400]