From Smyrna to Lyons

The early life of St. Irenaeus, from his boyhood in Smyrna where he heard St. Polycarp — himself a disciple of the Apostle John — through his move to Gaul, his presbyterate at Lyons, the persecution of 177, his mission to Rome carrying the letter of the martyrs, and his elevation to the episcopate succeeding the martyr Pothinus. This file establishes the biographical chain that made Irenaeus the great witness to the living apostolic tradition.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)

Irenaeus was born in or near Smyrna in Asia Minor, most probably between c. 130 and 140. The exact year is debated, and the dispute is not idle: it bears directly on how close his own memory could have stood to the apostolic generation. [Disputed: Behr locates the birth nearer 130; Grant nearer 140; Osborn and others give a broad c. 130–140 (Behr, Irenaeus of Lyons, pp. 67–73; Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, ch. 1; Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons, ch. 1). Because Irenaeus served as a presbyter of Lyons in 177, a birth much after 140 is difficult to sustain.]

What gives the dating its weight is the single most important fact of his youth: as a boy he heard St. Polycarp of Smyrna teach. The decisive testimony is Irenaeus’ own, preserved by Eusebius from a letter Irenaeus later wrote to his old acquaintance Florinus, who had drifted into error. Recalling their shared youth, Irenaeus writes:

“I remember the events of those days more clearly than those which happened recently, for what we learn as children grows up with the soul and is united to it… [I can describe] how he reported his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord, how he remembered their words, and what were the things concerning the Lord which he had heard from them… I listened eagerly even then to these things through the mercy of God which was given me, and made notes of them, not on paper but in my heart, and ever by the grace of God do I truly ruminate on them.” (Irenaeus, Letter to Florinus, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.20.5–7; trans. Lake, LCL)

This is the living chain in its most concentrated form. Polycarp had conversed with John “and the others who had seen the Lord”; Irenaeus had heard Polycarp; and Irenaeus, by his own testimony, had treasured that teaching “not on paper, but in my heart.” In Against Heresies he states the link in its formal shape: Polycarp “was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna,” and “always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true” (Adversus Haereses III.3.4; trans. ANF 1).

The weight of this connection for Irenaeus’ theology can scarcely be overstated. His entire case against the Gnostics rests on the existence of a public, traceable transmission of the faith — and he was himself a link in it (see The Refutation). The Florinus letter is not a rhetorical flourish but autobiography pressed into the service of argument: error, he tells Florinus, is what “those who were presbyters before us, who accompanied the apostles, did not hand on” (Eusebius, HE 5.20.4).

The Move to Gaul and the Presbyterate of Lyons

At some point Irenaeus moved west, to the Greek-speaking Christian communities of the Rhône valley in Gaul. The migration of Christians from Asia Minor to the trading cities of Lyons (Lugdunum) and Vienne is well attested, and Irenaeus belonged to that current. By the 170s he was a presbyter of the church of Lyons, serving under its aged bishop Pothinus (Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, ch. 1; Behr, Irenaeus of Lyons, pp. 67–73). The Asiatic character of the Gallic church — its language, its liturgical instincts, its memory of figures like Polycarp — helps explain why a man formed in Smyrna found there his life’s work.

The Persecution of 177 and the Mission to Rome

In 177 a savage persecution fell upon the Christians of Lyons and Vienne. The Christians of those cities composed an extraordinary letter — addressed “to the brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia” — narrating the sufferings and steadfastness of their martyrs; Eusebius preserves large portions of it, and it remains one of the most moving documents of the early Church (the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, in Eusebius, HE 5.1). The bishop Pothinus, more than ninety years old, was among those who perished.

In the midst of this, Irenaeus was sent to Rome as the community’s emissary. The confessors of Lyons — some still imprisoned and awaiting death — sent with him a letter of recommendation to Eleutherus, bishop of Rome. Eusebius records that the martyrs commended “Irenaeus, who was already at that time a presbyter of the parish of Lyons,” asking that he be held in esteem “as zealous for the covenant of Christ” (Eusebius, HE 5.4.1–2; trans. NPNF II/1). That a church writing from the depths of persecution chose to entrust him with this mission is the earliest external testimony to the regard in which he was held.

Bishop of Lyons, Successor to Pothinus

Irenaeus returned from Rome to find the see of Lyons vacant: Pothinus had died in the persecution. He was chosen bishop in his stead (Eusebius, HE 5.5.8; Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, ch. 1). The chronology is striking — the persecution that took his bishop also opened the office to him, and the same letter that carried the martyrs’ witness to Rome carried the testimony to his own standing. As bishop he would write the works that made him the foundational theologian of the post-apostolic Church (see Bishop and Peacemaker and Against Heresies: The Work and Its Targets).

See Also

References

  • Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1: The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1885.
  • Behr, John. Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  • Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History. Trans. Kirsopp Lake (LCL) and Arthur C. McGiffert (NPNF II/1).
  • Grant, Robert M. Irenaeus of Lyons. The Early Church Fathers. London: Routledge, 1997.
  • Osborn, Eric. Irenaeus of Lyons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.