CHAPTER XV. IRENEUS, THE CHAMPION OF THE FAITH. "From new-born Lyons oft thy memory turn'd REV. J. WILLIAMS. STILL there remained one who, if he had not himself sat at the feet of St. John, had at least eagerly gathered up all that could be told of the great Evangelist by his immediate pupils, Polycarp and Papias; and thus may be reckoned as almost one of his direct disciples. Irenæus was no doubt of Greek extraction, and a native of one of the cities of Asia Minor, most probably Smyrna. His name, meaning "Peaceful," was, it may be supposed, chosen for him by Christian parents at his baptism; and he was instructed from his early. youth by St. Polycarp, under whose advice he seems to have studied, not only Christian truths such as are needful for the salvation of all believers, but also to have inquired into the numerous varieties of heresy, the different systems of philosophy, and the varieties of mythology, so as to be filled for argument and refutation of error. He was said to be one of the most learned of men in all kinds of doctrine. He was still young when he was sent by the Eastern Church to strengthen their mission in Western Gaul, which, as already said, was under the charge of the aged Pothinus. It appears, from what Irenæus says of himself later, that his mission was not confined to the Greek and Latin-speaking, cultivated society of Lyons, but that he applied himself to conquer the many difficulties of the harsh, uncouth Celtic, with its strange inflections and complicated grammar-probably resembling Gaelic, for the Gauls of Provincia are believed to have more resembled the Scottish than the Welsh Celts. In time he came to use this "barbarous tongue" more frequently than his soft, native Greek; and such pains on his part must have told much upon the warm-hearted Celtic people, who were accustomed to hear their language treated with contempt, and to transact their affairs in halfunderstood Latin. It may have been from having heard Irenæus speak "in their own tongue the wonderful works of God," that not merely the priest, the senator, the physician, were so firm in the dreadful conflict that ensued, but the slave girl and boy and the lowest of the people were equally resolute. Irenæus seems to have worked as a priest until the year 177, when he was chosen by the Church of Lyons to go on a mission to Rome. The old discussion about the time of observing the feast of Easter had broken out again, and the contention had become so hot that it was feared that the Roman Church would refuse to communicate with the Greek, which still continued to keep the great Resurrection-day on the fourteenth day of the Paschal moon, instead of making it always fall on a Sunday. The Churches of Provincia, living in the West, yet with Eastern sympathies, were very fit to mediate between the two parties, and to entreat them, since they were of the same faith, not to break the unity of the Church for what could not be regarded as essential. Irenæus was therefore to be despatched to plead with Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome, on behalf of the Churches of Asia Minor, and likewise to protest against the errors of a certain Montanus, a Greek, who was promulgating mischievous follies under the pretended authority of two women whom he had set up as prophetesses. And a letter was also to be written to the Churches of Asia. It seems to have been just as this was determined on that the terrible games described in the last chapter took place, and the Christians of note were hunted out and thrown into their dungeons. Irenæus was not, however, found by the persecutors, and remained probably hidden or disguised, and not without communication with his friends in the prison. The letters were carried on through all—the sufferings and triumphs of the first to pass away were recorded by those who survived them, and, though finished by other hands, the protests and the arguments were those of the martyrs themselves. The entire letters have been lost; all that remains is the narrative part which Eusebius copied into his history, from the epistle to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia. Some think they were composed by Irenæus himself. At any rate, so soon as the fury of the heathen relaxed, he went upon his journey to Rome, and succeeded in his mission, for the Pope Eleutherius agreed to bear with the Greek customs; and some years later the follies of Montanus were condemned. At Rome, however, Irenæus had the pain of meeting Florinus, an old friend and fellowpupil of Polycarp, who had become a priest at Rome, but had fallen into the error, to which many Eastern minds were prone, of imagining that the author of evil was of equal power with the God of Beneficence. On being deposed from his office for false teaching, Florinus had collected a set of followers around him and formed a sect; while another priest, named Blastus, was trying to bring his own admirers back to the old bondage of the Judaical law. Grieved at these errors, and at the rents they made in that unity of the Church, which the early Christians prized so highly and loved to liken to the seamless coat of Christ, Irenæus returned home, revolving, over Alpine pass, or on Mediterranean waves, how to reply to and refute these errors, and perchance bring back to the fold the old companion over whom his heart yearned. On his return, he found that the surviving Christians of Lyons, lifting up their heads again, had decided on electing him as their bishop in the place of the martyred Pothinus-the post, above all others, of championship and of danger. When he was settled in his new office, he wrote the two letters he had resolved on; one to Blastus, entitled "Schism," and one to Florinus, upon "The Monarchy or Unity of God, and that God is not the Author of Sin." Both have been lost, but Eusebius has quoted a passage from the latter, in which Irenæus reminds Florinus how both had received the instructions of Polycarp, when boys at Smyrna ; adding, that he himself remembered the things that then took place better than the more recent ones. "The lessons we receive in childhood," he says, "grow up with the soul, and become one with it, so that I could tell you the place where the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he taught, his going out and coming in, his manner of life, his face and figure, his discourse to the people, how he told us of his living with John, and with others who had seen the Lord; how he repeated their words, and what he had learnt from them concerning the Lord, His mighty works, and His doctrine. For Polycarp, having received all from eye-witnesses of the Word of Life, uttered everything in harmony with Holy Scripture. These things, by the grace of God, I diligently listened to, noting them down not on paper, but in my heart; and ever, by the grace of God, I feed upon them again and again. And I bear witness before God, that had the blessed and apostolical old man heard such doctrine as you have put forth, he would have cried out and stopped his ears, and, uttering the familiar phrase, 'O God, to what hast Thou reserved me, that I should hear such things,' he would have fled the place." |