Irenaeus
Irenaeus was bishop of Lyons in Roman Gaul and the most important Christian theologian of the second century. As a boy in Smyrna he had heard Polycarp, who had himself known the Apostle John — a living link back to the apostles that Irenaeus never forgot. His five-book Against Heresies is the great refutation of Gnosticism and the earliest full account we possess of what the mainstream Church believed, resting the faith on the Scriptures, the rule of truth, and the succession of bishops. In 2022 he was declared a Doctor of the Church under the title “Doctor of Unity.”
“O God, who didst give Saint Irenaeus to thy Church as a worthy Shepherd and a great Doctor: grant, we beseech thee; that as when he laid down his life for his sheep, he had them with him as partners in his passion, so we, being renewed by his faith and doctrine, may ever follow him both in heart and deed.”
the Collect · Holy Cross Missal (1920)In the library
browse all →Commentary across 37 books of the Bible
Choose a book for its chapters, a chapter for its verses.