HistoricalChristian.Faith

Irenaeus of Lyons on the Biblical Canon

Dates: c. 180 (Against Heresies; bishop of Lyons, d. c. 202) · Wikipedia
Summary: Irenaeus is the first writer to argue that the Gospels are exactly four — no more, no fewer — defending a closed fourfold Gospel (the "Tetramorph") and narrating each evangelist's apostolic origin, a century before the rest of the New Testament was settled. Across Against Heresies he quotes from some twenty-one of the eventual twenty-seven books as authoritative Scripture. Yet his canon is still soft at the edges: he treats 1 Clement as an authoritative apostolic letter and cites the Shepherd of Hermas as "Scripture" — prime evidence that the boundary was not yet sharp. On the exclusion side he files the tale of the boy Jesus and his alphabet-teacher among the Gnostics' forged "apocryphal and spurious writings" and condemns the Gnostic Gospel of Judas as a "fictitious history." He thus attests both faces of the same boundary: the early hardening of the Gospel core and the rejection of the forgeries, with a still-permeable middle ring.

Claims & evidence

The fourfold Gospel: exactly four, "neither more nor fewer" (the Tetramorph)

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, 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.

— Against Heresies 3.11.8, ANF 1, historicalchristian.faith¹ (also newadvent.org). Irenaeus matches the four to the four faces of the cherubim (lion, calf, man, eagle) and to "four principal covenants given to the human race," concluding: "For the living creatures are quadriform, and the Gospel is quadriform." The argument for the number is symbolic rather than evidentiary, but the datum it presses is historically weighty: by c. 180 the fourfold Gospel was already treated as a fixed, closed collection — the rival gospels excluded by the very count. Whether that historical datum stands even though the argument for the number is symbolic — and whether Irenaeus inherited the fourfold Gospel rather than inventing it — is weighed at the argument Was the fourfold Gospel already closed by c. 180? (assessment: sound).

The apostolic origins of the four Gospels

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

— Against Heresies 3.1.1, ANF 1, historicalchristian.faith² (also newadvent.org). Irenaeus grounds each of the four in an apostle or an apostle's companion — the apostolic-origin criterion that orders the whole later canon. It is from this same chapter and book III.11.8 that he is said to have coined the term Tetramorph for the four-formed Gospel.

Some twenty-one of the twenty-seven New-Testament books in use

Across the five books of Against Heresies, Irenaeus quotes from — and treats as authoritative — roughly twenty-one of the eventual twenty-seven New-Testament books: the four Gospels, Acts, Romans, both Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, both Thessalonians, both letters to Timothy, Titus, 1 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, and the Revelation of John. He may also draw on Hebrews, James, and possibly 2 Peter, while Philemon, 3 John, and Jude go uncited.³ The core of the present New Testament is thus already in working use a generation after the Muratorian list, with the same handful of shorter epistles still at the margins.

Soft edges (1): 1 Clement treated as an authoritative apostolic letter

In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome despatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles … From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the apostolical tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things.

— Against Heresies 3.3.3, ANF 1, historicalchristian.faith⁴ (also newadvent.org). Irenaeus treats the letter we call 1 Clement — the letter of the Roman church to Corinth — as a "most powerful" document from which the apostolic faith "may be learned," weighing it against the heretics for its antiquity and apostolic descent. It functioned, for him, as an authority near Scripture, though it would not finally enter the canon.

Soft edges (2): the Shepherd of Hermas cited as "Scripture"

Truly, then, the Scripture declared, which says, "First of all believe that there is one God, who has established all things, and completed them, and having caused that from what had no being, all things should come into existence: He who contains all things, and is Himself contained by no one."

— Against Heresies 4.20.2, ANF 1, historicalchristian.faith⁵ (also newadvent.org). The words Irenaeus introduces as "the Scripture" are the opening commandment of the Shepherd of Hermas (Mandate 1) — a second-century Roman work the Muratorian list and later Athanasius would place outside the canon. A caution belongs here: the Greek term behind "Scripture" (graphē) can mean simply "writing," so some read Irenaeus as quoting an esteemed text rather than formally canonizing it. Either way the citation shows the edge of his canon was still permeable — exactly the fuzzy-boundary evidence the later sorting (Eusebius's "disputed" and "spurious," Athanasius's exact list) would resolve.

Exclusion (1): the boy-Jesus alphabet tale, filed among forged "apocryphal and spurious writings" and called "false and wicked"

Besides the above [misrepresentations], they adduce an unspeakable number of apocryphal and spurious writings, which they themselves have forged, to bewilder the minds of foolish men, and of such as are ignorant of the Scriptures of truth. Among other things, they bring forward that false and wicked story which relates that our Lord, when He was a boy learning His letters, on the teacher saying to Him, as is usual, "Pronounce Alpha," replied [as He was bid], "Alpha." But when, again, the teacher bade Him say, "Beta," the Lord replied, "Do thou first tell me what Alpha is, and then I will tell thee what Beta is." This they expound as meaning that He alone knew the Unknown, which He revealed under its type Alpha.

— Against Heresies 1.20.1, ANF 1, historicalchristian.faith⁶ (also newadvent.org). The chapter heading is "The Apocryphal and Spurious Scriptures of the Marcosians." Irenaeus's complaint is twofold and exactly canon-relevant: the followers of Marcus (a) multiply writings — "an unspeakable number" of them — and (b) forge them, so that the boy-Jesus episode is named not as Scripture overlooked but as a fabrication that the Church's "Scriptures of truth" stand over against. The story he reports is the same alphabet-lesson scene that later anchors chapters 6 and 14 of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas; in Irenaeus it is already on the wrong side of the boundary.

Exclusion (2): the Gospel of Judas, a Gnostic "fictitious history"

They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.

— Against Heresies 1.31.1, ANF 1, historicalchristian.faith⁷ (also newadvent.org). Unlike the boy-Jesus tale, here Irenaeus names a titled book — the Gospel of Judas — and brands it a Cainite forgery, "a fictitious history." It is the earliest notice of the work recovered in the Coptic Codex Tchacos and published in 2006, and another instance of his method: name the forgery, refute it, set it outside the rule of truth.

Notes

• A story, not yet a named book. On the boy-Jesus tale, Irenaeus attests the tradition, not a fixed "Gospel of Thomas." The same alpha/beta saying circulates independently in the Epistle of the Apostles (ch. 4), and the wording Irenaeus gives is closer to a remembered episode than a citation of a titled work; many scholars therefore take him to know the scene orally or as a loose Gnostic logion, not as the later infancy gospel in its fixed form.⁸ So his witness establishes that the boy-Jesus material was rejected from the start — not that a book called "Thomas" already existed to reject. This is why the famous patristic condemnations of "the Gospel of Thomas" cannot simply be read as condemnations of the infancy text: see the argument Which "Gospel of Thomas" did the Fathers condemn?
• Exclusion, not suppression. Irenaeus's response to the forgeries is to name and refute them, not to call for their destruction — the pattern of gradual non-reception that runs through the whole record, against the popular "banned and burned" framing weighed at Were the infancy gospels suppressed?
• Both faces of one boundary. Irenaeus shows the canon hardening from the center out: the Gospel core already closed at four, the bulk of the apostolic letters in use, the forgeries (the boy-Jesus tale, the Gospel of Judas) pushed out — but a middle ring (1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas) still inside or on the line. That gradual, edges-last process is the historical backbone the later witnesses (the Muratorian list, Eusebius's threefold sorting, Athanasius's exact twenty-seven) carry forward.

Sources