The Response of Irenaeus to the Gnostic Threat

This paper will discuss the views of Irenaeus on the threat of the Gnostic teachings and his responses to them in his use of both logical argument and ridicule.

Irenaeus was very much against the teachings of the different gnostic groups, as is seen in his book Against Heresies. McGrath writes, “In his important work adversus haereses (“against heresies”), Irenaeus offers his readers both information concerning what the Gnostic opponents of Christianity taught, and responses to these teachings.”[1] He specifically speaks against the ideas of the gnostic teacher Saturninus, who “taught that there is one unknown Father, who made angels, archangels, virtues, powers; and that the world, and everything in it, was made by seven angels. Humanity was also created by these angels.”[2] Irenaeus did not like this claim, saying that while it is true that God is the one who made the angels, it is not true that seven of these angels were the ones who created the world and everything that is in the world, including humanity itself. Irenaeus believes this to contrary to the truth that God is the sole author of all of creation.

Another gnostic heresy that Irenaeus was against was the idea that Christ was not truly fully human. Irenaeus writes that Saturninus “also declared that the Savior was unborn, incorporeal and without form, asserting that he was seen as a human being in appearance only.”[3] Irenaeus claims that this teaching is also false, for Christ did not only appear as a human as Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians, but was actually fully human. Paul wrote that “he was found in appearance as a man,” but Paul also wrote that “he became obedient to death, even death on a cross,” thus showing the full extent of his humanity. Christ appeared like a man because he was a man. This is important to Irenaeus because through Christ God became flesh so that humanity might be restored and united with God. The physical incarnation of Christ is essential to the theology of Irenaeus because through the true physical incarnation of Christ we have been reunited with God, humanity in the present through the indwelling Spirit of Christ who was fully human, and in the future the restoration of the entire created order.[4]

Irenaeus continues in his response to the gnostic heresies by showing the falsity of their beliefs. Irenaeus points out how the Gnostics do not believe that the Father and the Son are the same God. They believe that the God of creation is an evil god whom Christ came to destroy. He writes of the claims of Saturninus, “The God of the Jews, he declares, was one of the angels; and because the Father wished to destroy all the rulers, Christ came to destroy the God of the Jews, and to save all who believed in him, and these are they who have a spark of life.”[5] Saturninus claimed that the Old Testament God of creation was just one of the creator angels who had made the evil physical realm and who needed to be destroyed by Christ.[6]

Another issue that Irenaeus has with the Gnostics and Saturninus in particular is that they claim that the prophecies of the Old Testament were the result of demonic influence and that Christ came to destroy these demons as well as their prophecies.[7] However, the belief that some prophecies were created by Satan and that those ones are good because Satan is to be admired for fighting against the evil God of creation.[8] Irenaeus obviously takes issue with this, seeing the Gnostic beliefs as evil and satanic in origin since they place the devil as the good guy and the God of creation as the bad guy. Irenaeus goes on to say, “But marriage and procreation, they declare, is of Satan.”[9] By this Irenaeus is saying that they believe these things to be bad. He uses satanic in its true sense here, and not in the distorted Gnostic sense.

Irenaeus also seeks to point out just how ridiculous the beliefs of the Gnostics actually are. Not only does he contradict them, but he continues in his attack by outright making fun of them. He goes so far as to say that the “secret knowledge” that the Gnostics claim to have is completely bogus because they came up with all of it off of the top of their heads. When the Gnostics would meet they would share their secret knowledge with each other and give each other different passwords. Irenaeus recognizes that these different sayings they would tell each other were absolute nonsense. He claims that he too must have the Gnostic gift of the secret knowledge for he can string together words and sounds without meaning as well. He demonstrates this by saying, “Iu, iu, and pheu, pheu! Truly we may utter these exclamations from tragedy at such bold invention of ridiculous nomenclature, and at the audacity that made up these names without blushing.”[10]

Irenaeus also makes fun of other Gnostic teachings. He makes fun of their history of the Aeons, who supposedly created each other one after another, and who went about creating seemingly at random, eventually resulting in the creation of a stupid Aeon known as the Demiurge who created matter, but did not know what he was doing. From this, the physical world was made and mankind was created, but trapped in evil physical bodies because everything physical is evil.[11] Irenaeus points out that the Gnostics made these ideas up and that they originated in their generation because the apostles say nothing of any of this. Irenaeus says that he can create a history of Aeons on the spur of the moment and assign them peculiar names just as they did. He says, “There is a royal Proarche above all thought, a power above all substance, indefinitely extended. Since this is the Power which I call the Gourd, there is with it the Power which I call Superemptiness. [They], being one, emitted, yet did not emit, the fruit, visible, edible, and delicious, which is known to language as the Cucumber.”[12]





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[1] (ed.) Alister McGrath. The Christian Theology Reader. (Blackwell Pub.: Malden, MA), 2007.
[2] Irenaeus. Quoted in McGrath.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Kim, Dai Sil. "Irenaeus of Lyons and Teilhard de Chardin: a comparative study of 'Recapitulation' and 'Omega.'" Journal of Ecumenical Studies 13, no. 1 (December 1, 1976): 69-93.
[5] Irenaeus. Quoted in McGrath.
[6] McGrath.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Irenaeus. Quoted in McGrath.
[10] Irenaeus. Quoted in Richardson, Cyril (ed.). Early Christian Fathers. Vol. 1 of The Library of Christian Classics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.