Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Irenaeus and the Rule of Faith
The post
on
the Easter controversy clearly
lacks an explanation
(or at least an attempt thereof) of how it could ever happen that
Irenaeus felt at ease with the apparent contradiction of advocating a
consistent "catholic" faith and, at the same time, acknowledging that
within the same "catholic" community different options could be given,
even in important matters.
It seems that the fundamental distinction to be made is between established traditions (and the Asian tradition of celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nisan is acknowledged as a very old one, and admittedly older than the Roman tradition) on the one hand, and teachings that "neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which [the Gnostics] boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures" (AH I.8.1).
And when the Gnostics say they do gather their views from the Scriptures, Irenaeus answers with this well-known passage:
An obvious fallacy of the Rule, of course, is that it only works if there is an agreed set of Scriptures (which was not the case in Irenaeus' time): lacking this, it becomes apparently difficult to maintain that the Rule summarizes Scripture: another case for the pressing urgency to establish a canon.
But, canonical problems aside, there is more: this is not simply a sola scriptura doctrine. There is the fundamental role of tradition, and this is what allows Irenaeus to accomodate, within the same orthodox system, different teachings. But since tradition apparently changes for him with times, and places, we must acknowledge that Irenaeus has in mind a developmental concept of doctrine. Indeed, let's look at how he interprets salvation: he uses the traditional biblical pattern of "creation, transgression, redemption, judgement and final glory" (Hall). The history of salvation is a progressive education (Chadwick). I find the following passage especially interesting:
Categories: Church_History
It seems that the fundamental distinction to be made is between established traditions (and the Asian tradition of celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nisan is acknowledged as a very old one, and admittedly older than the Roman tradition) on the one hand, and teachings that "neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which [the Gnostics] boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures" (AH I.8.1).
And when the Gnostics say they do gather their views from the Scriptures, Irenaeus answers with this well-known passage:
Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed. (AH I.8.1)Let's now briefly consider Irenaeus' Rule of Faith. It is not only an exposition of the "true beliefs" of the Church given for didactic purposes; it is a summa doctrinae that explains Scriptures, and at the same time it is the only true method for scriptural hermeneutics. Which is to say, all authentic interpretations of Scripture must be in accordance with the Rule, because the Rule sums up the authentic interpretation of Scriptures. Teachings that cannot be validated through the Rule are therefore heretics.
An obvious fallacy of the Rule, of course, is that it only works if there is an agreed set of Scriptures (which was not the case in Irenaeus' time): lacking this, it becomes apparently difficult to maintain that the Rule summarizes Scripture: another case for the pressing urgency to establish a canon.
But, canonical problems aside, there is more: this is not simply a sola scriptura doctrine. There is the fundamental role of tradition, and this is what allows Irenaeus to accomodate, within the same orthodox system, different teachings. But since tradition apparently changes for him with times, and places, we must acknowledge that Irenaeus has in mind a developmental concept of doctrine. Indeed, let's look at how he interprets salvation: he uses the traditional biblical pattern of "creation, transgression, redemption, judgement and final glory" (Hall). The history of salvation is a progressive education (Chadwick). I find the following passage especially interesting:
If, however, any one say, "What then? Could not God have exhibited man as perfect from beginning?" [...] God had power at the beginning to grant perfection to man; but as the latter was only recently created, he could not possibly have received it, or even if he had received it, could he have contained it, or containing it, could he have retained it. It was for this reason that the Son of God, although He was perfect, passed through the state of infancy in common with the rest of mankind, partaking of it thus not for His own benefit, but for that of the infantile stage of man's existence, in order that man might be able to receive Him. (AH IV.38.1-2)Contrast this with Gnostic thought, linked to the fall from an eternal state of grace, and often leading to devaluation of the earthly condition as a mean to attain the lost perfection. So, salvation is a continuous and dynamic process on earth. From this, we can also derive consequences for hermeneutics: it is itself subject to this dynamic process, and it progresses as man progresses: as Irenaeus says quoting 1 Cor 3:2
on this account does Paul declare to the Corinthians, "I have fed you with milk, not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it." (loc. cit.)The case for Christ is that through him humanity can recover the lost likeness of God, and Irenaeus quite naturally quotes Paul and its concept of recapitulation (Eph 1:10), and the parallelism between Christ and Adam. Finally, note that this dynamicity of the human experience is explicitly supported by the Spirit:
man, a created and organized being, is rendered after the image and likeness of the uncreated God, -the Father planning everything well and giving His commands, the Son carrying these into execution and performing the work of creating, and the Spirit nourishing and increasing [what is made], but man making progress day by day, and ascending towards the perfect, that is, approximating to the uncreated One. (AH IV.38.3)I cannot help but notice that, in this light, Irenaeus is very modern, proposing an hermeneutic that rejects scripture as pure objects and that includes tradition right into the hermenutical process. And, if what I said above about legitimate (according to Irenaeus) changes of tradition in space and in time is true, interpretation has to be validated in a socio-historical context: but in a context that preserves the overall unity of the whole Church.
Categories: Church_History
