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Irenaeus and Hellenistic Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Robert M. Grant
Robert M. Grant
Affiliation:
University of the South
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Extract

Three recent discussions of Irenaeus by Reynders, Audet, and Enslin have examined the thought of Irenaeus almost exclusively in relation to the Christian tradition. This attitude toward his writings is natural, since Irenaeus lives so largely within the tradition; but he lived in the philosophical-rhetorical world of his day as well as in the church. It is the purpose of this paper to examine some of the ideas which he shares with non-Christians of the second century. First we shall consider his use of doxographical materials for the opinions of philosophers, and then we shall turn to his knowledge of other authors and of rhetoric.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 1949 , pp. 41 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1949

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References

1 Reynders, D. B., “La polémique de S. Irénée,” Rech. de théol. anc. et méd. 7 (1935), 5–27Google Scholar; Audet, T. A., “Orientations théologiques chez S. Irénée,” Traditio 1 (1943), 15–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Enslin, M. S., “Irenaeus: Mostly Prolegomena,” HTR 40 (1947), 137–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Forni, R., Problemi della tradizione: Ireneo di Lione (Milan, 1939)Google Scholar, is concerned exclusively with tradition.

2 Joann. Damasc, Sacra parallela p. 749, Migne PG 96, 472.

3 De providentia i. 22, De somniis i. 21ff.; Diels, H., Doxographi graeci (Berlin, 1879), 1fGoogle Scholar.; Wendland, P., “Eine doxographische Quelle Philos,” Sitzungsberichte … Berlin 1897, 1074ffGoogle Scholar.

4 Bardy, G., Athénagore (Paris, 1943), 10–16Google Scholar.

5 Diels, op. cit., 4f.; cf. Geffcken, J., Zwei griechische Apologeten (Berlin-Leipzig, 1907), 175fGoogle Scholar. I do not agree with the view that a Jewish doxography underlies Athenagoras.

6 Cf. Pseudo-Plutarch, i. 7. 11, 8. 2.

7 Geffcken, op. cit., 212; cf. Wendland, P., Hippolytus Werke III (Leipzig, 1916), xxi, 19Google Scholar; Witt, R. E., Albinus and the History of Middle Platonism (Cambridge, 1937). 144Google Scholar.

8 Diels, op. cit., 59. Theophilus' mind is so confused on philosophical questions that his sources are difficult to identify.

9 Diels, op. cit., 171f.

10 On this cf. Audet, op. cit., 52.

11 Wiedemann, A., Herodots zweites Buch (Leipzig, 1890), 102Google Scholar.

12 Ibid., 104ff.

13 Strabo, Geog. iii. 5. 8, pp. 173–74; Mayor, J. B., Tullii, M.Ciceronis De Natura Deorum Libri Tres II (Cambridge, 1880), 105Google Scholar.

14 Bailey, C., Titi Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura Libri Sex III (Oxford, 1947), 1551fGoogle Scholar.

15 Bailey, op. cit., 1437ff.

16 Ibid., 1359f.

17 Geffcken (op. cit., 224) suggested that Athenagoras' reference to Hermes Trismegistus (c. 28) had in view something like Asclepius 37 (ii. 347:20).

18 Compare the old Stoic view: Diog. Laert. vii. 123 = SVF III 642. Knowledge of such matters requires superhuman inspiration: Virgil, Georg. ii. 477–82, Aen. i. 742–46; Ovid, Metam. xv. 69–72; Wisdom vii. 17f. I owe these references to Professor A. D. Nock.

19 Cf. Canter, H. V., “The Figure AΔϒNATON in Greek and Latin Poetry,” AJP 51 (1930), 37fGoogle Scholar. (“an impossible count or estimate”). The number of the stars or of grains of sand was a sceptical example (Sext. Emp., Adv. Dogm. ii. 147). Cf. also Ecclus. i. 2–3; it is a common expression in the Old Testament.

20 Sext. Emp., Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 179.

21 Ibid., i. 18.

22 Audet, op. cit., 26f. Sometimes, as W. L. Knox observes (JTS 47 [1946], 181), he writes as an historian. He wrote a “very brief and most useful” book Πρὸς Ἕλληνας περὶ ἐπιστήμης (Eusebius, H. E. v. 26). Could Eusebius' notion possibly be due to too rapid glancing at Pseudo-Plutarch, bound among Irenaeus' books? Cf. Lawlor, H. J., Eusebiana (Oxford, 1912), 136ff.Google Scholar, for Eusebius' use of titles.

23 Rohde, E., Der griechische Roman (Leipzig, 1876), 297Google Scholar.

24 Lucian, Bis accusatus 27.

25 Hitchcock, F. R. M., Irenaeus of Lugdunum (Cambridge, 1914), 52ffGoogle Scholar. Dufourcq, A., S. Irénée (Paris, 1904), 64ff.Google Scholar, claims that this idea is Aristotelian, but as Vernet, F., “Irénée (Saint),” Diet, de théol. cath. VII 2 (Paris, 1923)Google Scholar, 2508, observes it is implied in the Bible itself.

26 Cf. Colson, F. H., “Philo on Education,” JTS 18 (1916–17), 151ffGoogle Scholar.

27 See my note in HTR 39 (1946), 72Google Scholar.

28 The same story is found in Pliny, Hist. nat. vii. 192.

28 Ziegler, H., Irenäus der Bischof von Lyon (Berlin, 1871), 17Google Scholar.

30 Lestringant, P., Essai sur l'unité de la révélation biblique (Paris, 1942), 206fGoogle Scholar.

31 Theon, Progymn. 4, p. 82:19 Spengel; Aristides, De arte rhet. i. 3, p. 464: 16. Irenaeus uses diastema (cf. ii. 25. 1, 343) for diastasis.

32 Op. tit., 8.

33 Cf. Lucian, Quomodo hist, conscr. sit 4.

34 Wellmann, M., Der Physiologos (Philologus, Suppl. 22, 1931), 9Google Scholar; cf. Wellmann, , “Timotheos von Gaza,” Hermes 62 (1927), 189ffGoogle Scholar.

35 Bardy, G., Littérature grecque chrétienne (Paris, 1928), 36Google Scholar. In spite of Justin's admiration for philosophy, his education lacked such elementary studies as music, astronomy and geometry (Dial. 2, p. 8 Otto; cf. Plato, Protag. 318e, and the Hermetic Asclepius 13, p. 312:2 Nock, with n. 115, p. 369). His advancement in Platonism was insufficient to give him the correct answer to the question whether the soul remembers the vision of God (Dial. 4, p. 20; cf. Phaedrus 249c–d). On this error depends his Christian opponent's victory.