The Significance of Irenaeus' Writing (AQA GCSE Religious Studies B): Revision Note

The meaning and significance of Irenaeus’s writings

• St Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130–202 AD) was one of the leading teachers of the early Christian Church

• Irenaeus was concerned with teaching believers about how Jesus, as God incarnate, was a meeting point between God and humanity

• Irenaeus wrote Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) to explain this idea

• He explained that:

  • God is beyond human understanding

  • Christians can know what God is like, however, by looking at Jesus, the fullest revelation possible of God

  • Jesus is the Son of God so he displays the key qualities of God (as a perfect human, he also shows human qualities in their most perfect state)

  • Christians can therefore get a better understanding of God’s nature through looking at the life and example of Jesus 

  • Jesus shows what God is like, which means that God is no longer hidden from humans

• In short, Irenaeus explained that Jesus revealed God to man

• Irenaeus is famous for saying: 

• This is about Jesus: It explains that Jesus, as someone who was fully open to God and followed God’s wishes most closely, reflected the “glory of God”

• This phrase is also translated as: “The glory of God is a human being, fully alive.”

  • Jesus is the “fully alive” human being

  • All humans who follow Jesus’s teachings and example and remain open to God can also become more “fully alive” and reveal God’s glory themselves through their own good actions

• Irenaeus’s work is part of the Catholic Church tradition, meaning that he is one of the teachers whose work is accepted by the Church as accurate and true

  • Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit inspired these teachers to speak the truth about God

Attribution:

Public domain