Clement of Alexandria (450-215), a true philosopher, ran the renowned catechetical school at Alexandria, on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. He excelled in fusing the teaching of the Gospel with Greek culture. He also follows Philo, an exponent of Alexandrian Judaism, who had interpreted episodes in the Old Testament as allegories. Clement applied the method to Old Testament prefigurement of the actions of Christ.
Clement follows Philo too in applying secular techniques of learning to theology. He uses grammar, etymology and logic to unravel the meaning of Scripture. Philosophy can enable us to move from common sense to scientific knowledge. Through research and logical argument it is possible to reach sure knowledge. Clement calls this certain knowledge gnosis, thus making a conscious effort to make respectable a term used by the heretical Gnostics. In this he did not really succeed.
Clement was certain that ancient cultures had received revelations from God. Curiously, he sought equivalents in Homer for episodes in the Bible; 1,700 years later this became a hobby of the British prime minister, William Gladstone.

Justin (c. A.D. 100-165), a professional philosopher and a convert to Christianity, was born in Samaria. He was to be executed as a martyr in Rome. His philosophical turn of mind was noted by his contemporary Irenaeus: "Justin well says, I would not have announced any other God than he who is our Framer, Maker and Nourisher . "
It was Justin who made the celebrated pronouncement: "Whatever has been uttered aright by any men in any place belongs to us Christians; for, next to God, we worship and love the reason [Word ] which is from the unbegotten and ineffable God."

Irenaeus (c. 130-200) said that he had heard Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, preach. So he was probably himself from that city (in what is now Turkey ). But he became Bishop of Lyons (in modern-day France) where he died. He attempted to explain doctrines clearly and convince heretics of their errors. These heretics were mainly of the Gnostic variety, fond of secret interpretations of Christian teaching, mixed with pickings from Mediterranean cults.
For Irenaeus, Christ is the recapitulation of all true things: he redeems the nature of mankind and in him is taken up the historical plan that God has for man. As a guarantee of the truth of his teaching, Irenaeus appeals to the succession from the Apostles Peter and Paul, and lists the Bishops of Rome to his own time. "For with this church, because of its position of leadership and authority, must agree every church, that is, the faithful everywhere." In the Church, the Apostles lodged the truth, as in a bank; "all the rest are thieves and robbers".

Irenaeus had heard from Polycarp an anecdote about John the Apostle. In Ephesus he had gone to the baths, but rushed out, having spotted Cerinthus, a man of false teaching: "Let us flee, before the baths fall in, for Cerinthus the enemy of the truth is inside!"

Origen (c185-255) took over the school at Alexandria from Clement. He wrote more than 2,000 works in Greek. "He was the first man who urged me to study the philosophy of the Greeks," wrote Gregory Thaumaturgus (c210-260). "And he persuaded me by his own moral example to hear and to practice the teaching of morals." During a stay in Palestine, Origen was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Caesaria. The Bishop of Alexandria objected, and Origen was dismissed from the Church in Alexandria. Origen entertained surprising speculations. He seemed to think that at the end of time Satan would be reconciled to God. He also had the unexpected idea that stars were not only ruled by living beings, but also that Christ died to redeem them from sin. Though Origen suffered torture during the persecution of Decius, he was never proclaimed a saint, not because of his fizzing theology but, it was thought, lest others should imitate his memorable, if not certainly historical, self-castration, provoked by misunderstanding a sentence in the Gospel of Matthew: "There be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake."

Tertullian (c160-230) This fierce writer preferred to denounce the errors of philosophy. "Wretched Aristotle! He taught argument, that art of building up and demolishing, so protean in statement, so far-fetched in conjecture, so unyielding in controversy, so productive of disputes; self-stultifying, ever handling questions, but never settling anything. . . . What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem ? What between the Academy and the Church ?"

Tertullian, living in Carthage, in North Africa, a thoroughly Latin culture, was surrounded by warring factions, most of which he denounced. By about 211 he had it seems joined the Montanists, a schismatic group defined principally by their harsh judgment on backsliders. Tertullian said that the Church could forgive sins, such as fornication, committed after baptism, but priests ought not to, lest the sinner repeat them

There is little significant information about his early life. As a student he travelled to various centres of learning in Italy and in the eastern Mediterranean area. Converted to Christianity by his last teacher, Pantaenus-reputedly a former Stoic philosopher and the first recorded president of the Christian catechetical school at Alexandria-Clement succeeded his mentor as head of the school in about 180.

During the next two decades Clement was the intellectual leader of the Alexandrian Christian community: he wrote several ethical and theological works and biblical commentaries; he combated heretical Gnostics (religious dualists who believed in salvation through esoteric knowledge that revealed to men their spiritual origins, identities, and destinies); he engaged in polemics with Christians who were suspicious of an intellectualized Christianity; and he educated persons who later became theological and ecclesiastical leaders (e.g., Alexander bishop of Jerusalem). In addition to the famed trilogy his extant works include a tract on the use of wealth, A Discourse Concerning the Salvation of Rich Men; a moral tract, Exhortation to Patience or Address to the Newly Baptized; a collection of sayings by Theodotus, a follower of Valentinus (a leading Alexandrian Gnostic), with commentary by Clement, Excerpta ex Theodoto; the Eclogae Propheticae (or Extracts), in the form of notes; and a few fragments of his biblical commentary Hypotyposeis (Outlines). Clement presented a functional program of witnessing in thought and action to Hellenistic inquirers and Christian believers, a program that he hoped would bring about an understanding of the role of Greek philosophy and the Mosaic tradition within the Christian faith. According to Clement, philosophy was to the Greeks, as the Law of Moses was to the Jews, a preparatory discipline leading to the truth, which was personified in the Logos. His goal was to make Christian beliefs intelligible to those trained within the context of the Greek paideia (educational curriculum) so that those who accepted the Christian faith might be able to witness effectively within Hellenistic culture. He also was a social critic deeply rooted in the 2nd-century cultural milieu. Clement's view, "One, therefore, is the way of truth, but into it, just as into an everlasting river, flow streams but from another place" (Stromateis), prepared the way for the curriculum of the catechetical school under Origen that became the basis of the medieval quadrivium and trivium (i.e., the liberal arts). This view, however, did not find ready acceptance by the uneducated orthodox Christians of Alexandria, who looked askance at intellectuals, especially at the heretical Gnostics who claimed a special knowledge (gnosis) and spirituality. Led by Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria who was elevated to the episcopacy in 189, they taughta legalistic doctrine of salvation and preached that the Christian was saved by faith (pistis). Clement's view of the roles of faith and knowledge. Clement attempted to mediate between the heretical Gnostics and the legalistic orthodox Christians by appropriating the term gnostic from the heretical groups and reinterpreting to meet the needs of both the uneducated orthodox stalwarts and the growing numbers of those educated in the Greek paideia who were enlisting in the Christian Church. Gnosis became, in Clement's theology, a knowledge and aspect of faith; he viewed it as a personal service that "loves and teaches the ignorant and instructs the whole creation to honor God the Almighty" (Stromateis). Thus, Clement's Christian Gnostic-as opposed to the heretical Gnostic-witnessed to nonbelievers, to heretics, and to fellow believers, the educated and uneducated alike, by teaching new insights and by setting a lofty example in moral living. Like the pistic Christians (those who claimed that man was saved by faith, which was to be demonstrated in legalistic and moral terms), Clement held that faith was the basis of salvation; but, unlike them, he claimed that faith was also the basis of gnosis, a spiritual and mystical knowledge. By distinguishing between two levels of believers-i.e., the pistic Christian, who responds through discipline and lives on the level of the law, and the Christian Gnostic, who responds through discipline and love and lives on the level of the gospel-Clement set the stage for the efflorescence of monasticism that began in Egypt about a half century after his death Though much of Clement's attention was focussed upon the reorientation of men's personal lives in accordance with the Christian gospel, his interest in the social witnessing of Christians also involved him in the political and economic forces that affected man's status and dignity. In keeping with the logos-nomos (word-law, or, sometimes, gospel-law) theme that pervades his works, Clement alluded to the theory of the two cities, the city of heaven and the city of the earth. Like Augustine, the great theologian who utilized the same theme two centuries later in De civitate Dei (The City of God), Clement did not equate the city of heaven with the institutional church. According to Clement, the Christian was to live under the Logos as befitting a citizen of heaven and then, in an order of priorities, under the law (nomos) as a citizen of the earth. If a conflict should arise between God and Caesar (i.e., the state), the Christian was to appeal to the "higher law" of the Logos. At one point Clement advocated the theory of the just cause for open rebellion against a government that enslaves people against their wills, as in the case of the Hebrews in Egypt. In this view he also anticipated Augustine's theory of the just war, a theory that has been dominant in Western civilization since the early Middle Ages. He also struck at racism when it is considered a basis for slavery. Vews on wealth. In Egypt during the late 2nd century the rising inflation, high cost of living, and increased taxes placed extreme burdens not only on the poor but also on the relatively wealthy middle class, which was eventually ruined. From the tenor of the Paidagogos, one can conclude that the majority of Clement's audience came from the ranks of Alexandrian middle and upper classes, with a few intelligent poorer members coming from the Alexandrian masses.

The problem of wealth was disturbing to the pistic Christians, who interpreted literally the command of Christ to the rich young man who wanted to be saved, "sell what you have and give to the poor." In response to the literal interpretation, Clement wrote The Discourse Concerning the Salvation of Rich Men, in which he stated that wealth is a neutral factor in the problem. Possessions are to be regarded as instruments to be used either for good or for evil. "The Word does not command us to renounce property but to manage property without inordinate affection" (Eclogae Propheticae).

In the matter of welfare (almsgiving), Clement's views are not consistent. On the one hand, he advised that the Christian should not judge who is worthy or unworthy of receiving alms by being niggardly and pretending to test whether or not a person is deserving. On the other hand, he stated that alms should be dispensed with discernment to the deserving, for freeloaders, who are lazy and have some possessions, take what can be given to the needy. (see also Index: wealth and income, distribution of)

Because of the persecution of Christians in Alexandria under the Roman emperor Severus in 201-202, Clement was obliged to leave his position as head of the catechetical school and to seek sanctuary elsewhere. His position at the school was assumed by his young and gifted student Origen, who became one of the greatest theologians of the Christian Church. Clement found safety and employment in Palestine under another of his former students, Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem. He remained with Alexander until he died.

Origen Latin in full OREGENES ADAMANTIUS (b. c. 185, probably Alexandria, Egypt-d. c. 254, Tyre, Phoenicia [now Sur, Lebanon]), the most important theologian and biblical scholar of the early Greek church. His greatest work is the Hexapla, which is a synopsis of six versions of the Old Testament. Life Origen was born of pagan parents, according to the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry, but of Christian parents, according to the ecclesiastical historian Eusebius of Caesarea, whose account is probably more accurate. Eusebius stated that Origen's father, Leonides, was martyred in the persecution of 202, so that Origen had to provide for his mother and six younger brothers. At first he lived in the house of a wealthy lady. He then earned money by teaching grammar and lived a life of strenuous asceticism. Eusebius added that he was a pupil of Clement of Alexandria, whom he succeeded as head of the Catechetical school under the authority of the bishop Demetrius. Eusebius also alleged that Origen, as a young man, castrated himself so as to work freely in instructing female catechumens; but this was not the only story told by the malicious about his extraordinary chastity, and thus it may merely have been hostile gossip. Eusebius' account of Origen's life, moreover, bears the embellishments of legends of saints and needs to be treated with this in mind. (see also Index: Alexandria, Schoolof) According to Porphyry, Origen attended lectures given by Ammonius Saccas, the founder of Neoplatonism. A letter of Origen mentions his "teacher of philosophy," at whose lectures he met Heraclas, who was to become his junior colleague, then his rival, and who was to end as bishop of Alexandria refusing to hold communion with him. Origen invited Heraclas to assist him with the elementary teaching at the Catechetical school, leaving himself free for advanced teaching and study. During this period (from c. 212), Origen learned Hebrew and began to compile his Hexapla A wealthy Christian named Ambrose, whom Origen converted from the teachings of the heretical Valentinus and to whom he dedicated many of his works, provided him with shorthand writers. A stream of treatises and commentaries began to pour from Origen's pen. At Alexandria he wrote Miscellanies (Stromateis), On the Resurrection (Peri anastaseos), and On First Principles (De principiis). He also began his immense commentary on St. John, written to refute the commentary of the Gnostic follower of Valentinus, Heracleon. His studies were interrupted by visits to Rome (where he met the theologian Hippolytus), Arabia, Antioch, and Palestine. Because of his reputation, Origen was much in demand as a preacher, a circumstance that provoked the disapproval of Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, who was anxious to control this free lay teacher and especially angry when Origen was allowed to preach at Caesarea Palestinae. In about 229-230 Origen went to Greece to dispute with another follower of Valentinus, Candidus. On the way he was ordained presbyter at Caesarea. The Valentinian doctrine that salvation and damnation are predestinate, independent of volition, was defended by Candidus on the ground that Satan is beyond repentance; Origen replied that if Satan fell by will, even he can repent. Demetrius, incensed at Origen's ordination, was appalled by such a doctrinal view and instigated a synodical condemnation, which, however, was not accepted in Greece and Palestine. Thenceforth, Origen lived at Caesarea, where he attracted many pupils. One of his most notable students was Gregory Thaumaturgus, later bishop of Neocaesarea From Caesarea, Origen continued his travels. In 235 the persecution of Maximinus found him in Cappadocia, from which he addressed to Ambrose his Exhortation to Martyrdom. During this period falls the "Discussion with Heracleides," a papyrus partially transcribing a debate at a church council (probably in Arabia) where a local bishop was suspected of denying the preexistence of the divine Word and where obscure controversies raged over Christological issues and whether the soul is, in actuality, blood.

During the persecution under the emperor Decius (250), Origen was imprisoned and tortured but survived to die several years later. His tomb at Tyre was held in honour, and its long survival is attested by historians of the period of the Crusades.

Writings Origen's main lifework was on the text of the Greek Old Testament and on the exposition of the whole Bible. The Hexapla was a synopsis of Old Testament versions: the Hebrew and a transliteration, the Septuagint (an authoritative Greek version of the Old Testament), the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion and, for the Psalms, two further translations (one being discovered by him in a jar in the Jordan Valley). The purpose of the Hexapla was to provide a secure basis for debate with rabbis to whom the Hebrew alone was authoritative. Origen's exegetical writings consist of commentaries (scholarly expositions for instructed Christians), homilies for mixed congregations, and scholia (detached comments on particular passages or books). All extant manuscripts of the commentary on St. John, which extended to 32 books, depend on a codex preserved in Munich containing only a few of the books. This codex and a related manuscript at Trinity College, Cambridge, are the sole witnesses for the Greek original of books 10-17 of his commentary on St. Matthew. Greek fragments of this, as of most of Origen's exegetical works, survive in writings known as catenae ("chains"; i.e., anthologies of comments by early Church Fathers on biblical books). Commentaries on the Song of Solomon and on Romans survive in a drastically abbreviated Latin paraphrase by the Christian writer Tyrannius Rufinus (c. 365-410/411). The homilies on Genesis through the Book of Judges (except Deuteronomy) and Psalms 36-38 survive in a Latin translation by Rufinus. Jerome, the great Christian scholar (c. 347-c. 420), translated homilies on the Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Luke. These Latin homilies were widely read in medieval monasteries and have a rich manuscript tradition. The Greek original of homilies on Jeremiah survives in a single manuscript in the Escorial (Spain), and that of a homily on the witch of Endor (which provoked early criticism for its thesis that Samuel really was conjured up) in a manuscript in Munich and on papyrus. Prior to 231 Origen wrote De principiis, an ordered statement of Christian doctrine on an ambitious scale, based on the presupposition that every Christian is committed to the rule of faith laid down by the Apostles (the Creator as God of both Old and New Testaments, the incarnation of the preexistent Lord, the Holy Spirit as one of the divine triad, the freedom of rational souls, discarnate spirits, the noneternity of the world, judgment to come) but that outside this restriction the educated believer is free to speculate. Origen was writing long before the conciliar definitions of Chalcedon (451) concerning the Trinity and the Person of Christ and at a period when a far larger area of doctrine could be regarded as open for discussion and argument than was the case by 400. De principiis diverged in its speculations from later standards of orthodoxy. The original was consequently lost and can only be reconstructed from the Philocalia (an anthology compiled by Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus illustrating Origen's biblical interpretation), from Rufinus' Latin paraphrase which avowedly rewrites heterodox-sounding passages), and from later writers, notably Jerome and Justinian I (who quote especially compromising passages to prove Origen a heretic). The polemical anti-Origenists, however, need to be read with care since they were not above misquoting Origen and ascribing to him the words of later Origenists. Origen's great vindication of Christianity against pagan attack, Contra Celsum, written (probably in 248) at Ambrose's request, survives in its entirety in one Vatican manuscript, with fragments in the Philocalia and on papyruses. Paragraph by paragraph it answers the Alethes logos ("The True Doctrine" or "Discourse") of the 2nd-century anti-Christian philosopher Celsus and is therefore a principal source for the pagan intelligentsia's view of 2nd-century Christianity as well as a classic formulation of early Christian reply. Both protagonists agree in their basic Platonic presuppositions, but beside this agreement, serious differences are argued. Celsus' brusque dismissal of Christianity as a crude and bucolic onslaught on the religious traditions and intellectual values of classical culture provoked Origen to a sustained rejoinder in which he claimed that a philosophic mind has a right to think within a Christian framework and that the Christian faith is neither a prejudice of the unreasoning masses nor a crutch for social outcasts or nonconformists. The tract On Prayer, preserved in one manuscript at Cambridge, was written in about 233; it expounds the Lord's Prayer and discusses some of the philosophical problems of petition, arguing that petition can only be excluded by a determinism false to the experience of personality, while the highest prayer is an elevation of the soul beyond material things to a passive inward union with Christ, mediator between men and the Father. Theological System Origen's experience as a teacher is reflected in his continual emphasis upon a scale of spiritual apprehension. Christianity to him was a ladder of divine ascent, and the beginner must learn to mount it with the saints in a never-ceasing advance. Everything in Origen's theology ultimately turns upon the goodness of God and the freedom of the creature. The transcendent God is the source of all existence and is good, just, and omnipotent. This omnipotence is never mere power emptied of moral quality; one cannot appeal to it to rationalize absurdity or the extraordinary. In overflowing love, God created rational and spiritual beings through the Logos (Word); this creative act involves a degree of self-limitation on God's part. In relation to the created order, God is both conditioned and unconditioned, free and under necessity, since he is both transcendent to and immanently active in it. In one sense, the cosmos is eternally necessary to God since one cannot conceive such goodness and power as inactive at any time. Yet in another sense, the cosmos is not necessary to God but is dependent on his will, to which it also owes its continued existence. Origen was aware that there is no solution of this dilemma. The rational beings, however, neglected to adore God and fell. The material world was created by God as a means of discipline (and its natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and plagues remind man that this world is not his ultimate destiny). Origen speculated that souls fell varying distances, some to be angels, some descending into human bodies, and the most wicked becoming devils. (Origen believed in the preexistence of souls, but not in transmigration nor in the incorporation of rational souls in animal bodies.) Redemption is a grand education by providence, restoring all souls to their original blessedness, for none, not even Satan, is so depraved and has so lost rationality and freedom as to be beyond redemption. God never coerces, though with reformative intention he may punish. His punishments are remedial; even if simple believers may need to think of them as retributive, this is pedagogic accommodation to inferior capacity, not the truth. The climax of redemption is the incarnation of the preexistent Son. One soul had not fallen but had remained in adoring union with the Father. Uniting himself with this soul, the divine Logos, who is the second hypostasis (Person) of the triad of Father, Son, and Spirit (subordinate to the Father but on the divine side of the gulf between infinite Creator and finite creation), became incarnate in a body derived from the Virgin Mary. So intense was the union between Christ's soul and the Logos that it is like the union of body and soul, of white-hot iron and fire. Like all souls Christ's had free will, but the intensity of union destroyed all inclination for change, and the Logos united to himself not only soul but also body, as was apparent when Jesus was transfigured. Origen, influenced by a semi-Gnostic writing, the Acts of John, thought that Jesus' body appeared differently to different observers according to their spiritual capacities. Some saw nothing remarkable in him, others recognized in him their Lord and God. In his commentary on St. John, Origen collected titles of Christ, such as Lamb, Redeemer, Wisdom, Truth, Light, Life. Though the Father is One, the Son is many and has many grades, like rungs in a ladder of mystical ascent, steps up to the Holy of Holies, the beatific vision. The union of God and man in Christ is pattern for that of Christ and the believer. The individual soul, as well as the church, is the bride of the Logos, and the mystery of that union is portrayed in the Song of Solomon, Origen's commentary on which was regarded by Jerome (in the period of his enthusiasm for Origen) as his masterpiece. Thus, redemption restores fallen souls from matter to spirit, from image to reality, a principle directly exemplified both in the sacraments and in the inspired biblical writings, in which the inward spirit is veiled under the letter of law, history, myth, and parable. The commentator's task is to penetrate the allegory, to perceive within the material body of Scripture its soul and spirit, to discover its existential reference for the individual Christian. Correct exegesis (critical interpretation) is the gift of grace to those spiritually worthy. Origen viewed both the biblical revelation and the spiritual life of the believer as progressive processes. The church is the great "school of souls" in which erring pupils are disciplined: elementary education in this life, higher education in the world to come, where the atoning and sanctifying process will continue in a purging baptism of fire. Hell cannot be an absolute since God cannot abandon any creature; because of his respect for freedom it may take time, but God's love will ultimately triumph. Christ's work remains unfinished until he has subdued all to himself. Heaven is not necessarily absolute because freedom is an inalienable characteristic of the rational creature. "If you remove free will from virtue, you destroy its essence." Because the redeemed remain free, when all souls have been restored the whole drama may begin again. The Stoics believed in world cycles determined by fate. Origen thought them possible for the opposite reason, because freedom means that there is no ultimate finality. (see also Index: Stoicism) Influence If orthodoxy were a matter of intention, no theologian could be more orthodox than Origen, none more devoted to the cause of Christian faith. His natural temper is world denying and even illiberal. The saintliness of his life is reflected in the insight of his commentaries and the sometimes quite passionate devotion of his homilies. The influence of his biblical exegesis and ascetic ideals is hard to overestimate; his commentaries were freely plagiarized by later exegetes, both Eastern and Western, and he is a seminal mind for the beginnings of monasticism. Through the writings of the monk Evagrius Ponticus (346-399), his ideas passed not only into the Greek ascetic tradition but also to John Cassian (360-435), a Semi-Pelagian monk (who emphasized the worth of man's moral effort), and to the West. Yet he has been charged with many heresies. In his lifetime he was often attacked, suspected of adulterating the Gospel with pagan philosophy. After his death, opposition steadily mounted, respectful in the Greek Christian Methodius of Olympus' criticism of his spiritualizing doctrine of the Resurrection (c. 300), offensive in Epiphanius' (375), a refuter of Christian heresies, violent in Jerome's anti-Origenist quarrel with Rufinus (c. 393-402). Origen had his defenders, especially in the East (Eusebius of Caesarea; Didymus the Blind, the head of Catechetical School of Alexandria; Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, to some degree; and especially the Cappadocian Fathers-i.e., Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa); but in the West Rufinus' translation of De principiis (398) caused scandal, and in the East the cause of Origen suffered by the permanent influence of Epiphanius' attack. In the 6th century the " New Laura" (monastic community) in Palestine became a centre for an Origenist movement among the monastic intelligentsia, hospitable to speculations about such
matters as preexistent souls and universal salvation. The resultant controversy led Justinian I to issue a long edict denouncing Origen (543); the condemnation was extended also to Didymus and Evagrius by the fifth ecumenical council at Constantinople (553). Nevertheless, Origen's influence persisted, such as in the writings of the Byzantine monk Maximus the Confessor (c. 550-662) and the Irish theologian John Scotus Erigena (c. 810-877), and, since Renaissance times, controversy has continued concerning his orthodoxy, Western writers being generally more favourable than Eastern Orthodox. The chief accusations against Origen's teaching are the following: making the Son inferior to the Father and thus being a precursor of Arianism, a 4th-century heresy that denied that the Father and the Son were of the same substance; spiritualizing away the resurrection of the body; denying hell, a morally enervating universalism; speculating about preexistent souls and world cycles; and dissolving redemptive history into timeless myth by using allegorical interpretation. None of these charges is altogether groundless. At the same time there is much reason to justify Jerome's first judgment that Origen was the greatest teacher of the early
church after the Apostles

Irenaeus.b. c. 120/140, Asia Minor-d. c. 200/203, probably Lyon; Western feast day June 28; Eastern feast day August 23), bishop of Lugdunum (Lyon) and leading Christian theologian of the 2nd century. His work Adversus haereses (Against Heresies), written in about 180, was a refutation of Gnosticism. In the course of his writings Irenaeus advanced the development of an authoritative canon of Scriptures, the creed, and the authority of the episcopal office.Early career.Though his exact birth date is unknown, Irenaeus was born of Greek parents in Asia Minor.His own works establish a few biographical points, such as that as a child he heard and saw Polycarp, the last known living connection with the Apostles, in Smyrna, before that aged Christian was martyred in 155. Eusebius of Caesarea also notes that after persecutions in Gaul in 177 Irenaeus succeeded the martyred Pothinus as bishop of Lugdunum. According to Eusebius, who wrote a history of the church in the 4th century, Irenaeus, prior to his becoming bishop, had served as a missionary to southern Gaul and as a peacemaker among the churches of Asia Minor that had been disturbed by heresy.The known biographical data-if taken together with his published works-are sufficient to give a picture of an unusual life. Historical sources testify to a close cultural connection between Asia Minor and southern France (the Rhône Valley) during the 2nd century.

According to tradition, the Apostle John, as a very old man who had "seen the Lord" (i.e., Jesus), lived at Ephesus in the days when Polycarp was young. Thus, there were three generations between Jesus of Nazareth and Irenaeus of southern France. The era in which Irenaeus lived was a time of expansion and inner tensions in the church. In many cases Irenaeus acted as mediator between various contending factions. The churches of Asia Minor continued to celebrate Easter on the same date (the 14th of Nisan) as the Jews celebrated Passover, whereas the Roman Church maintained that Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday (the day of the Resurrection of Christ). Mediating between the parties, Irenaeus stated that differences in external factors, such as dates of festivals, need not be so serious as to destroy church unity. Irenaeus' writings: conflict with the Gnostics.Irenaeus adopted a totally negative and unresponsive attitude, however, toward Marcion, a schismatic leader in Rome, and toward Gnosticism, a fashionable intellectual movement in the rapidly expanding church that espoused dualism. Because Gnosticism was overcome through the efforts of the early Church Fathers, among them Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus, Gnostic writings were largely obliterated. In reconstructing Gnostic doctrines, therefore, modern scholars relied to a great extent on the writings of Irenaeus, who summarized the Gnostic views before attacking them. After the discovery of the Gnostic library near Naj' Hammadi (in Egypt) in the 1940s, respect for Irenaeus increased: he was proved to have been extremely precise in his report of the doctrines he rejected. All his known writings are devoted to the conflict with the Gnostics. His principal work consists of five books in a work entitled Adversus haereses. Originally written in Greek about 180, Against Heresies is now known in its entirety only in a Latin translation, the date of which is disputed (200 or 400?). A shorter work by Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, also written in Greek, is extant only in an Armenian translation probably intended for the instruction of young candidates for Baptism. Irenaeus asserted in a positive manner the validity of the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament), which the Gnostics denied, claiming that it upheld the laws of the Creator God of wrath. Though Irenaeus did not actually refer to two testaments, one old and one new, he prepared the way for this terminology. He asserted the validity of the two testaments at a time when concern for the unity and the difference between the two parts of the Bible was developing.

Many works claiming scriptural authority, which included a large number by Gnostics, flourished in the 2nd century; by his attacks on the Gnostics, Irenaeus helped to diminish the importance of such works and to establish a canon of Scriptures.

The development of the creed and the office of bishop also can be traced to his conflicts with the Gnostics. On the basis of the New Testament alone, which is concerned with the salvation of man, the creed would not be expected to begin with an article about the creation of the world and man. But, because the Gnostics denied that the God revealed in the New Testament was the Creator, the first article of the creed was for polemical reasons directly connected with Genesis ("In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"). Irenaeus refers to the creed as a "Rule of Truth" used to combat heresy. The oldest lists of bishops also were countermeasures against the Gnostics, who said that they possessed a secret oral tradition from Jesus himself. Against such statements Irenaeus maintains that the bishops in different cities are known as far back as the Apostles-and none of them was a Gnostic-and that the bishops provided the only safe guide to the interpretation of Scripture. With these lists of bishops the later doctrine of "the apostolic succession" of the bishops could be linked. Even the unique position of authority of the bishop of Rome is emphasized by Irenaeus, though in an obscure passage. Though there is no evidence, other than legendary, about his death, the last decade of the 2nd century is generally assumed to be the period in which Irenaeus died.