Irenaeus also refers to a succession of presbyters who preserve the tradition " which originates from the apostles ".

Fra Marino also claims to have been alerted to the existence of the Gospel of Barnabas, from an allusion in a work by Irenaeus against Paul ; in a book which had been presented to him by a lady of the Colonna family ( Marino, outside Rome, is the location of the Palazzo Colonna ).

Irenaeus, ( c. 130 – 202 ) in his Against Heresies ( 1: 25 ; 6 ) says scornfully of the Gnostic Carpocratians, " They also possess images, some of them painted, and others formed from different kinds of material ; while they maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them.

Book IV consists of Jesus ' sayings, and here Irenaeus also stresses the unity of the Old Testament and the Gospel.

Irenaeus also wrote The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, an Armenian copy of which was discovered in 1904.

Irenaeus is also our earliest attestation that the Gospel of John was written by John the apostle, and that the Gospel of Luke was written by Luke, the companion of Paul.

In the passage of Adversus Haereses under consideration, Irenaeus is clear that after receiving baptism at the age of thirty, citing Luke 3: 23, Gnostics then falsely assert that " He preached only one year reckoning from His baptism ," and also, " On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age.

Irenaeus is also known as one of the first theologians to use the principle of apostolic succession to refute his opponents.

Irenaeus also reports that Polycarp was converted to Christianity by apostles, was consecrated a bishop, and communicated with many who had seen Jesus.

Some believe that Hippolytus ' account is of a later, more developed form of Simonianism, and that the original doctrines of the group were simpler, close to the account given by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus ( this account however is also included in Hippolytus ' work ).

Hippolytus says the free love doctrine was held by them in its purest form, and speaks in language similar to that of Irenaeus about the variety of magic arts practiced by the Simonians, and also of their having images of Simon and Helen under the forms of Zeus and Athena.

According to Irenaeus, the Judaistic Ebionites charged less than one hundred years after the Apostles that the Christians overruled the authority of Scripture by failing to keep the Mosaic Law ( see also Biblical law in Christianity ).

Irenaeus, in Against Heresies 3. 1. 1, says " Matthew also published a gospel in writing among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter & Paul were preaching the gospel and founding the church in Rome.

It is the term given to the predominant form of the New Testament text witnessed in the Old Latin translation from the Greek ; and also in quotations from certain 2nd and 3rd-century Christian writers, including Cyprian, Tertullian and Irenaeus.

Carpocrates is also mentioned by Tertullian and Hippolytus, both of whom seem to rely on Irenaeus ; and also perhaps by Origen and Hegesippus.

Irenaeus was also one of the early theologians to use the analogy of " second Adam and second Eve ".

There can also be seen many similarities to the Epistles of both Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch. The Shepherd of Hermas seems to reflect it, and Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen of Alexandria also seem to use the work, and so in the West do Optatus and the Gesta apud Zenophilum.

Although, following Theodoret, we have given the name Ophite to the system described by Irenaeus, it will have been seen that not only does the doctrine concerning the serpent form a very subordinate part of the system, but also that the place it assigns the serpent is very different from that given it by those whom we count as properly to be called Ophites.

Accordingly, it must be that Abraham, together with his seed ( that is, those who fear God and believe in Him ), will receive it at the resurrection of the just .” In another place Irenaeus also explained that the blessing to Jacob “ belongs unquestionably to the times of the kingdom when the righteous will bear rule, after their rising from the dead.

And these things are borne witness to in the fourth book of the writings of Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp .” ( 5. 33. 3 ) Apparently Irenaeus also held to the sexta -/ septamillennial scheme writing that the end of human history will occur after the 6, 000th year.

This is part of a belief held by some Gnostics that Jesus was not of flesh, but only took on the appearance of flesh ( see also Basilides and Irenaeus and Swoon hypothesis ).

According to Irenaeus the Aeon Autogenes emits the true and perfect Anthrôpos, also called Adamas ; he has a helpmate, " Perfect Knowledge ", and receives an irresistible force, so that all things rest in him.

For example Irenaeus concerning Isaiah 7: 14: The Septuagint clearly writes of a virgin that shall conceive.

* Irenaeus writes that there are only four Gospels ( approximate date ).

In the 2nd century Church Father Irenaeus writes:

In the 2nd century Church Father Irenaeus writes:

Irenaeus is the earliest witness to recognition of the canonical character of all four gospels.

The Lutheran Church, commemorates Irenaeus on that same date for his life of exemplary Christian witness.

Thus Irenaeus provides the earliest witness to the assertion of the four canonical Gospels, possibly in reaction to Marcion's edited version of the Gospel of Luke, which Marcion asserted was the one and only true gospel.

The earliest witness is Irenaeus, who in about the year 180 wrote: " The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate.

Irenaeus, who had heard him preach in his youth, said of him: " a man who was of much greater weight, and a more steadfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics ".

Irenaeus has been called the most important witness of the Christianity in the 2nd century.

Irenaeus does not regard Adam and Eve merely as private individuals, but as universal human beings, who were and are all of humanity.

( c. 4 ), who likewise follows Hippolytus's Compendium, adds some further particulars ; that ' Abraxas ' gave birth to Mind ( nous ), the first in the series of primary powers enumerated likewise by Irenaeus and Epiphanius ; that the world, as well as the 365 heavens, was created in honour of ' Abraxas ;' and that Christ was sent not by the Maker of the world but by ' Abraxas.

Those who favour the later date appeal to the earliest external testimony, that of the Christian father Irenaeus ( c. 150-202 ), who wrote that he received his information from people who knew John personally.

Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus were among the greatest early Christian apologists who engaged in critical analyses of unorthodox theology, Greco-Roman pagan religions, and Gnostic groups.

The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus, makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus ( who shows Ebionite influence ), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of Him.

Theodoret, who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number “ powers ,” and so Epiphanius represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels.

It is in the system of Valentinus that the name Dēmiourgos is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connection with the Valentinian system ; we may reasonably conclude that it was Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of this word.

Victor's attempted excommunication was apparently rescinded and the two sides reconciled upon the intervention of bishop Irenaeus and others, who reminded Victor of the tolerant precedent of Anicetus.

Irenaeus, who first used " gnostic " to describe heresies

A four gospel canon ( the Tetramorph ) was in place by the time of Irenaeus, c. 160, who refers to it directly.

Against the Gnostics, who said that they possessed a secret oral tradition from Jesus himself, Irenaeus maintained 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.

In Book I, Irenaeus talks about the Valentinian Gnostics and their predecessors, who go as far back as the magician Simon Magus.

In his writing against the Gnostics, who claimed to possess a secret oral tradition from Jesus himself, Irenaeus maintained that the bishops in different cities are known as far back as the Apostles — and none were Gnostic — and that the bishops provided the only safe guide to the interpretation of Scripture.

The central point of Irenaeus ' theology is the unity and the goodness of God, in opposition to the Gnostics ' division of God into a number of divine " Aeons ", and their distinction between the utterly transcendent " High God " and the inferior " Demiurge " who created the world.

Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp, who was said to have been tutored by John the Apostle.

Irenaeus calls those " heretics " who maintain that the saved are immediately glorified in the kingdom to come after death, before their resurrection.

A four gospel canon ( the Tetramorph ) was asserted by Irenaeus, who refers to it directly in his polemic Against the Heresies, " It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.

The writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD 180 reflect a belief that Peter " founded and organised " the Church at Rome.

In Rome there were many who claimed to be the rightful bishop though again Irenaeus stressed the validity of one line of bishops from the time of St. Peter up to his contemporary Pope Victor I and listed them.

" Other scholars and historians disagree, citing the historical records of St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Irenaeus who recorded the linear succession of Bishops of Rome ( the popes ) up until their own times.