Irenaeus

The question as to whether orthodoxy is narrow or wide was considered in the last post?  A narrow orthodoxy is one in which the basic set of Christian doctrine is defined. It does not incorporate speculative theological ideas but only what has been held by the historic church as essential truth. A wide orthodoxy is one that encompasses all the varying and often speculative teachings found in church history. Based on a sampling writers ancient and contemporary I asserted that orthodoxy is narrow. In this post I will share some research into what a narrow historic orthodoxy includes.

Before starting with an creedal examination, the first tenet of historic orthodoxy would include the reliance on the Scriptures as the trustworthy source of knowledge about God:

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith […] Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth and that no lie is in Him. (Ad Haer III.1 and III.5)

We will start with the Apostle’s Creed and compare that to the essentials that are described by Irenaeus. Irenaeus is a bishop who has probable ties to the Apostle John (through Polycarp and Ignatius). He lived in the second century and among his extant writings is a series of books called “Against Heresies” often abbreviated Ad Haer. In these books he describes and refutes the heretical teachings of Gnostics like Valentinius. Another important document is his treatise “Proof of the Apostolic Teaching”, which was written “to show forth in brief the preaching of the truth for the confirmation of your faith” and be “a manual of essentials”. This document elaborates on the “rule of faith”.

In the Proof of Apostolic Teaching Irenaues describes our redemption in Christ:

37. Thus then He gloriously achieved our redemption, and fulfilled the promise of the fathers, and abolished the old disobedience. The Son of God became Son of David and Son of Abraham; perfecting and summing up this in Himself, that He might make us to possess life. The Word of God was made flesh by the dispensation of the Virgin, to abolish death and make man live. For we were imprisoned by sin, being born in sinfulness and living under death.

38. But God the Father was very merciful: He sent His creative Word, who in coming to deliver us came to the very place and spot in which we had lost life, and brake the bonds of our fetters. And His light appeared and made the darkness of the prison disappear, and hallowed our birth and destroyed death, loosing those same fetters in which we were enchained. […]

39. Now, if He was not born, neither did He die; and, if He died not, neither did He rise from the dead; and, if He rose not from the dead, neither did He vanquish death and bring its reign” to nought; and if death be not vanquished, how can we ascend to life, who from the beginning have fallen under death? […]

The Apostle’s Creed (with the exception of the “descended into hell” clause) can be shown to be a sound basis for narrow orthodoxy that was affirmed by the early church based on the writings of Irenaues as the Rule of Faith.