A Short Reflection on St. Irenaeus

Drawn from The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics Volume II: Clerical Styles by Hans Urs von Balthasar

[Von Balthasar: Arguably the most outstanding RC theologian of the 20th century; a man of towering intelligence and endless reading and publishing. No less a figure than Henri Cardinal de Lubac called him “the most cultured man in Europe.” Friend of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II, who awarded him the red hat in 1988. Published massive works, of which the present volume is his magnum opus and summa. In The Glory of the Lord, he gives us - according to David Schindler - a theology of beauty to go along with Augustine’s theology of the good and Aquinas’ theology of the true. From the second of eight volumes, on clerical styles, we find a few points of meditation about the work of St. Irenaeus of Lyons.]

Von Balthasar on Irenaeus: (the four categories are my addition)

• Irenaeus is the first “systematic” theologian:

  • “Irenaeus’ work marks the birth of Christian theology.”

  • In Irenaeus for the first time theology “achieves the miracle of a complete and organized image in the mind of faith.”

  • “since our faith is the basis of our salvation, we must take trouble over it to see that it gives us a true understanding of the things which exist.”

  • “the primary aim is not to think, to impose Platonic intellectual or even mythical categories on things, but simply to see what is. To see. The two words videre and ostendere fall constantly from Irenaeus’ pen.”

  • “what is seen is ‘the living God, who is the God of the living.’“

  • “the work of thought can consist in nothing other than preparation for this seeing. I used, to the point of overworking them, the terms ostensio, manifestatio, ‘display,’ ‘exhibit,’ ‘draw into the light,’ ‘announce,’ ‘make plain.’

  • “I wants to see reality as it is. He does not dream; he does not build with bold hypotheses; he places his trust in the logos of being. He does not rake through the background of his subject, but describes its beautiful surface.”

• Irenaeus thinks doxologically:

  • “Irenaeus radiates from every pore; his utterance derives not from academic and pious knowledge but from a creative sight of the glowing central core.”

  • “the glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is seeing God.’“

• Irenaeus thinks oppositionally:

  • Irenaeus only begins to think when his enemies appear: he thinks oppositionally: “Gnosis was the opponent Christian thought needed in order to fully find itself. Every Christian theology is conditioned by its situation.”

• Irenaeus is relevant for us today:

  • I is as fresh and relevant today as ever; his work shares the power of perpetual renewal which, he says, “the Holy Spirit gives to the Christian faith and the Church which contains it.”

  • in I “apologetics and dogmatics are totally one.”

  • I, “faced with a Gnosis which knows so much, wants to know only one thing, Jesus Christ and him crucified, because he is love. For him, therefore, holiness if greater than gnosis....’It is better and more profitable that we should be uneducated and know little but draw near to the love of God, than that we should think ourselves deeply learned and experienced and so blaspheme against our Lord.’“

  • I obtains two victories in his thought: one over the “Gnostic theory of secret tradition” and the second “over the Gnostic theory of the adaptation of the Scriptures...to the mentality, milieu and prejudices of the men of every age....I...points out that both the prophets and the Lord and his apostles do not shrink from provoking the deepest offense and anger by the directness of their message.”

  • “You do not create God; God creates you. Therefore if you are God’s work, wait patiently for the hand of the artist, who does everything in due proportion, and in due proportion as regards you who are being made. Offer him your heart soft and pliable, and preserve the form which the artist forms out of you: preserve it by keeping yourself moist, so that you do not dry out and harden and lose the trace of his fingers. Keeping the form that has been impression on you, you will move towards perfection...If...you surrender to him what is yours, trusting faith in him and submissiveness, then you will receive his art and become a perfect work of God.”