WE ARE familiar with the beginnings of Christian history through reading the epistles of Paul and the other apostles which show how the first churches were founded. But we are less familiar with the story of how the Church developed from those early days to become an established community.

This book helps us to understand this next stage, showing how the faith was believed and lived through an uncertain and unsafe period of history. Our guide to this is St Irenaeus, who was born around 135 and educated and ordained in Smyrna in Asia Minor, the modern Izmir; then journeyed probably first to Rome and then on to Lugdunum, the capital city of Gaul, the modern Lyon, where he was bishop until his death around 202.

The Roman Empire, which he lived in, was governed by a succession of emperors, some of whom were wise administrators, while others were decadent and tyrannical. This led to frequent episodes of persecution of the Church with shockingly cruel deaths for those who refused to deny their faith. Across the empire, there were a variety of options for religious faith. Sacrifice had to be offered to the emperor; there were pantheons of gods in Greece and Rome; there were philosophical teachings about the pure intellectual realities taught by Plato; and there were the mystery religions of Egypt. All these had led to a set of beliefs known as Gnosticism. These taught that there were many gods, with a hidden supreme and perfect god, while a lesser god or demiurge created an imperfect physical world. So, salvation was an escape from this fallen world through an esoteric knowledge.

Irenaeus’s Against the Heresies is a work in five books which gives extensive quotation from scripture to show the errors of Gnosticism and then affirms the teachings of the Bible. There is one God who is Trinity, from whom all things come; so the material world is good, although fallen as a result of demonic influence and human disobedience. Then Christ comes as God and fully human, remaking and bringing humanity to a full maturity, through the gifts of the Spirit given in the Church. Irenaeus describes this as recapitulation. It is expressed in the often quoted words “The glory of God is a man (or woman) fully alive, and the life of man consists in beholding God.” At the heart is the person of Christ, giving a fullness of life, as we are changed by the glory of God.

The Revd Dr John Binns is Visiting Professor at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge.

Irenaeus and the Glory of God: Gnosticism, recapitulation and true humanity in Christ
Patrick Whitworth
Sacristy Press £19.99
(978-1-78959-407-2)
Church Times Bookshop £17.99