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26-776: Adversus Haereses is the commonly used Latin title for a book by the Church Father Irenaeus , Bishop of Lyon in Gaul (now France). It is also often cited as Against Heresies or On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis . It is a five-volume work against Gnosticism and other Christian heresies , written around 180 CE. It is sometimes confused with: Against Heresies (Irenaeus) Against Heresies ( Ancient Greek : Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως, Elenchos kai anatropē tēs pseudōnymou gnōseōs , "On

52-570: A virgin and was accordingly excommunicated by his father, prompting him to leave his home town. Some scholars have taken this "seduction of a virgin" as a metaphor for Marcion's corruption of the Christian Church, with the Church portrayed as the undefiled virgin, and that Marcion apparently has become "the victim of the historicisation of such a metaphor, even though it contradicts the otherwise firm tradition of his strict sexual probity". Doubtful

78-555: A close eye on the Valentinians and to safeguard the church from them. In order to fulfill this duty, Irenaeus became well informed of Gnostic doctrines and traditions. His studies of Gnosticism eventually led to the compilation of this treatise. Irenaeus argued that orthodox Christianity was passed down to him from the apostles who knew Jesus personally, while the Gnostics and Marcionites were distorting this apostolic tradition. While

104-466: A major rival to the other emerging church . After his death, it retained its following and survived Christian controversy and imperial disapproval for several centuries. Several theologians have viewed him as a proto-protestant. Study of the Hebrew Bible , along with received writings circulating in the nascent Church, led Marcion to conclude that many of the teachings of Jesus were incompatible with

130-525: Is Tertullian's claim in The Prescription Against Heretics (written c.  200 ) that Marcion professed repentance, and agreed to the conditions granted to him — that he should receive reconciliation if he restored to the Church those whom he had led astray — but that he was prevented from doing so by his death. The Marcionite church expanded greatly within Marcion's lifetime, becoming

156-533: Is quoted more than any other verse from the letters of Paul in Against Heresies : I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Both Irenaeus and the Valentinians use this verse to argue for their own understandings of the resurrection of the dead. The Valentinians believed that resurrection was a purely spiritual phenomenon, while Irenaeus insisted that Christians would be raised from

182-839: The Evangelikon , a shorter version of the Gospel of Luke, and the Apostolikon , a selection of ten epistles of Paul the Apostle, which were also slightly shorter than the canonical text. Early Christians such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius claimed that Marcion's editions of Luke and the Pauline epistles were intentionally edited by Marcion to match his theological views, and many modern scholars agree. However, some scholars argue that Marcion's texts were not substantially edited by him, and may in some respects represent an earlier version of these texts than

208-671: The Genesis account of Yahweh walking through the Garden of Eden asking where Adam was, proved that Yahweh inhabited a physical body and was without universal knowledge , attributes wholly incompatible with the Heavenly Father professed by Jesus. According to Marcion, the god of the Old Testament , whom he called the Demiurge , the creator of the material universe , is a jealous tribal deity of

234-551: The Jews , whose law represents legalistic reciprocal justice and who punishes mankind for its sins through suffering and death. In contrast, the God that Jesus professed is an altogether different being, a universal God of compassion and love who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy. Marcion also produced a book titled Antitheses , which is no longer extant, contrasting the Demiurge of

260-664: The Pastoral epistles ) and the Gospel of Marcion which historically is claimed to be an edited version of the Gospel of Luke . Some modern scholars, such as Matthias Klinghardt , have theorized that Marcion's Gospel was the oldest , although this has been contested . This made Marcionism a catalyst in the process of the development of the New Testament canon by forcing the proto-orthodox Church to respond to his canon. Epiphanius records in his Panarion (c. 375) that Marcion

286-568: The Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis"), sometimes referred to by its Latin title Adversus Haereses , is a work of Christian theology written in Greek about the year 180 by Irenaeus , the bishop of Lugdunum (now Lyon in France ). In it, Irenaeus identifies and describes several schools of Gnosticism , and other schools of Christian thought, whose beliefs he rejects as heresy . He contrasts them with orthodox Christianity . Until

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312-569: The Gnostics offered salvation through secret knowledge available only to a few, Irenaeus contended that the true doctrines of the Christian faith are the same taught by bishops in different areas. While many of the Gnostics viewed the material world as flawed and from which believers sought to escape to an eternal realm of spirit, Irenaeus saw creation as good and ultimately destined for glorification. As Mark Jeffrey Olson points out, 1 Corinthians 15:50

338-614: The Jewish law and prophets. Marcion of Sinope Early Church writers such as Justin Martyr , Irenaeus , and Tertullian denounced Marcion as a heretic or antichrist, and he was excommunicated by the church of Rome around 144. He published his own canon of Christian sacred scriptures , which contained ten Pauline epistles (including the Epistle to the Laodiceans , while excluding

364-505: The Old Testament with the Heavenly Father of the New Testament. Marcion held Jesus to be the son of the Heavenly Father but understood the incarnation in a docetic manner, i.e. that Jesus' body was only an imitation of a material body, and consequently denied Jesus' physical and bodily birth, death, and resurrection. Marcion was the first to codify a Christian canon . His canon consisted of only eleven books, grouped into two sections:

390-493: The actions of Yahweh , characterized as the belligerent god of the Hebrew Bible . Marcion responded by developing a ditheistic system of belief around the year 144. This notion of two gods—a higher transcendent one and a lower world-creator and ruler—allowed Marcion to reconcile his perceived contradictions between Christian Covenant theology and the gospel proclaimed by the New Testament . In contrast to other leaders of

416-440: The canonical versions. Like the Gospel of Mark , the gospel used by Marcion did not contain elements relating to his birth and childhood. Interestingly, it did contain some Jewish elements, and material that challenged Marcion's ditheism—a fact that was exploited by early Christians in their polemics against Marcion. The centrality of the Pauline epistles in Marcion's canon reflects the fact that Marcion considered Paul to be

442-463: The correct interpreter and transmitter of Jesus' teachings, in contrast to the Twelve Disciples and the early Jerusalem church. In Marcion's view, the other apostles were under the auspices of the Demiurge. Marcion is sometimes described as a Gnostic philosopher. In some essential respects, Marcion proposed ideas which aligned well with Gnostic thought. Like the Gnostics, he believed that Jesus

468-505: The dead in fleshly bodies. According to Irenaeus, this verse was used by the Gnostics to argue that "the handiwork of God is not saved." Irenaeus also polemicized against Marcion of Sinope , who preached that the creator God of the Hebrew Bible and the Father of Jesus Christ were two different Gods. Irenaeus argues that the same God who sent Jesus to the Earth also led man through history by way of

494-618: The discovery of the Library of Nag Hammadi in 1945, Against Heresies was the best surviving contemporary description of Gnosticism . Today, the treatise remains historically important as one of the first unambiguous attestations of the canonical gospel texts and some of the Pauline epistles . Irenaeus cites from most of the New Testament canon , as well as the noncanonical works 1 Clement and The Shepherd of Hermas ; however, he makes no references to Philemon , 2 Peter , 3 John or Jude – four of

520-455: The nascent Christian Church, however, Marcion declared that Christianity was in complete discontinuity with Judaism and entirely opposed to the scriptures of Judaism. Marcion did not claim that these were false. Instead, he asserted that they were entirely true, but were to be read in an absolutely literalistic manner, one which led him to develop an understanding that Yahweh was not the same God spoken of by Jesus. For example, Marcion argued that

546-450: The physical world (which Gnostics regard as an illusion) and embracing the godlike qualities within oneself. Marcion, by contrast, held that the Heavenly Father (the father of Jesus Christ) was an utterly alien God; he had no part in making the world, nor any connection with it. According to Bart Ehrman : "Marcion himself should not be thought of as a Gnostic; he held that there were only two gods , not many; he did not think of this world as

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572-728: The shortest epistles. Only fragments of the original text in ancient Greek remain today, but many complete copies in Latin, the dates of writing of which remain unknown, still survive. Books IV and V exist in their entirety in a literal version in Armenian . Against Heresies can be dated to sometime between 174 and 189 AD, as the list of the Bishops of Rome includes Eleutherius , but not his successor Victor . The earliest manuscript fragment of Against Heresies , P. Oxy. 405 , dates to around 200 AD . Irenaeus' primary goal in writing Against Heresies

598-514: Was born the son of a bishop in Pontus (modern-day Turkey), likely Philologus of Sinope . Rhodo and Tertullian , young men in Marcion's old age, described him as a "mariner" and a "ship-master" respectively. Some time in the late 130s, Marcion traveled to Rome, joined the Roman church, and made a large donation of 200,000 sesterces to the congregation there. Conflicts with the church of Rome arose and he

624-476: Was essentially a divine spirit who appeared to human beings in human form, but did not actually take on a fleshly human body. However, Marcionism conceptualizes God in a way which cannot be reconciled with broader Gnostic thought. For Gnostics, some human beings are born with a small piece of God's soul lodged within their spirit (akin to the notion of a Divine Spark ). God is thus intimately connected to and part of his creation. Salvation lies in turning away from

650-819: Was eventually excommunicated in 144, his donation being returned to him. Irenaeus writes that "a certain Cerdo, originating from the Simonians, came to Rome under Hyginus [...] and taught that the one who was proclaimed as God by the Law and the Prophets is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" ( Against Heresies , 1, 27, 1). Also, according to them, Marcion and the Gnostic Valentinus were companions in Rome. In 394, Epiphanius claimed that after beginnings as an ascetic , Marcion seduced

676-581: Was to attack sects that deviated from his own form of Christianity, mainly the Gnostics and Marcionites . In particular, he sought to disprove what he saw as incorrect interpretations of scripture on the part of Gnostics such as Valentinus . Irenaeus sought to present "what was understood as an authentic form of century-old Christian tradition against various forms of Gnosticism." As James VanderKam notes, elements of this early Christian tradition drawn upon by Irenaeus include apocalyptic traditions such as 1 Enoch . As bishop, Irenaeus felt compelled to keep

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