Feast day: June 28, died ca. 202 When I think of the early church era, I tend to think of Palestine and the surrounding area. I forget that after the resurrection, the followers of Christ spread all over the Roman Empire. They went to Africa and to Europe; they went into modern Turkey. I should not be surprised that today’s saint, Irenaeus, was the bishop of what is now Lyons, in southern France. Born in Asia Minor, he was a student of Polycarp, who was martyred during one of the Roman persecutions of Christians. (This all takes place before Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire.) By tradition, John the Apostle had lived in Ephesus in Asia Minor as an old man, and Polycarp knew him. “I sat at the feet of Polycarp, who sat at the feet of John, who sat at the feet of Jesus,” Irenaeus reportedly said. From Asia Minor he went to Lyons; he became bishop after the death of the previous bishop at the hands of the Romans. He was involved in the controversy with the Gnostics, who believed in “secret knowledge”—which they of course possessed. One of his two works that survived, Against Heresies, counters the false claims of that idea. He and Clement of Alexandria managed to wipe out most of the Gnostic writings. In the 1940s, when the Nag Hammadi library was found, scholars could see how carefully Irenaeus had debated each point. Irenaeus uses the imagery of a shepherd—which is how he viewed his work as a bishop, as well as that of God, who loves and leads humanity. He saw creation as good, not an error, as the Gnostics believed. Humans in Eden were as little children, not rebellious or sinful. [The church managed for centuries without Augustine's idea of original sin, which developed from a misreading of Romans.] God uses the Word and the Holy Spirit to instruct humanity, to help the little children grow up. The union of God and humankind was always God’s purpose. Irenaeus also aided the development of the canon of the Bible as we know it today and the validity of apostolic succession of bishops. Pope Francis named Irenaeus a Doctor of the Church in 2022.
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Saints Alive!
I have been privileged to offer Noonday Prayer at my church, usually on Thursdays, which doesn’t matter because it’s on Youtube forever. [It’s amazing what can be done with a smartphone and a smart, helpful parish administrator!] The service is brief, with a place for a meditation. We usually look at the Episcopal calendar of saints, who are nearly always honored on their death dates, not their birth dates. Here is a hymn by medieval saint Hildegard of Bingen to set the mood.
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