Irenaeus

Steenberg—Tracing the Irenaean Legacy 207

Later in the same text, Augustine sums up his position against Julian with the
following return to Irenaeus (as the first in a long litany of predecessors in the faith
whom he considers substantiate his view): “Why do you boastfully say that you
rejoice that this truth, which you consider error or wish to consider so, can find no
supporter in such a great multitude? As if it were a slight proof that in this most sure
and ancient foundation of the faith the very multitude scattered over the whole earth
does not disagree. But, if you seek supporters for it among those who have produced
something of literary value, and whose teaching is famous, then here is a memo-
rable and venerable assembly and agreement of supporters. St Irenaeus says that the
ancient wound of the Serpent is healed by the faith of Christ and the cross, and that
we were bound by original sin as if by chains” (Against Julian, I.7.32).
In this—which is the most dramatic and important instance of Augustine employing
Irenaeus—what stands out is that Irenaeus’s writing is called upon, not to demonstrate
or appropriate his polemical, heresiological arsenal (as has been the case in every other
source we have mentioned), but in order to substantiate a theological position. Ire-
naeus is here a theological voice, in a way we have not encountered elsewhere. The same
is true of Augustine’s implicit reference to Refutation IV.33.10 in his Catechizing of the
Uninstructed 3.6, where he imitates (rather closely) Irenaeus’s language of typological
Christology among the prophets; and to some extent also in his On Christian Doc-
trine II.40.60 (much touted as his earliest example of a familiarity with Latin Irenaeus,
dating to c. 396–426), where he follows Irenaeus’s Refutation IV.30.1 on the Hebrews
carrying away the spoils of Egypt in the Exodus comprising a prophetic vision of the
value to be found in Pagan philosophies.
Augustine seeks to employ Irenaeus to shore up his theological emphasis. It is
worth noting that he speaks, in this context, of Irenaeus as an “ancient man of God,”
who he presumes stands as an authority for the traditional voice of Christian theology;
and if he calls upon Irenaeus as such a representative of traditional theology, it is of
further significance that he does so in order to support a particular reading of sin (i.e.,
“original sin,” mentioned with particular reference to Irenaeus) that is, in Augustine’s
day, hardly traditional (and one which does not, in fact, wholly reflect Irenaeus’s posi-
tion). Irenaeus the traditional theologian is called in to support Augustine the creative
theologian. This is an observation to which I would like to return below.
Augustine may be the most important reader of Latin Irenaeus, but he was not the
only. C. A. Forbes has asserted that the language and imagery of Firmicus Maternus’s
(fourth century) On the Error of Profane Religions “argue for the probability that Fir-
micus knew the writings or at least the views of Irenaeus.”^43 Jerome (c. 347–420), who
is single-handedly responsible for our ascription of the title “martyr” to Irenaeus,^44 was
familiar enough with his Latin text to refer to it as a work of “most learned and elo-
quent style”^45 —an interesting comment, given the Latin translator’s slavish literality in
rendering the Greek, his frequent inconsistencies, and in general a style characterized
by Unger as “barbaric Latin.”^46 Among Latin writers familiar with Irenaeus, we might
also mention Gregory of Tours (sixth century), who similarly describes Irenaeus as
a martyr but as part of a rather fanciful account of his having been sent to Lyons by
Polycarp, converting the city and suffering great tortures before receiving his martyr’s