The Cultural Geography of a Greek Christian: Irenaeus from Smyrna to Lyons
This paper has benefited from the comments and suggestions of the participants at the Edinburgh confer-
ence, and several of my colleagues and professors at the University of Michigan. Particular thanks go to David
Potter for reading and commenting on a draft of the paper, and to Ray Van Dam for his assistance and com-
ments at all stages of this project.
The phenomenon is studied by Noy in considerable detail: David Noy, Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and
Strangers (London: Duckworth, 2000).
For example, Jean-Claude Decourt and Gérard Lucas, Lyon dans les textes Grecs et Latins (Lyon: FU
Maison de l’Orient Méditerranéen, 1993), 70. “Il nous a paru difficile d’exclure totalement Irénée de ce recueil.
Pourtant ce qui frappe, dans cette œuvre, c’est l’absence presque totale du mentions, non seulement de la ville
où il résidait, mais plus généralement du pays dont il a dû longtemps être le seul évêque. Il nous a ainsi fallu
chercher pour découvrir un passage où il fût fait au moins allusion sinon à Lyon, du moins aux Gaules.”
Jean Colin, L’empire des Antonins et les martyrs gaulois de 177 (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1964).
Ewen Bowie, “The Geography of the Second Sophistic: Cultural Variations,” in Paideia: The World of the
Second Sophistic, ed. Barbara E. Borg (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 68. Smyrna belongs in a similar category to
such cities as Athens, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Rome.
André Benoit, Saint Irénée: Introduction a l’étude de sa théologie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1960), 50, 58–59.
As suggested by Robert M. Grant, “Irenaeus and Hellenistic Culture,” HTR 42, no. 1 (1949): 50.
See Grant, “Irenaeus and Hellenistic Culture,”43–47; William R. Schoedel, “Philosophy and Rhetoric in
the Adversus haereses of Irenaeus,” VChr 13, no. 1 (1959): 23–24.
One example is Irenaeus’s reference to the common belief that hens could be impregnated by the blowing
of the wind (Hae r. II.12.4). Others who express this opinion include Plutarch, Athenaeus, and Aelian. Refer-
ences to these and others in Conway Zirkle, “Animals Impregnated by the Wind,” Isis 25, no. 1 (1936): 95–130.
Similarly, Irenaeus suggests that the images a woman saw during intercourse had an impact on the shape and
appearance of the child conceived (Hae r. II.19.5-6). Justification for this belief could have been found in the
doxographical collection of pseudo-Plutarch (Hermann Diels, Doxographi Graeci, 2nd ed. [Berlin: de Gruyter,
1929], 423, col. a, lines 17-21), a collection containing much material with which Irenaeus was familiar. Fur-
ther references to the theme are collected by M. D. Reeve, “Conceptions,” PCPhS 35 (1989): 81–112.
See Mark Humphries, “A New Created World: Classical Geographical Texts and Christian Contexts in
Late Antiquity,” in Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity: Inheritance, Authority, and Change, ed. J. H. D. Scou-
field (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2007), 43–44, with reference to Strabo I.2.28.
Irenaeus, Haer., III.11.8, ed. Adelin Rousseau and Louis Doutreleau, Contre les Hérésies, Livre III, 2 vols.
(Paris: du Cerf, 1974): Ἐπεὶ γὰρ τέσσαρα κλίματα τοῦ κόσμου ἐν ᾧ ἐσμὲν καὶ τέσσαρα καθολικὰ πνεύματα,
κατέσπαρται δὲ ἡ ἐκκλησία ἐπὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς, στῦλος δὲ καὶ στήριγμα ἐκκλησίας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καὶ Πνεῦμα
ζωῆς, εἰκότως τέσσαρας ἔχειν αὐτὴν στύλους πανταχόθεν πνέοντας τὴν ἀφθαρσίαν καὶ ἀναζωπυροῦντας
τοὺς ἀνθρώπους. As this passage shows, the number four has much significance for Irenaeus, and he else-
where defends the idea that the earth has four regions (κλίματα) against the heretical suggestion that it has
twelve. See Hae r. I.17.1.
See James M. Scott, Geography in Early Judaism and Christianity: The Book of Jubilees (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002), 55–56, with references to Luke 24:46-47 and Acts 1:8.
The phrase “a medio auferuntur” corresponds roughly to the next passage quoted from Hae r. IV.4.1:
“de medio ablata est,” a phrase whose Greek original is ἐκ μέσου ἐγένετο. For the definition of the phrase ἐκ
μέσου as “away,” see LSJ, sv. μέσος III.c.
Irenaeus, Hae r. IV.4.1, ed. Rousseau et al., Contre les Hérésies, Livre IV, 2 vols. (Paris: du Cerf, 1965):
“Quemadmodum autem haec [sc. sarmenta vineae] non propter se principaliter facta sunt, sed propter cres-
centem in eis fructum, quo maturo facto et ablato, derelinquuntur et a medio auferuntur quae iam non sunt
utilia ad fructificationem: sic et Hierosolyma.”
Ibid., IV.21.3. “Peregre nascebatur duodecimtribus genus Israel, quoniam et Christus peregre incipie-
bat duodecastylum firmamentum Ecclesiae generare.” This is part of a larger comparison between Christ and
Jacob, in this case relating the birth of Jacob’s twelve sons in Mesopotamia to Christ’s selection of the apostles.
