36 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy
If Irenaeus is to be regarded as the ideologue of Victor’s revolution, it seems strange
that they should have clashed on the former’s treatment of the Quartodeciman con-
gregations. Admittedly, the later dispute between Stephen and Cyprian shows well a
characteristic human behavior that one can accept a principle in theory though dissent
from it in practice when the full enormity of what becomes possible from its applica-
tion is felt. But there are further problems with reading Irenaeus’s view of apostolic
succession in this way. The assumption that Irenaeus is the ideologue of Victor’s activ-
ity and of what is presupposed by the development of the catacomb by Callistus and
that bears his name from the time is, as I will show, questionable.
My deconstruction of such a view may be summarized in a number of brief points
that I will subsequently develop in greater detail:
- The view that Irenaeus’s Episcopal succession is modelled on a monarchical suc-
cession with supreme power handed on from St. Peter presupposes that his model is
that of a chronographer charting the succession of kings, consuls, high priests along
with consular and regnal dates, based upon Olympiads and other forms of parallel
calendar dating. But the attempts of Ehrhardt and Telfer to identify Irenaeus’s model as
based upon succession lists of Jewish high priests mentioned by Josephus fails both on
the basis of Irenaean theology of church order and on the fact that his list is undated
and therefore unrelated to chronographical literature. - Irenaeus’s view of succession is that of a teaching succession, and arises not from
the study of chronography but from the general ideology of succession within Hel-
lenistic philosophical schools. It was that scholastic model, combined with one piece
of independent literary evidence that is available to us as well as to him, namely Clem-
ent’s letter to the Corinthians, that produced his (and/or Hegesippus’s) construction of
Episcopal or presbyteral succession lists. - The creation of a papal mausoleum in the cemetery that bears Callistus’s name
for rulers of the Roman church therefore reflected a quite different ideology from
that of Irenaeus, and from a quite later date (a.d. 235). Those that created what was a
unique burial concept of a special mausoleum containing only the rulers of the com-
munity were influenced by the chronographic tradition that led them both to add dates
to Irenaeus’s undated list so as to create Episcopal reigns by analogy with pagan kings
and Roman consuls. - Consequently, my conclusion will be that there is a sea change in the ideology of
Episcopal authority between the age of Irenaeus and that of Pontian, grossly obscured
by the assumptions that make the former the ideological supporter of Victor’s monar-
chical project.
I now turn to a detailed examination of my case.
Irenaeus and Sacerdotal Succession Lists
In Adversus haereses III.3.2-3, Irenaeus presents his famous succession list of Roman
bishops. He assures us, like Hegesippus before him, that there is a congruence of teach-
ing between all major Christian centers.^4 The latter claims that while in Rome διαδοχὴν
ἐποιησάμην μέχρις ̓Ανικήτου. There are two ways of translating this sentence: