Irenaeus

Brent—How Irenaeus Has Misled the Archaeologists 41

was a model that Diogenes Laertius was to use around twenty years later, in his Lives
of the Philosophers.
The object of this work was to show that the “wise men” of the golden age of Greece
in the past constituted the exclusive origin of all Greek philosophical schools. Dio-
genes writes in an existing tradition in which writers such as Sotion (200–170 b.c.)
and others wrote histories of philosophical ideas in terms of school with succession,
and accordingly entitled their works as “successions of the philosophers” (διαδοχαὶ τῶν
φιλοσόφων). The four great schools of his time, the Academic, the Stoic, Peripatetic,
and Epicurean, could be shown to descend in succession from their founders in logical
succession with no Greek philosopher omitted. Thus Diogenes purported to prove that
Hellenistic philosophy was a wholly Greek phenomenon uncontaminated by Indian
or Egyptian influences, or indeed Latin ones.^29 He was thus very much part of the
movement that was the Second Sophistic and that asserted Hellenistic cultural identity
against imperial rule. Ignatius of Antioch had previously attempted to construct by
analogy a similar Christian identity over against the Hellenistic culture of the Greek
city-states of Asia Minor under Roman rule.^30
But as Irenaeus was aware, the model of Greek philosophical school as a suc-
cession of teachers fitted only in some respects the church but not in others. Ire-
naeus at one point admits that the succession, the διαδοχή, was not to bishops alone
but also to presbyters: “Again, whenever we make our appeal to the tradition from
the apostles that is preserved through the successions of presbyters in the churches
[ἐπὶ τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποστόλων παράδοσιν κατὰ τὰς διαδοχὰς τῶν πρεσβυτέρων ἐν ταῖς
ἐκκλησίαις φυλασσομένην], they oppose the tradition, claiming that they are not only
wiser than the presbyters but also than the apostles.”^31 He is thus aware of the situa-
tion that had existed in both Clement of Rome and of the Shepherd in which bishops
and presbyters formed a plurality and the Roman church was thus governed by a
presbyterate. In some respects therefore previous bishops or presbyters could be said
to share in a διαδοχή if they presented a similar coherence with the “law, prophets,
and the Lord” that Hegesippus had observed, notwithstanding his failure to produce
a named succession list for one διάδοχος at Corinth or anywhere else except perhaps
Rome. But where was any single head like Speusippus who “succeeded [διεδέξατο]”
to the headship of the Academy following Plato’s death, and as διάδοχος inherited
physical ownership of buildings such as the shrine of the Muses erected by Plato in
the Academy, to which he added statues of the Charites?^32
Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, left a will, a version of which survives. Here
he states of his estate in Stagira: “the garden, and the walk, and the houses adjoin-
ing the garden, all and sundry, I bequeath to such of my friends hereinafter named
as may wish to study literature and philosophy there in common... on condition
that no one alienates the property or devotes it to his own private use, but so that
they hold it like a temple in joint possession.... Let the community consist of Hip-
parchus, Neleus, Strato, Callinus etc.”^33 The Strato here named on the list was to suc-
ceed to the headship of the Peripatic school. That he as head had a special claim on
the buildings is made clear in his own will that he leaves the school and the library
(excluding his own books) “to Lyco, since the rest are too old and others too busy.