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Silencing the Bishop, Part I: the Lonely Irenaeus ~

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Silencing the Bishop, Part I: the Lonely Irenaeus ~ 2 SILENCING THE BISHOP, PART I: THE LONELY IRENAEUS ~ lrenaeus and the Gospels: Argument and Artistry N one wall of my family room hang four handsome brass 0 rubbings of the symbols of the four Gospels, taken from a mould from the tomb of Gijsbert Willemszoen de Raet (d. I 5 I I, original in the Rijksmuseum). They were expertly made by my wife in the autumn of I988 at the Cambridge Brass Rubbing Centre, located then at the Round Church, a famous Cambridge landmark. The Gospel of Matthew is depicted in the form of a man, Mark in the form of a lion, Luke in the form of an ox, and John in the form of an eagle, these forms being based on the description of the four living creatures who surround the throne of God in heaven, in the book ofRevelation, chapter 4· And what do these distinguished brass rubbings have to do with Irenaeus of Lyons and the subject of the present chapter? I think of Irenaeus often when I see them because he is the first known source for the well-known symbolism of the four Gospels which they represent (even though in his original version the symbols for Mark and John are switched). 34 SILENCING THE BISHOP, I Illustration 2.1 The Four Gospels. Brass rubbings from the tomb ofGijsbert Willemszoen de Raet. Photographs by Charity Hill. If anyone has viewed, to takejust one more example, folio 27V of the Book ofKells, housed in the Old Library ofTrinity College, Dublin, or any number of representations of the four Gospels in stained-glass windows or in other church art, one has participated in the visual legacy bequeathed to the world through Irenaeus. As Irenaeus explains: It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are, for, since there are four zones of the world in which we 35 SILENCING THE BISHOP, I live, and four principal winds [c( Ezek. 37.9], while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the 'pillar and ground' of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit oflife; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sitteth upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit. As also David says, when entreating His manifestation, 'Thou that sittest between the cherubim, shine forth' (Ps. 80. r). For, [as the Scripture] says, 'The first living creature was like a lion' (Rev. 4.7), symbolizing His effectual working, his leadership, and royal power; the second [living creature] was like a calf, signifying [His] sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but 'the third had, as it were, the face as of a man,'-an evident description of His advent as a human being; 'the fourth was like a flying eagle,' pointing out the gift of the Spirit hovering with his wings over the Church. And therefore the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ Jesus is seated. (AH J.rr.8) Irenaeus then, with a touch of artistry, goes on to remark on how the character of each of the four cherubim, fittingly, 'is in accord with' the way one of the four Gospel writers commences his Gospel: John's, for instance, is like a lion, relating Jesus' 'original [or 'ruling'], effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" '. So established are these four Gospels in the mind of Irenaeus that they may be compared to the angelic quartet which surround the very throne in heaven, according to the prophetic books of Ezekiel (chs. 1 and ro) and John (Revelation 4). Moreover, just as there are four winds, four corners of the earth, and four major biblical covenants, so there must be four Gospels. It is with such confidence that Irenaeus writes about the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. SILENCING THE BISHOP, I And it is this type of confidence that causes problems, as I'll now explain. Many popular authorities today claim that the four Gospels were not 'chosen' for the church until sometime in the fourth century. It may be that many scholarly authorities would like to do the same, but they know they cannot quite do so. And why not? Mostly because oflrenaeus. Based on a study oflrenaeus' writings, Graham Stanton is able to conclude that: 'By the time Irenaeus wrote in about I So AD, the fourfold Gospel was very well established. Irenaeus is not defending an innovation, but explain­ ing why, unlike the heretics, the church had four gospels, no more, no less: she has received four written accounts of the one Gospel from the apostles and their immediate followers.' 1 Well established by I So AD? As the reader might guess, other scholars take strong exception to Stanton's evaluation. 2 Indeed, it seems far too easy to refute Irenaeus' argument in Against Heresies 3.Ir.S. 'Irenaeus's speculation that there are four gospels because there are four winds and four cardinal directions is simply implausible, even as humor', writes Robert W. Funk.3 McDonald reports that 'Ire­ naeus employs arguments that by today's standards are considered strange, and even in the ancient world his reasoning for limiting the Gospels to four was not the most convincing line of argu­ ment'. 4 One might, then, surmise that Irenaeus must be trying desperately to convince his contemporaries ofhis position, other­ wise he would not resort to arguments so 'fanciful' and 'tortured'. 5 One thing this shows, however, is how easy it is to mistake the nature oflrenaeus' argument in Against Heresies 3 .I r.S. Despite his statement that 'It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are', Irenaeus' argument is not one of logical necessity but of aesthetic necessity, of harmony, beauty, or proportion.6 'It is fitting', he says, that there are four 37 SILENCING THE BISHOP, I and only four; the characters of the four cherubim are 'in accord with' the characters of the four Gospels. Later in the passage he reiterates, 'there cannot be more or fewer than those we have mentioned. For since God made everything with harmony and proportion, it was necessary for the form of the Gospel to be harmonious and in proportion' (AH J.II.9)_7 Eric Osbom traces the background for Irenaeus' oft-recurring notions of 'fittingness' or 'appropriateness' in earlier Greek and Latin philosophical and artistic sources, from Plato and Aristotle to Irenaeus' day. 8 He aptly summarizes that, for Irenaeus, 'the aes­ thetic unity of the Gospels ... reflects the unity of the creation'.9 Thus, objections to Irenaeus' argument in AH J.II.8 as logically uncompelling are a bit beside the point. To meet his 'argument' here one would probably have to begin by arguing that there is no harmony, proportion, or beauty to creation. This is an argument some might make today, but not one that many would have made in Irenaeus' day. In any case, to focus on this aesthetic argument in AH J. 11.8 as the sole reason for accepting or rejecting Irenaeus' contentions about the 'givenness' of the fourfold Gospel is to miss a lot. For, whatever one ultimately thinks about such an argument, it is not the real 'argument'; it does not constitute the strength of the case for the kind of conclusion Stanton draws. Irenaeus 'argument' both here and elsewhere relies on these Gospels already having an underlying plausibility to his readers. Before making the comparisons in J.I 1.8 Irenaeus had dec­ lared: 'We have learned from none others the plan of our salva­ tion, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, SILENCING THE BISHOP, I to be the ground and pillar of our faith' (AH J.I.I). He then proceeded to describe the origins of these four Gospels: Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect ... Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also handed down to us in writing what was being preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast [see John IJ.2J], himselfpublished a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. 10 Even if one rejects his claim that these Gospels go all the way back to the apostles and their companions, the claim was appar­ ently quite believable to Irenaeus' contemporaries. We happen to know (as we'll see in more detail in Chapter ID) that at least the first two traditions, those concerning Matthew and Mark, were already in circulation some sixty-to-eighty years before Irenaeus wrote, and there is reason to think that the traditions about the other two Gospels were circulating then too. Irenaeus' assertions about the normativity of these four Gospels were plausible to his readers because they knew these same four Gospels and knew that they had already had a long history of use in the church. Thus it was easy to believe that they had always been in use, since the time they were handed to the church by the apostles or their eo-workers.
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