Irenaeus, the "Canon of Truth," and the Gospel Of
IRENAEUS, THE “CANON OF TRUTH,” AND THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: “MAKING A DIFFERENCE” THROUGH HERMENEUTICS AND RITUAL by ELAINE PAGELS As is well known, Irenaeus of Lyons set out to “make a di Verence”1 between Christians in order to demonstrate that those he calls “followers of Ptolemy” (and so, he implies, of Valentinus), while commonly accepted as fellow believers, were, in fact, apostates and heretics. This article sug- gests that what concerned Irenaeus was not so much that they held beliefs and ideas that diVered from his own, but that they engaged in practices intended to e Vect apolutrôsis (“redemption,” sometimes called “second bap- tism”). Second, this article shows how Irenaeus, determined to develop a practical antidote to this heretical “poison,” used language he found in the Gospel of John to radically revise what he called “the canon of truth received 1 In borrowing this phrase from Daniel Boyarin, I am glad to acknowledge my indebt- edness to him, both in conversation, and to the insights expressed in his forthcoming work, in which he uses this phrase to refer to questions of di Verence involving Jews and Christians. In the preparation of this research, I am grateful also to other col- leagues and friends who have read it in earlier stages, and have o Vered comments and criticism, especially to Anthony Grafton, Peter Brown, Susannah Elm, and the other members of the Davis Seminar at Princeton University, where the paper was rst pre- sented. I owe special thanks, as well, to Virginia Burrus, Karen King, Rebecca Lyman, Peter Schäfer, Michael Stone, and Annette Reed.
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