St. Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies at the request of a friend, perhaps a
bishop, who desired an exposition of heresies he was unfamiliar with. The
full name for Against Heresies is The Detection and Overthrow of the
Gnosis Falsely So-called. This enormous five-volume work was originally
written entirely in Greek between the years 180 and 199 AD. St. Irenaeus’
exposition of the Gnostic systems is sincere and well-informed. Up until
certain discoveries of Gnostic writings in the mid-1940’s the Against
Heresies was the primary source for knowledge of Gnostic beliefs. Hamell
in his work gives a succinct outline of these beliefs:
“God was distinguished from the Demiurge, Maker of the World,
and there was a hierarchy of Aeons or inferior gods. (1) There is
one God, separate from matter (eternal), the first syzygy, (a couple,
male and female), being produced by God himself directly, and it
produced a second – the complete series of aeons being the
Pleroma. As they recede from God the aeons become less perfect,
one finally goes astray, is cast out into a lower world and peoples it
with fresh aeons, and the declension in good continues. This
rejected aeon finally creates the material world – it is the
Demiurge, the God of the Jews and of evil. (3) Man is not entirely
corrupt. A divine seed or spark detached from the higher world by
the higher aeons was introduced into matter where the Demiurge
kept it prisoner and persecuted it…(4) Redemption aims at
delivering the divine spark in matter.”¹
The first volume of Against Heresies deals with the detection of the errors
of the various Gnostic sects, the second and fifth are devoted to refuting
these errors. In the fifth book are also found St. Irenaeus’ Chiliastic theories
(millennialism). The third book outlines the rule of faith for Christians,
which is the teaching of the Apostles preserved and passed on in its
integrity by the Church. The fourth book contains arguments from both the
Old and New Testaments, with a confirmation of the divine origin of the
Old Testament against the Marcionites. In refuting his opponents, St.
Irenaeus is never overawed by their pretentious abstractions, and at times
even mocks their follies with a malicious pleasure.
St. Irenaeus endeavored to expose the Gnostic claim of special knowledge
revealed only to “the perfect” as foreign to Apostolic tradition. The true
1
Patrick J. Hamell, Handbook of Patrology, Alba House, 1968, p. 47.
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