Tag Archives: St. Irenaeus

The Divine Quadrilemma

Bible, Defending the Faith, Faith and Reason, History, Paganism, Passion of Christ, The Life of Jesus, , , , ,

The greatest heresy in the history of the Church was the Arian heresy.  At one point during the Fifth Century, nearly 3/4 of the world’s bishops were Arian.  Arius posited that Jesus was not truly God but instead the greatest of God’s creatures.  The popularity of this heresy was due to the fact that it would enable Christianity to be palatable to both Pagans and Gnostics alike.  By denying the equality of the Father and the Son, Christianity would take a decidedly Pagan turn.  This is what made this particular heresy such a threat—it made Christianity more palatable to Pagans and could be a source of unity throughout the recently Christianized Roman Empire.  This blending of Christianity was, of course, rejected by the Council of Nicaea with St. Athanasius leading the charge.  It took a long time for the Nicene effect to be felt throughout the Church, but eventually the Arian Heresy was squashed.  Unfortunately, heresies never wholly die, but are reincarnated in different forms such that we have seen a revival of the errors of Arius in our own day.  This time it comes in the form of a religious eclecticism that attempts to blend all religions together.

In our day there are any number of people who say, “there are many paths up the mountain, but the view is the same at the top of the mountain.”  They present the metaphor usually as a defense of blending religions or choosing a religion that best suits them (as opposed to one that is true).  This religious indifferentism is really a substitution of spirituality for religion.  Spirituality is about self-fulfillment whereas religion is about a relationship with God.  But it is problematic for a more fundamental reason, one that is easily uncovered once we drop the metaphor and actually compare religions. 

To insist that they lead up the same mountain while simultaneously contradicting each other makes this hard to believe.  One says Jesus is God, another that He was a prophet, another that He is the brother of Lucifer, another that we are all gods, and another that says everything is God.  While it may be convenient to use the “same mountain” metaphor, the truth is that there is no way that Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Pantheism can be reconciled.  Depending on which you believe you will end up with vastly different conclusions.  They are not different paths on the same mountain, but different mountains all together.  

It may be possible to blend some religions together, but Christianity does not lend itself to any blending whatsoever.  This is because Jesus, in His infinite wisdom, has forced us all to take a stand.  Unlike any other religion, He made the claim to be God Incarnate.  That means that you must either accept that claim as true and relate to Him as absolute Lord or you must treat Him as a crazy, lying cult leader and dismiss everything He said.  If it is the latter, then to say that you like His teachings, that is to label Him as merely a human teacher, is not really an option.

The Quadrilemma

Those familiar with CS Lewis’ Christological trilemma will recognize this as a version of it.  Lewis said that you must treat Jesus as either lunatic, liar or Lord.  Those are the only three options.  You cannot treat Him as a merely human teacher however.  You either submit wholly to Him or you run as far away from His teachings as possible, even if some of them are actually helpful.  Lewis’ trilemma however is not impenetrable because, thanks to “biblical scholars” in our own time, there is now a fourth option that many people are choosing.  They claim that Jesus never actually said He was God.  And in this way, we see how the Arian heresy is coming back into play.

When we focus on whether Jesus actually said He was God (as opposed to whether or not that is true) we move from the realm of faith to that of history.  In other words, this is an attack on the historical reliability of the Gospels.  As an internal witness, the Bible is quite clear that Jesus made Divine claims.  But in order to grasp this, we must first take a necessary tangent in order to examine how He might say it.

The Internal Evidence

If the Incarnation were to have happened in our day and age you might expect Him to say (in English) “I am God.”  But if we look at the translations of the gospels we have today, we do not find such a direct statement, nor should we expect to.  We should expect that Jesus would say it the way a first Century Jew might.  Our Lord’s moments of self-revelation always invoke the Old Testament name for God, the same name He gave Moses and that the Jews treated as unutterable (YHWH).

In Greek, the language of the gospels, the Name is translated as egō eimi or “I am”.  This phrase is used in a number of places, but any time it is used in an absolute sense without any predicate, it refers to the Divine name.   The most obvious examples occur within John’s Gospel where we find he uttering things like: “unless you come to believe that I AM, you will surely die in your sins” (Jn 8:24).  Likewise, when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus in the Garden and announce it is Jesus they are seeking, He answers egō eimi.   In the ordinary sense it simply means “I am he” letting them know they have found who they were looking for.  However, those who hear this response fall to the ground suggesting that they are party to a theophany.

John’s Gospel, written later in the first Century, has a distinctive emphasis on the divinity of Christ because it was, according to Irenaeus, meant to counter some of the early Christological heresies that had arisen (Against Heresies, Book 3, Ch11).  But he is most certainly not the only one who uses this Jewish formulation for identifying Jesus as divine.  These references are found throughout the Synoptic Gospels as well.  First, there is the fact that only one reason is given for His crucifixion—blasphemy.  When on trial before the Sanhedrin, the High Priest asked Him:

“Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?”  Then Jesus answered, “I AM”; and “you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”  At that the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further need have we of witnesses?  You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as deserving to die.”

(Mk 14:55-64, c.f. Mt 26:59-66, Lk 22:66-71)

Notice that Jesus invokes the Divine Name and equates Himself with God by prophesying that He will sit at God’s right hand.  Likewise, He is also accused of blasphemy for setting Himself equal to God when He forgives sins (c.f. Mk 2:6-7, Mt 9:3).

Perhaps His clearest revelation comes in the form of a question to the Pharisees about whose son the Messiah will be.  They tell Him David, which He does not deny but He shakes their limited understanding by quoting from Psalm 110: “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet’? If David calls him ‘lord,’ how can he be his son?” (Mt 22:44-45, c.f. Mk 12:35–37; Lk 20:41–44)    By referring to the Messiah as both pre-existing David and David’s LORD, He is admitting to being God Incarnate.

The External Evidence

Those who challenge that Jesus said that He was God often overlook the fact that we have external evidence as well.  They try to attack the timing and historical accuracy of the Bible but forget that we have writings of the Apostolic Fathers that confirm what has been said has been received as such.  These writings show that Christ’s divinity was not something added later on but was understood to be true directly out of the hands of the Apostles.  There are numerous quotations that could be shared, but a few should suffice to show that the gospels are historically reliable.  First there is Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of John who was likely ordained by Peter who said, “For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians 18:2).  There is also the aforementioned St. Irenaeus, the disciple of St. Polycarp who was a disciple of John who said “…He indicates in clear terms that He is God, and that His advent was in Bethlehem…” (AH, Book 3, Chapter 20). Finally we have Pliny the Younger, a Roman Governor, describing Christians as “singing hymns to Christ as to a god” in a letter to the Emperor Trajan.

Given both the internal and external evidence, we must conclude that Jesus did make the claim that He was God.  This, of course, doesn’t prove that He was, but it does render our potential quadrilemma as a trilemma.  Christianity cannot be mixed with other religions because of the unique demands Jesus makes upon His followers.  He is either Lord or Liar, but you must choose one or the other.

The Chair of St. Peter and Pope St. Clement

Church, Church Fathers, Holy Orders, Magisterium, , , ,

St. Paul would often close his letters with a personal touch, mentioning those that held a special place in his heart.  His letter to the Philippians is not unique is that regard.  What is unique about this particular letter however is the man whom he mentions and what he says about him.  St. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, speaks of a man named Clement “whose name is listed in the book of life” (Philippians 4:3).  It is rare that the canon of Scripture canonizes a saint, but St. Clement is just such a man.  He was predestined to become a saint and therefore he did.  This Clement, according to Eusebius, became the fourth man to occupy the Chair of St. Peter.  In fact, next to St. Peter he may be the most influential of all 266 of them.

When the two pillars, St. Peter and St. Paul, were both martyred in 67AD the Church barely skipped a beat.  For any other human endeavor, to lose men of this relative importance so close in time (some say it was on the same day), would have signaled the death knell.  Instead the Church kept going and growing because the Apostles had formed the next generation the way that Jesus had formed them.  This next generation, whom we call the Apostolic Fathers, still “had the voice of the Apostles ringing in their ears” (St. Irenaeus’ description of Clement in Against Heresies).  Of these men, St. Clement, as a disciple of not only St. Paul, but also St. Peter, was one of the most prominent.  Although we do not know much about his history, Tertullian tells us he was both baptized and ordained a bishop by St. Peter himself.  He eventually became the fourth bishop of Rome in around the year 91, reigning for 9 years before being martyred during the persecution of Trajan.

A Monumental Letter

The fact that he had both seen and been acquainted with the Apostles gave him a great deal of credibility, but his influence has spread beyond his own time because of a letter that he wrote to the Church in Corinth around the year 96AD.  This letter has been passed down through posterity completely intact with many known copies.  Not only does it give us a glimpse into the life of the early Church, but it gives us the earliest known exercise of Papal Authority outside of Sacred Scripture (c.f. Acts 15).      

St. Paul himself once had to deal with schismatic groups forming within the Church of Corinth.  Some 50 years later, they are at it again.  This time a dispute arose over the liturgy arose and a schismatic group arose trying to expel the Bishop and the Presbyters.  When and how long this went on, we do not know.  What we do know is that it was brought before the attention of the fourth Pope.  He was unable to address it immediately because of a new round of persecutions spearheaded by the Emperor Domitian.  But once the Emperor died in the year 96AD, Clement turned to the issue at hand by writing them a letter.

The letter should be read by all of us, but there are a few points worth noting.  First, he opens with an apology for not addressing the issue sooner (because of the persecution).  This means that he saw it not just as an exhortation, but as a duty.  Second, Corinth is about 240 miles from Ephesus, the home of St. John the Apostle.  Rome is about 600 miles away.  St. John does not deal with the issue, but St. Clement does.  Third is that, the only reason why we have the letter to this day, is because it was received and read as an authoritative statement.  That is, after the letter is received, the schism is put to rest.  Again, how long it took, we do not know.  But we do know that it was.  In fact, the entire Church saw it as an authoritative document as it was read throughout the entire Church.  It was even read in the liturgy in many of those Churches leading many to lobby for its inclusion in the Biblical canon. Finally, we can not forget what was said at the beginning—Clement’s name is written in the Book of Life. If he is disobeying God’s plan for the Church and setting it down a divergent path then we must explain how he is still infallibly among the future blesseds.

Although intended specifically for the Church in Corinth it was relevant to all Christians of the time, and even in our own day, because it clearly demonstrates that the Church hierarchy including Papal primacy was in place before the close of the first Christian century.

The Fundamental Problem

For St. Clement the source of the problem in Corinth is an unwillingness to accept the hierarchy as ordained by God.  He reminds them that the hierarchy of Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Laymen was instituted by the Apostles.  He says that,

“the Apostles have preached the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both these appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God…preaching through countries and cities, they appointed the first-fruits [of their labors], having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe.”   


Letter to the Corinthians, (LC) 42

We find a similar structure enunciated in the first century Church manual The Didache (c.f. Chapter 15).

He then goes on to show why a hierarchy is fitting by pointing out that God had ordained such a hierarchy in the Old Covenant which is fulfilled (not abolished) in the New Covenant.  There can be no novelty in worship or in structural hierarchy.  The hierarchy is based not on subjection but mutual dependence.  St. Clement says,

“[T]hese things therefore being manifest to us, and since we look into the depths of the divine knowledge, it behooves us to do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times. He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to be done, He Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things, being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be acceptable unto Him. Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. For his own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen.”

LC, 40

The tone of Clement’s letter is very pastoral as he attempts to appeal to them in charity and faith.  But this means only that he waits until the end of the letter to remind them of their duty to obey him.  In fact, it is these latter paragraphs that make it abundantly obvious that Clement is exercising his prerogative based upon his primacy.

In language very reminiscent of St. Peter’s language at the Council of Jerusalem, St. Clement reminds them that the Holy Spirit speaks through him and to disobey will put them in spiritual danger—

“Accept our counsel, and you will nothing to regret.  For as God lives, and as the Lord Jesus Christ live and the Holy Spirit…as surely will he that humbly and with equanimity and without regret carries out the commandments and precepts given by God, be enrolled and chosen among the number of those who are being saved through Jesus Christ…If anyone disobeys the things which have been said by Him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger.”


LC 58-59

Given the clarity with which St. Clement wrote, it becomes very evident that the Pope is not a late Catholic invention.  In fact, to deny Papal primacy and the hierarchy of the Church is to say that the Church went off the rails even before the death of the last Apostle.  A very dangerous proposition, especially when the Scriptural canon was not even complete yet (John’s Gospel still wasn’t written).  For it is quite clear from Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians that Christians everywhere understood that the Bishop of Rome enjoyed a place of primacy and that each local Church, in union with the Bishop of Rome, had a hierarchy of its own.  And this is why both reading and knowing the Church Fathers is very important for Catholics.