Moreover, I urge you to do nothing in a spirit of contentiousness, but in accordance with the teaching of Christ. For I heard some people say, “If I do not find it in the archives, I do not believe it in the gospel.” And when I said to them, “It is written,” they answered me, “That is precisely the question.” But for me, the “archives” are Jesus Christ, the inviolable archives are his cross and death and his reusrrection and the faith which comes through him; by these things I want, through your prayers, to be justified.
The priests, too, were good, but the High Priest, entrusted with the Holy of Holies, is better; he alone has been entrusted with the hidden things of God, for he himself is the door of the Father, through which Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets and the apostles and the church enter in. All these come together in the unity of God. But the gospel possesses something distinctive, namely, the coming of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, his suffering, and his resurrection. For the beloved prophets preached in anticipation of him, but the gospel is the imperishable finished work. All these things together are good, if you believe with love. (Ignatius, Letter to the Philadelphians, 8-9, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002], Ed. Michael Holmes, pp. 181, 183)
The Word Made Text becomes the Word Made Flesh
How does this compare with Irenaeus?
When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but vivâ voce: wherefore also Paul declared, “But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world.” And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even been indifferently in any other opponent, who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. For every one of these men, being altogether of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of truth, is not ashamed to preach himself.
But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour; and that not the apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge, at another from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator after a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition. (III.2)
I just saw that George Salmon remarked on the Irenaeus passage thus: “And to make the analogy complete, Irenaeus goes on to complain that when the Church met these heretics on their own ground of tradition, then they had recourse to a theory of development claiming to be then in possession of purer doctrine than that which the Apostles had been content to teach.”
This may not be fair. Rome claims her developments are altogether consistent with the Apostolic preaching. Irenaeus implies that the innovators disparaged Christ and the Apostles, saying that they corrupted the the true teachings by sometimes using a sort of noble lie. Even so, the passage is interesting.
Iohannes,
When I look at the New Testament writings, e.g., what we’ve already examined from Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, I see a consistency between them, on the one hand, and the words of both Ignatius and Irenaeus on the other. Regarding Ignatius, I don’t see him necessarily talking about what Apolonio was presenting, so much as I see him reiterating what Luke recorded, namely, that the Christ-event is the climax of Salvation History. Thus, I doubt that Ignatius would not have done exactly what we see the Apostles doing in Acts of the Apostles, namely, showing how Christ is the fulfillment of the “archives.” So I see Ignatius as saying that he works backwards, that is, from Christ to the Scriptures, not from the Scriptures to Christ.
Salmon’s observation is quite interesting. I need to think about some more, though.
Kepha, Thanks for the answer. I think you have the right approach to Ignatius’s words. The passage still is a little different to interpret, e.g., isn’t there a textual difficulty with the word rendered “archives”? Any way, my purpose certainly wasn’t to pit Irenaeus against Ignatius, only to look at the relationship between their assertions.