The fact is, it is extremely doubtful if the author of the book against heresies ever saw Polycarp, and still more doubtful if Polycarp ever saw John. He says John leaped out of the bath when he saw Cerinthus. Now Cerinthus was a heretic, who lived about the middle of the second century. He described John as wearing the petalon, the bishops insignia of office. Fancy the retired fisherman, the beloved disciple, who was told by his master to carry neither purse nor scrip, wearing the priestly robes of office! George Reber, in his curious book, "The Christ of Paul," (New York, 1876), says (p. 178): "The studied dishonesty of Irenæus in attempting to palm off the Presbyter John for the Apostle, is as dark a piece of knavery as is to be found in the history of a church, which has encouraged such practices from the time it claimed to be the depositary of all the divine wealth left by the apostles."
Irenæus is alleged to have suffered martyrdon about 202, but there is no evidence of this prior to the ninth century, when Gregory of Tours first circulated a story to that effect. Even such orthodox writers as Cave, Basnage, Dodwell, and others, doubt the martyrdon, since neither Tertullian, Eusebius, Theodoret, nor other early writers refer to it. Two churches in Lyons dispupted for centuries about the possession of his relics, which the Catholics allege were afterwards sacriligeously despoiled by the Calvinists: a story often refuted. His sacred head is said to have been kicked about in the gutters, but of course it was miraculously restored to its place, and the skull, we believe, may be seen for a consideration at the present day. The original Greek text of the book against heresies is lost, and it exists only in a barbarous Latin version. At whatever time it was written, and it may probably be dated between 182 and 188, it testifies to the existence of numerous heresies in the Church. It contains many statements respecting the Gnostics, particularly the Valentinian heresy. There we may read of their peculiar theories concerning God and Christ. Some thought the Hebrew Jahveh a malignant deity whom Christ had come to destroy. Others were foolish and wicked enough to ask whence God got the matter for his creation. Cerinthus and his followers denied the virgin birth. Carpocrates and his school held that Jesus was the son of Joseph, and just like other men with the exception that inasmuch as his soul was stedfast and pure a power descended on him from the Father that by means of it he might escape from the creators of the world. Basilides taught that Jesus did not suffer death, but Simon of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross and was crucified in his stead. Irenæus does not forget to denounce these heretics as blasphemers and shameless sophists who speak not a word of sense. He calls them slippery serpents and other choice epithets such as the orthodox usually have in store for heretics, so that the reader is tempted to wish that the wretches could show cause why they should not summarily be damned. It is a notable fact that none of the heretical books or heretical gospels have been preserved; they come to us only through the medium of such representations as their opponents chose to make of them.
George Reber says: "The Fourth Gospel was written with no other purpose than to prove the incarnation, and that purpose is so persistently kept up in every line and verse, from the beginning to the end, that if we strike out this, and the miracles which are mere supports of the main idea, there is nothing left, and so with the third book against Heresies—it has but one theme. The writer sets out with the Logos idea of this gospel, which is never lost sight of. He finds proof in the traditions of the Church—in every page of the Old Testament—in the Synoptics as well as in the fourth Gospel; and as we read his misapplication of words and sentences, we should conclude that he was a lunatic if we did not know he was something else" (p. 188). "As we read whole pages in Irenæus, charging his adversaries with forgeries and false interpolations, we smile at the impudence and audacity of the man, who has done more to pollute the pages of history than any other, and whose footprints we can follow through the whole century, like the slime of a serpent" (p. 216).
Reber, it will be seen, can be as abusive as Irenæus himself. He calls him "one of the most dishonest historians of any age" and "the great criminal of the second century;" and endeavors to make out, on quite insufficient grounds, that he was the forger of the Gospel according to John.
Dr. Samuel Davidson, in his able work on "The Canon" (p. 155; 1880), says "Irenæus was credulous and blundering," and our case against him will be sufficient if we prove these charges.
The orthodox Dr. Donaldson observes: "What he says about the apostle John has the appearance of being, to say the least, highly colored" ("History of Christian Literature," vol. i., p. 157; 1864). The whole purport of his account concerning John was to refute heretics by the allegation of an apostolical succession which rests on his unsupported testimony alone. The author of the work against Heresies was essentially a priest, dwelling much on the authority of the priesthood and priestly traditions. He did more perhaps than any other to lay the foundations of the Romish hierarchy. In his third book, chapter four, he gives the opinion that every Church should agree with the Church of Rome on account of its pre-eminent authority.
He considers oral traditions of no less importance than Scripture, and cites Clement, Polycarp, and those who were alleged to have heard the apostles as decisive authorities. Hermes he calls divine Scripture. To be outside the Church is to be outside truth. Holy Scripture is only safely interpreted under control of the bishops.
Our Father cites the authority of John, and all the elders in Asia, for the assertion that the ministry of Jesus lasted twenty years, and that he was over fifty years of age when he was crucified. In the twenty-second chapter of his second book, he discusses the question at considerable length, and quotes John viii., 56-57, as establishing his opinion. For he argues the Jews would not have said to Jesus "Thou art not yet fifty years old," if he had only been thirty. Their object being to remind him of the short period he had been on earth, they certainly would not extend it eighteen or twenty years. If Irenæus was right in this important matter, the evidence of the Gospel history is falsified; if wrong, what is the worth of his testimony as to the origin of the four Gospels?
In regard to these he tells us there are mystic reasons why there could only be four Gospels. "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 live, and four principal winds [or four Catholic Spirits] while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the pillar and ground of the Church is the gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh" (Book iii., chap, xi, sect 8., p. 293). Dr. Giles in his "Christian Records" (p. 137), points out that as this work was written many years after the apologies of Justin Martyr, there was ample time in the interval for the compilation of our Gospels, out of the authentic "Memoirs of the Apostles" and "Sayings of our Lord."
In his third book, chapter xxi., Irenæus follows Justin in his foolish tale about the seventy Jewish elders, who made separate translations of the Bible into Greek in the very same words from beginning to end. He further tells us there was nothing astonishing in this since God inspired Ezra to re-write all the words of the former prophets and to re-establish the Mosaic law, destroyed during the captivity in Babylon. The object of making the Septuagint version of Divine authority, was because the quotations in the Christians' Scriptures were taken from it, strangely enough, had the writers of those Scriptures been Jews. But despite their boasted accuracy, Irenæus (book iii., chap, xx., sec. 4) quotes Isaiah as saying, "And the holy Lord remembered his dead Israel, who had slept in the land of sepulture; and he came down to preach his salvation to them that he might save them." In another place he quotes this same passage as from Jeremiah, but it is in neither prophet Justin in his dialogue with Trypho had brought it forward as an argument against him, and accused the Jews of having fraudulently removed it from the sacred text. The passage is, however, found in no ancient version or Jewish Targum, which fact may be regarded as a decisive proof of its spuriousness.