Paul Saieg: The Use of Theology: Reading as a Spiritual Exercise in Irenaeus of Lyons

Since the days of Bauer and Harnack, the primary use of theology in Irenaeus has most often been studied in terms of the politics of in-group membership. In his History of Dogma, Harnack famously wrote of Irenaeus that in his works "one must be a member of the Church to partake of salvation because in her alone one can find the creed that must be recognized as the condition of redemption" (History of Dogma, 2, 76). More recently, this sentiment has been echoed by David Brakke who treats Irenaeus' theology as one of several "strategies for differentiating [Irenaeus'] own community and beliefs from those of other Christians" (The Gnostics, 120). Likewise, more sympathetic treatments that aim to explicate Irenaeus' theology in se have also followed Harnack's suggestion that the use of theology was political by reading Irenaeus' theology in its polemic context without exploring other non-polemic uses. These approaches to the use of theology have been and continue to be fecund projects of research that have deeply enriched our understanding of Irenaeus and second century Christianity more generally. However, while Irenaeus doubtless used theology to delineate group boundaries, this cannot be the whole story. There must be a reason why dogma could be used as a dividing line. In this paper I will break with the tradition of Bauer and Harnack to propose another use that Irenaeus makes of theology, a use which undergirds and explains its political use. Contrary to our usual expectation that Irenaeus’ theology (especially the rule of truth) is a set of propositions that demanded assent as a condition for political membership in the church, I will demonstrate, through a close reading of AH 5.8, that for Irenaeus the use of theology was primarily ascetic. Specifically, I will argue that for Irenaeus the usefulness of theology was to be found in the transformation of the self structured by the daily, ascetic discipline of meditatio, which Irenaeus says is integral to the process of God's ongoing creation of the human being. Once the members of his community had received the rule of truth and the Spirit together in baptism, they had to mature, grow and become able to both bear and keep the Spirit by using the rule of truth in meditatio because this form askesis alone allowed Christians undergo the palpable and public transformation of the self in thought, affect, and action that mixed their bodies, souls, and subjectivities with the Spirit of God and so allowed them to ascend to Christ through the Spirit.