St. Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130-202)

Bishop of Lyon in Gaul, born in Asia Minor, who as a boy heard St Polycarp speak of what he had heard from the Apostle John: two links from the Apostles, and he said so. Against the Gnostics, who taught a secret knowledge above the Church’s faith and a creator god beneath the true one, he wrote the five books Against Heresies, the first great work of Christian theology after the New Testament. His answers are the ones the Church still gives: there is one God who made the world and saved it; the faith is public and handed down through the bishops of the churches the Apostles founded; and Christ recapitulates Adam, living our life again rightly from its start. The glory of God is a living man, he wrote, and the life of man is the vision of God. Feast: August 23.