IRENJEUS. Bishop of Lyons, is supposed to have been a Greek by birth, and to have been born near the city of Smyrna, about the middle of the second century. He ac quired in his youth a competent acquaintance with the philosophy and literature which were then held in estima tion in his native country; and, at an early age, was placed tinder the instruction of Polyearp, Bishop of Smyrna, who had been the disciple of the Evangelist John. Nothing more is known of his history till the year 177, or, accord ing to others. 167. when he is found acting as presbyter of the church of Lyons in France, under Pothinus. who was bishop of that see. The church at Lyons had been planted, at no very remote period, by missionaries front some of the Asiatic churches, and thus probably continued to re ceive pastors from the same quarter. In 177, when the persecution of the Christians, under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, raged with great violence in France, particular ly in Lyons and Vienne, an epistle, containing an account of their sufferings, was written to the churches in Asia, and is generally understood to have been drawn up by I•enxus. Pothinus, the bishop, having suffered martyrdom in this persecution, Iretixus was chosen as his about the year 179. In the following year, the death of Aurelius afforded a respite to the Christians, which con tinued with little intermission till the year 202, in the reign of Severus ; hut during this period of external peace, the Christian church was agitated by pestilent heresies of every description. tremens applied himself, with the utmost assiduity, to detect the machinations and expose the errors of the corrupters of the faith ; and to his unwearied exer tions in word and writing, it is principally ascribed, that few of these false systems, though afterwaids revived, ob tamed in his time a permanent footing. Between the years 180 and 192 he produced his celebrated treatise against heresies, which is the only one of his works now extant.' It sufficiently proves him to have been a diligent inves tigator and acute reasoner, as well as a faithful defender of sound principles; and though the greater part of the tenets which he opposes may appear to modern readers too mon strous and absurd to have required a refutation, yet the merit of his labours cannot fairly be estimated by those who enjoy the advantages which flow from the diffusion of true science and the general circulation of the sacred Scriptures. About the year 196, when Victor, Bishop of
Rome, revived the dispute respecting the observance of Easter, and attempted, in a most imperious manner, to im pose the Roman practice upon the Asiatic churches, Ire nxus exerted himself, by letters to Victor and other bishops, to allay the violence with which the matter was agitated, and to maintain the peace and unity of the church. Toe external tranquillity which had thus been abused by 'animosities and contentions among the Christian pastors, was at length interrupted, in the beginning of the third century, by the persecution under Septimus Severus; which, though principally directed against Alexandria, was severely felt in other parts of the empire, and especially at Lyons, where the emperor is supposed to have formerly governed, when Pothinus was put to death. In this per secution, according to the testimony of Gregory of Tours, Irenxus, after suffering with magnanimous resolution various courses of torture, was finally put to death, accord ing to some writers, in the year 202, when the emperor first published his edict, or, as others suppose, in 208, when he passed through Lyons in his expedition to Britain. The other works of Irenxus, mentioned by Eusebius, were, a book against the Gentiles concerning knowledge ; a de scription of the Apostolic preaching ; a book of tracts ; a letter to Victor, Bishop of Rome, concerning Easter, of which a fragment is preserved by Eusebius ; a letter to Blastus concerning schism ; a letter to Horinus concern ing the government of one God, of which some passages remain ; a book concerning the number eight, addressed to the same Horinus, who had embraced the Valentinian heresy. See Mosheim's Church History, vol. i. ; Lardner's Works, vol. ii. ; Milner's Church History, vol. i. ; Christian Observer, vol. iv. ; Cave's Hist. Liter. vol. i. )