St. Irenaeus and the “Canon of Truth”
Denouncing the Gnostic mishandling of Scriptures, St. Irenaeus introduced a picturesque simile. A skillful artist has made a beautiful image of a king, composed of many precious jewels. Now, another man takes this mosaic image apart, re-arranges the stones in another pattern so as to produce the image of a dog or of a fox. Then he starts claiming that this was the original picture, by the first master, under the pretext that the gems (the ψηφιδες) were authentic. In fact, however, the original design had been destroyed — λυσας την υποκειμενην του ανθρωπου ιδεαν. This is precisely what the heretics do with the Scripture. They disregard and disrupt "the order and connection" of the Holy Writ and "dismember the truth" — λυοντες τα μελη της αληθειας. Words, expressions, and images —ρηματα, λεξεις παραβολαι —are genuine, indeed, but the design, the υποθεσις (ipothesis), is arbitrary and false (adv. haeres., 1. 8. 1). St. Irenaeus suggested as well another analogy. There were in circulation at that time certain Homerocentones, composed of genuine verses of Homer, but taken at random and out of context, and re-arranged in arbitrary manner. All particular verses were truly Homeric, but the new story, fabricated by the means of re-arrangement, was not Homeric at all. Yet, one could be easily deceived by the familiar sound of the Homeric idiom (1.9.4). It is worth noticing that Tertullian also refers to these curious centones, made of Homeric or Virgilian verses (de praescr., XXXIX). Apparently, it was a common device in the polemical literature of that time. Now, the point which St. Irenaeus endeavored to make is obvious. Scripture had its own pattern or design, its internal structure and harmony. The heretics ignore this pattern, or rather substitute their own instead. In other words, they re-arrange the Scriptural evidence on a pattern which is quite alien to the Scripture itself. Now, contended St. Irenaeus, those who had kept unbending that "canon of truth" which they had received at baptism, will have no difficulty in "restoring each expression to its appropriate place." Then they are able to behold the true image. The actual phrase used by St. Irenaeus is peculiar: προσαρμοσας τω της αληθειας σωματιω (prosarmosas to tis alithias somatio; which is clumsily rendered in the old Latin translation as corpusculum veritatis). But the meaning of the phrase is quite clear. The somatio is not necessarily a diminutive. It simply denotes a "corporate body." In the phrase of St. Irenaeus it denotes the corpus of truth, the right context, the original design, the "true image," the original disposition of gems and verses [Cf. F. Kattenbusch, Das Apostolische Symbol, Bd. II (Leipzig, 1900), ss. 30 ff., and also his note in the "Zeitschrift f. neutest. Theologie," x (1909), ss. 331-332]. Thus, for St. Irenaeus, the reading of Scripture must be guided by the "rule" of faith — to which believers are committed (and into which they are initiated) by their baptismal profession, and by which only the basic message, or "the truth," of the Scripture can be adequately assessed and identified. The favorite phrase of St. Irenaeus was "the rule of truth," κανων της αλιθειας (kanon tis alithias), regula veritatis. Now, this "rule" was, in fact, nothing else than the witness and preaching of the Apostles, their κηρυγμα (kirigma) and praedicatio (or praeconium), which was "deposited" in the Church and entrusted to her by the Apostles, and then was faithfully kept and handed down, with complete unanimity in all places, by the succession of accredited pastors: Those who, together with the succession of the episcopacy, have received the firm charisma of truth [IV. 26. 2]. Whatever the direct and exact connotation of this pregnant phrase may be [It has been contended that charisma veritatis was actually simply the Apostolic doctrine and the truth (of the Divine Revelation), so that St. Irenaeus did not imply any special ministerial endowment of the bishops. See Karl Müller, Kleine Beiträge zur alten Kirchengeschichte, 3. Das Charisma veritatis und der Episcopat bei Irenaeus, in "Zeitschrift f. neut. Wissenschaft," Bd. xxiii (1924), ss. 216-222; cf. van den Eynde, pp. 183-187; Y. M. J. Congar, O.P., La Tradition et ler traditions, Êtude historique (Paris, 1960), pp. 97-98; Hans Freiherr von Campenhausen, Kirchliches Amt und geistliche Vollmacht in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten(Tübingen, 1953), ss. 185 ff.; and also-with the special emphasis on the character of "Succession" — Einar Molland, Irenaeus of Lugdunum and the Apostolic Succession, in the "Journal of Ecclesiastical History," 1.1, 1950, pp. 12-28, and Le développement de 1’idée de succession apostolique, in the "Revue d’historie et de philosophie réligieuses," xxxiv.i, 1954, pp. 1-29. See, on the other hand, the critical remarks of Arnold Ehrhardt, The Apostolic Succession in the first two centuries of the Church (London, 1953), pp. 207-231, esp. 213-214], there can be no doubt that, in the mind of St. Irenaeus, this continuous preservation and transmission of the deposited faith was operated and guided by the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The whole conception of the Church in St. Irenaeus was at once "charismatic" and "institutional." And "Tradition" was, in his understanding, a depositum juvenescens, a living tradition, entrusted to the Church as a new breath of life, just as breath was bestowed upon the first man — (quemadmodum aspiratio plasmationis III. 24. 1). Bishops or "presbyters" were in the Church accredited guardians and ministers of this once deposited truth. "Where, therefore, the charismata of the Lord have been deposited (posita sunt), there is it proper to learn the truth, namely from those who have that succession of the Church which is from the Apostles (apud quos est ea quae est ab apostolis ecclesiae successio), and who display a sound and blameless conduct and an unadulterated and incorrupt speech. For these also preserve this faith of ours in one God who created all things, and they increase that love for the Son of God, who accomplished such marvellous dispensation for our sake, and they expound the Scriptures to us without danger, neither blaspheming God, nor dishonoring the patriarchs, nor despising the prophets" (IV. 26. 5).

The regula fidei
Tradition was in the Early Church, first of all, an hermeneutical principle and method. Scripture could be rightly and fully assessed and understood only in the light and in the context of the living Apostolic Tradition, which was an integral factor of Christian existence. It was so, of course, not because Tradition could add anything to what has been manifested in the Scripture, but because it provided that living context, the comprehensive perspective, in which only the true "intention" and the total "design" of the Holy Writ, itself of Divine Revelation, could be detected and grasped. The truth was, according to St. Irenaeus, a "well-grounded system," a corpus (adv. haeres. II. 27. 1 — veritatis corpus), a "harmonious melody" (II. 38. 3). But it was precisely this "harmony" which could be grasped only by the insight of faith. Indeed, Tradition was not just a transmission of inherited doctrines, in a "Judaic manner," but rather the continuous life in the truth [Cf. Dom Odo Casel O.S.B., Benedict von Nursia als Pneumatiker, in "Heilige Überlieferung" (Münster, 1938), ss. 100-101: Die heilige Überlieferung ist daher in der Kirche von Anfang an nicht bloss ein Weitergeben von Doktrinen nach spätjudischen (nachchristlicher) Art gewesen, sondern ein lebendiges Weiterblühen des göttlichen Lebens. In a footnote Dom Casel sends the reader back to John Adam Möhler]. It was not a fixed core or complex of binding propositions, but rather an insight into the meaning and impact of the revelatory events, of the revelation of the "God who acts." And this was determinative in the field of Biblical exegesis. G. L. Prestige has well put it: "The voice of the Bible could be plainly heard only if its text were interpreted broadly and rationally, in accordance with the apostolic creed and the evidence of the historical practice of Christendom. It was the heretics that relied on isolated texts, and the Catholics who paid more attention on the whole to scriptural principles" [G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics (London, 1940), p. 43]. Summarizing her careful analysis of the use of Tradition in the Early Church, Dr. Ellen Flessemanvan-Leer has written: "Scripture without interpretation is not Scripture at all; the moment it is used and becomes alive it is always interpreted Scripture." Now, Scripture must be interpreted "according to its own basic purpose," which is disclosed in the regula fidei. Thus, this regula becomes, as it were, the controlling instance in the exegesis. "Real interpretation of Scripture is Church preaching, is tradition" [Flesseman, pp. 92-96. On St. Irenaeus see Flesseman, 100-144; van den Eynde, 159-187; B. Reynders, Paradosis, Le progrès de l’idée tradition jusqu’ à Saint Irénée, in the "Recherches de théologie ancienne et mediévale," v (1933), 155-191; La polemique de Saint Irenee, ibidem, vii (1935), 5-27; Henri Holstein, La Tradition des Apotres chez Saint Irénée, in the "Recherches de Science réligieuse," xxxvi (1949), 229-270; La Tradition dans l’Eglise (Paris, 1960); André Benoit, Ecriture et Tradition chez Saint Irénée, in the "Révue d’histoire et de philosophie réligieuses," xL (1960), 32-43; Saint Irénée, Introduction á l’etude de sa théologie (Paris, 1960)].