Can these two reports be linked? The writings of Irenaeus might help in this regard. They provide us with a treasure trove of statements about his close relationship with Commodus. We have already established that a great number of Catholics remained fixed in the Imperial court of the Antonine Emperors. Irenaeus provides us with a contemporary accusation from the ‘Marcionites’ that he and and his associates were ‘in the pocket’ of Commodus. Irenaeus is recognizes the force of the charge (i.e. he admits that they receive money and support from Caesar) but adds ‘we do good works with the money, we give lots of it to the poor and take care of widows …’ (cf AH, IV, 30, 1)
It is interesting to note also that throughout his writings Irenaeus makes clear that ‘punishments’ await the heretics who disagree with his reforms. He says that “those that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished” (AH iv. 27.4) and that “lest, therefore, we should incur the same punishment as these men, the Lord reveals [to us] their end.” (ibid iv.2.4)
Irenaeus specifically speaks of ‘punishments’ and ‘dangers’ for the members of the ‘Marcionite’ sect. He says that:
if reject these (reforms), they will then possess no Gospel at all … but if, on the other hand, they feel compelled to receive the remaining portions also, then, by studying the perfect Gospel, and the doctrine of the apostles, they will find it necessary to repent, that they may be saved from the danger (to which they are exposed). [ibid iii. 14. 4]
It is therefore with good reason that Irenaeus describes the Catholic Church as a “harbour of safety to those in peril” in this age of turbulence (ibid V.34.3). All that is required from the repentant is to acknowledge turning away from the beliefs of previous ages (ibid) and to embrace the reforms encouraged by Irenaeus and the Imperial court of Commodus.
Of course what is missing in all of this is ‘the smoking gun.’ Can we actually prove that Irenaeus’ reforms were being prompted by ‘outsiders’ who sat alongside the Catholics at the court of Commodus? While it is difficult to get an exact name list of who was part of the Emperor’s inner circle, it is absolutely clear that Celsus and Irenaeus wrote their documents at the same period (Celsus c. 178 CE, Irenaeus c. 180 CE) in Rome. Many of Irenaeus arguments against the Marcionites seem to have been lifted from Celsus anti-Christian treatise. Indeed Celsus’ influence over subsequent Antonine Imperial courts is evidenced by the fact that Origen felt the need to respond to the text seventy years after it was originally written (c 248 CE).
The chief aim of Celsus’ original work was to demand changes to the underlying monistic principle at the heart of Christianity. As Celsus sees it the Christians emphasis on worshipping only one master stands in the way of them joining Roman society at large. When for instance the gospel makes Jesus’ says that Christians can only serve one master, it was really a covert statement encouraging Christians to resist the authority of Caesar (Against Celsus viii:2). And so Celsus argues “he who, when speaking of God, asserts that there is only one who may be called Lord, speaks impiously, for he divides the kingdom of God, and raises a sedition therein, implying that there are separate factions in the divine kingdom, and that there exists one who is His enemy” – i.e. Caesar. (ibid viii: 11)
Celsus’ solution to the problem of Christianity was to sever it from its original monistic obsession. The religion could not be allowed to continue as a religion of ‘only one’ – i.e. an exclusive worship of the God who was above all things. It would have to recognize the lower powers – the angels and tutelary spirits – the ones which guided the seasons and controlled the world on the Creator’s behalf.
So it is that Celsus implores the court that they must force Christianity to change its focus. “They must either not live, and indeed not come into this life at all, or we must do so on condition that we give thanks and first-fruits and prayers to daemons, who have been set over the things of this world [emphasis mine]: and that they must do as long as they live, that they may prove good and kind.” (ibid viii:23)
Yet it is impossible not to see what these tutelary spirits are which Celsus refers to here. We see repeated reference to the four winds in art and literature in the period as the spirits which guided the change of seasons which in turn governed the agricultural cycle. The image adorns a great number of coins in the Commodian period (Akerman, Descriptive Catalogue of Roman Coins p. 317 f). So in a sense – it is impossible not to see that Celsus is really advocating the introduction of a quadriform principle into Christianity to ‘encourage’ it away from its traditionally exclusive monism.
No one should be surprise that we see Irenaeus advance exactly this kind of reform in a Christianity a year or two after Celsus original request. We see an appeal to the four seasons at the beginning of Irenaeus arguments for the fourfold gospel – i.e. he says that it is ‘only natural’ that the gospels be made to resemble the daemonic spirits of the four winds which control the world. For:
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, 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. (AH iii:11)
It is simply impossible to argue that Irenaeus was not reacting to Celsus’ original testimony. Celsus’ words were developed at the highest ranks of society. They remained influential almost a century after they were written and Irenaeus can be demonstrate to cite arguments against the Marcionites first developed by Celsus elsewhere in his text.
Given the fact that both men were undoubtedly well acquainted with the Imperial court it would only be natural to assume that Irenaeus accepted Celsus’ original request. Celsus complained that Christians don’t venerate the basic principles of life enough. There can be no doubt that an underlying hostility against the world did indeed permeate the ‘Marcionite’ tradition. So it is that while we take for granted Irenaeus’ reforms and his embracing not only the worldly principle of four winds but indeed the Creator and his creation – i.e. the world – traditional Christians of the age would have been scandalized by it. They maintained an exclusive interest in the world to come.
Once we open this vista we can see why Irenaeus wanted to encourage the adoption of a fourfold canon. There was kind of a ‘buzz’ going round the court of Commodus. The Emperor almost inevitably portrayed himself as standing as a god between the four winds. At the same time pagans like Celsus were arguing that Christianity had to be reformed along principles that were favorable to this wicked and bloodthirsty Emperor.
In the end Irenaeus has to be seen to have been influenced by the demand leveled by Celsus that Christians of the Commodian age:
must make their choice between two alternatives. If they refuse to render due service to the gods, and to respect those who are set over this service, let them not come to manhood, or marry wives, or have children, or indeed take any share in the affairs of life; but let them depart hence with all speed, and leave no posterity behind them, that such a race may become extinct from the face of the earth. Or, on the other hand, if they will take wives, and bring up children, and taste of the fruits of the earth, and partake of all the blessings of life, and bear its appointed sorrows (for nature herself hath allotted sorrows to all men; for sorrows must exist, and earth is the only place for them), then must they discharge the duties of life until they are released from its bonds, and render due honour to those beings who control the affairs of this life, if they would not show themselves ungrateful to them. For it would be unjust in them, after receiving the good things which they dispense, to pay them no tribute in return. (Against Celsus viii:65).
Irenaeus could not completely resist the contemporary pressures to reform Christianity along worldly principles. Irenaeus was offering up exactly the compromise demanded by Celsus not only with his call for a fourfold canon but again a consistent call throughout the same work for Christianity to learn to embrace the Creator and his creation and to stop the devaluation of materialism and material things which had been the hallmark of Marcionite Christianity.
The Marcionite jibe that Irenaeus and his cohorts were in ‘the pocket of Caesar’ was especially poignant given the number of coins that were adorned with images of the four winds …
Of course we do not have to limit ourselves to the reconstruction of contemporary literature in the Commodian period to see proof that there was an Imperially inspired effort to corrupt the single, long gospel. The same historical event is recorded in a number of Arabic manuscripts including the eleventh century Establishment of Proofs for the Prophethood of Our Master Mohammed by ‘Abd al Jabbar. Shlomo Pines of Hebrew University has traced this report back to a lost original Jewish-Christian document from the fourth or fifth century. The text describes the very same persecutions at the time of Commodus and the accompanying effort to transform the master gospel along pagan principles.
Al Jabbar reports that at the beginning of the Catholic Church:
the Romans reigned over them. The Christians (used to) complain to the Romans about the Jews, showed them their own weakness and appealed to their pity. And the Romans did pity them. This (used) to happen frequently. And the Romans said to the Christians: "Between us and the Jews there is a pact which (obliges us) not to change their religious laws. But if you would abandon their laws and separate yourselves from them, praying as we do (while facing) the East, eating (the things) we eat, and regarding as permissible that which we consider as such, we should help you and make you powerful, and the Jews would find no way (to harm you). On the contrary, you would be more powerful than they."
The Christians answered: "We will do this." (And the Romans) said: "Go, fetch your companions, and bring your Book." (The Christians) went to their companions, informed them of (what had taken place) between them and the Romans and said to them: "Bring the Gospel, and stand up so that we should go to them."
The text goes on to describe how the Romans ultimately transformed the single gospel into a fourfold text. It also mentions ‘dissenters’ to this corruption process and the involvement of disreputable presbyters like Irenaeus:
But these said to them: "You have done ill. We are not permitted (to let) the Romans pollute the Gospel. In giving a favorable answer to the Romans, you have accordingly departed from the religion. We are (therefore) no longer permitted to associate with you; on the contrary, we are obliged to declare that there is nothing in common between us and you;" and they prevented their (taking possession of) the Gospel or gaining access to it. In consequence a violent quarrel (broke out) between (the two groups). Those (mentioned in the first place) went back to the Romans and said to them: "Help us against these companions of ours before (helping us) against the Jews, and take away from them on our behalf our Book." Thereupon (the companions of whom they had spoken) fled the country. And the Romans wrote concerning them to their governors in the districts of Mosul and in the Jazirat al-'Arab. Accordingly, a search was made for them; some were caught and burned, others were killed.
(As for) those who had given a favorable answer to the Romans they came together and took counsel as to how to replace the Gospel, seeing that it was lost to them. (Thus) the opinion that a Gospel should be composed was established among them. They said: "the Torah (consists) only of (narratives concerning) the births of the prophets and of the histories of their lives. We are going to construct a Gospel according to this (pattern).
Everyone among us is going to call to mind that which he remembers of the words of the Gospel and of (the things) about which the Christians talked among themselves (when speaking) of Christ." Accordingly … four Gospels were left which are due to four individuals.
Al Jabbar quotes his original source as concluding that:
If the Christians would consider these things, they would know that the Gospels which are with them are of no profit to them, and that the knowledge claimed (on their behalf) by their masters and the authors (of the Gospels) is not (found) in them, and that on this point) things are just as we have said---it is a well-known (fact) which is referred to here (namely the fact that they have abandoned the religion of Christ and turned towards) the religious doctrines of the Romans, prizing and (seeking to obtain) in haste the profits which could be derived from their domination and their riches.'
The same ideas are also reflected in a number of documents preserved by the Ethiopian Church. At the end of one of their oldest native document, the Kebra Negast, we see a garbled reference to Irenaeus leading a persecution against the Marcionites were the original Church doctrine was corrupted:
the king of Rome … shall transgress and provoke God to wrath in the faith. The faith which we have ordered and laid down shall a king transgress who shall come in Rome, and there shall be associated with him a certain archbishop, and they shall change and pervert the word of the Twelve Apostles, and they shall cast it aside in the desire of their hearts and they shall teach what they wish … and when they have destroyed the faith the vanquisher and the enemy from the king who shall not guard the faith … shall make war upon him and defeat him, and it seems to me that his name is Marcion the Apostate. And the king … whose name is Irenaeus (Harênêwôs) shall conquer him, and the king shall carry him away, together with his horse, and by the will of God the horse on which the vanquisher of the enemy shall be stirred up and shall go into the sea and perish therein. But the nails shall shine there in the sea until Christ shall come again in great glory upon a cloud in heaven, together with power.
I have Rory Boid, one of the world’s leading Semitic language experts currently working on a better translation than Budge’s original from the last century.
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Stephan Huller's Observations by stephanhuller.blogspot.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
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