Irenaeus of Lyons and the Theology of Incarnational Discourse

This study sets forth the theology of incarnational discourse which undergirds the methodological criticism at work in Irenaeus of Lyons’ Adversus haereses, informed by the polemic strategies deployed within this work and attentive to the shared theological commitments which guide its argumentation. Through a careful analysis of Irenaeus’ representation of Valentinian theology, I identify and define two characteristic forms of diagnostic typology which inform the work as a whole, namely, myth and genealogy. Myth, the first of these typologies, names a form of what I call “discursive Christology.” That is, a Christology which construes the revelation wrought in the Savior’s advent as the inauguration of a novel form of discourse. This conception of myth is, furthermore, attended by the second diagnostic typology, genealogy, which names a discursive construal of Christ’s ecclesial body, recognized in and defined by the preservation and proliferation of this novel discourse. Through these two diagnostic typologies or forms of analytic representation, I argue, Irenaeus attempts to identify forms of theological discourse which cannot linguistically countenance the Word’s advent in flesh, and, through his own account of theological method, attempts to ground Christian discourse in the non-discursive flesh of Christ. In so doing, this study underscores a commitment to the revelatory and redemptive advent of the Savior shared between Irenaeus and his opponents, often rendered opaque by the harsh rhetoric of ancient heresiology, all the while seeing this shared commitment as the grounds of a Christological dispute over the shape and character of incarnational discourse itself.