St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies, Book 2

Top Highlights

“But everyone will acknowledge that the age of thirty is the first sign of a young adult, and it extends till the fortieth year.²⁷ From the fortieth and fiftieth year one already declines to old age. When Our Lord reached this age he taught. Witnesses of this are the Gospels and all the presbyters in Asia who were united with John, the Lord’s disciple. They [claim] that John handed the same tradition down to them. Now John continued among them till the time of Trajan.²⁸ Moreover, some of them saw not only John but other apostles, and they heard these same things from them and bear witness to this account. Whom must we rather believe? Men like these, or Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles, and who not even in dreams came near to a footprint of an apostle?” (Pages 74–75)

“It is proper to God’s preeminence not to be in need of other instruments for creating things to be made” (Page 21)

“alone is Father, and he alone contains all things, and he himself gives existence to all things.” (Page 17)

“God has no need of anything that exists⁷ since he created all things and made them by his Word” (Page 20)

“always coexisting with the Father,⁴⁷ of old and from the beginning always reveals the Father” (Page 100)