THE LIFE OF SAINT IRENAEUS.

He was about sixty years old when he undertook the care of the Gospel as the elected Bishop of Lyon. Some say he lived to be nearly ninety. Regarding the year of his martyrdom since the birth of Christ, the opinions of writers are so varied that I cannot define it with certainty. I am content with this one fact: that the Christian and Catholic faith, which he asserted while living through word and writing, he bravely sealed with his own blood while dying for Christ. Sixtus of Siena, in the fourth book of his Library, dates his martyrdom to the year 175. Werner, in his bundle of dates, places it at 184. Pamelius, in his life of Tertullian, at 203. Baronius, in the second volume of his Annals, at 205. Bergomas, in his Supplement of Chronicles, at 210. The author of the Chronicles of the World, on leaf 116, adds a specific detail about him: that Irenaeus was placed between two hills, where they had set a cross on one and an idol of the Tyrant on the other. He was told to choose either death by the cross or life through the idol. Coming to the cross with his people, they were all perfected in martyrdom.

Furthermore, the citizens of that city had preserved the holy relics of his body, which were studiously collected, with great religious devotion until this present age. This lasted until the fury of the Hu-Gnostics a derogatory term merging Huguenots and Gnostics, which was more savage and destructive than the rage of all tyrants born since the world began. In the year of our Lord 1562, after plundering the churches of almost all of France, they occupied, depopulated, and ransacked Lyon and various other cities. They devastated monasteries and sacred places in the Turkish fashion, sparing no images, libraries, altars, sacraments, or holy objects. O, the wickedness! These heretics wage war even with those who have finished their lives and are reigning in heaven. They removed the bones of Saint Irenaeus the martyr from his place of rest. They tore them from the asylum of death, in which they were awaiting the most bright arrival of Jesus Christ and the glorious resurrection. They vented their rage upon them again. They revelled again. As much as was in their power, they demanded them back for a second contest of martyrdom. O the times! O the customs! He who had repressed the Gnostics could not escape the barbarian hands of the Hu-Gnostics, which had long been stained with the blood of good men. The furnaces, heated seven times, spared the bodies, hair, and clothing of the martyrs Daniel 3. Eusebius, book 8, 137 and book 22, On the City of God, chapter 8. Jerome in the Epitaph of Paula and the book against Vigilantius.. Bears, leopards, tigers, and lions often feared to touch them. Yet the "New and Reformed Gospel" (if it pleases God) either consumes them with flames or throws them into the river, the dunghill, or the sewer. At the tombs, urns, and bones of the martyrs, the demons in the oracles are silent, and in the bodies of the possessed they are twisted, they roar, and they confess. All kinds of diseases are healed there. Yet the leaders of this failing sect and rebellion, fearing nothing, after plundering the gold from the reliquaries, drowned one part of the precious relics of the Blessed Irenaeus in the flowing river. Another part, specifically the skull of his head, they kicked with their feet like a ball. They mockingly insulted it through the villages and streets all day long. Finally, it was left in a small stream, where a certain Catholic surgeon secretly took it and hid it at home. It remained there for nearly two years until the most Christian King Charles IX, the defender of the Catholic religion, recovered the city. He restored full liberty to the Archbishop, the Clergy, the Magistrate, and the Catholic people. All of them, after declaring a public prayer, hurried with great devotion to the house where they had learned the relics were hidden. They gathered the venerable bones, carried them back reverently to the church sacred to his name, and placed them there to be preserved. To ensure these events would be more credible to posterity, they took care to record them diligently in the public Acts, from which we have received this account.

ANTIDOTES AGAINST THE INSULTS AND IMPIOUS ACCUSATIONS WITH WHICH THE NEW HERETICS OF THIS TIME ATTEMPT TO TEAR APART THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FAME OF BLESSED IRENAEUS, AND TO EITHER DIMINISH OR WEAKEN HIS AUTHORITY.

An ornamental woodcut initial T depicts foliage and scrollwork, marking the beginning of the defense against modern critics. That ancient and eternal hatred with which Satan burns against all the Saints may be poured out more fully. To renew the war undertaken against them from the beginning with greater force, he persuades his newest Gnostic ministers and servants to rage and revel, especially with all kinds of insults and curses, against those whom they know best opposed heretical opinions. This is certainly not done without a cunning plan, very suited to his frauds. For just as criminals dragged to tribunals for their crimes are accustomed to overwhelm not only the accusers but the judges themselves with fabricated charges, so that they may either diminish their credibility or escape their judgments; so also these men are so afraid and tremble at the writings, testimonies, and most just decrees of the ancient Fathers and Doctors. They thought nothing would be more advisable or effective in their cruel business than to provoke those Fathers with every kind of curse, and to vex and cut them down with insults. They do this so that they may leave them to be despised and rejected by the unlearned crowds whom they had previously seduced. We have refuted their mockeries and insults in many places. However, these frauds and deceits benefit their authors very little. By these arts, they only make their cause suspicious and hateful to all pious people. The sons of perdition, about to wage war with the Saints and blaspheme those who dwell in heaven, openly show themselves to be the precursors and scouts of the enemy camp. Finally, what usually happens to those furious and insane people who throw spears at the heavens or spit at them happens here. Far from hurting or defiling the heavens, they themselves are instead struck down by their own spears falling back on them and are stained by their own spit. So also these men do not harm the holy servants of God with their curses. On the contrary, they further inflame all pious people to celebrate their praises and preach their virtues. Therefore, being about to drive away the insults and reproaches cast by the heretics against the most blessed Doctor of the Church and most brave Martyr of Christ, Irenaeus, we shall begin with the Calvinists.

THE CURSES OF THE CALVINISTS.

These men, in a book that is not uncommon, which they have called the Shield original: Clypeum of their faith, and have already published six times in the French language Did. 8., do not fear to assert these things about Blessed Irenaeus, translated here word for word into Latin. They claim: "He never read the sacred scriptures. He did not understand the Apostles' Creed. He produced many poisonous, wicked things against Christ, which should be rejected by everyone. He rashly changed many things and turned away from the ancient and Apostolic doctrine." With these few but most impudent words, they charge him with five crimes. Each one of these they state as a fact, though they will never be able to prove them. We, on the contrary, provoke all the ministers and professors of the Calvinist school who might still have a shred of a sane mind to the reading of Irenaeus. We dare to expect from them a correct observation against this wickedness and lying of their fellow minister. For Irenaeus refutes heresies and proves Christian dogmas with the sacred Scriptures of both Testaments so densely and appropriately, especially in the last four books, that he yields to none of the ancient Doctors in this matter. He surpasses most of them, openly showing that he had read, weighed, and learned these same scriptures with all zeal and attention even from infancy.

What the Calvinist minister babbles about the Apostles' Creed is certainly the mark of a most insane man who has never attentively read anything in the books of Irenaeus. For he, near the end of the first chapter of book 1 Book 7, chapter 4.1. Rufinus in the Gymnasium. Jerome, letter to Pammachius. Ambrose. Augustine., calls that Creed the "immovable Rule of Truth" original: Regula veritatis received through Baptism. This was because (as is the opinion of Clement and other ancient writers) it was given to the catechumens as the first thing to be learned and professed, as we have demonstrated in its proper place. He records this entire Creed in the second chapter of the same book and confidently opposes it to all heresies as the summary of the Christian faith delivered by the Apostles to the universal Church throughout the world. Again, in the nineteenth chapter of the same book, he calls it the "Rule of Truth." Tertullian, Augustine, and Chrysostom learned this from him and inserted it into their own writings. And he did not understand it? Would such a great Doctor and Bishop not comprehend these rudiments of the faith in his mind and thought? Away with such foolishness and insanity.

But what are those many, poisonous, and wicked things against Christ that he supposedly produced, he who laid down this life so holily and constantly for Christ's name and glory? The Calvinist minister ought to have produced at least one from so many. Irenaeus certainly preaches everywhere that Christ is true God and man, the redeemer and judge of this world. He preaches all the things that the ancient Prophets announced about him, the Apostles preached to the whole world, the Evangelists wrote, and the Catholic Church has believed until now. Are these things poisonous and wicked to the Calvinists? Are they to be rejected by everyone so that they may be initiated into Mahometan impieties, as Sylvanus, Neuser, and not a few other ministers of this sect have been? Far be such a crime, which is horrifying and detestable even to mention.

He adds in the fourth place that Irenaeus changed many things rashly. Tell me in which places, in which points of Apostolic dogma, and you will be my "great Apollo" a reference to an expert or wise person. This "change" is kept entirely silent. Not a word is sent regarding the locations. The accusation is mute concerning the facts. The points of doctrine being changed are not touched upon, because in reality there were none. The accusation is therefore impious, as even the author of this sect, Calvin, testifies Book 1, Institutes, chapter 11. Book 4, chapter 2.. Calvin stated that for four hundred years nothing was changed in Apostolic doctrine throughout all the churches, but it was kept sincere and whole by the unanimous consent of the Fathers until the time of Augustine, who was more than three hundred years later than Blessed Irenaeus.