The plan of redemption through the Incarnation

Treasures of Our Faith with Deacon Richard Vehige

Today, December 19th, as we celebrate the final days of Advent our Church invites us to first read and reflect on a passage from the book of the prophet Isaiah (47: 1, 3b-15) entitled “Lament for Babylon”. Our treasure, which follows, is from a treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop.

The days at the end of Advent, from December 17 to Christmas, are designated by the Catholic Church to prepare for the celebration of Christmas. These days have special significance because they mark the beginning of the "O" Antiphons and the final days of Advent. These antiphons are a series of seven prayers, one for each day. They are sung during Evening Prayer, Vespers, or the Magnificat. The antiphons are based on Old Testament prophecies and use biblical imagery to proclaim the coming of Christ. The "O" Antiphons are the basis for the popular Advent hymn "O come, O come, Emmanuel".

Saint Irenaeus was a late second century Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology. St. Irenaeus might also be the first doctor of the Church to die as a martyr. St. Irenaeus is known mainly for his clear and systematic teaching of the Christian faith because he considered the role of a bishop primarily as a teacher. He is most known, though, for his treatises Against All Heresies, written about the year 180. Most of these heresies, as already mentioned, were from Gnosticism. He clearly understood the need to articulate the orthodox faith taught by the Apostles and against those who promoted other ideas that threatened the Apostles’ teachings. All this was more than 100 years prior to the Council of Nicaea, which began to codify Christian dogma.

Saint Irenaeus was particularly interested in apostolic succession, and he produced one of the earliest lists of the first bishops, going back to the time of the Apostles. Saint Irenaeus was the last known living connection with the apostles. He is the earliest surviving witness to regard all four of the canonical gospels as essential.

On Jan. 21, 2022, Pope Francis named a Saint Irenaeus as a Doctor of the Church. Although he has just now been named a doctor of the Church, St. Irenaeus has always been known as a brilliant and orthodox teacher of the faith. The documents of the Second Vatican Council cite 14 references to his work, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church cites him 29 times. Pope Francis assigned St. Irenaeus the title “doctor of unity” for his efforts to unite the Church, which was competing against the heresy of Gnosticism. Gnosticism taught that the world was created and ruled by a lesser divinity, the demiurge, and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being, esoteric knowledge (gnosis) of whom enabled the redemption of the human spirit.

Against Heresies is a work of Christian theology written in Greek about the year 180 by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in France. In it, Irenaeus identifies and describes several schools of Gnosticism, and other schools of Christian thought, whose beliefs he rejects as heresy. He contrasts them with orthodox Christianity.

Isaiah, one of the greatest of the prophets, appeared at a critical moment in Israel’s history. The Northern Kingdom collapsed, under the hammerlike blows of Assyria, in 722/721 B.C., and in 701 Jerusalem itself saw the army of Sennacherib drawn up before its walls. In the year that Uzziah, king of Judah, died, Isaiah received his call to the prophetic office in the Temple of Jerusalem. Close attention should be given to chapter six, where this divine summons to be the ambassador of the Most High is circumstantially described.

The vision of the Lord enthroned in glory stamps an indelible character on Isaiah’s ministry and provides a key to the understanding of his message. The majesty, holiness and glory of the Lord took possession of his spirit and, at the same time, he gained a new awareness of human pettiness and sinfulness. The enormous abyss between God’s sovereign holiness and human sinfulness overwhelmed the prophet. Only the purifying coal of the seraphim could cleanse his lips and prepare him for acceptance of the call: “Here I am, send me!”

The ministry of Isaiah extended from the death of Uzziah in 742 B.C. to Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C., and it may have continued even longer, until after the death of Hezekiah in 687 B.C. Later legend (the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah) claims that Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, executed Isaiah by having him sawed in two. During this long ministry, the prophet returned again and again to the same themes, and there are indications that he may have sometimes re-edited his older prophecies to fit new occasions.