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Irenaeus of Lyons
John Behr
A substantial scholarly study of how Irenaeus identifies Christianity through Scripture, the rule of faith, and the crucified and risen Christ.
About This Book
Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
John Behr places Irenaeus within the contested second-century work of identifying Christianity: its Gospel, its Scriptures, its rule of faith, and the form of life produced by the crucified and risen Christ.
Behr does not extract a tidy theological system from Irenaeus. He asks the reader to follow Irenaeus’s own scriptural and Paschal logic, showing how creation, humanity, and the divine economy are recognized anew in Christ. The result is a demanding and substantial study for readers ready to move beyond introduction into sustained engagement with Irenaeus’s thought.
What This Book Forms
Behr trains the reader to resist reducing Irenaeus to a collection of doctrines or a theological system. By following Irenaeus’s scriptural and Paschal logic, we learn to recognize Christian identity through the crucified and risen Christ and to see Scripture, creation, humanity, and salvation within one divine economy. The book cultivates the patience required for serious historical and theological reading.
From Dr. Doom's Shelf
This is not where I would send a reader beginning with Irenaeus. Behr makes the reader work, refusing to separate Irenaeus from the second-century debates, scriptural arguments, and Paschal logic that shaped his theology. But for the reader ready to move beyond an introduction into sustained study, it's one of the books I would heartily recommend.
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