Faith, Piety, and Salvation in Irenaeus of Lyons Restricted; Files & ToC

Abstract

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries scholars separated the themes of Irenaeus’ soteriology from one another and focused their attention on Irenaeus’ thinking on Adam, Christ, and the acts of God to bring salvation to the flesh through the divine economy. These topics have held the attention of scholars ever since. While various studies of these themes have yielded much insight into Irenaeus’ thought and the broader formation of early Christian doctrine and identity, key questions remain unaddressed. In particular, the question of how Irenaeus thought that an individual’s faith (including belief in right doctrine), love, piety, and morality more broadly allow an individual to receive salvation has gone unexamined even though Irenaeus’ treatises on doctrine engage each of these themes frequently. Indeed, Irenaeus claims to write both of his extant works because he sees right doctrine as a matter of piety and salvation. As long as these themes remain unexplored, the purpose of Irenaeus’ theological project—the first of its kind and a monument in the development of Christian thought and the broader intellectual traditions in which it exists—will remain obscure. 

This project rectifies this problem by examining how individual human beings receive God’s salvific, perfecting works such that those works effect their salvation and perfection (i.e., their deification) in Irenaeus’ thought. It argues that Irenaeus had a coherent account of the individual’s salvation that encompassed his ontological commitments, epistemology, moral psychology, pneumatology, and thinking on the divine economy. Irenaeus used resources from Greco-Roman philosophy and social society, Jewish-Christian pneumatology and moral traditions, Scripture, and Christian practice to make this account internally coherent (i.e., to provide logical connection between its component parts), and to give it doctrinal, practical, and contextual coherence. In demonstrating the various aspects of the coherence of Irenaeus’ individual soteriology, this project allows for a more complete account of Irenaeus’ soteriology—an account wherein the individual and the human soul have a central rather than a marginal place. In so doing, it also elucidates the purpose of his foundational theological work and reveals in Irenaeus a potential resource for all who desire to better understand the relationship between intellectual inquiry and human flourishing. 

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Religion
Subfield / Discipline	Historical Studies in Theology and Religion
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Religion, History of Classical Studies Theology
Parola chiave	Morality Soul Deification Epistemology Irenaeus of Lyons Faith Irenaeus Philosophy Soteriology Ethics
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Briggman, Anthony, Emory University
Committee Members	Thomas, Gabrielle, Emory University Edwards, Mark J., University of Oxford Corrigan, Kevin, Emory University

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