c. 180

Irenaeus against the Gnostics: Open Apostolic Tradition, the Rule of Faith and the Four Gospels

The Gnostics claimed that saving knowledge had been handed on by the risen Savior to a few disciples by living voice and was preserved in a secret succession, through which Scripture was to be read. In Against Heresies (c. 180), Irenaeus of Lyons replied that if the apostles had known a special teaching, they would have entrusted it to the churches they founded, where the teaching is proclaimed continuously and publicly through their successors. The "rule of truth" – the content of apostolic teaching – does not replace Scripture but allows it to be interpreted in the light of its main idea. Irenaeus was one of the first to place the New Testament Scriptures on a par with the Old and held to "four and only four Gospels." According to González, the second-century church responded to heresies uniformly – by appealing to apostolic authority through the canon, the rule of faith, creeds and succession.