In a recent discussion on facebook, Robert Bowman used the following quotation from Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202) to support the doctrine of Sola Scriptura:
When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. (Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, 3.2.1 in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:415)
As Errol Amey, a non-Mormon who is well informed about the patristic literature, called Bowman up on his abuse of Irenaeus as in the very next section of Against Heresies(!) we read the following:
But, again, when we refer them [the Gnostics] to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour; and that not the apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge, at another from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator after a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition. (Against Heresies 3.2.2 [square brackets added])
To further drive the point home, Errol quoted the header from the translation that Bowman had quoted from, which was penned by a Protestant patristic scholar, no less: "The heretics follow neither Scripture nor tradition."
Another text from Irenaeus in the very same book of Against Heresies further refutes Bowman and other Protestant apologists who abuse Irenaeus of Lyons as being a proponent of sola scriptura:
On this account we are bound to avoid them, but to make choice of the thing pertaining to the Church with the utmost diligence, and to lay hold of the tradition of the truth. For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches? (3.4.1)
So it is obvious that, when read in context, Irenaeus of Lyons did not hold to Sola Scriptura. Unfortunately, such abuse of the patristic literature is part-and-parcel of Protestant apologetics when it comes to Sola Scriptura and other doctrines, such as C. Michael Patton, Keith Mathison, William Webster, et al., see, for example:
