The following is a defense of the reliability of Irenaeus vis-à-vis oral tradition. What is of importance is that the author if a Protestnat, not a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox:
Did
Irenaeus Both Tradition?
At this point, it is necessary to respond to an objection
often used to demonstrate the worthlessness of Irenaeus’s use of apostolic
tradition. It is often pointed out that in Haer. 2.22.6, Irenaeus argues
that Jesus was almost fifty when he was crucified, and thus ministered for
almost twenty years after his baptism at the age of thirty. He does say, “Being
thirty years old when He came to be baptized, and then possessing the full age
of a Master, He came to Jerusalem” (2.22.4). Irenaeus taught that Jesus’s
public ministry after baptism began at thirty. For him, this pivotal year
transitions a person from young man to mature man. At the end of 2.22.4,
Irenaeus says Jesus “passed through every age”: infancy, childhood, youth, and
old man; that is, he had to have gone beyond thirty to represent ever age of
humanity. He appeals to this fact against heretics who say Jesus only
ministered one year and died at age thirty, not having reached full maturity.
Then, in 2.22.5 Irenaeus says, “How could He have taught, unless He had reached
the age of a Master? For when He came to be baptized, He had not yet completed
His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age.”
However, according to the false teachers, Irenaeus says,
Jesus had “preached only one year reckoning from His baptism. On completing His
thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no
means attained to advanced age.” In Irenaeus’s reckoning, thirty was still the
last year of being a “young man,” but earlier he said he passed all ages, from
young man to old man, which means Jesus had to have lived longer than thirty.
If Jesus lived until thirtythree or so, this would fulfill Irenaeus’s scheme
and also refute the heretics who said he suffered in the same year as he was
baptized.
Earlier, in 5.22.3, Irenaeus asserted that the heretics
“have not examined the Gospels to ascertain how often after His baptism the
Lord went up, at the time of the passover, to Jerusalem, in accordance with
what was the practice of the Jews from every land, and every year.” Irenaeus
then describes three trips to Jerusalem for Passover: “First of all, after He
had made the water wine at Cana of Galilee, He went up to the festival day of
the Passover.” Then, “Afterwards He went up, the second time, to observe the
festival day of the Passoveri n Jerusalem.” And finally, “And going up from
Bethany to Jerusalem, He there ate the passover, and suffered on the day
following. Now, that these three occasions of the passover are not included
within one year, every person whatever must acknowledge.”
The problem should be obvious. Irenaeus says Jesus
celebrated three consecutive Passovers after his baptism, making him about
thirty-three at his crucifixion; and because thirty was the pivotal age from
youth to “old man” (2.22.4), he thus had passed through every age and had, by
turning thirty-one, attained the age of a Master. If Jesus had died at age
thirty, as the false teachers alleged, he would still have been a “young man”
and would not have passed into the age of “old man,” a view Irenaeus rejected because
Jesus celebrated three Passovers after his baptism, making him thirty-three.
In light of this, the passage in 2.22.5, starting with
“Now, that the first stage of life” poses some problems. The first problematic
line says, “But from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline
towards old age, which our Lord possessed.” The Latin text reads “A
quadragesimo et quinquagesimo anno declinat jam in aetatem seniorem, quam
habens Dominus noster.” I would rather translate this as “from the fortieth
and fiftieth year one declines to an older age than our Lord had.” That is, it
does not say here that Jesus had the age of forty to fifty—the age of decline—
but that he had “old age,” which, earlier, he said was anything over the age of
thirty-one. Irenaeus also then appeals to oral tradition from the disciples of
John for the veracity of this fact that Jesus possessed maturity as a Master,
having reached the age beyond thirty.
It should be observed that the phrase “and he remained
among them up to the time of Trajan,” refers to the Apostle John, not to Jesus.
The text does not clearly allege that Jesus advanced past forty and began to
decline (declinat)—if quam is rightly read as comparative.
So, it is really 2.22.6 that poses the greatest problem.
Note, however, that the text does not say that particular material was received
by tradition from John. The argument in section 6 is based on a milking of the
interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees (John 8:56–57). That text says, “He
did not them want much of being fifty years old,” suggesting Jesus was in his
late forties. And he says, “He did not therefore preach only for one year, nor
did He suffer in the twelfth month of the year. For the period included between
the thirtieth and fiftieth year can never be regarded as one year.” This
passage, then (2.22.6), contains an internal contradiction with 2.22.4, where
Irenaeus clearly says Jesus observed three Passovers after his baptism, not ten
or twenty.
Also, note that the author did not claim Johannine oral
tradition for 2.22.6; that was only for the matter of Jesus reaching beyond 30
as a “senior” and Master. No, the argument for Jesus living almost to fifty in Haer.
2.22.6 depends on the author’s own conclusions based on the interaction with
the Pharisees, not upon oral tradition. Ironically, this would be an example
not of the tragic results of relying on oral tradition, but the results of
going beyond oral tradition. To be honest, I do not know what to make of this
obvious contradiction. Both cannot be true—that Jesus observed only three
annual Passovers between his baptism at thirty and his crucifixion and that he
lived into his late forties. I wonder, then, whether all of section 6 (and
maybe even portions of section 5) are an interpolation by the translator of the
Latin text or a later scribe or student of Irenaeus. In any case, the author of
Haer. 2.22.6—whether Irenaeus or another—does not claim that
interpretation of John 8:56–57 comes from oral tradition (Michael J. Svigel, “Go
Deeper Excurses 1: Who Was Irenaeus of Lyons and Why Does He Matter?,” in The
Fathers on the Future: Supplemental Excurses and Index [2024], 3-5)
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