St Irenaeus

http://www.ewtn.com/library/theology/irenaeus.htm


Answering a question here about Irenaeus being wrong on Jesus' age: comment 229 here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/03/sola-scriptura-vs-the-magisterium-what-did-jesus-teach/#comment-130609

that Irenaeus indeed states that a “fortieth and fiftieth year . . . [is something] which our Lord possessed.”

Except St. Irenaeus does not actually say that. Inserting an ellipsis leaves out the referent of the relative pronoun. St. Irenaeus says “a quadragesimo autem et quinquagesimo anno declinat jam in aetatem seniorem, quam habens Dominus noster docebat” which can be translated, “for from the fortieth and fiftieth years a man declines more into the age of elder, which our Lord had as He taught.” Notice that St. Irenaeus does not actually say that Jesus was over forty or between forty and fifty. Rather he is saying that when our Lord taught, He had the age of an elder. St. Irenaeus has just pointed out that the first stage of life embraces the first thirty years of life. This stage ends when one has completed thirty years. But then St. Irenaeus adds that in a sense this first stage extends from thirty-one to forty, even though strictly speaking it ends after one’s first thirty years. He says this because the decline into the age of elder has only just begun during the decade from thirty-one to forty. Then he goes on to say the line in question, namely, that this decline into the age of elder becomes more manifest from forty to fifty. What St. Irenaeus is saying is not that Jesus was over forty, but that He had “aetatem seniorem,” namely, the age of an elder. And one who has entered into the decade from thirty-one to forty has already entered into that age, which wouldn’t be the case if Jesus had died at the end of his thirtieth year, as some were claiming.

I know that a canon of Tradition has not been conclusively established, but how does the Church identify the boundaries and contours of that consensus?

I don’t understand the question. Wherever there is a moral consensus among the Fathers in matters of faith and morals, that is part of the Tradition. To know the meaning of moral consensus is already to know how to identify what does and does not belong to it, so long as one knows who counts as a Church Father. Someone outside the Church, however, does not have the advantage of the authoritative guidance of the Magisterium regarding knowing who counts as a Father, or knowing that moral consensus testifies to the identity of the Tradition, or determining which judgments concerning the development of Tradition are authoritative and authentic. For the one outside the Church, Tradition as historical belief and teaching points to the Catholic Church as the Church of the Fathers. But access to Tradition as authoritative, and a clear delineation of its content and meaning is attained only by way of the view from within the Church, as I have explained in my reply to Matthew Barrett.

Brandon, (re: #225)

You ask:

Why isn’t it what Irenaeus says about Jesus’s age since Irenaeus claims that it *is* part of the Apostolic teaching? How do you know?

Assuming for the sake of argument that St. Irenaeus did believe that Jesus was 40+, that is not be part of the Apostolic Tradition because there is no moral consensus among the Fathers that Jesus was 40+ when He died.

end of quote

AND another comment here discusses it  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/07/st-irenaeus-on-justification/comment-page-1/#comment-67964

Your calling it an “elementary blunder” begs the question. A person’s credibility regarding the Apostolic Tradition does not depend on being infallible about all the details of Christ’s life, including His age at death. But perhaps you’re not being adequately charitable in your interpretation of St. Irenaeus. He never says that Jesus was fifty when He died. If you look at what at what he actually says, you won’t find a statement that is false, unless you read into it what he does not say. He is making a theological argument, based on the fact that Jesus exceeded the age of thirty, against those who were claiming that Jesus was crucified at the age of thirty. But this does not entail that St. Irenaeus believed Jesus was not thirty-three when He died. Even if it is true that such language (i.e. “Thou art not yet fifty years old”) is fittingly applied to one who is already past the age of forty, it does not entail that St. Irenaeus believed that Jesus was actually older than forty if St. Irenaeus believed that (a) the Jews were not attempting to claim that Jesus was already in His forties, but were attempting to claim by way of an a fortiori argument that He was not even yet to *that* period, and (b) that the one who has exceeded the age of thirty already begins thereby to taste of older age, which is only manifested more fully as one advances from forty to fifty. So given that this more charitable reading is available, it would be uncharitable to presume unnecessarily that he was ignorant on this point. But again, even if he did believe that Jesus was older than forty, this does not discredit him as a patristic witness, nor does it make impossible a moral consensus of the Fathers regarding the Apostolic Tradition.