Why did Irenaeus find tradition such an important resource for his arguments against his Gnostic critics?
The heart of Irenaeus’ argument against the Gnostics was that one could not interpret the bible according to whim, individual stress or dominant cultural value. Tradition was not merely the handing over of text but also and centrally a handing over of a certain way of interpreting and applying those texts. Tradition was ‘faithful’ transmission of the apostolic understanding of what it meant to be the church in creed and in praxis (see Irenaeus and liturgical tradition pp 188-189). Irenaeus (and Vincent of Lérins) extended this concept to that of ‘catholicity’, the consensus of the public church across time and place as to the meaning and life of the church’s confession that ‘Jesus Christ is the Lord’. Tradition, then, is a public function reflecting a consensus on the church’s mission in the world, as seen in the church’s antiquity, in proclaiming and living in response to the lordship of Jesus Christ in its midst. This public function for Irenaeus secured against the Gnostic (by defin
