Spiritual Anthropology of Irenaeus of Lyons

Abstract

The spiritual, spirituales vocat, are those who submit to the Spirit and in everything proceed according to reason. There is no distinction between submission to the Spirit and rational life, for only those who live the counsels of the Spirit exercise right reason. This statement is based on Irenaeus of Lyons (130-208), in Book V of the Adversus Haereses, in which, ending the refutation to “pseudognose”, presents some doctrines to convert the heretics, to reconcile the estranged and to strengthen the faith of the neophytes. But this spiritual anthropology, that is to say the action Spirit in the human being, of Irenaeus demonstrates an influence of the culture-philosophical context of the second century, marked by a spiritual interpretation of the Platonism, called half Platonism. The purpose of this research is to analyze the action of the Spirit and the use of reason in the human being that makes it spiritual, starting from Irenaeus, and influences by the cultural-philosophical context. The methodology will be qualitative, based on an exploratory bibliographic method and the hermeneutics of the sources and texts. Therefore, it will be sought with the reading of book V of Irenaeus, and its interpretation, based on commentators, present the anthropology-spiritual of Irenaeus and the influences of the philosophical-cultural context.