So even though 'Paul' uses the singular 'pillar and foundation of the truth' Irenaeus makes a strange shift to 'four pillars' because of the four winds, the four living creatures that sit under the Man-god referenced in Ezekiel and Revelations.It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the "pillar and ground" of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sitteth upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.
As is now universally acknowledged the 'pillar and foundation of the truth' idea is derived from Isaiah 28:16:
In the Pentateuch we see the Patriarchs set up a 'stone' as a pillar for instance "Jacob took a stone and set up a pillar.' (Genesis 31:45) "with him a pillar of stone" (ibid 35:14).Because you have said, "We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we have made a pact. The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by, For we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception." Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.
When Methodius correctly interprets the meaning of 1 Timothy 3:15 as it now reads the reference to the Church as foundation makes sense:
But "pillar and foundation" is rather strange. If he said "pillar and stone" you could see the passages in Genesis where Jacob sets up stones as pillars being the context. But describing the same object as both "pillar and foundation" is rather curious and senseless. A pillar is what stands on a foundation. One can't help but get the feeling that the original context was Genesis 35:14 "אִתּ֖וֹ מַצֶּ֣בֶת אָ֑בֶן וַיַּסֵּ֤ךְ עָלֶ֙יהָ֙" or "pillar (of) stone" or pillar and stone by way of Isaiah 28:16's הנני יסד בציון אבן אבן בחן פנת יקרת מוסד מוסד המאמין לא יחישhe (Paul) declared that the church is the “foundation”, for it is called the foundation, and it is not founded in corruption, as Saint Paul says, writing to Timothy, “so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”
The fact that an authority as early as Irenaeus can mistake the obvious thing being described as 'pillar and foundation' - i.e. the Church - for the gospel is rather odd too. If we accept that the original reference in 1 Tim 3:15 is to Isa 28:16 then the fact that Isa 28:16 was used in the same way by the Qumran community:
So let us acknowledge that the original author of the pseudo-Pauline citation understood Isaiah 28:16 very much like the Qumran community. What is surprising is that when Irenaeus gets around to writing the material built around the falsified apostolic succession list of Hegesippus/Josephus/Polycarp the reference to "pillar/stone and foundation" is made to apply to 'the scriptures' not to the Church. So at the beginning of 3.1.1:When these things exist in Israel the community council shall be founded on truth, blank to be an everlasting plantation, a holy house for Israel and the foundation of the holy of holies for Aaron, true witness for the judgment and chosen by the will (of God) to atone for the land and to render the wicked their retribution. Blank This (the community) is the tested rampart, the precious cornerstone that does not Blank / whose foundations / shake or tremble from their place.
It is odd that while Gospel (singular) is initially mentioned it is the Scriptures (plural) which is identified as the ground (singular) and pillar (singular) of the faith (singlular). Why the plural Scriptures? There immediately follows an almost expected denial of there being any more than one gospel when we read:We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith
For those who are familiar with Irenaeus's other work - the Prescription Against Heresies - preserved in a corrupt form in Latin by Tertullian the context is retained:For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed "perfect knowledge," as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God.
Clearly the viva voce here derives from the same ultimate source as what we see in the material in Adversus Haereses 3:Every kind of thing must necessarily be classed according to its origin. Consequently these Churches, numerous and important as they are, form but the one Primitive Church founded by the Apostles; from which source they all derive. So that all are primitive and all are Apostolic; whilst that all are in one Unity is proved by the fellowship of peace and title of brotherhood and common pledge of amity 1—privileges which nothing governs but the one tradition of the selfsame Bond of Faith.
ON this ground, therefore, we rule our limitation that if the Lord Jesus Christ sent the Apostles to preach, no others ought to be received as preachers save those whom Christ appointed; since no other knoweth the Father save the Son, and He to whom the Son hath revealed Him.1 Nor does the Son appear to have revealed Him to any but the Apostles whom He sent to preach—surely only what He revealed to them.
Now what they preached—that is, what Christ revealed to them—I rule ought to be proved by no other means than through the same Churches which the Apostles themselves founded by preaching to them viva voce, as men say, and afterwards by Epistles.
Notice how the original understanding of the Prescription (= that the Apostles did indeed deliver their teachings by 'living voice' AND THEN written documents) has given way to the claim that those who claimed that the Apostles ONLY delivered their teachings by 'living voice' (i.e. that the disciples of Jesus never wrote anything). This is a well known Marcionite position from De Recta in Deum Fide among other texts.A little later 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. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but viva voce: wherefore also Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world."
Of course it has to be said that the emphasis on 'living voice' seems to have been a position of Papias. He writes "For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice." As such it is hard to argue that Irenaeus would have really thought that it was heretical to argue that "the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but viva voce." Irenaeus cites Papias approvingly and seems to have indeed held that the apostles delivered the truth by 'living voice' rather than written documents. It is odd to see Papias agree with the Marcionites but there is an agreement here.
Notice however that Irenaeus's effort is clearly to establish what Papias and the Marcionites denied - namely that the apostles wrote things or more clearly gospels. He does so in a rather peculiar way. As we saw he says that the apostles preached to the churches "viva voce, as men say, and afterwards by Epistles." Strange that there is no explicit mention of the apostles writing gospels. Again this is the Marcionite position and Irenaeus seems rather restrained here.
In Adversus Haereses 3 we saw the clear identification initially that Peter and Paul were associated with a 'gospel' but then 'the scriptures' are invoked. Could it be that instead of written gospel (which the Prescription never attributes to either Peter or Paul) Irenaeus originally followed his original understanding in the Prescription that the apostles wrote only epistles? Let's read it again: "We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith." This is very close to what we just saw in the Prescription "the same Churches which the Apostles themselves founded by preaching to them viva voce, as men say, and afterwards by Epistles."
So it is worth noting that the worldview before Irenaeus seems to have been that:
1. no one whoever saw Jesus wrote a gospel (from Marcionites)
2. the apostles only communicated by living voice (from Papias)
The argument seems to have been first introduced in the Prescription that the heretics said that:
Remember Irenaeus in the Prescription has also just said quite clearly that the apostles originally preached with 'living voice' and then later wrote epistles. No mention of any gospel writing. Here Paul is identified as introducing a different gospel that was formerly only preached by the Apostles. Does that mean that Irenaeus originally acknowledged the Marcionite claim that Paul was the original gospel writer. Hard to say. One could also make the case that both the gospel of the Apostles and the gospel of Paul were preached gospels. No wonder anywhere on how the written gospel emerged.Peter [was] blamed by Paul that another form of Gospel was introduced by Paul beside that which Peter and the rest had previously put forth.
What is clear I think is that the idea was introduced that Peter and Paul wrote 'the Gospel' in Rome in Book Three of Irenaeus's Adversus Haereses. This must have been a radical departure from all previous understanding of the apostles and the gospel - as the Prescription shows. Previously the Apostles only preached and Papias extolled them for speaking only with 'living voice'; the Marcionites alternative emphasized that no disciple wrote a gospel. In due course the original singular reference of Irenaeus to the gospel as the pillar and foundation of the truth was transformed in the middle of Roman episcopal list citation into a platform for the existence of four pillars and four gospels.
After our last citation where Irenaeus attacks now - rather than accepts (as he did in the Prescription) - the Papian notion that the apostles only spoke by living voice, Irenaeus adds the first reference ever to the four gospels:
This is followed by an attack against the heresies and their abuse of scripture:Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews(3) in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.
We know that 'wisdom' here is an allusion back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and 2, the 'secret wisdom' of the mystery 'that God destined for our glory before time began.' The heretics are said to have held that this was passed on from Paul as his gospel (the Prescription speaks of his 'secret gospel' which he says was hidden from the apostles).And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even been indifferently in any other opponent,who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. For every one of these men, being altogether of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of truth, is not ashamed to preach himself.
The important thing however is to see that Irenaeus cites the apostolic succession list against the claims of these same heretics. In what immediately follows:
It is worth noting that the interest in "presbyters" is an innovation in Adversus Haereses and clearly owing to the eventual introduction of the apostolic succession list which follows.But, again, when we refer them 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.
To this end, I submit that a change took place from Irenaeus's initial efforts in Prescription where (1) there the apostles spoke viva voce and wrote only epistles (emphasis mine) "we have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures (emphasis mine), to be the ground and pillar of our faith." Everything would suggest then that Irenaeus's original position was very closely aligned with Papias and indeed the rest of the second century writers in that no written gospel was laid down by those who saw Jesus. They spoke only via voce or indeed wrote epistles.
I would argue in fact that Irenaeus went right from this position (i.e. the understanding that none of the disciples wrote gospels only epistles) directly to the understanding that there were four gospels two written by apostles, two written by apostolic men.