Spotting the Liars: St Irenaeus
Note on the text: I used Against Heresies by St Irenaeus at published in 2015 by Beloved Press
Thou wilt not expect from me. . . [who is] a resident among the Keltae and am accustomed for the most part to use a barbarous dialect, any display of rhetoric, which I have not learned, nor any excellence of composition, which I have never practiced, nor any beauty of persuasiveness of style, to which I make no pretensions (2).
In his book, Against Heresies, Irenaeus warns us to be careful around people who give overly complicated answers to questions. Anyone who was not willing to answer a question plainly and simply is probably lying: “Error indeed is never set forth in its marked deformity, lest, being exposed, it should be at once detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress [so that it might appear to be] more true than the truth” (1). This is not only true when it comes to matters of religion, but when it comes to life in general: how many of us have people in our lives who are so unable to give us a straight answer that we often leave the conversation more confused than when we started them? You ask someone if they love you, for example, and instead of saying yes or no they give some complicated non-answer. Saint Irenaeus’ warning is that people who intentionally give overcomplicated answers that appear to fly in the face of reason are probably lying because what they’re trying to do is distract you from seeing the truth of what they believe.
That is why Irenaeus starts his book by claiming to be an “everyman”, and the ways that he argues against the credibility of the Gnostics can still serve as a blueprint for us today on how to identify the liars in our own lives. Although Irenaeus does use Scripture to make many of his points against the Gnostics, I was interested in the way that he appeals to common sense. In short he says that his theology is connected “to the things which actually have been” (133). Which is to say that it matches it up with reality, as opposed to the made up reality that one would have to believe in order to make the Gnostics’ beliefs palatable. In this way, Irenaeus continues to speak to us in to this very day. So when, for example, he talks about the Gnostics’ dual God theology, where God created the perfect spiritual world and a lesser God (who was created by the former God) created the sinful material world, he starts off by saying that it just doesn’t make sense. Because if that supreme God created the lesser God (or angelic being) who then created this world, doesn’t make more sense to say that he is responsible for this world too? When a king plans a siege we don’t say his armies won or lost, we say that he did. Because he was the one who put everything in motion. We don’t say the axe cut down the tree, we say the axe cutter did. Because he was the one who put everything in motion. So wouldn’t it make sense to say the same about God? Irenaeus says that it would, and the fact that the Gnostics have to come up with a very complicated belief system in order to make you believe that that is not true is indicative of the fact that they know its not true. They know that if anyone actually looked at what they believed, stripped away of all the rhetorical bells and whistles, and they would know that the Gnostics were lying. Irenaeus gives a similar example later when talking about the parables. The parables have a logic to them that is obvious to anyone who reads them: if you read the story of the lost sheep for example its obvious what the message of the story is and that it has nothing to do with the numerological value of the number 100, and that anyone who tries to tell you different is probably just trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
Similarly when someone in your own life says something that flies in the face of common sense, or has to give an extremely convoluted answer in order for it to make sense, they are probably lying. If someone hits you when they say they love you, they’re probably lying. Or when you ask someone if they want to marry you and they give you an answer that is more complicated than just “yes” or “no” they are probably lying.
Truth is simple, lies are complicated. The truth is, more often then not, tied to the reality of the world in ways that lies are not. Lies have to be accounted for. Truth just is. I don’t have to explain why the car is red or why there is no woman in my bed. But I do have to explain why the car is blue even though it seems to be red, and why there actually is no woman in my bed even when you can see that there is. It’s not to say that the truth is necessarily easier to deal with than a lie, but generally if “something seems to good to be true, it probably isn’t” as the saying goes. Because if it is too good to be true that means that something about what is being said just doesn’t line up with reality, which means it is more likely to be a lie. Greys exist to be sure, but be careful around those who insist on living in it. You may find them to be not as trustworthy as you would like them to be.
