Irenaeus was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire (now Lyon, France). He was an early Church Father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology. As one of the first great Christian theologians, he emphasized the traditional elements in the Church against the Gnostics, who said that they possessed a secret oral tradition from Jesus himself,
His writings, with those of Clement and Ignatius, are taken as among the earliest signs of the doctrine of the primacy of the Roman. Irenaeus is the earliest witness to recognition of the canonical character of all four gospels
Year: 175-185 AD