"But God is glorified by his Word (Jesus-Christ), who is his eternal Son; and by the Holy Spirit, who is the wisdom of the Father of all.
And their powers which one calls Cherubim and Seraphim, glorified God by their song without end;
and all the heavenly creatures must return glory in God, the Father of all. It is him which, by his Word, composed the whole world and to this world also belong angels.
He gave to the whole world laws so that each being was held with its place without exceeding the limits fixed by God,
and achieved the work prescribed with each one of them " (Preaching of the apostles, 10).
"That it is indeed of Angels, Archangels, Thrones or Dominations, God who is above all things, has all created and made by his Word (Jesus)" (Against the heresys, III, 8, 3).
Author
Irenaeus of Lyon was born in the first half of the second century. Irenaeus had seen and heard the holy Bishop Polycarp (d. 155). During the persecution was a priest of the Church of Lyon in Gaul (France). Irenaeus succeeded the martyr Saint Pothinus as Bishop of Lyon. The new bishop divided his activities between the duties of a pastor and of a missionary and his writings, almost all of which were directed against heresies. Irenaeus wrote in Greek many works which have secured for him an exceptional place in Christian literature, because in controverted religious questions of capital importance they exhibit the testimony of a contemporary of the heroic age of the Church, of one who had heard St. Polycarp, the disciple of St. John.
The Church is for him the guardian of the truth and of the apostolic faith received in the Holy Scriptures.
