St.
Irenaeus (c. 125-191 CE) was Bishop of Lyons in the first half of the second century CE, and a very early
Father of the Church.
He was around only a century or so after the
supposed Jesus Christ, and wrote a number of works aimed at forging unity
amongst early Christians, who couldn't agree on such trivial matters as
how many Gods there were; who formed the world; what the world was made
from; whether Jesus was actually a real person; who the apostles were;
whether God could be derived from words or forumlae; what happened after
death; and that sort of thing.
Irenaeus is notable in that he is the first known author to refer to the four New Testament gospels by their current names. He was also one of the very first Christians to argue that Jesus Christ was son of God, and a real historical figure.
"Chapter XXII.-The Thirty Aeons are Not
Typified by the Fact that Christ Was Baptized in His Thirtieth Year: He
Did Not Suffer in the Twelfth Month After His Baptism, But Was More Than
Fifty Years Old When He Died."
In it, Irenaeus argued
forcefully - from the apostlistic tradition of John - that Jesus taught
for many years more after his baptism than the twelve months attributed in
the Gospels. He attacks any alternative view as a "heresy". He says (with my emphasis):
"...but they mentioned a period near His real age, whether they
had truly ascertained this out of the entry in the public register, or
simply made a conjecture from what they observed that He was above forty
years old, and that He certainly was not one of only thirty years of age.
For it is altogether unreasonable to suppose that they were mistaken by
twenty years, when they wished to prove Him younger than the times of
Abraham. For what they saw, that they also expressed; and He whom they
beheld was not a mere phantasm, but an actual being of flesh and blood. He
did not then wont much of being fifty years old..."
The footnotes
provided by the ninteenth Christian commentators to The Ante-Nicence Fathers are more amusing than accurate:
"That our Lord was prematurely old may be inferred
from the text which Irenaeus regards as proof that he literally lived to
be old... This statement is simply astounding, and might seem a
providential illustration of the worthlessness of mere tradition
unsustained by the written Word. No mere tradition could be more
creditably authorized than this"
The apologetic website I
originally found has a more mystical explanation:
"Irenaeus' point is that Jesus' humanity identifies with human beings
of every age..." In doing so, they ignore the sections of Irenaeus which clearly state Jesus's age at death, and rely on the a priori assumption that the Gospel accounts of Jesus being 30 at the time of his death are true.
(This document is a work in progress. Please contact me with any further information.)
