A selection from a treatise Against Heresies
Intro: Irenaeus was an early church bishop of Lyon (ancient Gaul) and a theologian. He lived between 130 – 200 AD. He studied under Polycarp, who himself had been a student of John the Apostle. Irenaeus says of Polycarp that he “always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the church has handed down” (Against Heresies. 3.4). In the 180s AD, Irenaeus of Lyons established himself as the greatest theologian since the time of the apostles when he wrote A Refutation and Subversion of What is Falsely Called Knowledge, more commonly known as Against Heresies. The following selection of quotes are arranged thematically from the treatise Against Heresies.
We Will See God through the Incarnation of God’s Word
The Word ‘used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend’ (Exodus 33:11). Moses longed for an unveiled sight of the One with whom he spoke, and so he was addressed as follows: ‘Stand on the top of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand. When my splendor passes by, you will see me from behind, but my face will not be shown you, for no man shall see my face and live’ (cf Exodus 33:20ff). This signifies two things: first, that it is impossible for man to see God, and secondly, that, through the wisdom of God, in the last days, man will see God ‘on the top of the rock’, that is to say, in His coming as man. That is why, as the Gospel tells us, [the Lord] conversed with [Moses] face to face on the top of a mountain, in the presence also of Elijah. At the end He fulfilled the ancient promise. [IV 20, 9]
Not one of the heretics is of the opinion that the Word was made flesh. If you examine their creeds carefully, you will find that, in every one of them, the Word of God is presented as without flesh and incapable of suffering, as is ‘the Christ who is above’… The Lord’s disciple shows all these people to be false witnesses when he says: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14).
To them the Word says, referring to His gift of grace: ‘You are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High, but you like men shall die’ (Psalm 81:6f). He is without doubt addressing here those who do not want to accept the gift of adoption, but instead despise that pure birth which is the Incarnation of the Word, defrauding man of ascent to God and showing ingratitude to the divine Word who for them became incarnate. For it was for this that the Word of God became man and the Son of God became the Son of Man, namely, that man, commingled with the Word of God and receiving adoption, might become the son of God. [III 19, 1]
If He was not born, neither did He die. And if He did not die, neither did He rise from the dead. And if He did not rise from the dead, He did not conquer death and abolish its reign. And if He did not conquer death, how are we to ascend to the light, we who from the beginning have been subject to death? Those who rob man of redemption do not believe that God will raise man from the dead. [D 39]
He appeared as man in the fullness of time, and, being God’s Word, He summed up in Himself all things in heaven and on earth. He united man with God and brought about communion between God and man. [D 30f]
‘A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder’ (Isaiah 9:6) … The words ‘the government is upon His shoulder’ figuratively signify the Cross, to which His arms were nailed. The Cross was and is ignominy for Him – and for us, for His sake. And yet it is the Cross which He calls His government, the sign of His kingship. [D 56]
By His obedience unto death on the Cross, He wiped out the ancient disobedience wrought on the tree. He is Himself the Word of almighty God, who in His invisible form pervades us all and encompasses the breadth and length, the height and depth, of the whole world, for by God’s Word all things are guided and ordered. Now God’s Son was also crucified in them [the four dimensions], since He has imprinted the form of the Cross on the universe. In becoming visible, He had to reveal the participation of the universe in His Cross. He wanted to display, in visible form, His activity in the visible realm, namely, that it is He who makes bright the heights, that is, what is in heaven, and reaches down into the depths, to what is under the earth, and spreads out the length from East to West, and, like a pilot, guides the breadth from North to South, and calls together all the dispersed, from all the corners of the earth, to the knowledge of the Father. [D 34]
The exchange between God and man
The Son of God became the Son of Man, so that through Him we might receive adoption. This takes place when man receives and bears and embraces the Son of God. [III 16, 3]
He became the Son of Man to accustom man to receive God and God to dwell in man. [III 20, 2]
In His immeasurable love, He became what we are in order to make us what He is. [V, preface]
The proclamation of the Church alone is true, namely, that God’s own creation, which depends for its existence on God’s power and art and wisdom, has borne God. In an invisible way, the creation is borne by the Father, but in a visible way, it does indeed bear the Word. And this is the truth. [V 18, 1]
Spiritual though it was (cf Romans 7:14), the law only manifested sin; it did not suppress it, for sin did not hold sway just over the spirit, but over the [whole] man. It was necessary, therefore, that the One who came to slay sin, and to redeem man deserving of death, should become precisely what man is, namely, man. It was man who was dragged by sin into slavery and held fast by death, and so it had to be a man by whom sin was slain, a man who went forth from death. [III 18, 7]
[In this way] He attached and united man to God. Had man not vanquished the enemy of man, the enemy would not have been justly vanquished. On the other hand, had it not been God who granted salvation, we could never have possessed it securely. And if man had not been united to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility. It required the Mediator of God and men, through His kinship with both, to bring back both to friendship and concord, presenting man to God, revealing God to man. [III 18, 7]
There was no other way for us to receive incorruptibility and immortality than to be united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be united to incorruptibility and immortality without incorruptibility and immortality first becoming what we are, the perishable putting on imperishability, the mortal putting on immortality (cf 1 Corinthians 15:54), ‘so that we might receive adoption as sons’ (Galatians 4:5)? [III 19, 1]
Creation in Christ
Heaven and earth united in Christ
Into the paradise of life the Lord leads those who obey His preaching, ‘recapitulating all things in Himself, things in heaven and things on earth’ (cf Ephesians 1:10). ‘Things in heaven’ are those which are spiritual, while the phrase ‘things on earth’ refers to that work of God which is man. Both these He has recapitulated in Himself, uniting man to the Spirit and making the Spirit to dwell in man. He became the head1 of the Spirit and gave the Spirit to be the head of man, for it is by the Spirit that we see and hear and speak. [V 20, 2]
Created spirit and uncreated Spirit
The Father bears the creation and His Word simultaneously, and the Word borne by the Father bestows the Spirit on all as the Father wills. To some, in the order of creation, He gives the spirit belonging to creation, the spirit that is created. To others, in the order of adoption, He gives the Spirit who comes from the Father, the Spirit brought forth by Him. And thus one God the Father is revealed, ‘who is above all and through all and in all’ (Ephesians 4:6). The Father is above all, and He is the head of Christ (cf 1 Corinthians 11:3). But the Word is through all, and He is the head of the Church (cf Ephesians 5:23). And the Spirit is in all, and He is the living water, which the Lord grants to those who believe rightly in Him and love Him and know that there is one Father, ‘who is above all and through all and in all’. [V 18, 2]
Through the Incarnation the image of God is shown forth
The truth of this was shown when the Word of God became man, assimilating Himself to man and man to Himself, so that, by His resemblance to the Son, man might become precious to the Father. For in times past it was said that man was made in the image of God, but not shown, because the Word, in whose image man was made, was still invisible. That is why man lost the likeness so easily. But when the Word of God was made flesh, He confirmed both things: He showed the true image, when He Himself became what His image was; and He restored and made fast the likeness, making man like the invisible Father through the visible Word. [V 16, 2]
Man brought back by persuasion, not violence
Apostasy reigned over us unjustly, and, though by nature we belonged to almighty God, it alienated us against our nature, making us its own disciples. And so, in all things mighty, in His justice indefectible, the Word of God turned justly against this apostasy, redeeming from it His own property. He did not use violence, as the apostasy had done at the beginning when it usurped dominion over us, greedily snatching what was not its own. No, He used persuasion. It was fitting for God to use persuasion, not violence, to obtain what He wanted, so that justice should not be infringed and God’s ancient handiwork not be utterly destroyed. [V 1, 1]
The Incarnation of the Word fulfils God’s first plan
[The Gnostics] reject the commixture of the heavenly wine. They only want to be the water of this world and will not admit God into commixture with them.3 And so they remain in the Adam conquered and cast out of Paradise. They fail to see that, as at the beginning of our formation in Adam the breath of life which comes from God was united to what had been formed, animated man, and showed him to be a rational animal, so, at the end, the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God, united to the ancient substance of Adam’s formation, made man living and perfect, capable of knowing the perfect Father. This was so that, as in the ‘animal man’ we all die, so in the ‘spiritual man’ we might all be made alive (cf 1 Corinthians 15:22). Adam at no time escaped the Hands of God [the Son and the Spirit], to whom the Father said, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness’ (Gen. 1:26). That is why, at the end, ‘not by the will of the flesh or the will of a man’, but by the good pleasure of the Father, the Hands of God made the living Man, so that Adam might come into the image and likeness of God. [V 1, 3]
Our Teacher had to become visible to us
There was no other way by which we could learn the things of God than for our Teacher, who is the Word, to become man. No other could have revealed to us the secrets of the Father, none but the Father’s very own Word. ‘For who (else) has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counsellor?’ (cf Romans 11:34). Again, there was no other way for us to learn than to see our Teacher and hear His voice with our own ears. It is by becoming imitators of His actions and doers of His words that we have communion with Him. It is from Him who has been perfect from before all creation that we, so lately made, receive fulfilment. [V 1, 1]
This selection of quotes is excerpted from The Scandal of the Incarnation: Irenaeus Against the Heresies, published by Ignatius Press, San Francisco, USA and translated from German to English by © 1990 John Saward. Title of the German original Irenäus: Gott im Fleisch und Blut Ausgewähit und Ubertragen von Hans Urs von Balthasar was published by © 1981, Johannes Verlag, Einsiedeln.
Top image credit: Crucified Christ (detail), by Fra Angelico, 1437-1446. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
1 Caput, kephalaion, ‘head’ in the sense of ‘seat’, ‘place of origin’.
3 Certain sects celebrated the Eucharist only with water. Irenaeus sees in the mixing of water and wine in the Eucharist the symbol of the unity of the first and second creation, of nature and grace, of creature and Creator, in and through Christ.
Irenaeus was an important second century church father (130-200 AD). He was born in Smyrna in Asia Minor, where he studied under bishop Polycarp, who in turn had been a disciple of John the Apostle. He studied in Rome under Justin Martyr. Around 178 AD he was made bishop of Lyons in Southern Gaul. In contrast to Justin – whose writings he used and respected – Irenaeus rejected the philosophical approach to Christianity, which for him “rested on revelation, tradition, and on the power of the Holy Spirit.” He did not entirely abandon philosophy and many of his works are indebted to it. He saw his main ministry in refuting the heresy of the Gnostic teachers.
Irenaeus is the first great theologian of the early church. His major work, Against Heresies, written around 180 AD, was a refutation of Gnostic errors. He exposed the absurdities of the Gnostic cults of the day and included a strong presentation and defense of orthodox belief. His work is the earliest compendium of Christian theology surviving from ancient times and is the first work that cites virtually every book of the Christian writings that we now call the New Testament.