3.1 Introduction
CHAPTER 3
Refuting Gnostic Creation: The Intertextual Reception of Genesis 1–3 in Book 2 of Adversus Haereses 3.1
Introduction Whereas Haer. 1 was concerned with exposing the theological systems of the Valentinians and various other Gnostics schools, Haer. 2 aims to refute them on key points doctrine.1 Given the Gnostic preference for secrecy and obscurity,
Irenaeus suggests it is impossible to address every point of contention, so he only considers those that, in his view, are particularly damaging to the Gnostic myth. Irenaeus believes this rhetorical strategy will reveal a variety of inconsistencies and contradictions in the foundations cosmological speculations that ultimately will cause their whole system to collapse. Unlike Haer. 1, however,
Irenaeus never cites the Gnostics reading of Gen 1–3 directly in Haer. 2, though he does distinguish their competing views on the authority of the Mosaic accounts. Instead, his philosophical and theological argumentation begins to reveal his own hermeneutical approach to Gen 1–3 that will be developed in the other books.
The majority of the book, Haer. 2.1–30, focuses on the refutation of the Valentinians, while the last few chapters, Haer. 2.31–35, turn to the refutation of other select Gnostic sects. Within this broad structure, the argument of Haer. 2 is divisible into five sections: Haer. 2.1–11, Haer. 2.12–19, Haer. 2.20–28,
Haer. 2.29–30, and Haer. 2.31–35.2 The first section, Haer. 2.1–11, evaluates the Valentinian distinction between the Creator-God and the Pleroma. He refutes any notion of a Pleroma existing above God, and draws on concepts of divine aseity to affirm God's sufficiency in creation. Then in Haer. 2.12–19, he comments on the nature of the spiritual emissions of the aeons and the salvation of the pneumatic seed. Drawing on the pre-Socratic philosophers Xenophanes and Antiphanes, he questions how ignorance could have arisen from perfection. In Haer. 2.20–28, he returns to issues of hermeneutics, and addresses the problems with gametria, or numerology, in Gnostic exegesis. The next brief section, Haer. 2.29–30, appraises the Valentinian consummation and the 1 Haer. 2.pf.2.
2 SC 293: 119–20.
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