5.2 The Heretics and Gen 1–3: Haer. 4.pf.3–4 (Gen 1:26, Gen 2:7, Gen 3:1–5)
Genesis, the Creation, and the Divine Economy Within this arrangement, several chapters contain meaningful intertextual uses of Gen 1–3.2 Many of these reading strategies are represented in previous books, but in most instances the specific nature of his textual integration is unique. The particular reading strategies that are applied to Gen 1–3 in Haer.
4 include: narratival arrangements, verbal connections, a close literary reading, typological connections, prosopological interpretations, illustrative application of texts, general-to-particular argumentation, and specific canonical arrangements of texts that coordinate texts from the Prophets, Gospels, and apostolic writings. These intertextual connections formed with Gen 1–3 continue to reveal the pivotal nature of Gen 1–3 in the thought of the Bishop of Lyons, and his intertextual reading of scripture.
5.2
The Heretics and Gen 1–3: Haer. 4.pf.3–4 (Gen 1:26, Gen 2:7, Gen 3:1–5) The preface to Haer. 4 reminds the reader of Irenaeus' overall purpose, which is the detection and refutation of Gnosis by way of exposing the fallacies of their doctrinal systems. Irenaeus is most concerned with the representation of the Creator as defective and ignorant. In contrast to the heretics, he appeals to the authority of the apostles as eye-witnesses of the Lord's work and argues that they petitioned their disciples to reject the contentious opinions of the heretics because the "weak-minded" (simpliciores, 2 Tim 2:23) might be led astray.3 In the spirit of the apostles, Irenaeus also envisions his own work as protecting the simple from the exploitation of the heretics. He goes so far as to cast the deceptive teaching of his opponents as manifestations of the seductions of the serpent in Gen 3:1–5. This connection links this preface with a similar depiction in the closing lines of Haer. 3.4 For Irenaeus, those who claim to have "superior knowledge and ineffable mysteries" (majorem agnitionem et mysteria inenarrabilia, 2 Cor 11:3) carry out the same deception as the 2 BP notes several sections that include references to Gen 1–3, but the following were too general to make any meaningful contribution: Gen 3:1–6 in Haer. 4.2.7 and Haer. 4.24.1 (cf. Num
21:4–9), Gen 1:27 in Haer. 4.15.2 (cf. Matt 19:7–8), Gen 2:7 in Haer. 4.31.2 and Haer. 4.41.4, Gen
3:8 in Haer. 4.11.1, and Gen 1:26 in Haer. 4.37.7 (cf. Rom 8:29). In each of these instances there is no clear echo of Gen 1–3 and in most cases Irenaeus has another passage in mind (even if these text are not always distinguishable from his use of Gen 1–3).
3 Haer. 4.pf.3. Irenaeus identifies himself as one of these disciples with the first-person plural pronoun "us" (nobis). This means that, in a certain sense, Irenaeus views his refutation against the Gnostics as following the commission of the apostles themselves.
4 Cf. Haer. 3.23.8.
chapter 5 serpent.5 Like Adam, the weak-minded are those who are deceived by the heretics become apostate from the church and subject to death. In this way,
Irenaeus uses Gen 3:1–5 as illustration that exemplifies how the faithful should heed the words of the apostles and reject the teaching of the Gnostics.
Irenaeus recognizes that for all their differences the various Gnostic sects are unified in the general rejection of the Creator God in Genesis, which he believes necessarily disparages salvation. Echoing the imagery of Gen 2:7, he describes the composition of humanity as a "mixed organization of soul and flesh" (temperatio animae et carnis).6 The union of the soul and the flesh is reflective of the fashioning of the body and the impartation of the breath/ soul derived from Gen 2:7, where God, taking dust from the earth molds the man and breathes into him the breath of life. He conflates Gen 1:26 with his description of a bipartite formation where humankind "was formed after the likeness of God, and molded by His hands, that is, by the Son and Holy Spirit, to whom also He said, 'Let Us make man' " (secundum similitudinem Dei formatus est et per manus ejus plasmatus est, hoc est per Filium et Spiritum, quibus et dixit: Faciamus hominem).7 The emphasis on the first-person plural subjunctive verb, "Let Us make" (Faciamus) most naturally applies to the activity of the Son and the Spirit, which exemplifies his prosopological reading of texts.8 He works from the pronouns and the imagery of God forming Adam to imagine a triune God harmoniously ordering creation.
The Valentinians and other Gnostics also applied a Gnostic prosopological reading and identified a variety of angelic beings and powers working in these passages. Irenaeus has directly mentioned the function of angels in his summaries of Valentinus, Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, and Carpocrates.9
Those who have departed from the notion of God as Creator have rejected the "salvation of God's workmanship, which is the flesh."10 Salvation, as Irenaeus will make explicit a few lines later, is the restoration of the whole person that is body and soul. This reading views Gen 1–2 as one creation in two aspects, where Gen 1:26 and Gen 2:7 each contributes something to the formation of humanity. Gen 2:7 describes the constitution of the human person, including body and soul, while Gen 1:26 describes how this human person is made in the
Haer. 4.pf.4.
Haer. 4.pf.4.
Haer. 4.pf.4.
Steenberg, Irenaeus, 74. The same manner of interpretation is found in Epid 55, Haer.
4.20.1, Haer. 5.1.3, and Haer. 5.15.4.
See: Haer. 1.23.5; Haer. 1.24.1–4; Haer. 1.25.1.
10 Haer. 4.pf.4. contradicant saluti plasmatis Dei, quod quidem est caro.