5.14 God Makes and Humankind is Made: Haer. 4.39.2 (Gen 1:26, Gen 2:5, Gen 2:7)
chapter 5 of "death" and "mortality" links Psalm 81(82):7 and 1 Cor 15:53. God understood the natural limitations of the creature formed from the dust. Thus, it was necessary for the weakness of the created nature to reveal itself through its own freedom. This economic appreciation for experiencing good and evil implies that the human person must become completely involved in the activity of this present life.121 It is a system of merit where those who are faithful towards
God ultimately receive the blessing of divine likeness. This eschatological reality is also depicted in 1 Cor 15:53 when death (cf. Psalm 81(82):7) is overcome and the believer is resurrected in the image and likeness of God. This expresses the nature of this glorified state in terms of a conflation of Gen 1:26 and Gen
3:5 where humankind is at last made, once again, in the image and likeness of God and possesses the knowledge of good and evil. Taken together these texts are all understood in terms of order and a salvific trajectory where Gen
1:26, Gen 3:5, and Psalm 81(82):7 portray the original nature and destiny of the human creature that, conditioned by free will, anticipates participation in the divine nature through resurrection as expressed in Psalm 81(82):6, and 1 Cor 15:53.
5.14
God Makes and Humankind is Made: Haer. 4.39.2 (Gen 1:26, Gen 2:5, Gen 2:7) Continuing his description of the freedom of human nature, in Haer. 4.39.2
Irenaeus again emphasizes the necessity for humans to progress morally through obedience. Through acquaintance with good and evil, human beings become more resolute in their obedience toward God, which allows the creative hands of God to refashion the corruptible aspects of human nature.122
Anticipating the future second creation from the dust, where the faithful are resurrected and recreated in the image and likeness of God, Irenaeus offers a poetic description that blends together the imagery of the creation from the dust in Gen 2:7 with Exod 25:11 and Psalm 44:12(45:11).
The final re-creation is not a singular event set apart from the creative activity of God in the present, but in Gen 1:26 the Father's work of creation by means of the Son and the Spirit is a continuous creation throughout salvation history. This universal truth is summarized in the Irenaean axiom: "For you did not make God, but God made you" (Non enim tu Deum facis, sed Deus te facit).123
121 Behr, Asceticism, 125.
122 Cf. Haer. 4.11.2.
123 Haer. 4.39.2.
Genesis, the Creation, and the Divine Economy The unilateral creation of God in Gen 2:7 informs this saying and the designation of humanity as the "work of God" (opera Dei). As a result, Irenaeus pleads with his readers to "await the hand of your maker" (manum artifices tui exspecta) referring to the "hand" (manum) of God that formed Adam in Gen
1:26 and Gen 2:7. In continuity with his argument for a patient, progressive sanctification and his understanding of the structure of the divine economy, he suggests that God creates everything in due time.124 He illustrates growth in sanctification with the imagery of Gen 2:7 and beseeches his readers to offer a softened, malleable heart to God, so that they "preserve the form" (custodi figuram) in which the Creator has fashioned them. This form is characterized by "moisture" (humorem) evokes the imagery of rain on the earth in Gen 2:5 prior to the formation of Adam in Gen 2:7. This allusion is confirmed in the next line where Irenaeus refers to the "moist clay" (lutum) of Adam's formation.125
On the other hand, he also applies the imagery of Gen 2:7 to those who remain hardened and obstinate towards God lose "the impressions of His fingers" (amittas vestigia digitorum ejus), because the Son and the Spirit are not actively forming them.126 In doing so, they "reject His workmanship" (respuas artem ejus) and will loose both God's "workmanship and life" (artem . . . et vitam).127 The language of artem and vitam refer back to the artful formation from the dust in Gen 2:7 where Adam became a living being. From this analysis it is clear that the "hand" (manus) of God is never separated from creation, but actively involved in a continual act of creation. The creature can become hardened and obstinate toward the Creator and in turn deny the formative presence of the Spirit or remain open and submissive to the Creator allowing themselves to be fashioned by God continually.128
Irenaeus corresponds his reading of Gen 1:26 and Gen 2:7 with references to the construction of the Ark of the Covenant in Exod 25:11 and the king's admiration for his bride in Psalm 44:12(45:11).129 The verbal connections between these texts are the general descriptions of beauty in each passage. After the ark was formed out of wood, Exod 25:11 directs Moses to cover the wood with a 124 Vogel, "The Haste of Sin, the Slowness of Salvation: An Interpretation of Irenaeus and the Fall and Redemption," AThR 89 (2007): 443–59.
125 Haer. 4.39.2. For Orbe, the reference to water in this context, which most naturally alludes to Gen 2:5, is a reference to the Spirit who, alongside the Son (cf. Gen 1:26), is active in the creation of Adam. Orbe, Teología IV, 524 n. 23, n. 27–28.
126 Haer. 4.39.2.
127 Haer. 4.39.2.
128 Behr, Asceticism, 117. For the contrary positions on free will in Irenaeus and the Valentinians see: Orbe, Teología IV, 527–8.
129 Orbe, "El hombre ideal en la teología de san Ireneo," Greg 43 (1962), 464–68.