5.15 The Prophecy of Eschatological Judgment in Creation: Haer. 4.40.3 (Gen 3:1–6, Gen 3:15)
chapter 5 layer of pure gold. Irenaeus applies this imagery to the resurrected body, where, figuratively speaking, God will cover the mortal form of flesh fashioned from feeble dust with a layering of pure gold and silver. Likewise, Irenaeus also mentions Psalm 44:12(45:11), which compares a king's admiration for the beauty of his daughter to the beauty of the resurrected body and the pleasure God will take in the resurrected, perfected humanity. The quality of the elements of gold and silver along with the admiration of the king imagines the immortal nature of the resurrected body that receives the perfection God intended in Gen 1:26 and Gen 2:7.
5.15
The Prophecy of Eschatological Judgment in Creation: Haer. 4.40.3
(Gen 3:1–6, Gen 3:15) Finally in Haer. 4.40.3, Irenaeus closes his book with a discussion of eschatology that builds upon his argument for the theology of the resurrection. He argues that God has prepared good things for those who remain faithful, but the Devil and those who rebel from God will be cast into an eternal fire (Matt
25:41).130 In Irenaeus' thinking, Adam and Eve's disobedience was not merely the result of a self-motivated rebellion, but of the schemes of a carefully calculating provocateur. Certainly Adam and Eve's immaturity contributed to their indiscretion, and they (and their posterity) remain culpable for their actions, but this deceiver rather than the humankind receives full measure of God's retribution.131 He connects the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt 13:24–30;
36–43) with the description of apostasy in Gen 3:1–6 and the ultimate destruction of the serpent in the correspondence between Gen 3:15 and Gal 4:4.132
The connections between these passages are found in the common imagery of the apostasy in Gen 3:1–6 and Matt 13:37–43, as well as the prophecy of the protoevangelium in Gen 3:15 that is fulfilled in Gal 4:4 and the destruction of the Devil in Matt 25:41. These intertextual connections are informed by an Adam-Christ typology that unifies the work of God in both testaments.
Irenaeus begins Haer. 4.40.3 with a discussion of the parable and, following the words of the Lord in Matt 13:37–43, he identifies the Lord as the one who sows the good seed and the Devil as the one who sows the tares. His discussion of Matt 13 transitions into a more general discussion of the apostasy in 130 Haer. 4.40.1.
131 Victor K. Downing, "Doctrine of Regeneration in the Second Century," ERT 14.2 (1990):
99–112, 110.
132 Bingham, Irenaeus' use of Matthew's Gospel, 50.