6.1 Introduction
CHAPTER 6
From Creation to the Resurrection of the Body:
The Intertextual Reception of Genesis 1–3 in Book 5 of Adversus Haereses 6.1
Introduction The survey of Gen 1–3 in the previous chapters communicates an unmistakable intertextual logic in Irenaeus' scriptural interpretation. The final book in Irenaeus' five-part refutation of the Gnostics presents a fitting conclusion and culmination to his intertextual reception of Gen 1–3. This chapter provides the most consistent and extensive set of intertextual relationships formed with Gen 1–3 than any of the previous books. Having described the Gnostic mythological system in Haer. 1, refuted it on several crucial points in Haer. 2, and firmly established his Christology in Haer. 3–4, finally in Haer. 5 he completes his refutation with a careful argument for resurrection of the body. For Irenaeus, this argument is the pinnacle of his anti-Gnostic polemic, because he views the creation, preservation, and resurrection of the flesh as the work of God. Given his attention to the resurrection, it is only natural that the creation and preservation of the body in Gen 1–3 is pivotal to his argument. More than the previous books, he regularly returns to the content and imagery in Gen 1–3 to frame his arguments and biblical interpretation, which is why this chapter is the most extensive and detailed. However, like the previous chapters, the creation accounts also continue to function as the authentic account of the creation, and at the same time they establish a prophetic paradigm anticipating the unfolding of salvation history, the nature of the resurrected body, and the eschatological kingdom.
Haer. 5 falls neatly into three general sections comprising: Haer. 5.1–14, Haer.
5.15–24, and Haer. 5.25–36.1 Haer. 5.1–14 discusses the resurrection of the flesh, contra the Gnostics, as the culmination of human salvation begun at creation.
The second section, Haer. 5.15–24, argues for the harmony between the activity of the person and work of Christ in the Gospels and the original creation.
Third, Haer. 5.25–36 focuses on Irenaeus' eschatological vision and treats a 1 Orbe, Teología V.1, 14. See also W. Overbeck, Menschwerdung: eine Untersuchung zurliterarischen und teologischen Einheit des fünften Buches 'Adversus Haersus' des Irenäus von Lyon
(Peter Lang, Bern, 1995).
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