6.8 Creation, Resurrection, and the Healing of the Blind Man: Haer. 5:15.2–16.2
From Creation to the Resurrection of the Body the dust of the earth and, after he became disobedient, the entire economy of salvation converged upon the advent of the Lord, when he assumed the same flesh and blood. In the words of D'Alès, he was "chair de notre chair."99 In the incarnation he sought out the same substance that has perished (Luke 19:10) and recapitulated in himself the very same flesh and blood, in order to redeem the body of flesh (Col 1:21–22) that was under bondage to sin and bring it into friendship and concord with God.100 Wingren expresses this essential connection saying, "Sin is never in itself anything human, but on the contrary is the Devil's destruction of man as God made him."101 Through the rest of the chapter, Irenaeus argues for consistent correlation between the flesh and blood of the first and second Adam through a series of intertexts.102 In the end he concludes, contra the Valentinians, that flesh and blood in 1 Cor 15:50 should not be interpreted properly (non proprie), but metaphorically (and intertextually) as referring to the carnal works of the flesh that deprived humankind of life in the beginning.103
6.8
Creation, Resurrection, and the Healing of the Blind Man: Haer.
5:15.2–16.2
To this point in Irenaeus intertextual argumentation, he has maintained a rigorous defense of bodily resurrection from a copious amount of New Testament
(especially Pauline) passages. In Haer. 5.15.1, Irenaeus broadens his approach in order to unify the purpose of God throughout the divine economy. From Haer.
5.15.2—5.24.4 Irenaeus comments on a series of three events from Christ's life that epitomizes the narrative of salvation. First, in Haer. 5.15.2—5.16.2 he connects the healing of the blind man in John 9 with Adam's formation in Genesis, second in Haer. 5.16.3–20.2 he links the crucifixion with Adam's disobedience, and third, in Haer. 5.21.1—24.4 he compares Christ's temptation account with Adam's disobedience. All three sections are framed by varying applications of an Adam-Christ typology and including both symmetrical and asymmetrical correspondence. These typological relationships are also linked through a variety of catchwords and illustrative imagery resident in Gen 1–3 and the Gospels.
99 D' Alès, "La doctrine de la récapitulationen Saint Irénée." RSR 6 (1916): 185–211, 193.
100 Haer. 4.14.2.
101 Wingren, Man and the incarnation, 86–87.
102 He alludes to Rom 6:6, Rom 6:12–13, Rom 6:19, Rom 7:5, 1 Cor 15:50, Eph 1:7, Eph 2:13, 14–15,
Col 1:22, Col 2:19, and 1 Pet 2:22.
103 Haer. 4.14.4.
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Finally, in order for Irenaeus' to support this typology he also reads creation in continuity with the economic understanding of the inter-trinitarian relationships. In this way, the revelation of Christ elucidates the identity of the divine persons functioning in the creation accounts themselves. All divine persons,
Father, Son, and Spirit are perceivable in the language and descriptions of the creation account when read in continuity with New Testament revelation.
Therefore, beginning with Irenaeus commentary on the healing of the blind man in John 9:1–7, he interprets this narrative in continuity with the formation of Adam from the dust in Gen 2:7.104 In essence, Irenaeus interprets Jesus miraculous act as a pedagogical illustration revealing the personal interrelationships between the Christ and the creative Word of God and between the Word of God and the Father/Creator. This account also confirms the resurrection and immortality for those who are destined for corruption. As he binds together these poles of the Son's mediating creative activity, Irenaeus draws together a myriad of passages that support his reading of Genesis and John.
6.8.1
The Work of God and the Formation of Humankind: Haer. 5.15.2
(Gen 2:7) The argument of Haer. 5.15.2 advocates that John 9:1–7 reveals Christ as the Word of God who mediates the creative purposes of God the Creator and Father. As with the other sections that follow, the whole correspondence is organized by an Adam-Christ typology, and a direct association between Christ and the work of God in creation. Christ revealed the Creator and Father to humankind, in order to pacify those whom, driven by confusion or madness, might abandon the true God. He does so by showing his disciples that he is the same one who, following the command of his Father, molded Adam from the dust and breathed into him the breath of life (Gen 2:7).
However, not all of Christ's miracles are accomplished by the same procedure. There is a subtle distinction in the mode of healing in the account in John
9:1–7.105 In most cases, Christ healed by means of a word (sermonem) because, according to Irenaeus, this manner of healing is sufficient for all infirmities that derive from sin.106 He points to the healing of the lame man at Bethesda
104 Haer. 5.15.2–16.2.
105 Orbe, Teología V.2, 27–8.
106 Haer. 5.15.2. Steenberg asserts this section denies the imputation of guilt from one generation to the next, but the language "sin of disobedience" (inobaudientiae peccatum) is singular, while "infirmities" (languores) is plural. This implies some type a relational inheritance between the original transgressor and the sins committed in subsequent generations, but Irenaeus is not explicit enough to draw any definitive conclusions. Steenberg
From Creation to the Resurrection of the Body where Christ's conversation with the man exposes sin as the origin of his affliction (John 5:1–15). After Jesus tells the man to get up and walk, he implores him to abstain from sin so that nothing worse comes upon him. For those born with physical abnormalities or imperfections, Christ heals by means of a work
(operationem). The physical restoration of the body requires the immediacy and labor of the creative Word. The miracle of John 9 exemplifies the latter case. The poor beggar who was born blind (John 9:1–2) received healing, not by means of a spoken word, but by means of the work of a hand because his deformity was not the result of personal sin. His remedial actions reveal himself to be the same "hand of God" (manum Dei) forming Adam from the dust in Gen 2:7.107 This procedural correspondence binds these passages theological and connects the identity of the Creator with Christ.
Christ's intent to reveal himself as the Creator in Genesis is, for Irenaeus, evident from the opening query of the disciples. They ask Christ to explain the origin of the man's blindness (John 9:2), to which he responds that personal sin was not the issue (contrary to the lame man at Bethesda), but the purpose of his blindness was to manifest in him the "works of God" (opera Dei,
John 9:3).108 From this key phrase in John 9:3, Irenaeus articulates what may be one of his most essential axioms saying, "Now the work of God is the fashioning of humankind" (Opera autem Dei plasmatio est hominis).109 Behr calls this statement the "basic structure of Irenaeus' thought."110 For Irenaeus, the "works of God" in John 9:3 is a catchword that refers to directly to the formation of humankind and does not include the other days of creation, nor does it include angels. The designation "work(s) of God" is reserved solely for the shaping and forming of human nature. To speak of the "works" (opera) of God in the plural or the singular (opus) makes no difference, because the plural has a collective sense sourced in the singular aspect of God's creative activity.111
The foremost demonstration of this theological axiom is, of course, Gen 2:7, which details the "process" (operationem) of God's creative agenda: "And the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man" (Et sumpsit Dominus limum also points to Haer. 4.27.2–3 and Haer. 4.33.2, but there is even less in these sections to support this claim. Steenberg, Of God and Man, 46 n. 72.
107 Haer. 5.15.2.
108 Haer. 5.15.2.
109 Haer. 5.15.2.
110 Behr, Asceticism, 116.
111 For the interchange of the plural opera and the singular opus see Haer. 4.32.2. Orbe,
Teología V.2, 37.
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de terra, et plasmavit hominem).112 In the same way, when the Jesus chooses to restore the blind man's eyes he repeats the same process of creation: "and the Lord spat on the ground and made clay and smeared it on the blind man's eyes"
(Dominus expuit in terram et fecit lutum et superlinivit illud oculis, John 9:6).113
The corresponding accounts (Gen 2:7 and John 9:3) are linked through the "earth" (terra) imagery, including "dust" (limum) and "clay" (lutum), the procedural use of the "hand" (manus) in creation and healings and, although he does not make the connection explicit, the moisture of the spittle could match the rain in Gen 2:5 that waters the ground prior to Adam's formation. For Irenaeus,
Gen 2:7 forms a functional paradigm for God's anthropological purposes and, through a series of conceptual links, follows this pattern stringently.
The repetition of process also points to the parallel identity of the divine "artist" (artifex) in both accounts. Irenaeus states very clearly that Jesus' intention was to point out his role to the original creation of Adam and manifest the "hand of God" (manum Dei manifestans) that performed the work of creation.
The "hand of God," as I discussed previously, is a common Irenaeus' analogy and, in reference to the hand of Jesus that healed the blind man, serves as a synecdoche for the person of the Word. This connection between Christ and the Word, as Irenaeus acknowledges, is not entirely continuous. There is some economic discontinuity between Gen 2:7 and John 9:6. In the first account,
Adam knew God and held converse with the Word, but the connection between Jesus and the Creator in Gen 2:7 requires faith and "understanding"
(intellege).114 Irenaeus believes Jesus desires to keep his disciples from seeking after another hand that fashioned Adam (Luke 19:10). He even suggests that the Word of God omitted to form the eyes in the womb, or in secret, so that he could manifest his creative identity in public (John 9:3,6). The public demonstration was a pedagogical and revelatory necessity because, while he formed
Adam visibly, he forms all others invisibly in the womb. Only by an outward action could Jesus show that he is the one who both formed Adam and all his posterity. This also indicates that the Word is capable of restoring all other physical abnormalities and redeeming the corrupt human nature that was lost in Adam. The particular healing of the blind man becomes its own paradigm for the restoration of humanity in general. Christ came to seek out "lost"
112 Haer. 5.15.2. The exchange of Deus for Dominius, reflects the influence of the Gospel account upon his reading of Gen 2:7.
113 Haer. 5.15.3.
114 Cf. Haer. 5.16.2.
From Creation to the Resurrection of the Body (perditos, Luke 19:10).115 The lost sheep in Luke 15:4–6 represent humanity crippled by sin, but through his creative powers that span the entire trajectory of the divine economy, Christ is able to hoist the sheep of humanity upon his shoulders and restore it to the fold of life.
6.8.2
Christ the Creator: Haer. 5.15.3 (Gen 2:7, Gen 3:6) To this point, Irenaeus has made every effort to link the creative Word with the person of Christ through the corresponding accounts of Gen 2:7 and John 9:1–7.116 His reading of these passages is governed by an Adam-Christ typology that utilizes a variety of verbal associations and parallel imagery.
Irenaeus provides a close reading of the Johannine account as he corresponds the whole narrative to the work of the Son of God in creation. In this section he extends the connections by reflecting on the fetal development of the blind man in John 9:3, Irenaeus makes the general assertion: "Now the Word of God forms us in the womb" (in ventre plasmat nos Verbum Dei). This in vitro imagery calls to mind the formation of the prophet Jeremiah in the "womb" (vulva) in Jer 1:5 and Apostle Paul's formation in the "womb" (utero) in Gal 1:15.117 The one who formed the blind man in the womb (John 9:3) is the same one who formed
Jeremiah and Paul in the womb and, when set in continuity, they reveal the identity of the one who formed Adam in the beginning. Throughout the entire divine economy, including the prophets, apostles and all others, the same God forms humankind in the womb. In this line of argument, he identifies the healing of the eyes as synecdoche for the formation of the whole person. Even though the Word fashions all humanity from beginning to end, the original decision to form the human person was the will of the Father.118 The creative activity of the Word was not motivated by an independent agenda, but a direct fulfillment of the command of the Father established in the beginning.
Finally, similar to the function of the Lukan parable of the lost sheep, Irenaeus closes Haer. 5.15.3 with a reference to the restoration of the body by means of the "washing of regeneration" (lavacro regenerationis, Titus 3:5).
Through the transgression of Adam, his formation had become subject to 115 This connection is similar to what we found in Haer. 5.14.2 with the allusion to Luke 19:10, only in the present case he combines this passage with the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:4–6.
116 Cf. Haer. 5.15.4.
117 Haer. 5.15.3. See also: Jer 1:5 in Epid 43.
118 Haer. 5.15.3. Cf. Gen 1:26.
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corruption and mortality (Gen 3:6).119 In the context Irenaeus does not mention baptism, but instead simply refers to the Lord's command to the man to go and wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9:7). While there may be baptismal implications from his connection, what is evident is that the washing restores the man's sight. His restored sight, moreover, is also reflective of his new understanding (cognosceret, cf. John 9:37–38). By means of Christ's revelatory act the one who healed his eyes is the same Word of the Father who created Adam from the dust of the earth, and the washing is the means to formally overturn the sin incurred through Adam's disobedience.
6.8.3
The Consistency of Creation: Haer. 5.15.4 (Gen 1:26, Gen 2:7, Gen 3:8–9) With each section, Irenaeus continues to build his intricate Adam-Christ typology between Genesis and John. From this correspondence, he has contended that the very same Word of God who fashioned Adam from the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7) at the Father's command (Gen 1:26), became incarnate in the person of Christ and refashioned the eyes of the blind man (John 9:6). In terms of Valentinian theology, this correlation between Genesis and John challenges them on two points.120 First, he argues the Valentinians reject Adam's formation from the earth and claim that he was formed from a kind of fluid matter.121
If the blind man's eyes were formed from the substance of the earth (John 9:3), but his body from a different substance, Irenaeus reasons, the substance of their eyes would be incompatible with the substance of the body. Logically speaking if the eyes of the blind man were formed from the earth (John 9:6), the substance of the flesh must also be from the earth (Gen 2:7). Second, the compatibility of substance also points to the consistency of the Creator. It is contradictory if the Savior, who is spiritual, fashioned the eyes in the Gospels, but the Demiurge, who is animal, fashioned the body.
In a move to explain what he perceives as the second exegetical fallacy, he locates continuity with the divine discourse of the Father proclaiming, "Let
Us make" (Faciamus) in Gen 1:26, and he brings to the surface the other analogous dialogical aspects of each account.122 The interpretive move in this case locates corresponding dialogical elements between the passages, and then also links the identity of the individuals functioning in both texts. Irenaeus observes
119 This is a clear echo of Adam's transgression in Gen 3:6, though it is not noted by BP or SC.
Orbe, Teología V.2, 58–9.
120 Orbe, Teología V.2, 63.
121 Haer. 5.15.4. Cf. Haer. 1.5.5.
122 Haer. 5.15.4.
From Creation to the Resurrection of the Body that after their disobedience, Adam and Eve were overcome by shame and fear and hid themselves from the presence of the Lord (Gen 3:8). In Gen 3:9 the Lord, walking in Garden in the evening, calls to Adam, "Where are you?"
(Ubi es), in order to seek out his creature that was cowering behind a grove of trees.123 The events of Adam's sin and the Lord's response in Gen 3:7–9 function typologically in connection to Christ's actions in John 9. Irenaeus refers to Gen
3:6–9 as scripture "signifying what would be" (significans quod futurum erat).124
Just as Adam and Eve concealed themselves behind the trees in the Garden, so also does the Lord come to people blinded by disobedience. In Irenaeus' view, the work (opera) of the Lord lay hidden and people were unaware of the true
Creator.125 The healing of the blind man, however, brought to light the work of God (John 9:3, 6) and reminded all of God's creative purposes. Irenaeus also parallels the Lord walking in the "evening" (vespere, Gen 3:8), with Christ's incarnation coming in the waning years of history, or the "last times" (novissimis temporibus), to offer salvation.126 Finally, just as the Lord, looking for Adam and Eve, called out to them, by means of the same voice (eadem vocem) the Lord call out in search of Adam's posterity. When he conversed with the blind man and restored his sight, Christ revealed himself to be the creative Word of the Father that fashions humanity from beginning to end.127 The Word in Gen
3:9 and John 9 is not speaking on his own, but proclaiming the words of the Father.128 Throughout the divine economy, the same Father who commanded the Son and the Spirit to perform the work of creation (Gen 1:26) is conversing with his creatures by means of the Word, drawing them back to the divine likeness. Thus, for Irenaeus, the logical inconsistency in the creative beings of the Valentinian system is a contrast with the uniformity of the creation accounts in Genesis and John.
123 Haer. 5.15.4.
124 Haer. 5.15.4.
125 Cf. Haer. 5.15.2–3.
126 Haer. 5.15.4.
127 It is not exactly clear which text Irenaeus has in mind when he alludes to Christ speaking in John 9. The first time Christ speaks to the man is in John 9:7. But Irenaeus could be alluding to the people's questioning of Jesus' whereabouts in John 9:12 as a connection to the questioning of Adam and Eve's whereabouts in Gen 3:9. The other possibility is that Irenaeus is thinking of the conversation that Jesus has with the blind man after his trial in John 9:35–41.
128 Haer. 5.16.1.
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6.8.4
The Formation and Dissolution of the Flesh: Haer. 5.16.1 (Gen 1:26, Gen 2:7, Gen 3:19) In the previous section Irenaeus proposed two logical inconsistencies in the Valentinian system. The first is the incompatibility of creative substances and the second is the inconsistency in creative beings. The latter was taken up in more detail in the preceding discussion, while the former directs the focus of the present section as he continues to develop his Adam-Christ typology. Here
Irenaeus argues from the perspective of Adam's death and, citing Gen 3:19, he observes that when humans die their bodies return to the substance of the earth. Logically, then, if bodies return to earth then it is reasonable to conclude they have their substance from the earth. The substance of body that dissolves back into the earth (Gen 3:19) is, therefore, the same substance from which the body was created (Gen 2:7). He reiterates that this same substance
Christ used to fashion the blind man's eyes in John 9:6. This presents a logical and exegetical correspondence between the substance of a decomposing body
(Gen 3:19), the substance used to fashion humankind (Gen 2:7), and the substance used to heal the blind man's eyes (John 9:6). Therefore, throughout the divine economy, from Genesis to John, the same Word of God that continually fashions humankind from the same substance at the command of the one and same God and Father. Summarizing the anthropological conclusions drawn from the intertextual reading of Gen 2:7 and John 9:6, Irenaeus deduces that there must be only one God who "from the beginning even to the end forms us and prepares us for life, and is present with his handiwork, and perfects it after the image and likeness of God (quae ab initio usque ad finem format nos et coaptat in vitam et adest plasmati suo et perficit illud secundum imaginem et similitudinem Dei)."129
6.8.5
The Son and the Spirit as Image and Likeness: Haer. 5.16.2 (Gen 1:26, Gen 2:7, Gen 3:6) This portion concludes Irenaeus' highly involved correspondence between the events in John 9 and Gen 1–3. In correspondence to the closing allusion to Gen
1:26 in the previous section, Irenaeus transitions into a discussion of the imago dei. He continues to extend his Adam-Christ typology in Haer. 5.16.2 with a more developed the Christological and Pneumatological reading of image and likeness (Gen 1:26). In Irenaeus' interpretation the faithful knew that humanity was made after the image and likeness of God according to Gen 1:26, but since Adam offended God through disobedience the true image remained hidden and invisible. Although, he does not make the connection explicit, it
129 Haer. 5.16.1.
From Creation to the Resurrection of the Body seems likely that the blindness of the man in John 9 is part of this argument for the invisibility of the image. This reading of Gen 1:26 interprets the language of "image" and "likeness" as representative of the personal activity of the Son and the Spirit in creation.
In the first instance, Irenaeus' offers two implications of the revelation of the image of God in Christ.130 First, he revealed the true form of the perfect man made in the image of God (Gen 1:26). The incarnation manifested clearly the fulfillment of God's command in Gen 1:26. God the Father had proclaimed that humankind would be made in the image and likeness of God, but as salvation history began to unravel the fulfillment God's original command was not visible until the Word of God, the Image of God, became flesh (John 1:14). The relation of the imago dei to the corporeal flesh has long been recognized, and more than one scholar has rightly suggested that Irenaeus distinguishes between the image and likeness. But this section is more focused on the Christological implications of the image of God than the anthropological.131 This distinction in emphasis has often been misunderstood in summaries of Irenaeus' anthropology. Brunner, for example, argues that Irenaeus distinguishes between image and likeness and locates the "image" in human rationality.132 But this analysis neglects the Adam-Christ typology in this context and Irenaeus' theological and economic interpretation of image and likeness, which is not related strictly to the human person, but the divine persons of the Son and the Spirit.133
Orbe, on the other hand, identifies Irenaeus' Christological and Pneuma tological reading of image and likeness in this section. He argues that Irenaeus
130 Orbe, Teología V.2, 87.
131 Fantino, L'homme, 83. Donovan, "Alive to the Glory of God," 294. Meijering searches for elements of neo-platonic background, and contrasts this view with Plotinus' understanding of the image of God. Meijering, "God Cosmos History," 262. Cf. Steenberg, Irenaeus, 125 n. 82. Minns, Irenaeus, 74.
132 Given his Gnostic polemic and their elevation of reason, I believe that he would want to emphasize the link between the image of God and Christ rather than rationality. In other places he goes to great lengths to prove the limits of human reason.
133 Fantino's extensive analysis of image of God in Irenaeus remains the most developed study of image and likeness. Fantino makes the distinction in the interpretation of similitudo as a translation of ὁμοίωσις or ὁμοιότης. The former he characterizes as the soteriological work of the Spirit that leads the human person incrementally toward the perfection of the divine likeness. The latter is an anthropological category that comprises the human likeness to God manifested in freedom or rationality. This thesis, however, remains preliminary without original copies of Irenaeus' work, and does not fully capture the personal sense of likeness as it applies to the Spirit, which Irenaeus suggests here. Fantino,
L'homme, 117–8.
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speaks of the Image of God in two senses, the Image (personal) and the Image (substantial).134 The distinction is not strictly located in identity but in visibility; that is to say the invisibility or visibility of the Image within the progression of the divine economy. The Image (personal), the Word of God, was with the Father at creation and throughout the dispensation of the Old Testament. The Image (substantial) communicates the knowledge of the transcendent Father as visible and sensible. When Adam was created in the image and likeness of God, he was created by means of the Image (personal), the Word of God the Father, and set on a soteriological trajectory toward the Image (substantial), the Word-incarnate. This is what Irenaeus means when he writes that it was
"said" (dicebatur) that humankind was created in the image and likeness of God, referring to the divine command in Gen 1:26, but it was not "revealed"
(ostendebatur), precisely because the "Word was invisible" (invisibile erat Verbum) in creation and throughout the dispensation of the Old Covenant.135
When the Image of God became incarnate (John 1:14), or the Image (substantial), "indeed the image was truly revealed" (imaginem enim ostendit verum).
The invisible Image of God became the visible and sensible Image of God, and assumed the very nature of the creature that was made in "his own image"
(imago ejus).136 Then again, the ultimate Image (substantial) is the resurrected glorified Christ, who is also the exemplar of the true Image of God and reflects the destiny of the faithful that are gradually being assimilated to this Image.
In this way the texts of John 1:14 and Gen 1:26 are theologically bound together through his Adam-Christ typology, the linking terms of "flesh" (caro) in John
1:14, and the creation of Adam in Gen 1:26 and Gen 2:7, and his theological understanding of the imago Dei.
Second, Irenaeus submits that the Image (substantial) established the likeness.137 If the Word is the personal Image of God, then it logically follows that the Likeness is the Spirit of God.138 As with the Image, the Likeness, or the Spirit of God, is linked with the physical and corporeal aspect of Adam and essentially function as the spiritual or divine quality directing the faithful
134 Orbe, Teología V.2, 92–3.
135 Haer. 5.16.2. Note the both dicebatur and ostendebatur are in the singular referring specifically to divine command in Gen 1:26 and the revelation of the incarnation in John 1:14.
136 Haer. 5.16.2.
137 There is some debate about the reading of constituit in Haer. 5.16.2. Rousseau, following the Armenian, replaces and uses restituit instead of constituit. SC 153.217. But I follow
Orbe, who prefers constituit, because there is no restoration (restituit) of the likeness until there is installation (constituit) of the Spirit in the person of Christ. Orbe, Teología V.2, 103.
See also Donovan, One Right Reading?, 161 n. 3.
138 Minns, Irenaeus, 74.