The Symphony of Salvation
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5)
the wisdom of God, through which his handiwork, conformed and incorporated with the Son, is perfected—that his Offspring, the First-begotten Word, should descend to the creature, that is, to the handiwork, and be borne by it, and, again,
[that] the creature should bear the Word and ascend to him, passing beyond the angels and becoming in the image and likeness of God. (haer. 5.36.3)
The divine intention expressed in Genesis, to create a human being 'in the image and likeness' of God, is now complete: the handiwork, mud taken up from the earth and animated by a breath of life, fashioned by the Hands of God throughout the economy, culminates in its being raised up, again from the earth, to be vivified by the Holy Spirit in a second generation, which is already anticipated in the believers' regeneration through baptism into Christ and their reception of the pledge of the Spirit. The beginning and the end have been expounded by Irenaeus in terms of each other, within the arc of one economy, the defining shape of which is given by the work of God in Christ: Scripture, in particular the opening chapters of Genesis, typifies what happens in him, as he realizes what will be wrought in those who follow him. For Irenaeus, protology and eschatology are thoroughly, from beginning to end, Christocentric.
THE SYMPHONY OF SALVATION
In the previous section we have seen how Irenaeus understands the work of God in and through the economy, following Paul's lead of putting
Adam and Christ in parallel and filling in the details from a broad range of Scripture but especially from the opening chapters of Genesis: Adam is a preliminary and animated sketch of Christ, the complete and living spiritual human being, whose stature believers in the present anticipate, again in a preliminary manner, through the regeneration of baptism and reception of the pledge of the Spirit. This is, to use the terms we have employed previously, a synchronic picture, seeing in the mosaic of Scripture, in its types and accounts, the image of the King proclaimed in the recapitulation of Scripture in the Gospel. Christ is the culmination of the arc of the economy, but he also comes first, before Adam, being the reality impressed on the handiwork and the Word sown throughout Scripture.
This synchronic view of the economy, however, goes together with the diachronic unfolding of the economy and the growth of human beings in time. In the points laid before theologians, Irenaeus invites them 'to set forth why God made some things temporal, others eternal' (haer. 1.10.3).
Irenaeus of Lyons Or, as he puts it in a short statement of the rule of truth in haer. 1.22.1: 'It is the Father who made all things through him [the Word], whether visible or invisible, whether sensible or intelligible, whether temporal, for the sake of a certain economy, or eternal.' God has created all things in the same manner, that is, through his Word. Some things, however, were created invisible and with an intellectual nature, the spiritual beings who are eternal, and therefore neither subject nor able to change, at least within the course of human temporality, while others are created visible and sensible, and they also are temporal, and thus subject to change.
It is, therefore, God himself who is responsible for the temporal nature of the sensible universe, and hence its mutability. This temporality and mutability is inscribed into the very nature of the relationship between God and his handiwork, based as this is on the logic of creation—that is, that it is God who skilfully fashions the human being while the human being is made by God. Being made, the human being must have a beginning, the starting point for their growth:
For he formed him for growth and increase, as the Scripture says, 'increase and grow' [Gen 1:28]. And indeed in this respect God differs from the human, that God indeed makes, but the human is made. And he who makes is always the same, while he who is made must receive a beginning, a middle, addition and increase.95
And God indeed makes well, while the human is well made. (haer. 4.11.1–2) Irenaeus continues by saying that, while God is 'perfect in all things, equal to himself and similar to himself', the human being receives advance and growth towards God; 'as God is always the same, so also the human being, when found in God, shall always go on towards God' (haer. 4.11.2). Likewise,
God never ceases from bestowing gifts upon the human being, nor does the human being ever cease from receiving these benefits and being enriched. It is for each human being to determine how he or she will respond, whether thankfully or ungratefully, and everything depends upon this response:
For the vessel of his goodness and the instruments of his glorification is the human being who is thankful towards him that made him; and again, the vessel of his just
95 Rousseau (SC 100, p. 228) argues that adjectionem et augmentum, while the Armenian text repeats the same word (augmentum), reflects an underlying single Greek word, IŒ, as, following the beginning and middle, one would 'a prior' expect 'le point culminant ou maturite´'. However, the first line of the quotation given above (the last line of haer. 4.11.1), in both the Latin and Armenian, would support the Latin adjectionem et augmentum. Irenaeus sees human perfection lying in an unceasing movement towards God, as indeed he points out in the following sentence. Cf. Bacq, De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e, 96, n. 2.
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5)
judgement is the ungrateful human, who despises his Maker and is not subject to his Word. (haer. 4.11.2) Following on from the basic dynamic of the relationship between the Creator and the created, is the need for created beings to respond to the creative activity of God by allowing themselves to be created, an attitude that Irenaeus characterizes as thankfulness. If the intention of God is to create human beings 'in his image and likeness', the handiwork must give its assent to become human in the stature of Christ. In an intriguing manner, Irenaeus seems to be picking up on a distinction within the opening chapter of Genesis, where every other aspect of creation is simply brought into existence by a divine 'fiat', while the work that God identifies as his own project, to make the human being in his image and likeness, is not completed until Christ's own work as human, and now in those who respond in faith and thankfulness in Christ.
Irenaeus provides a further analysis of the rationale of the temporality of the fashioning of the handiwork by God in the economy in haer. 4.4.1–
5.1. His opponents argued that, if Jerusalem had indeed been 'the city of the great King' (Matt. 5:35), then it should never have been deserted. But,
Irenaeus points out, this would be like claiming that, if straw or vine twigs were created by God, then they should never be separated from the wheat or grapes. Rather, the truth of the matter is that they were not originally made for their own sake, but for the fruit that they produce, and they are abandoned once the harvest is gathered. So, likewise, with Jerusalem, which had in herself borne the yoke of bondage, to which the human race had been reduced, but by so being subdued became a fit subject for liberty;
'when the fruit of liberty had come and reached maturity and been reaped' and carried away from Jerusalem, scattered throughout the world, then
Jerusalem was forsaken. So, he concludes, 'all things which have a beginning in time must of course have an end in time also' (haer. 4.4.1). Likewise with the Law that originated with Moses and terminated with John, so that 'Jerusalem beginning with David, and completing its own time, must have an end of legislation when the new covenant was revealed' (haer.
4.4.2; Luke 16:16). And, on a universal scale, 'the fashion of the whole world must also pass away when the time of its disappearance has come, in order that the fruit may be gathered into the granary, but the chaff, left behind, may be consumed by fire' (haer. 4.4.3). In haer. 5.36.1, referring to a 'preceding book' in which he has 'shown, as far as possible, the cause of the creation of this world of temporal things', Irenaeus specifies, as we have seen, following Paul (1 Cor. 7:31), that it is the 'fashion' of the world
Irenaeus of Lyons that passes, but not its 'nature of substance', for this remains as its Creator is true and faithful. The beginning and end of all these things, says
Irenaeus, lies with God himself, 'who does all things by measure and in order', so that, as a predecessor put it, 'the unmeasurable Father was measured in the Son, for the Son is the measure of the Father since he also comprehends him' (haer. 4.4.2).
However, in the midst of all these changeable and transitory things is the human being, who, as created, is also changeable, but who has nevertheless been created for immortality. Unlike the wheat and the chaff, where the one who created them is also the one who separates them, the human being, created with reason, free will, and power over himself, 'is himself the cause to himself ' whether he becomes wheat or chaff.96 Thus the human being is part of the world of temporal and changeable things, but differs from the rest of creation in that its transience provides the context in which she or he can grow into immortality (haer. 4.4.3).97 So,
Irenaeus concludes:
God, therefore, is one and the same, who rolls up the heaven like a book and renews the face of the earth; who made the temporal things for the human being, so that, maturing in them, he may bear as fruit immortality, and who, through his kindness, also confers eternal things, 'that in the ages to come he may show the exceeding riches of his grace'. (haer. 4.5.1, Eph. 2:7)
The temporality and mutability of creation, and the human being within creation, are therefore, for Irenaeus, provided by God as the context in which the human being can learn to grow into the immortality of God. As it is the present fashion ( åBÆ) of this world that passes away, so, in turn, when the human being comes to participate in the immortality of God,
God will 'transfigure' ( Æ åÅÆ Ø) the initial 'fashion' of the 'body of humiliation' to conform it to 'the body of his glory'.98
Irenaeus adds a further dimension to this growth and change, in haer. 4.38.3, when he explains how God demonstrates his power, wisdom, and goodness
96 For Irenaeus' understanding of 'free will', see Orbe, Antropologı´a, 165–95, and Berthouzoz, Liberte´ et graˆce, 195–8.
97 Cf. haer. 5.29.1, again referring back to a previous discussion: 'In the previous books
I have set forth the causes for which God permitted these things to be made, and have pointed out that all such have been created for the benefit of that human nature which is saved, ripening for immortality that which is [possessed] of its own free will and its own power, and preparing and rendering it more adapted for eternal subjection to God. And therefore the creation is suited to [the needs of] the human being; for the human being was not made for its sake, but creation for the sake of the human being.'
98 haer. 5.13.3, citing 1 Cor. 15:53–5 and Phil. 3:20–1.
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5)
simultaneously together: his power and goodness, in that he brings things into being that previously were not; his wisdom, in that, in proportion, measure, and harmony, he brought things into being, those who, through his super-eminent goodness, receiving growth and abiding for a long period of existence, will obtain the glory of the Uncreated [Iª ı Æ I ÆØ], of the God who bestows what is good ungrudgingly. By virtue of being created, they are not uncreated; but by virtue of continuing in being throughout a long course of ages, they shall receive the power of the Uncreated [ÆØ IªÅı æ ºł ÆØ], of the God who freely bestows upon them eternal existence. (haer. 4.38.3)
This is, as we have seen, the fruit of the economy that is for the sake of the human being, and the completion of creation. But it has now become clearer that freedom and temporality are preconditions for its fulfilment.
Only things subject to time are capable of growth, and this opens the possibility that, while remaining what they are by nature, the mode or the 'fashion' of their existence can change: human beings can come to share in the power and the glory of the Uncreated. Yet this is but a possibility, which requires the free response of human beings, to allow themselves to be fashioned in this manner.
The temporal unfolding of the economy is enacted in two registers, that narrated within Scripture and that lived out by each human being, though the depiction of Adam as an infant and Christ as the perfect living human being suggests an underlying correspondence or similar pattern of growth for the human race and the individual human being. The unfolding of the economy in the first register is described at length in the first half of the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. It is also summarized succinctly in haer. 4.14.2, where it follows his analysis (in haer. 4.14.1, considered earlier) of the intentionality of the act of creation as bringing human beings to share in the glory that Christ had with the Father before the creation of the world:
Thus God, from the beginning, fashioned the human being for his munificence; and chose the patriarchs for the sake of their salvation; and formed in advance a people, teaching the uneducated to follow God; and prepared the prophets, accustoming the human being on the earth to bear his Spirit and to have communion with God; he himself, indeed, having need of nothing, but granting communion with himself to those who stood in need of it. To those that pleased him, he sketched out like an architect, the construction of salvation;99 and to those who did not see, in Egypt, he himself gave guidance; and to those who were
99 Bacq (De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e, 117) suggests the allusion is to God describing the plan of the ark to Noah in Gen. 6: 13–16.
Irenaeus of Lyons unruly, in the desert, he promulgated a very suitable Law; while to those who entered into the good land he bestowed the appropriate inheritance; finally, for those converted to the Father, he killed the fatted calf and presented them with the finest robe.100 Thus, in many ways, he harmonized the human race to the symphony of salvation.101
The first two sentences of this passage recount, twice, the history unfolded in Scripture. Following his initial bountiful creation, God chose the patriarchs 'for their salvation'; that is, he chose those who were to be the fathers of a race, individuals whose lives and actions were to have a universal significance. To these, he sketched out 'the construction of salvation'—that is, in the various theophanies and actions of God in Genesis, where the future economy of Christ is already foreshadowed and foreseen in the Spirit, finding a response in the faith of the patriarchs (cf. haer. 4.5.2–5).
Having chosen the heads of the race, God then forms a people for himself through the guidance given in Egypt and the Law given through Moses, and through the tabernacle and temple, the sacrifices and oblations, as 'types' by which 'they learned to fear God and continue in his service' (haer.
4.14.3). Again this preparatory formation of the people points forward to Christ's work of salvation and the establishment of the Church. Having journeyed through the desert, God bestows upon the people who entered the good land an appropriate inheritance. The next stage is that of the prophets, who, like the patriarchs, have a twofold significance: on the one hand, they are, individually, moved by the Spirit, and, on the other hand, this is a further stage in the accustoming of the human being in bearing the Spirit and holding communion with God. It also, again, points forward, as 100 Following Rousseau's translation of primam stolam. Others have taken the adjective prima in the sense of 'original', and linked the stola to 'the robe of holiness from the Spirit'
(haer. 3.23.5) with which Adam was clothed in Paradise, identifying this as the Spirit and the 'likeness' which he lost. Cf. Orbe, Antropologı´a, 214–18; H. J. Jaschke, Der Heilige Geist im
Bekenntnis der Kirche: Ein Studie zur Pneumatologie des Irena¨us von Lyon im Ausgang vom altchristlichen Glaubensbekenntnis, Mu¨nsterische Beitra¨ge zur Theologie, 40 (Mu¨nster: Aschendorff, 1976), 254–6, and Andia, Homo vivens, 95–9. However, the context here is an interpretation of the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32), where the father simply bestows on his son the finest that he has, with no indication of what clothing he wore before setting out on his misadventures. As Bacq (De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e, 118, n. 1) notes, the verb used is donans not restaurans or restituens.
101 Following, in the last words, the Armenian version, which suggests a musical context.
Bacq (De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e, 118, n. 2) points out that this 'symphony' is a further reference to the parable of the Prodigal Son, who, when approaching his father's house, heard music ( ıçø Æ, Luke 15:25). For Irenaeus' image of God and the human being becoming 'accustomed' to one another, see Paul E´vieux, 'La The´ologie de l'accoutumance chez saint Ire´ne´e', RSR 55 (1967), 5–54.
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5)
the people now learn to recognize those sent from God, and to see in their suffering the suffering of the one to come, the one who will impart the fullness of the Spirit and establish full communion between God and the human being. Finally, for those who convert to the Father, that is, the Gentiles,102 God sacrifices his Son, the 'fatted calf ', and bestow on them the 'finest robe', so making those who were not a people into his people, another point that Irenaeus set before the theologian (haer. 1.10.3; Hos.
2:23; Rom. 9:25).
Such, then, is the 'symphony of salvation' to which the human race has been 'harmonized', played out through the economy narrated in Scripture:
God choosing his friends, forming a people out of them, and finally grafting in the Gentiles through the sacrifice of his Son, to which all the prior episodes narrated in Scripture also pointed. Although 'simple' (cf. haer.
2.13.3, 28.5), God has worked out human salvation through this economy in a manifold fashion. So Irenaeus continues the passage by adding to the 'many ways of the symphony of salvation' the words of John, that 'his voice
[çø] is as the sound of many waters' (haer. 4.14.2, Rev. 1.15), commenting that 'the Spirit is truly many waters as the Father is both rich and multiple'.
As only the Son has declared the Father (John 1:18), the Word who is the interpreter of the Father is likewise 'rich and multiple', for it was 'not in one figure, nor in one character, that he appeared to those seeing him, but according to purpose and effect of the economies' (haer. 4.20.11). All the diverse types and parables by which Christ is present throughout Scripture are brought together, again in the image of a symphony or melody, in haer.
4.20.7, so that the 'richness' of God is unfolded in a harmonious manner, each with their appropriate moment, all for the benefit of the human being:
Thus, from the beginning, the Son is the Revealer [Enarrator] of the Father, since he is with the Father from the beginning: the prophetic visions, the diversity of graces, his ministries, the glorification of the Father, all these, in the manner of a melody, compositely and harmoniously, he has unfolded to the human race at the appropriate time for their advantage. For where there is a melody, there is a composition; where there is a composition, there is appropriate time; and where there is appropriate time, there is advantage. (haer. 4.20.7)
In this way, Irenaeus continues, the Word became 'the dispenser [NŒ] of the paternal grace', the one who arranges and effects the 102 Cf. Bacq, De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e, 117, and haer. 4.36.7, the only other place where Irenaeus refers to the parable, to show that both those called first, Israel, and those called later, the Gentiles, have one and the same Father.
Irenaeus of Lyons economy, for the advantage of human beings, 'revealing God to human beings and presenting the human being to God'. In doing so, Irenaeus points out, the Word always preserves the invisibility of the Father, lest human beings come to despise God, and that they may always have something towards which to advance; yet, on the other hand, he reveals
God to human beings through many economies, that they should not cease to be (haer. 4.20.7). Human beings cannot of themselves see God, but God shows himself as and when he wills; previously he had been seen
'prophetically' in the Spirit; now he is seen 'adoptively' in the son; while in the kingdom he will be seen 'paternally', having been prepared by the Spirit for the Son who leads the human being to the Father who bestows incorruptibility and eternal life (haer. 4.20.5). This symphony of salvation, then, has led the human being through the different stages of life, to become the living human being that sees God and is the glory of God
(haer. 4.20.7).
The same process of growth and maturation is evident within the temporal span of a human lifetime. Irenaeus addresses this in a most intriguing fashion in haer. 4.37–9, where he provides an exposition from Scripture of 'the ancient law of human liberty', the fact that 'God created man free, having, from the beginning, power over himself' (haer. 4.37.1).103
As we have seen, only creatures created with freedom are capable of initiative and response, and only in this way are they capable of changing the mode or fashion of their existence, growing into the immortality of God. After citing many passages from Scripture to demonstrate human freedom, a freedom that extends to faith (haer. 4.37.5), and the corresponding responsibility and accountability that follow on from this, Irenaeus turns to those who would deny this, representing, Irenaeus claims, the Lord as destitute of power, unable to accomplish what he willed, or as ignorant that some human beings are merely 'material', not able to receive immortality.
He draws out the presuppositions of his opponents, as a question:
'But', they say, 'he should not have created angels such that they were able to transgress, nor human beings such that they immediately [statim] became ungrateful towards him, because they were created rational and capable of examining and judging, and not like irrational or inanimate creatures which are not able to do anything of their own will but are drawn by necessity and force towards the good, with one inclination and one bearing, unable to deviate and without 103 On the place of 4.37–9, the so-called 'Treatise on Free Will', in Against the Heresies, see
Bacq, De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e, 363–88. For a more comprehensive analysis of this section, see Berthouzoz, Liberte´ et graˆce, 189–243.
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5)
the power of judging, and unable to be anything other than what they were created.' (haer. 4.37.6) Had this been the case, Irenaeus replies, it would have benefited neither
God nor human beings: communion with God would not be precious, desired, or sought after; it would be by nature, and not as a result of their own proper endeavour, care, or study. As such, it would be misunderstood and no pleasure would be found in it.
Irenaeus continues by citing Christ's words that 'the violent take it by force' (Matt. 11:12) and Paul's exhortation to run the race (1 Cor. 9:24–7) to emphasize the need for struggle, on the grounds that endeavour heightens the appreciation of the gift: 'as it lies with us to love God the more, the Lord has taught and the apostle has handed down that this will happen with struggle, for otherwise this, our good, would be unknown, not being the result of striving' (haer. 4.37.7). Irenaeus gives an example by way of explanation: as the faculty of seeing is desired more by those who know what it is like to be without sight, so also is health prized more by those who know disease, light by contrast with darkness, and life by death
(haer. 4.37.7). As we have seen, especially with the example of Jonah, the whole economy, from beginning to end, has been arranged in such a manner that human beings come to know their own weakness, for it is here that they simultaneously know the strength of God (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9), and having known the experience of death they might thereafter hold ever more firmly to the source of life.
A little later, Irenaeus develops this analysis by contrasting two different types of knowledge: that gained, on the one hand, through experience, and that, on the other hand, learned through hearsay (haer. 4.39.1). It is, he points out, only through experience that the tongue comes to learn of both bitterness and sweetness, and likewise, it is only through experience of both good and evil, the latter being disobedience and death, that the mind receives the knowledge (disciplina) of the good—that is, obedience to God, which is life for human beings. By experiencing both, and casting off disobedience through repentance, the human being (as in the case of Jonah) becomes ever more tenacious in obedience to God, growing into the fullness of life. The alternative, Irenaeus says dramatically, is that, 'if anyone shuns the knowledge of both of these, and the twofold perception of knowledge, forgetting himself he destroys the human being'.104
104 haer. 4.39.1: Si autem utrorumque eorum cognitionem et duplices sensus cogitationis quis defugiat, latenter semetipsum occidit hominem. Cf. Berthouzoz, Liberte´ et graˆce, 236:
Irenaeus of Lyons Returning to haer. 4.37.7, Irenaeus continues that therefore the heavenly kingdom will be more precious to those who have known the earthly kingdom, and, if they prize it more, they will also love it more, and, loving it more, they will be glorified more by God. He then concludes this section:
God therefore has borne105 all these things for our sake, in order that, having been instructed through all things, henceforth we may be scrupulous in all things and, having been taught how to love God in accordance with reason, remain in his love,
God exhibiting patience [magnanimitatem] in regard to the apostasy of the human being, and the human being being taught by it, as the prophet says: 'Your own apostasy shall heal you.' (haer. 4.37.7; Jer. 2:19)
Irenaeus immediately continues by placing this particular action of God within the economy as a whole:
God, thus, determining all things beforehand for the perfection of the human being, and towards the realization and manifestation of his economies, that goodness may be displayed and righteousness accomplished, and that the Church may be 'conformed to the image of his Son' [Rom. 8:29], and that, finally, the human being may be brought to such maturity as to see and comprehend God. (haer. 4.37.7)
Human disobedience, apostasy, and death are, as we have already seen, inscribed into the very unfolding of the economy; death results from human action, but it is nevertheless a result that is subsumed and transformed within the larger arc of the economy, as it brings the creature made from mud to share in the very life, glory, and power of the Uncreated, so demonstrating the goodness and righteousness of God. Worked out in and through the life of each individual human being, if they should respond with faith and thankfulness, the conclusion is also corporate, for in this way the Church is conformed to Christ as each human being is brought to see God.
In haer. 4.38, Irenaeus analyses the question with which he began these chapters, but from a different angle. Here he suggests that God could indeed have created the human being perfect or as a 'god' from the beginning, for all things are possible to him. However, he points out, created things, simply by virtue of being created, are necessarily inferior to the one who created them; they fall short, to begin with, of the perfect; as 'En conse´quence, l'humanisation de l'homme demande un engagement de sa part, ce qui est e´vident a` l'expe´rience, et comporte l'acceptation corre´lative d'un risque, en particulier celui de se tromper. Par la` se trouvent exclues l'e´thique de l'abstention pre´ventive, toute valorisation de l'innocence originelle et indiffe´rencie´e et, surtout, l'he´te´ronomie comme instance de conduite moral, adulte.'
105 On this term, see above, Ch. 3, n. 53.
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5)
created, they are initially 'infantile', and so 'unaccustomed to and unexercised in perfect conduct' (haer. 4.38.1). Using another example, he points out that, as it would be possible for a mother to give solid food to her infant, but the infant would not benefit from this, 'so also, it was possible for God himself to have made the human being perfect from the first, but the human being could not receive this, being as yet an infant' (haer.
4.38.1).
This need not be taken to suggest that the infantile state is itself 'imperfect', but simply that it has not yet reached the stature to which growth will bring it; an infant may well be born with 'perfect' limbs, but will nevertheless be unable to walk.106 Nor need it suggest that the omnipotence of God is restricted by the nature of that upon which he is working.107 By definition the created cannot be uncreated, but more importantly the omnipotence of God is in fact demonstrated, for Irenaeus, by the way that the created is brought in time to share in the uncreated life of God, a change in the 'fashion' of its existence or the mode of its life, which requires preparation and training, for this is what the whole economy, including disobedience and death, effects. There is, moreover, no end to this process; never becoming uncreated, the perfection of human beings lies, instead, in their continual submission to the creative activity of God, through which he is brought to share in the glory and power of the Uncreated (haer.
4.38.3).108 As he puts it, again with musical resonance:
By this order and such rhythms and such a movement the created and fashioned human becomes in the image and likeness of the uncreated God: the Father planning everything well and commanding, the Son executing and performing, and the Spirit nourishing and increasing, and the human being making progress day by day and ascending towards perfection, that is, approaching the Uncreated
One. For the Uncreated is perfect, and this is God.
Now, it was first necessary for the human being to be created; and having been created, to increase; and having increased, to become an adult; and having become an adult, to multiply;
106 Cf. Wingren, Man and the Incarnation, 20, and, more generally, 26–45.
107 As Minns, Irenaeus, 73–4, argues. As Robert F. Brown points out: 'Irenaeus does not accept the Platonic view that the recalcitrance of a pre-existent matter constitutes a limit to what God can make of it' ('On the Necessary Imperfection of Creation: Irenaeus' Adversus
Haereses IV, 38', SJT 28/1 (1975), 17–25, at 23.
108 Cf. haer. 4.11.2, discussed above. The whole tenor of Irenaeus' thought on this point is strikingly similar to that of Gregory of Nyssa, e.g. Perf. GNO 8.1, 214; cf. J. Danie´lou, L'Eˆtre et le temps chez Gre´goire de Nysse (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 114.
Irenaeus of Lyons and having multiplied, to become strong; and having been strengthened, to be glorified; and being glorified, to see his Master; for God is he who is yet to be seen, and the vision of God produces incorruptibility, and 'incorruptibility renders one close to God' [Wis. 6:19]. (haer. 4.38.3)
Such are the rhythm and movement of human life, which recapitulates the movement of the economy. We can no more escape its pattern or anticipate its conclusion than we can expect a newborn infant to live in an adult manner. 'Irrational, therefore, in every way are those who await not the time of increase and ascribe to God the infirmity of their nature,'
Irenaeus continues, 'knowing neither God nor themselves, being insatiable and ungrateful, they are unwilling to be at the outset as they have been created, human beings subject to passions [homines passionum capaces]' (haer. 4.38.4). Wanting 'to be gods from the beginning', rather than
'at first human, and only then gods' (se primo quidem hominess, tunc demum dii), they blame God and show their ingratitude for what he has given them, 'even though God has adopted this course out of his pure benevolence'.109 Irenaeus cites the two contrasting verses of Psalm 81.6–7 (LXX) to demonstrate this point: '"I said you are gods, sons of the Most High", but since we could not sustain the power of divinity, he adds, "but you shall die like human beings".' This, he says, 'sets forth both truths: by his kindness, he graciously gave good and made the human being selfgoverning like himself, but by his foreknowledge he knew the weakness of human beings and what would come of it, yet by love and power he conquered the substance of our created nature' (haer. 4.38.4).110 Finally,
Irenaeus concludes by sketching out his analysis of the economy of the growth of the human being, in a few brief strokes:
109 Cf. Jeff Vogel, 'The Haste of Sin, the Slowness of Salvation: An Interpretation of Irenaeus on the Fall and Redemption', ATR 89/3 (2007), 443–59, at 443: 'This graspingness is the fundamental problem in the way that human beings comport themselves in relation to God. Though they have an original capacity to be incorporated into the divine life, they lose it through their impatience, what I call the "haste of sin".'
110 Bacq (De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e, 384) points out that this implies that God did indeed bestow the power of his divinity on the human race, but the human being, unable to bear it, lost it, though it can now be regained through Christ's work of recapitulation. It must be borne in mind, however, that for Irenaeus what God bountifully bestows is set within the whole economy of the arc, which includes the loss by human beings of what is given to them in the beginning, that is, the breath of life, but yet through this loss, dying and rising, comes to acquire something more, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, which the breath anticipated.
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5)
It was necessary, first, for nature to be manifest; after which, for what was mortal to be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and for the human being to be made in the image and likeness of God, having received the knowledge of good and evil. (haer. 4.38.4)111
Irenaeus takes the words of God in Genesis 3:22, 'Behold, the human being has become like one of us, knowing good and evil', as spoken without any sense of irony, but as a statement reflecting just how it is that the creature made from dust, coming to know both good and evil, and rejecting the latter through repentance, becomes a human being in the image and likeness of God.
To become human in this stature, to become a god, cannot be done by setting our own agenda, 'wishing to be even now like God'. Such an attempt demonstrates an ignorance of all that we have seen: on the one hand, the fact that God has revealed himself in Christ as the perfect living human being, dying for others, and, on the other hand, the comprehensiveness of the arc of the economy through which the Creator brings his handiwork to this stature, by themselves undergoing the long pedagogy of the economy, culminating in their death and resurrection. To become a living human being, a god upon this earth, then, the creature must allow
God to fashion him by being open and responsive to his creative activity.
Irenaeus concludes these chapters with a beautiful passage, picking up on various themes that we have already seen: the artistic work of the Word of God, the presence of the Spirit, as Water, enabling this formation, and the response of the human being by trusting in God, letting him be the Creator:
How then will you be a god, when you are not yet made human? How perfect, when only recently begun? How immortal, when in mortal nature you did not obey the Creator? It is necessary for you first to hold the rank of human, and then to participate in the glory of God. For you do not create God, but God creates you.
If, then, you are the work of God, await the Hand of God, who does everything at the appropriate time, the appropriate time for you, who are being made. Offer to him your heart, soft and pliable, and retain the shape with which the Fashioner shaped you, having in yourself his Water, lest you turn dry and lose the imprint of his fingers. By guarding this conformation, you will ascend to perfection; the mud in you will be concealed by the art of God. His Hand created your substance; it will gild you, inside and out, with pure gold and silver, and so adorn you that the King himself will desire your beauty. But if, becoming hardened, you reject his art and being ungrateful towards him, because he made you a human being, ungrateful,
111 Cf. 2 Cor. 5:4; 1 Cor. 15:53; Gen. 1:26; 3:5, 22.