Structure

Irenaeus of Lyons

STRUCTURE

As alluded to above, the ﬁve books of Against the Heresies are readily divided into two parts, the ﬁrst consisting of books one and two, and the second being the remaining three books.2 It seems that, when beginning the work,

Irenaeus intended to write only the ﬁrst two books. He opens the work with a preface introducing himself and the problems he will tackle. He is writing at the request of a friend, and his purpose, he says, is to expose the teaching of those who 'are discarding the truth and introducing false words and "vain genealogies" which, as the Apostle says, "promote speculation rather than the ediﬁcation of God in faith"'.3 The reference is to First Timothy, from which he also gets the phrase 'falsely-called knowledge [ªH Ø]' (1 Tim.

6:20) that he uses in the title of the work and repeatedly applies to his opponents. Such people, he continues, 'falsify the oracles of God and prove themselves evil interpreters of what has been well said'. 'They speak the same language' but, he insists, 'they mean something different' (haer. 1.

Pref.2). And so his task is primarily one of 'exposure', for 'error does not show itself [KØ ŒıÆØ], lest on being stripped naked it should be detected'. Having come across some of the 'writings' (ÆÆ) of the disciples of Valentinus, and conversing with them, so becoming familiar with their teaching, he feels it is his duty to bring to light what he has found, providing 'a concise and clear report' of their doctrine, especially 'the disciples of Ptolemaeus, an offshoot of the school of Valentinus', and 'to offer suggestions . . . for refuting this doctrine by showing how utterly absurd, inconsistent, and incongruous with the truth their statements are'.

This is done, he adds, 'to acquaint you and all your people with the teachings that have up till now been kept secret'. He also includes in the preface disclaimers to the effect that he is 'not accustomed to writing books nor practised in the art of rhetoric' (haer. 1.Pref.2), and that, as he lives among the Celts, and is now accustomed to using their 'barbarous dialect', the recipient of the work should not expect 'any display of rhetoric, which I have never learned, or any excellence of composition which I have never practised, or any beauty and persuasiveness of style, to which I make no pretensions' (haer.

1.Pref.3). Rather, he urges the reader to accept what he sends, and to expand 'those ideas of which I send thee, as it were, only the seminal principles'.

2 For an attempt to see the whole ﬁve books of Against the Heresies as rhetorically structured

(as prooimium, narratio, probation, refutatio, and recapitulatio), see Scott D. Moringiello, 'Irenaeus

Rhetor' (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2008).

3 haer. 1.Pref.1, 1 Tim 1:4; for the friend's request, see 3.Pref.

Against the Heresies

In concluding book one, having exposed all the diverse teachings of his opponents and their predecessors, Irenaeus is conﬁdent that 'there will not now be need of many words to overthrow their teaching', and again, a few lines later, 'since we have brought their hidden mysteries, which they guard in silence, to the light, it will not now be necessary to use many words to destroy their teaching' (haer. 1.31.4). He then ﬁnishes by promising to refute them all 'in the following book', using the word 'overthrow' three times in as many sentences.

Book two opens with a summary of what was done in book one and a statement of his present intention:

In the present book, I shall establish those points which ﬁt in with my design, so far as time permits, and overthrow, by means of lengthened treatment under distinct heads, their whole system [regulam, R. Ł Ø]; for which reason, since it is an exposure and overthrowal [detectio et euersio] of their teaching, I have so entitled the composition of this work. (haer. 2.Pref.2)

The ﬁrst two books thus correspond to the two key words of the title given the work by Irenaeus: º ªå and IÆæ, a 'refutation' or 'exposure', or rather, for Irenaeus, a refutation by exposure, and an 'overturning'. The identity of the person for whom he wrote these works is not known. One might surmise, from Irenaeus' hope that his friend, having learnt these things, can 'make them clear to all your people', that the addressee is a leader of a Christian community. The friend clearly knew Greek, and was troubled by the teachings that Irenaeus has encountered in his own region around the Rhoˆne valley, but, given how Irenaeus refers to the 'barbarous dialect' in use in Gaul, it is unlikely that the work was intended for readers there. As mentioned in Chapter 1, Irenaeus also describes an incident regarding 'a certain deacon from among our people in Asia' (haer. 1.13.5), suggesting that he is not writing for those back in Asia. It is most likely that the friend was the leader of a Christian community in Rome, probably one made up largely of immigrants from Asia (he speaks of 'our people' not 'my people'). The way that Irenaeus speaks of Marcellina and her activities in Rome (haer. 1.25.6) also indicates a Roman setting. Such a context would give an extra edge to Irenaeus' repeated emphasis that he is bringing to light the teachings that his opponents preach in secret, for this is exactly the situation we have seen in Rome.

By the time Irenaeus reaches the end of book two, he has become acutely aware that the task, as he had initially conceived it, is incomplete and that he needs to supplement the work already done with a positive statement of the Christian faith in one God and the advent of his Son, 'as

Irenaeus of Lyons I shall demonstrate from the Scriptures themselves, in the books which follow' (haer. 2.35.2). He claims that it has been 'sufﬁciently proved' that 'the preaching of the apostles, the authoritative teaching of the Lord, the announcements of the prophets, the dictated utterances of the apostles, and the ministration of the law' all proclaim that there is 'but one God, the Maker of all' (haer. 2.35.4). Nevertheless, he ﬁnishes by saying 'that I may not be thought to avoid that series of proofs which may be derived from the dominical oracles4 . . . I shall . . . devote accordingly a special book to the Scriptures, and shall set forth from these divine Scriptures demonstrations for all those who love the truth'.5 The Latin translation of this statement is, according to Rousseau, 'particularly ﬂawed', and the underlying Greek can be re-created only with every possible reservation.6

Harvey had suggested a reconstruction preserving the sense of a 'special' or a 'particular' book as the Latin has it. Rousseau, instead, suggests taking this phrase as saying 'we shall, in the following book, expound the Scriptures'.7 If Irenaeus did indeed at this point speak of a 'special work' devoted to the scriptural demonstration, it is extremely tempting to identify this as his work The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. Either way, as his previous comment makes clear, he knows that he has more

4 The phrase 'dominical oracles' (scripturis dominicis, ºª ø ŒıæØÆŒH) is unusual and of interest. According to Eusebius, Papias wrote a book entitled Interpretation of the Dominical

Oracles (ºª ø ŒıæØÆŒH KÅª ø, h.e. 3.39.1), and also used the expression in reporting what the elder said about Mark: 'having become the interpreter of Peter, [Mark] wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he [Peter?] remembered of the things done or said by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterwards, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the ŒıæØÆŒH ºª ø, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he heard them' (h.e. 3.39.15); otherwise it is used by Irenaeus only in haer. 1.8.1 in the analogy with the mosaic of a king, which his opponents rearrange to make a picture of a fox or a dog. The reference in haer. 1.8.1 is to the writings we now speak of as the Old Testament, and so I have translated the phrase as 'dominical oracles' rather than 'the words of the Lord', which is often done, but which would have easily been expressed straightforwardly in Greek, so as not to confuse this with 'the words of the Lord', which Irenaeus treats in haer. 4. The implications of this for understanding what Papias was doing are signiﬁcant, for it is usually assumed that he is dealing with the sayings of Christ rather than the Scriptures (e.g. J. Ku¨rzinger, Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien des Neuen

Testaments (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1983), 69–87; Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 12,

214), but this must wait for another occasion for further investigation.

5 haer 2.35.4: Sed ne putemur fugere illam quae ex scripturis dominicis est probationem . . . proprium librum qui sequitur has Scripturas reddentes ex Scripturis diuinas probationes apponemus in medio omnibus amantibus ueritatem.

6 SC 293, p. 355.

7 Harvey (vol. 1, p. 388): YØ ÆE ÆE ªæÆçÆE IŒºŁø IÆØ ; Rousseau (SC 293, p. 355): K Bﬁ B ºﬁø ıÆ a ªæÆça IØ .

Against the Heresies

work to do, and more books, in the plural, to write, to fulﬁl the task asked of him by his friend.

In the preface to the third book, Irenaeus refers back to the ﬁrst two books, the ﬁrst of which 'comprises the opinions of all these men and exhibits their customs and the character of their behaviour' and the second in which 'their perverse teachings are cast down and overthrown, and, such as they really are, laid bare and open to view' (haer 3.Pref.). Now, in this third book, Irenaeus says he intends to 'adduce proofs from the Scriptures', so as to be lacking in nothing regarding his charge. He concludes book three by noting that, 'over and above what has already been stated, I have deferred to the following book, to adduce the words of the Lord', to use 'the very instruction of Christ' to persuade others to cease blaspheming their Creator, the God and Father of Christ (haer. 3.25.7).

Book four opens, accordingly, with Irenaeus saying that he will, to fulﬁl his promise, 'add weight, by means of the words of the Lord, to what I have already advanced' (haer. 4.Pref.1). This book is by far the longest, yet by the end of it Irenaeus realizes that he will have to defer 'to another book, the rest of the words of the Lord, which he taught concerning the Father, not by parables, but by expressions taken in their obvious meaning, and the exposition of the epistles of the blessed apostle' and in this way he will have given his friend 'the compete work of the exposure and refutation of knowledge falsely so-called' (haer. 4.41.4). This task is duly accomplished in book ﬁve, though not with the order that we might have expected.

Irenaeus concludes his monumental work by recapitulating, in one sentence, the whole demonstration from the Scriptures that he has given:

For there is one Son, who accomplished his Father's will, and there is one human race, in which the mysteries of God are wrought, 'which the angels desire to see'

[1 Pet. 1:12], not being able to search out the wisdom of God, through which his handiwork, conformed and incorporated with the Son, is perfected, [the Father's will] that his Offspring, the ﬁrst-begotten Word, should descend to the creature, that is, to the handiwork, and be borne by it, and, on the other hand, [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)

This sentence brings together the three key points of his demonstration: that there is one God, the Father and Creator, who, in the one economy or arrangement for the effecting of his will through his one Son, Jesus Christ, has brought his own handiwork, the human race, to the point of becoming in his image and likeness, rendering them like himself, at the end thus fulﬁlling the express intention of God at the beginning of Scripture.

Irenaeus of Lyons Book one With this very general overview of the ﬁve books, we can now examine the contents and structure of each. As the books are dense and unwieldy, surveying and outlining each will hopefully be of use to readers attempting to navigate this work. Irenaeus provides a detailed account of book one in the preface to book two, which, with some slight incongruity regarding the ordering of items, is clear and comprehensive, and thus gives an insight into what Irenaeus thought it was that he had done in book one.8 After having recounted, in the preface to book one, how he has read some

'writings [ÆÆ] of those who call themselves disciples of Valentinus, and met with some of them and became acquainted with their views', Irenaeus states that his purpose is to set forth 'concisely and clearly the views of those who are now teaching error [ÆæÆØÆ Œø], I mean the followers of Ptolemaeus, an offshoot of the school of Valentinus' (haer.

1.Pref.2).9 What follows in the ﬁrst eight chapters of book one is an account of what 'they say', a construction continued throughout this section, following the order of, ﬁrst, events within the Pleroma (haer. 1.1–3), second, what happened outside the Pleroma, relating to the production of the world (haer. 1.4–5), and, third, the three kinds of substances— material, psychic, and spiritual—and corresponding to this the different types of human beings (haer. 1.6–7.1). In haer. 1.7.2, Irenaeus points out that 'there are also some who maintain' a variation on the teaching about the Saviour, that the birth, baptism, and suffering refer to a psychic Christ, the son of the Demiurge, in distinction to the Saviour.10 That haer. 1–7 (with haer. 1.7.2 being a variation within this general teaching) are meant as a complete unit is indicated by the opening words of chapter 8: 'Such, then, is their hypothesis [Ł Ø]'. What follows in haer. 1.8–9 is an examination

8 Cf. David H. Tripp, 'The Original Sequence of Irenaeus' "Adversus Haereses" I:

A Suggestion', Second Century, 8 (1991), 157–62; Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 11–13; I would concur with Thomassen (Spiritual Seed, 14, n. 14) that Tripp's proposed rearrangement of book one is unnecessary. So also Joel Kalvesmaki, 'The Original Sequence of Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1: Another Suggestion', JECS 15/3 (2007), 407–17, who suggests, alternatively, that there might have been two different editions of Against the Heresies.

9 The word ÆÆ is often translated as 'commentaries', but simply means 'notes', private notebooks, or more generally documents; Clement of Alexandria, for instance, uses it for his own writings as well as others. Cf. Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret

Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 28. There is no need to read into this word, as used by Irenaeus, 'derogatory connotations', as does Thomassen, Spiritual

Seed, 14–15, n. 11

10 See Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 73–6, on the attempted simpliﬁcation and evolution within Valentinian teaching that this represents.

Against the Heresies

of how, on the basis of this 'hypothesis' or 'presupposition', they use passages from the writings of Paul and the evangelists, especially John, the interpretation of whose Prologue is given in their own words (haer.

1.8.5). This report then concludes, in the Latin version but not the Greek, with the words: 'Such are the views of Ptolemaeus' (haer. 1.8.5).11 It is followed by Irenaeus' own contrasting interpretation of the Prologue of John and his claim that those who have received 'the canon of truth' through baptism are able to restore the various scriptural passages to their proper place in the scriptural mosaic depicting Christ (haer. 1.9).

Irenaeus then begins a new section: 'The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith', in one God, one Christ, and the Holy Spirit who made known by the prophets the economies of God worked by Christ (haer. 1.10.1). Though not formally called a 'canon of truth', this is the fullest such statement given by Irenaeus. He continues by emphasizing that the Church has preserved this faith throughout the world, for, while languages and expression differ, 'the import of the tradition' is the same, as those who have reﬂected further on these matters and have spoken more fully have not changed the 'hypothesis', by introducing another God or another Christ or another Only-begotten, but brought out further aspects of the same 'hypothesis' (haer. 1.10). This image of the Church maintaining consistently and universally, though not statically but dynamically, the faith received from the apostles, provides the contrasting background for the purpose of the next main section:

'Let us now look at the unstable opinions of these men, and how, since there are some two or three of them, they do not say the same things about the same subject but contradict themselves in regard to things and names' (haer. 1.11.1).12 Irenaeus begins with Valentinus himself, who,

11 Rousseau and Doutreleau (SC 263, p. 218) suggest that Epiphanius deleted these words as he includes this section in his report on Valentinus (Pan. 31) rather than Ptolemaeus (Pan.

33); though, as Dunderberg (Beyond Gnosticism, 198), points out, 'the fact that Epiphanius felt free to quote Irenaeus' Great Account as part of his account of Valentinus indicates that this passage was not yet ascribed to Ptolemaeus in his version of Irenaeus' work'. Further consideration of the sources for the teaching recounted in haer. 1.1–8.5 will be given in the following paragraphs.

12 Irenaeus begins book two by saying: 'In the ﬁrst book, which immediately precedes this, exposing the "knowledge falsely so-called", I showed you, my very dear friend, all the falsehood devised by the followers of Valentinus in various and contradictory ways. We also described the views of those who existed earlier, demonstrating that they disagreed among themselves, and still much more with truth itself ' (haer. 2.Pref.1). On the translation of the ﬁrst sentence (omitting the esse of the Latin translation), see SC 293, p. 200. Rousseau

Irenaeus of Lyons Irenaeus claims, 'adapted the principles of the heresy called "Gnostic"

[Ie B º ªÅ ˆø ØŒB Æƒæ ø] to the particular character of his own school' (haer. 1.11.1). This is the ﬁrst use of the terms 'heresy'

('heretic' has not been used to this point either) and 'Gnostic'. It is important to note that it is not applied directly to Valentinus or his followers. This is conﬁrmed by the preface to book two, which also reserves the term 'heretic' for those who follow in the wake of Simon

Magus. We will take up this point again at the end of discussing book one.

The account of Valentinus is followed by a brief mention of one Secundus (haer. 1.11.2), a fuller report on 'another renowned teacher among them' (haer. 1.11.3), yet other unnamed teachers (haer. 1.11.5),

'the followers of Ptolemaeus' (haer. 1.12.1–2), and some 'who are deemed more skilful than the persons just mentioned' (haer. 1.12.3–4). Considerably more space is given to the next ﬁgure mentioned (haer. 1.13–15), that is, Marcus, no doubt because he himself had been active 'among our own people in Asia' (haer. 1.13.5), and his disciples were now active 'in our own district of the Rhoˆne' (haer. 1.13.7). Irenaeus ﬁrst recounts various activities of Marcus, such as calling down 'Charis' upon cups of mixed wine and upon women whom he promised to make prophetesses (haer. 1.13.2–3), as well as seducing them through the use of philtres and love potions (haer.

1.13.5–7). He then begins his report of Marcus' teaching with a very unusual and striking account of his reception of revelation that integrates

Marcus himself, as being 'the womb and receptacle of the Sige of Colorbasus' and the 'Only-begotten', into the unfolding of the primary Tetrad.13

Irenaeus continues for two chapters recounting this teaching, usually in terms of what the Tetrad or Sige itself said to Marcus; because of the length and complexity of what is recounted, consisting of highly elaborate numerological and alphabetical symbolism, much in these chapters almost certainly comes from a written work. Irenaeus concludes his primary and Doutreleau take this sentence to refer to the 'Grand Notice' of 1.1–9; on both points they are followed by Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 12, n. 9, 14.

13 haer. 1.14.1: 'This Marcus, then, who claimed that he alone had become the womb and receptacle of the Sige of Colorbasus, gave birth, as being the Only-begotten, to the seed that had been placed in him, in the following manner: the supreme Tetrad itself descended to him from the invisible and unnameable places, in a female shape because, he says, it was unable to bear the male form, and indicated to him who she was, and the origin of all things, and that which she had never before revealed to either gods or humans, she expounded to him alone, speaking thus . . . '. See Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 242. On 'Sige' and Colobasus, see Niclas

Fo¨rster, Marcus Magus: Kult, Lehre und Gemeindeleben einer valentinianischen Gnostikerguppe.

Sammlung der Quellen und Kommentar, WUNT 114 (Tu¨bingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1999), 166–86.

Against the Heresies

account of Marcus' teaching with verses, probably from Polycarp (haer.

1.15.6, quoted in Chapter 1), written against Marcus.

After giving 'the words of the saintly elder', Irenaeus then says, in the penultimate sentence of haer. 1.15.6, that 'we shall endeavour to state brieﬂy the rest of their mystagogy'. What follows, in haer. 1.16–21, is all given in the plural form, as 'they say' or similar constructions, in contrast to Marcus' own words reported in haer. 1.13–15. After a further symbolic account of the pleroma (haer. 1.16.1–2), and some polemical words (haer.

1.16.3), Irenaeus turns to their account of creation (haer. 1.17.1), and the way in which they interpret the text of Genesis (haer. 1.18.1) to accord with their teaching. This is followed by an account of the formation of the human being (haer. 1.18.2) and other passages from Genesis, such as the construction of the ark (haer. 1.18.3–4). That they take various texts of the prophets to mean that their 'Propater' was unknown before the coming of Christ, Irenaeus says, is done with the intention of persuading others that 'the Lord announced another Father other than the Creator of the universe' (haer. 1.19.1–2). Besides these interpretations, Irenaeus reports that they used a number of apocryphal and spurious writings

(haer. 1.19–20). Finally he reports the rite of redemption that they use, anointing their initiates' heads with a mixture of oil and water, even up to the moment of death (haer. 1.21). It has often been assumed that haer.

1.16–21 refers to the teaching and practices of Marcus' disciples, though Fo¨rster, followed by Thomassen, has argued convincingly that, apart from haer. 1.16.1–2, it should not: it makes no mention of Marcus whatsoever, lacks his characteristic numerology and alphabetical symbolism, and is instead much more concerned with the interpretation of scriptural texts.14

One might add that, as the diversity among the followers of Valentinus given in haer. 1.11 onwards focused on their teaching regarding the pleroma, one should perhaps see haer. 1.17–21 as reporting 'their' general teaching on creation, anthropology, and salvation, structuring haer. 1.11–21 in a similar threefold manner to haer. 1.1–9.

A further word needs to be said about the genealogy beginning in haer.

1.11 and the report of the teaching given in haer. 1.1–9. Strikingly, none of these accounts of the teachings of Valentinus and his followers, not even that of Ptolemaeus, corresponds with the report given in the ﬁrst nine chapters of book one. Thomassen argues persuasively that the account of the various Valentinian systems in haer. 1.11–12 has been adapted 'from 14 Fo¨rster, Marcus Magus, 7–15; Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 12, n. 10.

Irenaeus of Lyons one or more heresiological or doxographic sources', most likely Justin's

Syntagma but perhaps others as well.15 That only three names are mentioned here—Valentinus, Secundus, and Ptolemaeus—reﬂects the fact, as seen clearly with the Nag Hammadi Library, that most 'Gnostic' writings were transmitted anonymously. If Irenaeus did indeed use an earlier heresiological account, then it was probably Irenaeus himself who included the report about Marcus to this, as one whose disciples were causing him particular difﬁculties, before going on to give general reports about 'their' teaching on creation and salvation. It appears, as we will shortly see, that in haer. 1.22–31 Irenaeus does the same, giving a canon of truth followed by an earlier genealogy into which he has included other ﬁgures.

The most we can thus conclude regarding the writings used by Irenaeus in haer. 1.1–9, as Thomassen observes, is that they circulated among a group of Valentinians in the region around the Rhoˆne who regarded themselves as followers of Ptolemaeus, but that the authorship of these documents and what this group thought of them is unknown.16 The report about the followers of Ptolemaeus in haer. 1.12, on the other hand, comes from an earlier source, with no further evidence to locate this group or establish a connection with the Ptolemaeans of haer. 1.1–9. Likewise with regard to 'Valentinus' in haer. 1.11.1: the teaching as reported there reﬂects that of the 'Valentinians' as they were known to the author of the source used by Irenaeus.17 In all, it is clear that Irenaeus' primary opponents are the followers of Ptolemaeus in his own region; Ptolemaeus is mentioned in the prologue, whereas Marcus is not. Irenaeus identiﬁes

Ptolemaeus' teaching with written sources coming from his followers, and it is these that he recounts in great detail in haer. 1.1–9. Besides tackling this teaching on its own terms, he also knows, from an earlier heresiological account, of the diversity of teachings among the followers of Valentinus and so adapts this account to heighten the contrast between the Valentinians and the 'Great Church'. That he does not smooth out the conﬂicting accounts of the followers of Ptolemaeus might simply be an oversight, or perhaps an indication that he recognized that they pertain to two different groups, or alternatively that he did not attribute the writings he acquired as being from Ptolemaeus himself, but as an example of things

'they say'. The importance of the account in haer. 1.1–9 is not because, as 15 Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 19.

16 Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 21.

17 Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 26; cf. Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus?, 364–79.

Against the Heresies

Thomassen argues, Irenaeus regards it as being the Valentinian equivalent of his 'canon of truth', as their common doctrine with respect to which they are always in disagreement; the account of their variations given in haer. 1.11–12 is not presented with respect to their differences from the supposed 'common doctrine' given in haer. 1.1–9.18 It is, rather, their bewildering diversity described in haer. 1.11 onwards, compared with the common canon held by the Church stated in haer. 1.10, that perplexes

Irenaeus. The account in haer. 1.11 onwards reﬂects the fact, as Thomassen puts it, that 'there never, in fact, existed a single, canonical version of the Valentinian system'.19 The importance of the report in haer. 1.1–9 is thus due to the fact that it is based upon actual documents circulating among his opponents in his own region and hence can be recounted much more fully and accurately than any other account he provides.

Having treated the disciples of Valentinus, Irenaeus devotes the remaining ten chapters of book one to elaborating a geneaology of the heretics, speciﬁcally called such. He begins, again, with a 'canon of truth'

(haer. 1.22.1), though this time much shorter and focused on there being one God who created all things, without exception, by his Word, and then comments that, as it is a complex and multiform task to refute each heresy, although his plan is to reply to each one according to its particular character, he will ﬁrst 'give an account of its source and root' (haer. 1.22.2).

The archetypal and primary ﬁgure in this genealogy is Simon Magus (haer.

1.23); the ﬁgures listed subsequently are all later called 'Simonians'.20 After Simon, Irenaeus lists Menander (haer. 1.23.5), Saturninus (haer. 1.24.1–2),

Basilides (haer. 1.24.3–7), Carpocrates (haer. 1.25), including Marcellina in Rome (haer. 1.25.6), Cerinthus (haer. 1.26.1), the Ebionites (haer. 1.26.2) and the Nicolaitanes (haer. 1.26.3), Cerdo (haer. 1.27.1) and Marcion (haer.

18 Cf. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 13–17. Thomassen bases his argument on: the words at the beginning of haer. 1.8.1, 'this then is their hypothesis', though the scope of 'their' is limited to the followers of Ptolemaeus from whom Irenaeus acquired the work; the ﬁrst sentence of haer. 2.Pref.1, referring to 'all the falsehood' devised by the followers of Valentinus, taking this as referring to haer. 1.1–9; and 4.Pref.2, where Irenaeus refers to the Valentinians' 'regula'

(which Rousseau renders as Ł Ø), 'which I have with all care delivered to you in the ﬁrst book', taking this also as referring to haer. 1.1–9. Although the latter two statements are more general than the ﬁrst, and the third written several years later, it remains the case that Irenaeus does not use haer. 1.1–9 elsewhere in book one as a 'standard' or 'common doctrine' by which variations are measured.

19 Thomassen, Spiritual Seed, 21.

20 It is possible that Simon's role as heresiarch results from a conﬂation between Simon and Paul in certain Jewish–Christian circles, as seen in the Pseudo-Clementine writings. Cf.

Simone Pe´trement, A Separate God: The Origins and Teachings of Gnosticism, trans. C. Harrison

(San Francisco: Harper, 1990), 233–46.

Irenaeus of Lyons 1.27.2–4), and Tatian (haer. 1.28.1). Given what we saw of Polycarp in the previous chapter, it is likely that this genealogy goes back to Polycarp, identifying the heretics by their understanding of creation as having occurred by angels (Carpocrates), by a certain power (Cerinthus) or another god (Marcion), with Irenaeus adding other ﬁgures by association

(such as the Ebionites, for their similar views on Christ to those of Cerinthus) or as more recent ﬁgures in Rome (such as Marcellina and Tatian). The most striking aspect of this genealogy, however, is that Valentinus, Ptolemaeus, and Marcus are glaringly absent. It could be because, as we have seen in Chapter 1, the disciples of Valentinus had not yet broken with the 'Great Church' in Rome, as had, for instance,

Cerdo and Marcion. They were distancing themselves, physically and theologically, but were still seeking to reach out to the 'psychic' Christians.

Although exposing and refuting their errors, Irenaeus in turn also seeks 'to endeavour with all our might to stretch out the hand to them' (haer. 3.25.7).

In writing the later books, Irenaeus certainly does describe the teaching of the Valentinians as 'heretical', 'a recapitulation of all the heretics' (haer. 4.

Pref.2), but we should not forget the lengthy span of time over which the books of Against the Heresies were written and the complex, and shifting, situation on the ground that we have examined in the previous chapter.

The only, rather oblique, point of contact in book one between the genealogy of the heretics in haer. 1.22–31 and the disciples of Valentinus occurs at haer. 1.29.1, when Irenaeus says: 'Besides these, however, from those who were said before to be Simonians a multitude of Gnostics have sprung up and shot out of the ground like mushrooms' (haer. 1.29.1). The remaining chapters of book one (haer. 1.29–31) recount very particular and peculiar teachings, involving ﬁgures such as Barbelos and Ialdabaoth.

Since their very distinctive teachings, as reported by Irenaeus, are paralleled by works such as The Secret Revelation of John, they can perhaps be identiﬁed as an actual group, with particular teachings and practices, who identiﬁed themselves as 'The Gnostics'.21 It is from these, Irenaeus claims, that Valentinus had 'adapted the principles of the heresy called

"Gnostic" to the particular character of his own school' (haer. 1.11.1) so that 'a many headed beast, like the Lernaean hydra, has been generated

21 On Irenaeus' use of the term 'gnostic', see Mark J. Edwards, 'Gnostics and Valentinians in the Church Fathers' JTS NS 40/1 (1989), 26–47; Michael Allen Williams, Rethinking

'Gnosticism', 33–7. For a stalwart attempt to identify the self-understanding and practices of 'the Gnostics', and the legitimacy of doing so, see Brakke, The Gnostics. And, for a sensitive exposition of The Secret Revelation of John, see the work by Karen L. King with that title

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).

Against the Heresies

from the school of Valentinus' (haer. 1.30.15). Although these 'Gnostics' are said to be the ultimate source for the 'falsely so-called knowledge' propounded by Valentinus and his disciples, it is only at the end of his

'exposure' that Irenaeus reveals the 'source' of the teachings against which he is contending, his ﬁnal act of uncovering, as it were, in a rhetorical denouement.

We can, thus, depict the structure of book one as follows:

Book One: Refutation/Exposure of the Valentinians Preface I. The 'Ptolemaean' hypothesis (haer. 1.1–12)

Pleroma (haer. 1.1–3) Creation (haer. 1.4–5) Human beings (haer. 1.6–7) Their use of Scripture (haer. 1.8–9) II. The Ecclesial Rule of Truth and the Genealogy of the Valentinians

(haer. 1.10–21) The Rule of Truth (haer. 1.10) The teaching of Valentinus and his followers on the Pleroma

(haer. 1.11–16) Their teaching on the creation (haer. 1.17–19) Their use of Scripture (haer. 1.20) Their redemptive practices (haer. 1. 21)

III. The Ecclesial Rule of Truth and the Genealogy of the Heretics (haer. 1.22–28) The Rule of Truth (haer. 1.22) The succession of the heretics (haer. 1.23–28)

The 'Gnostics' (haer. 1.29–31.2) Conclusion (haer. 1.31.3–4) Book two Book two of Against the Heresies, as we have seen, presents an 'overthrowal' of the teachings recounted in book one. It begins with a lengthy examination of the various logical problems arising from not accepting one God, but a plurality of divine beings, and issues relating to their apparently spatial understanding of the 'pleroma'—for instance, that the world was created 'outside' of it or that the true God exists 'beyond' it. In haer. 2.11.1, Irenaeus provides a short statement of the true faith—the one

Irenaeus of Lyons God who by his Word created all that is—and then indicates that there are further tasks to accomplish in response to the attacks that his opponents delight in bringing: 'ﬁrst of all to put to them the following enquiries concerning their own doctrines, to exhibit their improbability, and to put an end to their audacity. After this has been done, to bring forward the discourses of the Lord' (haer. 2.11.2). There then begins a series of questions that Irenaeus brings to his opponents' teachings regarding the Aeons in the pleroma. The reference to 'the discourses of the Lord' that he must treat does not refer ahead to later books of the work, as might be supposed, but to a section beginning in haer. 2.20, where Irenaeus tackles the way in which his opponents have taken 'the parables and actions of the Lord' and applied them 'to their falsely-devised system' (haer. 2.20.1). In working through their interpretations,

Irenaeus devotes a section (haer. 2.25–28), just as he had done in book one with 'the rule of truth', to what he describes as 'the very method of discovery' (haer. 2.27.2). In haer. 2.29, Irenaeus 'returns to the remaining points of their system', speciﬁcally points connected with anthropology—that is, their teaching that when their mother shall ﬁnally re-enter the pleroma and receive the Saviour as her consort,

'they themselves, as being spiritual', will have been released from the animal souls and become 'intellectual spirits' (haer. 2.29.1). Irenaeus brings his argument to a conclusion in haer. 2.30.9, claiming that 'justly therefore do we convict them of having departed far and wide from the truth', and, after summarizing some of his key points against various teachers and their errors, he concludes with an extended scriptural, and almost rhapsodical, sentence:

But there is one only God, the Creator—he who is above every principality, and power, and dominion, and virtue: he is Father, he is God, he the Founder, he the Maker, he the Creator, who made those things by himself, that is, through his

Word and his Wisdom—heaven and earth, and the seas, and all things that are in them: he is just; he is good; he it is who formed the human being, who planted paradise, who made the world, who gave rise to the ﬂood, who saved Noah; he is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of the living: he it is whom the law proclaims, whom the prophets preach, whom Christ reveals, whom the apostles make known to us, and in whom the Church believes: he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: through his Word, who is his Son, through him he is revealed and manifested to all to whom he is revealed; for [only] those know him to whom the Son has revealed him; but the Son, eternally coexisting with the Father, from of old, yea, from the beginning, always reveals the

Against the Heresies

Father to angels, archangels, powers, virtues, and all to whom he wills that God should be revealed. (haer. 2.30.9) It would be very tempting to see this as the original conclusion to the work, before he realized that he needed to demonstrate this faith clearly. However, the text as we have it continues by recapitulating his argument: haer.

2.31.1 begins by asserting that 'those, then, who are of the school of Valentinus being overthrown, the whole multitude of heretics are, in fact, also subverted', and continues by summarizing the various arguments he has advanced in book two, and then by describing how Simon and Carpocrates are overthrown, with their particular teachings regarding the separation of the body and soul and the teaching of the transmigration of the soul (haer. 2.31.2–34.4), Basilides (haer. 2.35.1), and 'the remainder of those who are falsely-called Gnostics' (haer. 2.35.2), where he again deals with exotic names created from the Hebrew tongue (haer. 2.35.3), before ﬁnally concluding with a paragraph relating to his further tasks, discussed above.

We can schematize the structure of book two, then, in this way:

Book Two: Overthrowal Preface I. One God (haer. 2.1–19) The logical necessity for this (haer. 2.1–10)

The truth that there is one God the Creator of all by his Word (haer. 2.11) Questions to those who teach otherwise (haer. 2.11–19)

II. Christ (haer. 2.20–28) The supposed analogies with his parables and actions (haer. 2.20–24)

The proper mode of enquiry (haer. 2.25–28) III. Anthropology (haer. 2.29–30.8) Conclusion (haer. 2.30.9) Recapitulation and refutation of other heresies (haer. 2.31.1–35.3)

Notice of further work (haer. 2.35.4) This threefold structure—God, Christ, and the human being—the last topic being eschatologically oriented, also patterns, as we have seen, the account of the teaching of the followers of Ptolemaeus (haer. 1.1–9) and the followers of Valentinus more generally (haer. 1.11–21), which we will see repeated, in various ways, in the books that follow.

Irenaeus of Lyons Book three In book three, Irenaeus turns to the task of presenting 'demonstrations from Scripture' (haer. 3.Pref.).22 In the preface to book four, he describes book three as having presented 'the mind of the apostles' (haer. 4.Pref.3).

He proceeds by recounting the words of the apostles and evangelists regarding God and Christ, interspersing words from the Scriptures with those from the apostles and evangelists: the 'demonstration from Scripture' that he has in mind is the apostolic preaching drawn from the Scriptures, as exempliﬁed concisely in his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. As such, this book begins with a discussion of the apostolic preaching from the Gospel, and an account of the origins of the four Gospels (perhaps drawing from some kind of report on the origins of the fourfold Gospel composed in Rome earlier in the second century23), and the relationship of this preaching to the tradition and the succession of teaching in the Church, manifest especially in Rome, using the episcopal list culminating in Eleutherus discussed in the previous chapter, but also in Smyrna and Ephesus in Asia. Irenaeus concludes this section by stating: 'Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the scriptural demonstration given by those apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, and that no lie is in him (haer. 3.5.1). The 'scriptural demonstration' is speciﬁcally that provided by the apostles in the proclamation of the Gospel, which has been preserved in the Church.

The ﬁrst main part (haer. 3.6–15) of this scriptural demonstration focuses on the one God, the Creator of all, and deals speciﬁcally with the use of the terms 'God' and 'Lord', showing that neither would the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named as 'God', deﬁnitely and absolutely, him who was not God, unless he were truly God; nor would they have named any one in his own person Lord, except God the 22 On the particularly Johannine character of book three, see Bernhard Mutschler, Irena¨us als johanneischer Theologe: Studien zur Schriftauslegung bei Irena¨us von Lyon, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum, 21 (Tu¨bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), Das Corpus Johanneum bei

Irena¨us von Lyon: Studien und Kommentar zum dritten Buch von Adversus Haereses, WUNT 189

(Tu¨bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), and 'John and his Gospel in the Mirror of Irenaeus of Lyons:

Perspectives of Recent Research', in Tuomas Raismus (ed.), The Legacy of John: Second-Century

Reception of the Fourth Gospel, Supplements to Novum Testamentum, 132 (Leiden: Brill, 2010),

319–43.

23 Cf. Claus-Ju¨rgen Thornton, Der Zeuge des Zeugen: Lukas als Historiker der Paulusreisen,

WUNT 56 (Tu¨bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 40–5.

Against the Heresies

Father ruling over all, and his Son who has received dominion from his Father over all creation, as this passage has it, 'The Lord said to my Lord . . . ' (haer. 3.6.1,

Ps. 110:1) Irenaeus follows this with passages from the Prophets, Paul, and Christ

(haer. 3.6–8).24 He concludes this exposition by commenting that 'this therefore having been clearly demonstrated here . . . that neither the prophets, nor the apostles, nor the Lord Christ in his own person, did acknowledge any other "Lord" or "God", but the God and Lord supreme, the prophets and the apostles confessing the Father and the Son, but naming no other as "God", and confessing no other as "Lord", and the Lord himself handing down to his disciples, that he, the Father, is the only God and Lord, who alone is God and ruler of all' (haer. 3.9.1). If we are indeed their disciples, he continues, we should follow their testimonies regarding this and so he turns to the evangelists, treating passages using the word 'God' from the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John (haer. 3.9–11).25

Irenaeus appends to this treatment of the evangelists a short discussion on 'the four-formed Gospel' (haer. 3.11.7–9), and then turns to 'the remaining apostles and enquires into their teaching with regard to God; then in due course we shall listen to the very words of the Lord' (haer. 3.11.9). The second part of this intention is not undertaken until book four, and by 'the remaining apostles' he primarily means the apostles as they appear and speak in the Acts, treating Peter, Philip, Paul (again, for it is Paul as he appears in the Acts), and Stephen (haer. 3.12). Finally, he concludes this ﬁrst part of the work on 'the one God' by treating the arguments of those who only accept Paul or reject him altogether and the inseparability of Paul and Luke (haer. 3.13–15).

The second main part of book three is devoted to the unity of the one Jesus Christ (haer. 3.16–21.9).26 He begins by noting that there are some who treat 'Jesus' as a 'receptacle of Christ' who descended from above

24 In haer. 3.8.1–2 Irenaeus includes two sayings from Christ using the word 'God' (Matt.

22:21, 6:24), and one (Matt. 12:29) where a word is used relatively of the devil and us (and the Lord, via Jer. 38:11). Given what he says in haer. 3.9.1, cited in the following sentence, these sayings of Christ form for Irenaeus a witness independent from the Gospels that he quotes in the chapters that follow.

25 It is unclear why Luke and Mark appear here in reversed order to the account of their appearance given earlier (haer. 3.1.1) and later (haer. 3.16).

26 Rousseau would identify haer. 3.16–23 as being the second of two main parts of book three, entitling it 'The one Christ, Son of God become the Son of man, to recapitulate in himself his own creation', dividing it into the following sections: 1: The Son of God truly became man (haer. 3.16–18); 2: Jesus is not a 'mere man' but the Son of God incarnate in the womb of the Virgin (haer. 3.19–21.9); 3: The Recapitulation of Adam (haer. 3.21.9–23).

Irenaeus of Lyons upon him, or say that he only suffered in appearance, or, as the Valentinians, that the 'Saviour' descended upon 'the Jesus of the economy'. Given such teachings, he intends to 'take into account the entire mind of the apostles regarding our Lord Jesus Christ' (haer. 3.16.1). He begins with a very brief comment on John, reminding the reader that he has already

'sufﬁciently proved' 'that John knew one and the same Word of God, and that he was the Only-begotten and that he became incarnate for our salvation', referring back to his treatment of the Prologue of John in book one.27 He then examines passages from Matthew relating to the birth of Christ the Saviour, with a conﬁrmation from Paul's letters to the Romans and Galatians that the prophets did indeed promise that the Son, the one Jesus Christ, would be of the seed of David, appointed Son of God by the resurrection from the dead.28 This is followed by texts from Mark and Luke (though without mentioning the latter's name), showing again that 'the Gospel therefore knew of no other son of Man but him who was born of Mary, who also suffered, and no Christ who ﬂew away from Jesus before the Passion, but him who was born it knew as Jesus Christ the Son of God and that his same suffered and rose again' (haer. 3.16.3–5). This afﬁrmation of the Gospels is rounded off by a further mention of John, this time quoting from the Gospel, which was written 'that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you might have eternal life in his name', and the Epistle with its warning about the Antichrist who 'denies that Jesus is the Christ'.29

That there is but one Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour, as established by these scriptural testimonies, rather than the variety of ﬁgures according to their 'varying hypothesis', is then the subject of an extended theological reﬂection (haer. 3.16.6–18.7). 'There is, therefore,' Irenaeus demonstrates,

'one God the Father and One Christ Jesus, who is coming throughout the whole economy, recapitulating all things in himself . . . so that he might draw all things to himself at the proper time' (haer. 3.16.6). It was not a 'Saviour' or 'Christ' who descended upon Jesus, but the Holy Spirit who descended upon the one Jesus Christ at his baptism, so that, becoming accustomed in this way to dwell in the human race, the Spirit might then dwell in human beings, 'renewing them from their old habits into the newness of Christ' (haer. 3.17.1). It is the identity of Christ as the suffering one that is of primary importance for Irenaeus, and to which he brings

27 haer. 3.16.2, cf. 1.8.5–9.3.

28 haer. 3.16.2–3, citing Rom. 1:1–4, 9:5; Gal 4:4–5.

29 haer. 3.16.5, citing John 20:31; 1 John 2:18–19, 21–2.

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back his discussion showing how it opens a way for others to enter into the life that Christ gives. Paul, Irenaeus says, made it clear that he 'knew of no other Christ besides him alone, who both suffered, and was buried, and rose again, who also was born, and whom he speaks of as human' (haer.

3.18.3). And likewise: 'The Lord himself, too, makes it evident who it was that suffered', by asking 'who do men say that I am?' (haer. 3.18.4, Matt.

16:13). In response to Peter's confession, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God' (Matt. 16:16), Christ 'made it clear that he, the Son of man, is Christ the Son of the Living God', by thereafter speaking of how he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, be cruciﬁed, and rise again. This suffering is, moreover, that which will come upon all those who follow Christ, as they take up the same Cross, not another, and is seen most particularly in those who 'follow the footprints of the Lord's Passion, having become martyrs of the Suffering One' (haer. 3.18.4–5). He concludes this series of reﬂections with the point that, if Christ was to destroy sin and death, then he needed to be made that very same thing as the one he would save:

'What he did appear, that he also was: God recapitulated in himself the ancient formation of man, that he might kill sin, deprive death of its power, and vivify the human being: and therefore his works are true'

(haer. 3.18.7). The 'viviﬁcation' that Christ provides is the life given to those who suffer with Christ, identifying themselves with him.

The ﬁnal section of part two turns to those who say that Christ 'was simply a mere man' (haer. 3.19.1). As he has shown 'from the Scriptures that none of the sons of Adam is, in all respects and absolutely, called

"God" or named "Lord"' apart from Christ himself, it is of him that Scripture asks, 'Who shall declare his generation?', for he 'was not born either by the will of the ﬂesh or by the will of man'.30 It is for this reason that the Lord 'gave us a sign, in the depth below and in the height above', that the one born from the Virgin should be 'God with us'.31 The 'sign in the depth below' is that of Jonah, whom God arranged to be swallowed up to learn obedience to his Creator, indicating how God 'allowed' the human race to be swallowed up from the beginning, so that, 'acquiring a knowledge of death' and then receiving an unhoped for, but divinely foreseen, salvation in the person of Christ, they might be willing ever more to receive the life that comes from God alone. Jonah is thus the 'sign' both of the perishing human race and of the divine Saviour, who by his death conquers death (haer. 3.20.1–2). The second 'sign of our salvation' is

30 haer. 3.19.2, citing Isa. 53:8, John 1:13.

31 haer. 3.19.3, cf. Isa. 7:11, 14; Matt. 1:23.

Irenaeus of Lyons the Lord himself, 'Emmanuel from the Virgin', since it is 'the Lord himself who saved them' (haer. 3.20.3). After dealing with Theodotion's translation of the text of Isaiah (as 'a young woman shall conceive'), and the Ebionites who follow this reading, rather than the translation of the seventy as used by the apostles and evangelists (haer. 3.21.1–3), Irenaeus brings in further texts relating to the virgin birth and the 'sign' given by God in the house of David, showing 'that, according to the promise of God, from David's belly the King eternal is raised up, who recapitulates all things in himself (haer. 3.21.9).

Recapitulated in Christ is speciﬁcally 'the ancient formation' of the human being, and it is this subject that Irenaeus treats in the third main part of book three.32 Christ's virgin birth parallels, for Irenaeus, the original formation of Adam, from virgin earth by the Hand of the God, but taking the earth from the Virgin, instead of taking new earth from the ground, so that there might not be another formation called into being, but rather that the very same formation should be recapitulated, giving it another head and preserving the analogy (haer. 3.20.10). For a similar reason, Irenaeus argues, Luke traces back the genealogy of Christ to Adam, so 'connecting the end to the beginning' and summing up all descendants of Adam (haer. 3.22.3). Taking this retrospective perspective further, Irenaeus sets Paul's contrast between the ﬁrst Adam, who became an 'animated being' (cf. Gen. 2:7: N łıåc ÇH Æ), and Christ, who through his Passion became the new Adam and the 'life-giving spirit'

(1 Cor. 15:45: N FÆ ÇﬁøØF), within the scope of one economy, to explain how Adam is a 'type of the one to come' (Rom. 5:14): 'the Word, the Maker of all things, preﬁgured in him the economy that was to come of the humanity of the Son of God, God having predestined that the ﬁrst human being should be animated, namely, so that he should be saved by the spiritual'. And then concludes: 'For, since he who saves already existed, it was necessary that he who would be saved should come into existence, that the One who saves should not exist in vain' (haer. 3.22.3).33

Human existence is seen as being oriented from the beginning to Christ, the one who has shown himself to be the cruciﬁed Saviour, granting life through the Spirit to all those who follow him in his Passion. Irenaeus also

32 haer. 3.21.9–23, taking the last words of 3.21.9 (Et antiquam plasmationem in se recapitulatus est) with haer. 3.21.10, as does Rousseau, though he identiﬁes the overarching structure differently (see Ch. 2, n. 26).

33 On this difﬁcult text, see the discussion in Chapter 3 and the material cited in Ch. 3, n. 32.

Against the Heresies

places in parallel Mary, the obedient virgin, and Eve, the disobedient virgin, arguing that by being obedient, Mary 'became the cause of salvation both to herself and the whole human race', the 'back-referencing from Mary to Eve' indicating that 'what had been joined together could not otherwise be put asunder than by the inversion of the process by which these bonds of union had arisen' (haer. 3.22.4). Beginning with Christ and working back to Adam (and similarly from Mary to Eve), as is done in Luke's genealogy, 'indicates that it was he who regenerated them into the gospel of life, and not they him' (haer. 3.22.4). For all these reasons, Irenaeus argues, with Christ coming to ﬁnd the lost sheep,

'making a recapitulation of so comprehensive an economy', it was impossible that Adam should not be saved (haer. 3.23.1–2).

The remaining two chapters of book three return brieﬂy to the theme with which the book began, having shown that the preaching of the Church is everywhere consistent, remains identical, and is witnessed by the prophets, the apostles, and all their disciples, as we have shown, by the beginning, the middle, and the end, and through the whole economy of God, and the sure fact of the salvation of the human being which is ours in faith.

(haer. 3.24.1) This preaching, preserved in the Church, as a precious deposit in an excellent vessel, is not merely static, but is constantly 'being rejuvenated'

(iuuenescens), and causes the Church itself also to be rejuvenated, as the woman who appeared to Hermas, becoming ever younger.34 The Church not only preaches this, but is, according to Irenaeus, the place where this is being worked out: it is the locus of the Spirit, who viviﬁes those in the Church as the breath did the ﬁrst created man. Such reﬂection is continued by Irenaeus in terms of God's providence over the world (haer.

3.24.2–25.1), his goodness and justice and the folly of thinking of a God who is not both (haer. 3.25.2–7). Irenaeus concludes the book with a paragraph expressing his hope and prayer that those who have rejected this teaching may not remain in the pit they have dug for themselves, but be converted to the Church of God, and stating his intention to endeavour with all his might to stretch out his hand to them, promising to do so by turning to 'the words of the Lord' in the following book (haer. 3.25.7).

We can therefore outline the structure of book three thus:

34 I owe this connection to Michael Soroka.

Irenaeus of Lyons Book Three: The Apostolic Preaching Preface Scripture, Tradition, Church (haer. 3.1–5)

I. One God (haer. 3.6–15) Witness of the Prophets, the Apostle, and the Lord himself

(haer. 3:6–8) Witness of the Evangelists (haer. 3.9–11) The other apostles (i.e. Acts) (haer. 3.12)

Supplementary comments on Paul (haer. 3.13–15) II. One Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour (haer. 3.16–21.9)

The witness of the Evangelists (3.16.2–5) The identity of Christ (haer. 3.16.6–18)

The 'signs' of Salvation (haer. 3.19–21.9) III. Recapitulation of Adam (haer. 3.21.10–23)

The Church as the locus of life for the human being (haer. 3.24–25.6) Conclusion (haer. 3.25.7) Book three is thus structured in the same threefold pattern as book two, demonstrating that there is one God, one Christ revealed in what he has done in the one economy, and the new reality that this recapitulation has brought into effect, providing a new head for those who turn to Christ.

Book four In the fourth book, the longest of the ﬁve, Irenaeus fulﬁls his promise

(cf. haer. 3.25.7) to 'add weight by means of the words of the Lord, to what I have already advanced' (haer. 4.Pref.1). It is again divided into three parts, corresponding to what we have seen in books two and three. The ﬁrst part thus treats of the one God, under various aspects, from the words of the Lord correlated to various passages from Scripture (haer. 4.1–19).35 He begins by demonstrating that the Creator and author of the Law is the one

35 Both Bacq (De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e ) and Rousseau (SC 100) describe the contents of the ﬁrst and second parts of book four in terms of the relationship between the Two Testaments: part one (haer. 4.1–19) as the unity of the Two Testaments shown from the clear words of Christ; and part two (haer. 4.20–35) as the Old Testament as a prophecy of the New. Irenaeus, however, does not (yet) work or speak in a framework structured by two bodies of literature, an Old and a New Testament; instead he intersperses words from the Law and the Prophets together with words from the apostles, evangelists, and Christ, under, as described here, the headings of the one God, the one Christ and his economy, and the one human race.

Against the Heresies

God, the Father of Christ, the God of Jerusalem and the temple, even if these have been destroyed, as will also happen to the fashion of the whole world in which human beings grow to maturity and bear the fruit of liberty (haer. 4.1–5.1). A second section is devoted to showing how the Father of our Lord is the very same as the God of the patriarchs, so that there is again one and the same God (haer. 4.5.2–8.1). That Christ himself observed the Law, Irenaeus argues in a third section, is shown by his healing of a woman on the Sabbath and plucking and eating ears of corn on the Sabbath (haer. 4.8.2–3). Taking his lead from Christ's words about the householder who brings forth from his treasure things old and new

(Matt. 13:52), Irenaeus devotes a fourth section to showing that the Law and Gospel are not in opposition to each other, as if they were from different gods, but, as coming from one and the same God, relate to each other in terms of greater and lesser, ﬁgure and reality, the announcement of the arrival of the king and his actual arrival, differences that correspond to the continual and unending growth of the human being towards God, that which is being made and the One who makes (haer. 4.9–11). It is in this perspective that we can see the Gospel as the fulﬁlment of the Law

(haer. 4.12–16) and the Eucharist as the completion of the ﬁgurative sacriﬁces (haer. 4.12–19.1a).36 Irenaeus concludes this ﬁrst part of book four with a few paragraphs emphasizing the transcendence of God (haer.

4.19.1b–3).

Irenaeus opens chapter 20 of book four by contrasting the transcendence and immanence of God: 'As regards his greatness, therefore, it is not possible to know God, for it is impossible that the Father can be measured; but as regards his love' we learn that he has 'established, and selected, and adorned, and contains all things', among which are both our world and ourselves, for we are the one of whom Scripture says 'God formed the human being, taking clay of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life' (Gen. 2:7), speaking to his Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, who were always present with him, by whom and in whom he has made all things (haer. 4.20.1). It is Christ himself to whom all things have been delivered by the Father (Matt. 11:27), who as the slain lamb is able to open the book of the Father (Rev. 3:7, 5:12), becoming 'the ﬁrstborn of the dead' (Col. 1:18), so that all might be able to behold their King and that the paternal light might rest upon the ﬂesh of our

36 Following Bacq (De l'ancienne a` la nouvelle alliance selon S. Ire´ne´e, 147–8) in taking the ﬁrst sentence of haer. 4.19.1 (l. 5 in the SC edition) as concluding the section, and the second sentence as beginning the conclusion to the ﬁrst part.

Irenaeus of Lyons Lord, coming from him to us, so that we too might be invested with the paternal light and attain immortality (haer. 4.20.2–3). He concludes this opening section by returning to the contrast of transcendence and immanence: there is one God who has created and arranged all things by his Word and Wisdom; this is the Creator who has granted this world to the human race, and 'who, as regards his greatness, is indeed unknown to all who have been made by him . . . but as regards his love, is always known through him by whose means he ordained all things'. And he continues by specifying who this one is and the scope of his economy:

Now this is his Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the last times was made a human being among humans, that he might join the end to the beginning, that is, the human being to God. Wherefore the prophets, receiving the prophetic gift from the same Word, announced his advent according to the ﬂesh, by which the blending and communion of God and the human being took place according to the good pleasure of the Father, the Word of God foretelling from the beginning that God should be seen by humans, and hold converse with them upon earth, should confer with them, and should be present with his own creation, saving it, and becoming capable of being perceived by it, and freeing us from the hands of all that hate us, that is, from every spirit of wickedness; and causing us to serve him in holiness and righteousness all our days, in order that the human being, having embraced the Spirit of God, might pass into the glory of the Father.

(haer. 4.20.4) This opening section to part two thus provides the starting point for a Christological rereading of the Scriptures, again with speciﬁc reference to the words of the Lord, but this time demonstrating the immanence of God through Christ and the economy.

Irenaeus begins part two with a lengthy examination of the prophetic character of the Scriptures, for 'these things did the prophets set forth in a prophetical manner' (haer. 4.20.5), not only in word, but in their visions,

John's as well as the prophets of old, and in the actions of the prophets, patriarchs, and in the preﬁgurative acts of Christ himself (haer. 4.20.5–22).

In the next three chapters, Irenaeus uses Christ's words about the harvest (John 4:35–8) to describe how, through all this preﬁguration, Christ was

'sown' in the Scriptures while the Church brings forward the harvest (haer.

4.23–25). Irenaeus then provides a summary statement, introduced and concluded with the words 'if anyone then reads Scripture' in this way, ﬁnding in them an account of Christ and themselves being transﬁgured so that others cannot behold the glory of their countenance (haer. 4.26). This is then followed by a long statement (haer. 4.26.2–33) regarding this

Against the Heresies

ecclesial reading of Scripture, exempliﬁed by the presbyters, and including lengthy reports of 'a certain presbyter', whom in the last chapter we saw should be identiﬁed as Polycarp, and concluding with how a 'spiritual disciple' is able on this basis to refute all heresies and expound 'the true knowledge [ªH Ø]' that is 'the teaching of the apostles and the ancient constitution of the Church throughout the world, the distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops'

(haer. 4.33.8), while the Church, with the love that she bears towards God, sends forward a multitude of martyrs to the Father (haer. 4.33.9). Irenaeus concludes this second part by reiterating how Marcion (haer. 4.34) and Valentinus 'and the other Gnostics falsely so-called' (haer. 4.35) have misunderstood this prophetic reading of the Scriptures.

In the remaining six chapters of book four, Irenaeus draws from the words of Christ, especially his parables, to explore the situation of human beings in response to the work of Christ. He begins with the parables of the vineyard, the wedding feast, the two sons, and the publican and the Pharisee, to show how the call of the Lord through the apostles is the same as the call of the One who spoke by the prophets (haer. 4.36). Developing this theme of calling, Christ's saying 'how often would I have gathered your children together, but they would not' (Matt. 23:37) provides Irenaeus with an occasion to reﬂect on human liberty to choose or reject God, and how, even through apostasy and the experience of mortality, we grow towards perfection so as to share in the uncreated life of God, by offering that which we are able to offer—that is, faith in him and our 'mud' maintained as soft and pliable in his Hands (haer. 4.37–39). And then ﬁnally, in this sequence, Irenaeus uses the parables of the sheep and the goats, and the wheat and the tares, to speak of the ﬁnal judgement facing all human beings (haer. 4.40–41.3). All these moments deal with the human response to the work of God and, as with the third part of the two preceding books, thus have an eschatological dimension. The ﬁnal paragraph concludes the work brieﬂy, and looks forward to the next book, where he will treat 'the teaching of Paul after the words of the Lord'; 'drawing up, in another book, the rest of the words of the Lord, which he taught concerning the Father not by parable but by expressions taken in their obvious meaning, and the exposition of the epistles of the blessed apostle', he will, he says, thus provide his friend 'with the complete work of the exposure and refutation of knowledge falsely so-called' (haer. 4.41.4).

We can thus depict the structure of book four as follows:

Irenaeus of Lyons Book Four: 'The Words of the Lord'

Preface I. The one God, the transcendent Creator and Author of the Law and Gospel (haer. 4.1–19) The Father of the Lord, Creator and Author of the Law (haer.

4.1–5.1) The Father of the Lord, the God of the Patriarchs (haer. 4.5.2–8.1) That Christ observed the Law (haer. 4.8.2–3)

The Law and the Gospel, Stages of Growth (haer. 4.9–11) The Gospel as Fulﬁlment of the Law (haer. 4.12–16)

The Eucharist as the Completion of Figurative Sacriﬁces (haer.

4.17–19.1) Conclusion: The Transcendence of the One God (haer. 4.19.1–3) II. Christ and the economy (haer. 4.20–35)

Christ, the key (haer. 4.20.1–4) The prophetic character of Scripture (haer. 4.20.5–8a (ﬁnishing at line 196)) The visions of the prophets (haer. 4.20.8b–11)

The preﬁgurative acts of the prophets, patriarchs, and Christ (haer. 4.20.12–22.2) The Word concerning Christ, sown in the Scripture, reaped in the Church (haer. 4.23–25) The reading of, and transﬁguration by reading, Scripture (haer.

4.26.1) The ecclesial reading of Scripture of the presbyters and spiritual disciples (haer. 4.26.2–33) Conclusion (haer. 4.34–35) III. Calling and judgement, from the Parables of Christ (haer. 36–41)

The call of God (haer. 4.36) Human liberty (haer. 4.37–39) Judgement (haer. 4.40–41.3) Conclusion (haer. 4.41.4) Book ﬁve Although Irenaeus in the concluding paragraph of book four promises to treat 'the rest of the words of the Lord . . . and the epistles of the blessed apostle Paul' (haer. 4.41.4) and says the same in the preface to book ﬁve,

Irenaeus does not in fact continue where he had left off, but rather begins again with the subject of the one God, followed by the work of

Against the Heresies

Christ, and concludes with an eschatologically oriented treatment of anthropology.37 The preface outlines what has been done in the ﬁrst four books and the material to be treated in this book, and in this way,

Irenaeus says, he will have fulﬁlled the request of his friend.

The ﬁrst part of the work, as noted, treats the one God, but this time speciﬁcally in terms of his power, a power that is made manifest in weakness, that is, in the ﬂesh, resulting in the formation of a human being (haer. 5.1–14).38 Irenaeus begins with two chapters showing how empty is the teaching of the Docetists, the disciples of Valentinus, the Ebionites, and the Marcionites, 'who despise the entire economy of God, and disallow the salvation of the ﬂesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration' (haer. 5.2.2). They do not understand, he claims, that as the breath of life animated the creature at the beginning so also at the end of the economy the Spirit viviﬁes that ancient substance of Adam's formation, rendering the human being 'living and perfect', so that, 'for this reason in the last times, not by the will of the ﬂesh, nor by the will of man, but by the good pleasure of the Father, his Hands formed a living human being, in order that Adam might come to be according to the image and likeness of God'.39 The whole economy, including our dissolution into the earth

(which Irenaeus treats in eucharistic terms through a lengthy comparison with the way in which grain and grapes become the Body and Blood of Christ), has been arranged so that we might 'learn from experience' that we do not have life from ourselves and so be ever open to receiving it from God: 'for this purpose God bore [M å ] our dissolution into the dust, that we, being instructed in every way may in the future be precise in all things, being ignorant neither of God nor of ourselves'

(haer. 5.2.3).

After this opening section, Irenaeus takes Christ's words to Paul, 'my strength is made perfect in weakness' (2 Cor. 12:9), as his guiding motif to treat, from various aspects, the power of God deployed in the weakness of the ﬂesh, vivifying the ﬂesh, so that it shares in the constructive wisdom

37 For a lengthy and detailed line-by-line commentary on book ﬁve, see Antonio Orbe,

Teologı´a de San Ireneo: Comentario al Libro V del 'Adversus haereses', 3 vols, BAC maior 25, 29, 33

(Madrid: BAC, 1985, 1987, 1988).

38 Rousseau entitles this part 'The resurrection of the ﬂesh proved by the epistles of Paul', correlating the resurrection of the ﬂesh to the Incarnation. For another analysis, see Winfried

Overbeck, Menschwerdung: Eine Untersuchung zur literarischen und theologischen Einheit des fu¨nften Buches 'Adversus Haereses' des Irena¨us von Lyon, Basler und Berner Studien zur historischen und systematischen Theologie, 61 (Bern: Peter Lang, 1995), who would designate this part as 'A theology of the ﬂesh'.

39 haer. 5.1.3; cf. John 1:13, Gen. 1:27.

Irenaeus of Lyons and power of God (haer. 5.3–5). That 'God shall be gloriﬁed in his handiwork' is the reverse aspect of this creative work, and so Irenaeus devotes the following two chapters to considering how the body is the temple of the Spirit and members of Christ, and how perfection is reached not by a casting-away of the ﬂesh but in the ﬂesh, viviﬁed by the Spirit, which is given even now as a pledge (haer. 5.6–8). The fourth and longest section of part one is an exegetical tour de force of 1 Corinthians 15 (5:9–

14). Irenaeus argues that, although 'ﬂesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom' (1 Cor. 15:50), the power of God is such that ﬂesh and blood will nevertheless 'be inherited' by an engrafting into Christ by the Spirit.

The ﬂesh that we 'put off ' is not the substance of our bodies, but rather the 'works of the ﬂesh' (cf. Gal. 5:19), so that 'in the Spirit' we can put on incorruptibility, reconciled to God by the body of his ﬂesh (cf. Col. 1:22) and glorify God in our body (1 Cor. 6:20). Irenaeus concludes this part by reminding his readers that, having been redeemed by the ﬂesh of Christ and acquired by his blood, they should hold fast to the head of the body that is the Church, in whom it holds together and from whom it increases

(haer. 5.14.4).

Irenaeus introduces the second part of book ﬁve with scriptural texts from Isaiah and Ezekiel referring to 'the second birth' consequent upon 'dissolution into the earth', promised by the one who created at the beginning.40 The Lord who speaks in these scriptural texts—depicted as vivifying our dead bodies, promising resurrection, and conferring immortality—is shown to be the only God, the good Father, conferring life on those who do not have it in themselves. This continuous creative activity, encompassed within the one economy, is then exempliﬁed through three aspects of Christ's work, each correlated to Genesis, demonstrating in this way Christ's role in creation. First, 'the Lord most clearly manifested himself and the Father to his disciples' by the way in which he healed the blind man, taking dust from the earth, mixing his own power with it, and completing that which was lacking from birth 'so that the work of God might be manifest', for 'the work of God is the fashioning of the human being' (haer. 5.15.2, John 9:3). Likewise, as God called out to Adam

40 haer. 5.15.1, citing Isa. 26:19, 66:13–14; Ezek. 37:1–10, 12–14. Rousseau identiﬁes part two of book ﬁve similarly. Overbeck, on the other hand, would divide the remainder of book ﬁve into three parts: part two, 'The Self-Revelation of God as the one Creator and Redeemer in the Recapitulation of all Things through the Son' (haer. 5.15.1–20.2); part three, 'The Battle with the Enemy as the Central Element in the Recapitulation Work of Christ' (haer. 5.21–30); and part four, 'The (Thousand Year) Reign of the Son and the Ultimate Consummation in the Kingdom of the Father'.

Against the Heresies

in the evening, so too Christ, the Word of God, came to call human beings at the end, being himself the very same voice, searching out his posterity and visiting them (haer. 5.15.4). In such ways, then, what was only spoken about at the beginning, and thereby easily lost, is now seen, Christ, at the end, showing the true image by himself becoming that image and thus re-establishing the likeness (haer. 5.16.2).

Christ's identity manifest in this way is also revealed through his Passion, to which Irenaeus devotes the next ﬁve chapters, correlating aspects of the Passion with the narrative of creation and with words from the prophets

(haer. 16.3). For instance, as the Word came to ask after Adam when he sinned, so also he now comes to the human race with the same purpose, but reversing our situation and giving us a new starting point or head: 'he, the same against whom we had sinned in the beginning, grants forgiveness of sins in the end' (haer. 5.17.1). Likewise with the tree: by the tree we were made debtors to God but by the tree we have received remission of our debt (haer. 5.17.3). And from the prophets, Elisha's act of throwing wood into the water so that the axe rose to the surface is taken by Irenaeus, through the words of the Baptist (Matt. 3:10) and those of Jeremiah (Jer.

23:29), as making clear that, having lost the Word of God by means of a tree, it is by 'the economy of the tree' that we receive it again (haer. 5.17.4).

As all creation is borne by the Father, so in turn it now bears the Word when he is hung upon the tree, recapitulating all in himself (haer. 5.18). And similarly the Church is the garden (paradisus) of God planted in this world, into which the Lord has introduced all those who respond to his call and in which we may eat from every Scripture of the Lord (haer. 5.20.2).

Recapitulating all things in himself, Christ, in his temptation, also recapitulates the temptation of Adam, and it is to this that Irenaeus devotes the next section of part two, paralleling the serpent's temptations in Genesis with those by which the devil tempted Christ in the desert, so demonstrating how Christ reversed the victory over and enmity against the human being by using, as human, the Father's commandments: acknowledging the one God, living by the food which comes from God, and not exalting himself (haer. 5.21–24). Being subject to the same temptations, but rebutting them by obedience to the Father, Christ sets free the human being and overcomes the strong man who had taken him captive.

Recapitulating in himself the very days of creation, suffering in the day preceding the Sabbath, the sixth day on which the human being was created, Christ 'grants him a second creation by means of his Passion, which is that [creation] out of death' (haer. 5.23.2).

Irenaeus of Lyons The third and ﬁnal part of the last book of Against the Heresies is devoted to the ﬁnal end (haer. 5.25–36.2): the coming of the Antichrist, his recapitulation of all error, evil, and apostasy, in an attempt to be worshipped as God in the Temple in Jerusalem. Dealing with the judgement of God,

Irenaeus is at pains to emphasize that, in his advent, the Son comes alike to all, with the purpose of judging, granting life and communion with himself to all who orient themselves to God; but to those who, by their own choice, depart from God 'he inﬂicts that separation from himself which they have chosen of their own accord' (haer. 5.27.1–2). The number of the beast, 666, is taken as indicating the recapitulation 'of the whole apostasy which has taken place during six thousand years, for in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded', for the narrative of Genesis 'is an account of things formerly created as it is also a prophecy of what is to come' (haer. 5.28.2–3). After dealing with the possible renderings in Greek and Latin of the name of the beast, Irenaeus turns, in the second section of part three (haer. 5.31.1–36.2), to a chiliastic interpretation of the resurrection, drawing upon the tradition of the elders who saw John as reported by Papias, describing a renovated creation of incredible bounty in which the righteous will be raised to reign with Christ. 'The fashion of this word will pass away'

(1 Cor. 7:31), that is, not the substance or the essence of creation, but rather its temporal character, in which the human being has grown old

(haer. 5.36.1). When this 'fashion' passes away, the human being shall be renewed, with a new heaven and a new earth, holding ever-new converse with God. Following the completion of the creation in six days, that is, six thousand years, this will be the rest of the seventh day, a seventh thousand-year period in which Christ shall reign in his kingdom, a renewed creation together with the sons of God in their glorious liberty.41

This is the completion of the promise of the inheritance of land to the fathers, given by one who is thus shown to be the God and Father who fashioned human beings (haer. 5.32, 36.3). At the end of this period of the kingdom, the judged are raised and cast into 'the lake of ﬁre, the second death', Gehenna or the eternal ﬁre (haer. 5.35.2; Rev. 20.14). With death, the last enemy, thus destroyed, all is brought into subjection to Christ, who then in turn subjects himself to the One who put all things under him, so that God is all in all (1 Cor. 15:24–28), bestowing 'in a paternal

41 A key passage from haer. 5.36.3 (after l. 55 in the SC edn) is omitted in the Latin version, and thus is not in the ANF translation; it is found only in the Armenian version (TU 35.2,

244.23–5.2).

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