Refutation and Overthrowal (haer. 1–2)
Against the Heresies
manner things that no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man conceived' (haer. 5.36.3; 1 Cor. 2:9). Only one has seen the Father and made him known (cf. Matt. 11:27; Luke 10:22), and so Irenaeus concludes his work with a single sentence, quoted above, recapitulating the work of Christ is, to accomplish his Father's will, and to make the human being into the image and likeness of God.
We can thus outline the structure of book five as follows:
Book Five: 'The rest of the teachings of the Lord and the epistles of Paul'
Preface I. The power of God (haer. 5.1–14) The work of God, forming human beings through their death
(haer. 5.1–2) The strength of God manifest in the weakness of the flesh (haer. 5.3–5) The glorification of God in his handiwork (haer. 5.6–8)
'Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom' (haer. 5.9–14) II. The work of Christ (haer. 5.15–24) Christ as Creator (haer. 5.15.1–16.2) The Passion (haer. 5.16.3–20) The temptation of Christ (haer. 5.21–24)
III. The Final End (haer. 5.25–36.1) The Antichrist (haer. 5.25–30) The resurrection of the righteous (haer. 5.31–36.2)
Conclusion (haer. 5.36.3) Although a voluminous work, each book of Against the Heresies is in fact thus tightly structured. Apart from book one, which is structured to expose his opponents, each book follows the same threefold pattern:
One God, One Christ and the one economy, and the human being, as the creature fashioned by God but only becoming so in the last times, in the Church (in haer. 3), responding to the call/judgement of God (in haer.
4), and reigning with him (in haer. 5).
REFUTATION AND OVERTHROWAL (haer. 1–2)
Excellent work has been done over recent decades sympathetically reconstructing the theology of Valentinus and others. Compared with this, it might seem that Irenaeus has polemically distorted the teaching of his opponents. But we must nevertheless remember, however obvious the
Irenaeus of Lyons point is, that none of this scholarly work was available to him, nor, for that matter, did he have access to the full range of material rediscovered over the past century. From what we have seen, it is pretty certain that the only written texts he had to hand were those whose contents he reports in haer.
1.1–9, and probably also a text from which he recounts the teaching of Marcus, together with at least two earlier and distinct accounts of, first, the Valentinians and, second, the heretics. He mentions other writings, such as The Gospel of Truth and The Gospel of Judas, but does not appear to have had access to them. He says, and we have no reason not to take him at his word, that he has diligently perused the writings he had, and conversed with certain followers of Ptolemaeus. Even with all the material we now have to hand, especially from Nag Hammadi, and decades of scholarly work on them, it is still hard not to feel perplexed when reading these writings, and differences of interpretation of each text still abound.
One can only imagine what verbal reports were given to Irenaeus by the Ptolemaeans he encountered and how they explained the texts they had and oral teachings they had heard. Irenaeus was certainly perplexed by what he read and heard, and, as we have seen, he regarded their 'exposure' as being their own 'refutation'. He was also pushed to exasperation, and occasionally let this show, with humour. At one point, for instance, he proposes his own version of such teaching:
There is a certain royal First-Beginning, First-unthinkable, First-non-substantial
Power, First-ever-forward-rolling. However, with this one there coexists a power, which I call Gourd; with this Gourd there coexists a Power, to which I give the name Utter-Emptiness. Now this Gourd and Utter-Emptiness, since they are one, brought forth a fruit, without bringing it forth—a fruit everywhere visible, edible, and delicious, which in our language we call Cucumber. With this Cucumber there coexists a consubstantial Power, to which I give the name Pumpkin. These
Powers—Gourd, Utter-Emptiness, Cucumber, and Pumpkin—begot the rest of the multitude of delirious Pumpkins of Valentinus. (haer. 1.11.4)
Besides making fun of his opponents and dropping polemical jabs, Irenaeus does have serious points to make. In book two, as we have seen, he tackles his opponents on their own terms, to show into what inconsistencies and contradictions their teachings lead. In book one, on the other hand, after recounting 'their' teaching (haer. 1.1–8), and before narrating the genealogy of the Valentinians (haer. 1.10–21) and the heretics (haer. 1.22–31), Irenaeus devotes a chapter (haer. 1.9) to what, from his own perspective, he regards as being their fundamental error, and it is on this that we will now focus.
Against the Heresies
After having recounted the teaching he found in the documents given to him from the Ptolemaeans in haer. 1.1–7, Irenaeus continues with a striking visual image:
Such is their hypothesis [Ł Ø] which neither the prophets preached, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles handed down [ÆæøŒÆ]. They boast rather loudly of knowing more about it than others do, citing it from non-scriptural [works] [K
Iªæçø];42 and as people would say, they attempt to braid ropes of sand. They try to adapt to their own sayings in a manner worthy of credence, either the dominical parables [Ææƺa ŒıæØÆŒa] or the prophets' sayings, or the apostles' words, so that their fabrication [º Æ] might not appear to be without witness. They disregard the order [Ø] and the connection [ ƒæ] of the Scriptures and, as much as in them lies, they disjoint the members of the truth. They transfer passages and rearrange them, and, making one thing out of another, they deceive many by the badly composed fantasy of the dominical oracles [ºª ø ŒıæØÆŒH] that they adapt. By way of illustration, suppose someone would take the beautiful image of a king, carefully made out of precious stones by a skilful artist, and would destroy the features of the man on it and change it around and rearrange the jewels, and make the form of a dog or of a fox out of them, and that rather a bad piece of work. Suppose he would then say with determination that this is the beautiful image of the king that the skilful artist had made, and at the same time pointing to the jewels which had been beautifully fitted together by the first artist into the image of the king, but which had been badly changed by the second into the form of a dog. And suppose he would through this fanciful arrangement of the jewels deceive the inexperienced who had no idea of what the king's picture looked like, and would persuade them that this base picture of a fox is that beautiful image of the king. In the same way these people patch together old women's fables, and then pluck words and sayings and parables from here and there and wish to adapt these oracles of God to their myths [ŁØ]. (haer. 1.8.1)
The terms that Irenaeus uses here—'hypothesis', 'fabrication', and 'myth'—are all technical terms in Hellenistic literary theory. 'Fabrication'
(º Æ) and 'myth' (FŁ) refer to stories that are, in the first case, not true but seem to be so, and in the latter case, manifestly untrue.43
According to Irenaeus, his opponents have based their exegesis upon their own 'hypothesis' (Ł Ø), rather than upon that foretold by the prophets, taught by Christ and delivered ('traditioned') by the apostles. In a literary context, the term 'hypothesis' referred to the plot or outline of 42 This could also refer to unwritten, oral, traditions.
43 Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Math. 1.252–68. For an excellent study, see R. Meijering, Literary and Rhetorical Theories in Greek Scholia (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1987), 72–90.
Irenaeus of Lyons a drama or epic (what Aristotle, in the Poetics, had termed the FŁ).44 It is posited or presupposed by the poet as the basic outline for his subsequent creative work. It is not derived from reasoning, but rather provides the raw outline upon which the poet can exercise his talents.
Irenaeus' point is clear: from his perspective, rather than taking the words of 'the dominical oracles' and seeing them as portraying Christ—as the prophets preached, the Lord himself taught, and the apostles handed down—they have instead adapted them to another hypothesis, that of events within the Fullness, fleshing out, as it were, their own hypothesis with scriptural words and so constructing their own fabrication. They have disregarded 'the order and the connection of the Scriptures', so distorting the picture and creating another. They have not accepted the coherence of the Scriptures, as speaking about Christ, but have preferred their own fabrication, created by adapting passages from Scripture to a different hypothesis, attempting to endow it with persuasive plausibility.
Irenaeus continues by describing how they do the same for what happened outside the Fullness, for instance, their claim that the 12-yearold daughter of the ruler of the synagogue (Luke 8:41–2) 'was a type of Achamoth, to whom their Christ, by extending himself, imparted shape and whom he led anew to the perception of that light which had forsaken her' (haer. 1.8.2), and similarly with the passages they interpret as pointing to three kinds of human beings, the material, the psychic, and the spiritual
(haer. 1.8.3), and the wandering of Achamoth outside the Fullness, eventually receiving form from Christ and sought after by the Saviour (haer.
1.8.4). He then reproduces an extended passage interpreting the Prologue of John as an account of the origination of the various Aeons within the Fullness, which, though lengthy, deserves to be quoted in full:
John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to narrate the origin of all things, according to which the Father emitted all things, proposes a certain Beginning, the first offspring by the Father, whom he called Son [ John 1:34, 49; 3:18] and Onlybegotten God [ John 1:18], in whom the Father emitted all things seminally. By this one [the Beginning], he says, the Word was emitted and in him the whole substance of the Aeons, which the Word formed later. Since, then, he speaks of the first origin, he does well to start his teaching from the Beginning, that is, from the Son and the Word. He speaks thus: 'In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the Beginning with God' [ John
1:1–2]. First, he distinguishes these three: God, Beginning, and Word; then he unites them in order to show the emission of each one, namely of Son and of 44 Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Math. 3.3–4; see also Meijering, Literary and Rhetorical Theories,
99–133, and Norris, 'Theology and Language'.
Against the Heresies
Word, and the union with one another and with the Father. For the Beginning is in the Father and from the Father; but Word is in the Beginning and from the Beginning. Therefore he said well: 'In the Beginning was the Word', for he was in the Son. 'And the Word was with God', for he was also the Beginning. And consequently: 'The Word was God', for whatever is born of God is God. 'He was in the Beginning with God' shows the order of the emission. 'All things were made through him, and without him was made not a thing' [ John 1:3], for the Word was the cause of the formation and origin of all the Aeons that came after him. 'But what was made in him was Life' [ John 1:3–4]. Here he indicated also the conjunction. 'For all things', he said, 'were made through him', but the Life, in him. She [Life], then, who was made in him is more closely related [to him] than the things that were made through him; for she is associated with him, and through him bears fruit. For when he continues: 'And the Life was the Light of Men' [ John 1:4], though he now speaks of Men, he indicated also the Church by the like name, so that by the one name he might manifest the union of the conjunction.
For Man and Church come to be from the Word and the Life. Besides, he called the Life 'Light of Men', because they were enlightened by her, that is, were formed and made manifest. Paul says the same thing: 'For anything that becomes visible is Light'
[Eph. 5:13]. Since, therefore, the Life is manifested and gave birth to the Man and the Church, she is called their Light. By these words, then, John clearly manifested among other things the second Tetrad: Word and Life, Man and Church. But he also indicated the first Tetrad; for in discussing the Saviour and saying that all things outside the Fullness were formed by him, he said that he [the Saviour] is the fruit of the entire Fullness. For he said that he [Saviour] is the Light which shone in the darkness and was not comprehended by it [ John 1:5], since in harmonizing
[±æ Æ] all the products of the Passion, he remained ignorant of them. He also called him Son and Truth and Life and Word-become-flesh. He asserted: 'We have beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten, full of Grace and Truth' [ John 1:14], which was given to him by the Father. (But he says: 'And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth').45 Therefore he also accurately points out the first
Tetrad, saying Father and Grace, Only-begotten and Truth. Thus John speaks of the first Ogdoad, which is the Mother of all the Aeons; for he mentions Father and Grace, Only-begotten and Truth, Word and Life, Man and Church. (haer. 1.8.5)
The Prologue of John is thus read as an account of the Aeons in the Fullness, with each noun personified and correlated by the various prepositions used. Quite why his opponents interpreted such texts in this manner, and what they thought they were doing in this, is unclear and has been the subject of many and various explanations. Some, such as Hans Jonas, have seen it as an expression of existential alienation in 45 The words in parentheses are clearly Irenaeus' own indignant insertion.
Irenaeus of Lyons creation, perceived as a vast prison in a dualistic system, from which only the spiritual part of the human being is saved through the work of various mediators.46 Others have seen such mythological systems as an attempt to account for the transcendence of the divine, the origin of the world, and the reality of salvation, engaged in a dialogue about such matters that can be seen already in Plato's Timaeus, Philo, and Middle Platonism.47 Others, following Irenaeus' comment that the Valentinians have projected their own inner states onto the heavens (haer. 2.13.3), have considered their mythology as a 'psychodrama'.48 While yet others have taken such systems as an attempt to elaborate carefully the reality of the salvation enacted in history reflected in terms of protological myth.49
None of these brief comments does justice to the sophistication with which such explanations are elaborated. But whatever it was that his opponents thought that they were doing, Irenaeus makes a fundamentally simple point against them. The passage quoted above exemplifies, according to Irenaeus, 'the method' by which 'they abuse the Scripture by endeavouring to support their own fabrication [º Æ] out of them'
(haer. 1.9.1). Regarding this, Irenaeus makes two concrete observations:
In the first place, if John had intended to set forth that Ogdoad above, he would surely have preserved the order of its production, and would doubtless have placed the primary Tetrad first as being, according to them, most venerable and would then have annexed the second, that, by the order of the names, the order of the Ogdoad might be exhibited, and not after so long an interval, as if forgetful for the moment and then again calling the matter to mind, he, last of all, made mention of the primary Tetrad.
In the next place, if he had meant to indicate their conjunctions, he certainly would not have omitted the [name of] Church; but, with respect to the other conjunctions, he either would have been satisfied with the mention of the male [Aeons], since they
[the female] would be understood, so that the unity among all might be preserved, or if he enumerated the companions of the rest, he would also have announced the companion of Man and not have left us to divine her name. (haer. 1.9.1)
Whatever else one may think about their manner of reading the Prologue, Irenaeus' point is that it simply does not fit with the text, for it respects
46 Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity, 2nd rev. edn (London: Routledge, 1992 [1958]); cf. Michael Waldstein, 'Hans
Jonas' Construct "Gnosticism": Analysis and Critique', JECS 8/3 (2000), 340–72.
47 Cf. Brakke, The Gnostics, 52–89.
48 David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 127–82, at 171.
49 See esp. Thomassen, Spiritual Seed.
Against the Heresies
neither the order of the words nor the actual words used. The Prologue, in other words, can be read as an account of the origination of the Aeons in the Fullness only by distorting the coherence of the text.
In contrast to this interpretation, Irenaeus offers his own reading of the Prologue:
Manifest, then, is the false fabrication [ÆæÆ Å Ø] of their exegesis. For while John, proclaiming one God, the Almighty, and one Jesus Christ, the Onlybegotten, 'by whom all things were made' [ John 1:3], declares that this is 'the Word of God' [ John 1:1], this 'the Only-begotten' [ John 1:18], this the Maker of all things, this 'the true Light who enlightens every man' [ John 1:9], this 'the Maker of the world' [ John 1:10], this the one who 'came to his own' [ John 1:11], this the one who 'became flesh and dwelt among us' [ John 1:14], they, speciously distorting the exegesis [ÆæÆæ ŒÆa e ØŁÆe c KªÅ Ø], hold that the Onlybegotten, by emission, is another, whom they call the Beginning, and they hold that another became the Saviour, and another the Logos, the son of the Onlybegotten, and another the Christ, emitted for the re-establishment of the Fullness.
Wresting each of the things said from the truth, misusing the names, they transfer them to their own hypothesis, so that, according to them, in all these passages John makes no mention of the Lord Jesus Christ. For if he has named the Father, and Grace, and Only-Begotten, and Truth, and Logos, and Life, and Man, and Church, according to their hypothesis, he has, by thus speaking, referred to the primary
Ogdoad, in which there was as yet no Jesus, and no Christ, John's teacher. But that the apostle did not speak concerning their conjunctions, but concerning our Lord
Jesus Christ, whom he knew to be the Word of God, he himself has made evident.
For, summing up concerning the Word in the beginning mentioned by him above [ÆŒ çƺÆØ ªaæ æd F NæÅı ÆPH: ¼ø K IæåBfi ºªı], he adds, 'And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' [ John 1:14]. Yet, according to their hypothesis, it was not the Word who became flesh, since he never went outside the Fullness, but the Saviour, who was made out of all [the Aeons] and was generated later than the Word. (haer. 1.9.2)
The correct hypothesis of the Prologue is none other than the one Lord Jesus Christ, and it is to him that all the various terms and phrases refer,
Word, Only-begotten, Maker, and Light, the one who came to his own and was made flesh, dwelling among us. His opponents, as Irenaeus points out, by personifying each term separately as distinct Aeons, have actually done away with the one Lord Jesus Christ.
As we will consider further in the next chapter, a similar manner of reading is in fact used by Irenaeus himself, and widely within early
Christianity, for exegeting the Scriptures, that is, what we now call the 'Old Testament'. The paradigm for this is given by the apostle Paul, who 'delivered ['traditioned'] as of first importance what I also received, that
Irenaeus of Lyons Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and to the twelve' (1 Cor 15:3–5), and depicted by Luke, with the resurrected Christ on the road to Emmaus opening the Scriptures to show how 'it was necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory; and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself ' (Luke 24:25–7). This Christocentric reading of the Scripture, focused upon the of the Christ, enables seeing the Scriptures
(again, the 'Old Testament') as a mosaic depicting Christ composed out of different tiles. It also implies a differentiation, which we shall explore further in the next chapter, between the 'Old Testament' and the 'New
Testament', not seeing the latter simply as a continuation of the former, treating them simply as yet more books of Scripture, but rather seeing the writings of the apostles and evangelists as already composed out of the material of Scripture, used in the interpretation of Christ and so seeing in the books of Moses and all the prophets a mosaic of the king. Irenaeus' opponents deploy the same exegetical methods but do so, however, upon the writings of the apostles and evangelists themselves, thereby treating them, certainly, as Scripture, but nevertheless in doing so substituting a different hypothesis from that of, in this case, John. This, Irenaeus repeatedly insists, is not as the prophets foretold, the Lord taught, and the apostles handed down. Although, as we have seen, Irenaeus repeatedly emphasizes that he has received this teaching and this method from Polycarp who had himself known John, he does not claim this pedigree to substantiate his claim here. Rather he allows it to stand on the two points he makes, both of which are immediately apparent, that his opponents' reading simply does not 'fit' the text.
Irenaeus continues his case by pointing out the difference between his opponents, who take the words of the Prologue as speaking about different Aeons, and John who wrote all this 'concerning our Lord Jesus Christ'
(haer. 1.9.3). As he sees this, 'according to them, the Word did not originally become flesh, for they maintain that the Saviour assumed a psychic body, formed in accordance with the economy by an unspeakable providence, so as to become visible and palpable'. 'But flesh', Irenaeus points out, 'is the ancient handiwork [º Ø] formed out of the dust by God for Adam, which John declares that the Word of God truly became'
(haer. 1.9.3). We will take up this idea of the 'flesh' being the 'handiwork' again shortly. Irenaeus concludes the chapter by using a further literary example, that of how some people take diverse lines from the work of
Against the Heresies
Homer and then rearrange them to produce homeric-sounding verses that tell a tale not to be found in Homer (haer. 1.9.4). While these fabrications, called centos, can mislead those who have only a passing knowledge of Homer, they will not deceive those who are well versed in his poetry, for they will be able to identify the lines and restore them to their proper context. So, he concludes, anyone who keeps unswervingly in himself the canon of truth [e ŒÆÆ B
IºÅŁ Æ] received through baptism will recognize the names and sayings and parables from the Scriptures, but this blasphemous hypothesis of theirs he will not recognize. For if he recognizes the jewels, he will not accept the fox for the image of the king. He will restore each one of the passages to its proper order and, having fit it into the body of the truth, he will lay bare their fabrication and show that it is without support (haer. 1.9.4).
This is followed by the fullest description given by Irenaeus of the faith received by the apostles, 'in one God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth . . . and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was enfleshed for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets preached the economies'50—that is, his coming (c º ı Ø), the birth from the Virgin, the Passion, resurrection and bodily ascension into heaven, and his coming (Ææı Æ) from heaven, to recapitulate all things, bringing judgement to eternal separation or life (haer. 1.10.1).51 It is striking that all the items pertaining to the work of Christ, which in the creeds from the fourth century onwards appear under the second article, are here given in the third article, as that which was foretold by the Spirit through the prophets. This is so precisely for the reason, noted above, that it is the words of the prophets that provide the material, the tiles of the mosaic, for the apostolic preaching. This 'canon of truth' is 'received through baptism', probably indicating its structuring upon the three central articles of belief found in the interrogatory baptismal creeds from the earliest times and going back to the baptismal command of Christ himself
(Matt. 28:19). Elsewhere, in the context of discussing the rule of truth, Irenaeus also affirms that 'the baptism of our regeneration takes place through these three articles' (Dem. 7). Yet, despite this connection with 50 'Economy' (NŒ Æ) is another literary term, referring to the arrangement of a poem, or the purpose of a particular episode within it. Cf. Meijering, Literary and Rhetorical Theories, 171–81.
51 For the suggestion that the canon had a narrative structure, see Paul M. Blowers, 'The Regula Fidei and the Narrative Character of Early Christian Faith', Pro Ecclesia, 6 (1997), 199–
228, and, in response, Nathan MacDonald, 'Israel and the Old Testament Story in Irenaeus's
Presentation of the Rule of Truth', JTI 3/2 (2009), 281–98.
Irenaeus of Lyons baptism, the rule of truth is not given in a declarative form, as would be the creeds used in baptism from the fourth century onwards.52 For Irenaeus, the canon of truth remained flexible in its wording, unlike the later declaratory creeds, and was used differently, as a guide for theology rather than as a confession of faith.
This appeal to a 'canon' brings out another dimension of the word 'hypothesis'. Besides its use in a literary context, considered earlier, the term is also used with a theoretical sense. According to Aristotle, 'hypotheses' are the starting points or first principles (IæåÆ ) of demonstrations.53 For instance, the goal of health is presupposed as a 'hypothesis' by a doctor, who then deliberates on how it is to be attained, just as mathematicians hypothesize certain axioms and then proceed with their demonstrations.54 In both cases, these hypotheses are tentative; if the goal proves to be unattainable or if the conclusions derived from the supposition turn out to be manifestly false, then the hypothesis in question must be rejected. Since the time of Plato, however, philosophy has aimed at discovering the ultimate first principles.55 But, as Aristotle concedes, it is impossible to expect demonstrations of the first principles themselves: first principles cannot themselves be proved, otherwise they would be dependent upon something prior to them, and so the enquirer would be led into an infinite regress.56 As Clement of Alexandria points out, this means that the search for the first principles of demonstration ends up with indemonstrable faith.57 While not themselves being demonstrable, the first principles, grasped by faith, are the basis for subsequent demonstrations, and are also used to evaluate other claims to truth, and in this way act as a 'canon'. Originally this term simply meant a straight line, a rule by which 52 For a recent discussion see W. Kinzig and M. Vinzent, 'Recent Research on the Origin of the Creed', JTS NS 50/2 (1999), 535–59.
53 Aristotle, Metaph. 5.1.2 (1013a17).
54 Cf. Aristotle, EE 1227b28–33; Meijering, Literary and Rhetorical Theories, 106.
55 Cf. Plato, Rep. 6.20–1 (510–11).
56 Aristotle, Metaph. 4.4.2 (1006a6–12).
57 Clement, Strom. 8.3.6.7–7.2; Cf. Strom. 7.16.95.4–6: 'He, then, who of himself believes the dominical Scripture and voice [Bfi ŒıæØÆŒBfi ªæÆçBfi ŒÆd çøBfi], which by the Lord acts for the benefit of men, is rightly faithful. Certainly we use it as a criterion in the discovery of things. What is subjected to criticism is not believed till it is so subjected, so that what needs criticism cannot be a first principle. Therefore, as is reasonable, grasping by faith the indemonstrable first principle, and receiving in abundance, from the first principle itself, demonstrations in reference to the first principle, we are by the voice of the Lord trained up to the knowledge of the truth'. Cf. Andrei Giulea Dragos, 'Apprehending "Demonstrations" from the First Principle: Clement of Alexandria's Phenomenology of Faith', JR 89/2 (2009),
187–213.
Against the Heresies
other lines could be judged. As Aristotle points out, only 'by that which is straight do we discern both the straight and the crooked; the carpenter's rule [› ŒÆ] is the test of both, but the crooked tests neither itself nor the straight'.58 Epicurus' work entitled The Canon seems to have been the first work devoted to the need to establish 'the criteria of truth',59 a need that, in the face of the Sceptical onslaught, made it almost obligatory in the Hellenistic period to begin any systematic presentation of philosophy with an account of 'the criterion'.60 Without such a canon or criterion, it was recognized, it is simply not possible to gain any knowledge, for all enquiry would be drawn helplessly into an endless regression. It was generally held in Hellenistic philosophy that it is 'preconceptions'
(æºÅł Ø, generic notions synthesized out of repeated sense perceptions, later held to be innate) that facilitate knowledge and act as criteria. The 'self-evidence' (Kæª ØÆ) of the sense perceptions for the Epicureans, and the clarity of the cognitive impressions for the Stoics, provide the infallible criterion for examining what truly exists. But again, Clement points out, even Epicurus accepted that this 'preconception of the mind' is 'faith', and that without it, neither enquiry nor judgement is possible.61
With this background in mind, we can see that Irenaeus (and likewise Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian), countering the apparently constantly mutating teaching of their opponents, appealed to a 'canon' or 'criterion of truth' in much the same way as the Hellenistic philosophers argued against the infinite regression of the Sceptics.62 It is by reference to such a canon, Irenaeus claims, that the believer is able to restore each passage of Scripture to its proper place in the body of truth, each tile of the mosaic to its proper place depicting the image of the king. The 'canon of truth' is not simply a set of inherited doctrines existing apart from Scripture, as it would later be for Lessing, but is, rather, an articulation of the hypothesis in a particular situation, outlining the presupposition needed for seeing in Scripture the image of the king, the Christ revealed in and through the Gospel, the apostolic preaching 'according to Scripture'.
58 Aristotle, de An. 1.5 (411a5–7).
59 Diogenes Laertius, Vitae 10.31.
60 Cf. G. Striker, '˚æØæØ B IºÅŁ Æ', Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Go¨ttingen, Phil.-hist. Kl., 2 (1974), 47–110; M. Schofield, M. Burnyeat, and J. Barnes (eds),
Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1980); P. Huby and G. Neal (eds), The Criterion of Truth (Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 1989).
61 Clement, Strom. 2.5.16.3. Cf. S. R. C. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian
Platonism and Gnosticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 120–31.
62 Cf. Osborn, 'Reason and the Rule of Faith'.
Irenaeus of Lyons Irenaeus himself gives no definition of what he means by the term 'canon', but Clement of Alexandria does, in precisely these terms: 'The ecclesiastical canon is the concord and symphony of the Law and the Prophets in the covenant delivered at the coming of the Lord.'63
The 'canon' of faith or truth is thus not an arbitrary principle, or set of inherited doctrines, which must be maintained, but an attempt to articulate the hypothesis of the Christian faith, which is itself found in the coherence of the image of Christ portrayed in the Scriptures or the symphony produced by these same Scriptures in the coming of Christ.
Appeal is made to the 'canon' not to stymie further reflection or thought, but to make it possible. And so Irenaeus follows his account of the canon with numerous questions (haer. 1.10.3), reflection upon which opens up enquirers to the depths of the wisdom of God as revealed in Christ, rather than leading them to another construction based on another hypothesis.
Irenaeus admittedly does not provide a philosophically sophisticated account of terms such as 'canon' and 'hypothesis', as does Clement of Alexandria, but it is to his credit that they come to be deployed in this manner for the first time. The term 'canon' had only been used a couple of times prior to Irenaeus, in a manner that brings out further background and dimensions to his argument.64 The first time is by Clement of Rome:
Let us put aside empty and vain cares, and let us come to the glorious and venerable canon of our tradition [e B ÆæÆ ø ŒÆÆ], and let us see what is good and pleasing and acceptable in the sight of our Maker. Let us fix our gaze on the Blood of Christ, and let us know that it is precious to his Father, because it was poured out for our salvation, and brought the grace of repentance to all the world.65
Turning to the canon seems to be set in apposition to fixing our attention on the Blood of Christ, which, in turn, apparently refers both to the 63 Clement, Strom. 6.15.125.3: ŒÆg b KŒŒºÅ ØÆ ØŒe ıfiø Æ ŒÆd ıçø Æ ı ŒÆd æçÅH Bfi ŒÆa c F Œıæ ı Ææı Æ ÆæÆØÅfi ØÆŁŒÅfi.
64 'Canon' was used by Paul in Gal. 6:16: ˚Æd ‹ Ø H: ŒÆØ fiø Øå ı Ø NæÅ K ÆPf ŒÆd º ŒÆd Kd e 'I æÆcº F Ł F. For an exploration of the role of this verse in the development of the appeal to the 'canon of truth' in the second and third centuries, and the suggestion that this verse, taken disjunctively ('And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy also upon the Israel of God') was used by Marcion as the basis for the separation of the Law and the Gospel (cf. Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 1.20.1): 'They allege that in separating the Law and the Gospel, Marcion did not so much invent a new rule as refurbish a rule previously debased'), prompting the widespread appeal to the 'canon of truth' thereafter, see William R. Farmer, 'Galatians and the Second-Century Development of the Regula Fidei', The Second Century, 4/3 (1984), 143–70.
65 Clement of Rome, 1 Clem. 7.2–5.
Against the Heresies
sacrifice of Christ himself as well as to the celebration of the Eucharist, as that which is immediately and directly 'in view'. In a similar context, when
Polycarp wrote to Victor about the Quartodeciman practice, he stated that all his predecessors kept the celebration of Pascha on the fourteenth day of the Passover, 'never swerving but following according to the rule of the faith' (h.e. 5.24.6).66 This eucharistic context was also important for Irenaeus, especially in regard to the salvation of the flesh, for it confirms that 'our teaching is harmonious with the Eucharist and the Eucharist establishes our teaching' (haer. 4.18.5).
Clement's phrase, 'the canon of our tradition', is unusual, and its association with the Passion of Christ and the celebration of the Eucharist points to the background for the final term deployed by Irenaeus against his opponents, and that is 'tradition'. There are only two occasions when the apostle Paul uses the significant technical formula of 'handing down', or 'traditioning', what he has 'received'. One has already been noted, where he speaks of his handing-down 'as of first importance' that Christ died and rose 'in accordance with the Scriptures' (1 Cor. 15:3–5). On the other occasion, also in his first letter to the Corinthians, he asserts that 'I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you', that Christ took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and declared it to be his body, and likewise with the cup, enjoining his disciples to do likewise, 'in remembrance of me', 'for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes' (1 Cor. 11:23–7). These two dimensions of what has been 'handed down' are depicted by Luke in his account of Christ on the road to Emmaus, who is recognized when, after 'opening the Scriptures', he breaks bread with his disciples, only to disappear from their sight (Luke 24:25–31). The 'tradition' appealed to by Irenaeus is not just some customary teaching or practice, but that which the apostles 'handed down' as the matrix and the means for encountering the Christ they proclaimed, a particular approach and practice, pivoted upon the Passion of Christ, understood through the Scriptures, and enacted in the Eucharist.
In this way, then, Irenaeus developed his argument against his opponents by deploying terms drawn from contemporary literary, rhetorical, and epistemological theory, and grounded it in the sacramental life of the 66 A third time the term is used is in the Moscow postscript to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, where it states that in his writings Irenaeus 'mentions Polycarp, saying that he had been his pupil, and he ably refuted every heresy, and he also handed on the ecclesiastical and canonical rule, as he had received it from the saint' (M. Polyc. 22.2–4).
Irenaeus of Lyons Church, the crux for both of which is the Passion of Christ. This structure enables us to keep to the revelation of God in Christ as the ground of all reality: 'we must keep the canon of faith unswervingly and perform the commandments of God' in faith, for such faith 'is established upon things truly real' and enables us to have 'a true comprehension of what is' (Dem. 3).
Likewise, for Irenaeus, as we will see more fully in the next chapter, the economy of God is a divine pedagogy that has allowed us to learn of our weakness through the experience of death, in a process that is intertwined with and parallels the Eucharist itself—as the seeds sown in the ground receive growth from the Spirit and receiving the Word of God become the Body and Blood of Christ, so too do our bodies, nourished by this, when sown in the ground, rise again to receive immortality and incorruptibility from God—'so that we, being instructed in every way may be scrupulous in everything, being ignorant neither of God nor of ourselves' (haer. 5.2.3).
As Hans Urs von Balthasar put it: 'The primary aim is not to think, to impose Platonic intellectual or even mythical categories on things, but simply to see what is.'67
In some ways, Irenaeus' method is phenomenological. Rather than speculating about beings, forces, or actions behind the appearances, Irenaeus keeps to the appearances, seeking out the wisdom of God in the revelation or manifestation of God in Christ, as this has shown itself, demonstrated through the interpretation of Scripture ('Old Testament' again) as preached by the apostles and enacted in the Eucharist, both handed down by the apostle as the means of encountering Christ, and as experienced by human beings in and through their own weakness and mortality, that which belongs without exception to all flesh, which, simply and profoundly, is what we are.68 In book two, besides countering his opponents on their own terms to show the absurdities and contradictions into which they are led, Irenaeus devotes a section (haer. 2.25–28) to the ethos, as it were, of such enquiry, complementing his technical argument regarding 'hypothesis' and 'canon' in book one.69
He begins by affirming that the position of names, the election of the apostles, the deeds of the Lord, as they are found in Scripture, and also the 67 Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, 45.
68 For a phenomenological reading of our existence as flesh, drawing extensively from Irenaeus, see Michel Henry, Incarnation: Une philosophie de la chair (Paris: Seuil, 2000).
69 For the background of Irenaeus' stance here in the 'Empirical' school of physicians and the sceptical tradition in Greek philosophy, see W. R. Schoedel, 'Theological Method in Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses 2.25–28)', JTS NS 35 (1984), 31–49, and Norris, 'Theology and Language', 294–5.
Against the Heresies
whole arrangement of created things, are in no way meaningless or accidental. All things have been created by God with great wisdom and care, and so in all these cases we should 'harmonize them with what actually exists or with right reason' (haer. 2.25.1). The various numbers, syllables, and letters found in Scripture are not the starting point for understanding the revelation of God in Christ. Starting with them provides no solid hypothesis, and so leads inevitably to the many and diverse constructions of his opponents; they should instead 'adapt the numbers themselves and those things which have been formed to the underlying hypothesis of truth'.70 When viewed individually, created things are
'mutually opposite and inharmonious'—they are each what they are and other than anything else—yet, when seen together, Irenaeus points out, they do indeed form one harmonious creation, as many distinct notes fit together in 'one unbroken melody' (haer. 2.25.2). Only seeing each individually, each creature or each note in the melody would seem to be from a different author, but starting with the hypothesis of one Creator, they are all known as belonging together. Only in this way will the judgement, goodness, skill, and wisdom be seen in the whole work. If we cannot, as yet, see this harmony, this is because we too are creatures within creation,
'infinitely inferior to God' and not seeing the whole from his perspective; we have 'received grace only in part', are 'not yet equal or similar to his
Maker', and so 'cannot experience or form a conception of all things as God does' (haer. 2.25.3). So, Irenaeus urges, 'preserve therefore the proper order of your knowledge and do not, as being ignorant of things really good, seek to rise above God himself, for he cannot be surpassed' (haer.
2.25.4). Following the apostle's maxim that 'knowledge puffs up, but love edifies' (1 Cor. 8.1), Irenaeus holds that it is better 'to belong to the simple and unlettered, and by means of love attain nearness to God, rather than, by imagining ourselves as learned and skilful, be found among those who blaspheme their own God' (haer. 2.26.1). Just as Christ's statement that all the hairs on our head are numbered (Matt. 10:30) does not prompt us to count the hairs on each person's head and then devise explanations for why some have more and some less (haer. 2.26.2), so also, while accepting that all things are created by God in wisdom and with due order and measure, we would nevertheless think that anyone who attempts to count up all the grains of sand and pebbles on the earth, and then endeavours to think out the causes for these numbers, to be mad and insane (haer. 2.26.3).
From simple observations such as these, Irenaeus then concludes:
70 haer. 2.25.1, following Rousseau's retroversion (SC 293.294–9).
Irenaeus of Lyons A sound mind, and one which does not expose its possessor to danger, and is devoted to piety and the love of truth, will eagerly meditate upon those things that God has placed within the power of human beings, and has subjected to our knowledge, and will make advancement in them, rendering the knowledge of them easy to them by means of daily study. (haer. 2.27.1)
These are things such as 'fall under our observation' and as are 'clearly and unambiguously in express terms set forth in the sacred Scriptures' (haer.
2.27.1). The parables of Christ, then, should not 'be adapted to ambiguous expressions', but rather be explained by that which is clear, so that 'the parables will receive a similar interpretation from all, and the body of truth remain complete, structured harmoniously, and unshaken' (haer.
2.27.1). If this is not done, but rather if that which is unclear is interpreted as anyone chooses, 'no one will possess the rule of truth', each will work from his or her own hypothesis, setting out incompatible teachings, and ultimately 'one will always be enquiring but never finding, for they have rejected the very method of discovery' (haer. 2.27.1–2).
On the other hand, 'having the truth itself as our canon and the testimony concerning God set clearly before us' (haer. 2.28.1), we have a solid hypothesis for enquiring further into that which we can know, rather than pursuing that which we cannot and which ultimately has no solidity or real existence. As Irenaeus puts it, 'it is much more suitable that we, directing our enquiries after this fashion, should exercise ourselves in this investigation of the mystery and economy of the living God, and should increase in the love of him who has done, and still does, so great things for us' (haer. 2.28.1). And, if, in this enquiry, we find that 'we cannot discover explanations of all those things in Scripture which are made the subject of investigation', we should not turn to seek another God beside the Creator, for even those things at our own feet, such as the rising of the Nile or the circulating seasons, lie beyond our knowledge (haer. 2.28.2). Our limitation as creatures is not only with respect to knowledge of creation, but also that concerning God, so that, 'not only in the present world, but also in that which is to come, God should for ever teach and human beings should for ever learn the things taught them by God' (haer. 2.28.3). We should leave aside those things that are beyond our capacity for knowledge, and seek after that which is given. We cannot possibly, for instance, give a sensible answer to a question regarding what God was doing before he created the world; this lies with God alone (haer. 2.28.3). Likewise those
Against the Heresies
who try to give an account of 'the birth and production both of God himself, of his Thought, of his Word, and Life, and Christ, form the idea of these from nothing other than a mere human experience' (haer. 2.28.4).
If asked 'How then was the Son produced by the Father?', we can reply only 'that no one understands that production or generation or calling or revelation or whatever name one may use to describe his generation, which is in fact altogether indescribable' (haer. 2.28.6).71 God is not subject to our scrutiny, as if we had some kind of vantage point to look down upon him as we might upon an object within creation; his revelation in Christ, however, is given to us, and leads us into the depths of the profundity of the mystery of his wisdom. Thus, when the proper method is followed, 'through the many diverse expressions [in Scripture] there shall be heard an harmonious melody in us, praising in hymns the God who created all things' (haer. 2.28.3).
In all these ways, then, Irenaeus argues that his opponents, with their faulty exegesis and their mythmaking, have substituted another hypothesis and so created their own fabrication (º Æ). In doing so, he asserts, they have dissolved the one Lord Jesus Christ into a multitude of Aeons and so denied salvation to the flesh, for 'flesh is the ancient handiwork [º Ø] formed out of the dust by God for Adam, which John declares that the Word of God truly became' (haer. 1.9.3). When Irenaeus turns in the following books to examining 'the scriptural demonstration of the apostles who also composed the Gospel' (haer. 3.5.1), the term º Æ is used primarily to describe the 'fabrication of God', the flesh fashioned by the Hands of God, to which the Word is finally united, manifesting the image and likeness of God. The background for this usage is not the literary one that we examined above, but rather the fashioning of mud into flesh by God (Gen. 2:7), and the image of the potter and the vessel used by Isaiah and Paul: 'But who are you, a human being, to answer back to God? Will what is moulded [e º Æ] say to its moulder, "Why have you made me thus?"' (Rom. 9.20; Isa. 29:16). Ultimately, however, the two uses turn upon the same point: who is the Creator or the poet (the ØÅ)? Do we create our own fabrication or are we the ones being created in the Hands of God? For Irenaeus the human being is precisely the one created by God, flesh fashioned from mud by his Hands, animated
71 Cf. Gregory of Nazianus, Or. 31.8: 'What, then, is "proceeding"? You explain unbegottenness of the Father and I will give you a biological account of the Son's begetting and the Spirit's proceeding—and let us go mad the pair of us for prying into God's secrets.'
Irenaeus of Lyons by a breath of life to be vivified by the Spirit through their death in conformity with Christ, thus becoming at the end 'in the image and likeness of God'. It is to Irenaeus' own exposition of this economy of the one God worked through the one Christ upon the one handiwork that we now turn in the final chapter.
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5) While exposing and refuting his opponents in the first two books of his magnum opus, Against the Heresies, Irenaeus also intimated, as we have seen, the lineaments of his own position: that, when viewed from the hypothesis preached by the prophets, taught by the Lord, and delivered by the apostles, the Scriptures are a mosaic portraying, in the arrangement of its tesserae, the image of the king. This hypothesis can be expressed as a canon, the rule of truth, affirming that there is but one God, the Father and Creator, who has revealed himself in and through his one Son, Jesus
Christ, made known by the one Holy Spirit through the prophets. Read in this way, as we will see in this chapter, Scripture describes and the Hands of God, that is, Christ and the Holy Spirit, effect the one all-embracing economy, or arrangement, of God, which begins with his stated intention to create a human being in his own image and likeness and is completed at the end in Christ himself, who by the Spirit enables all men and women to become living human beings in the image and likeness of God.
At stake, then, are matters theological and anthropological, and the coincidence of both together in the person of Christ. These three themes, as we have seen, structure Irenaeus' own exposition in the remaining books of Against the Heresies: one God (haer. 3.6–15; 4.1–19; 5.1–14), one
Christ (haer. 3.16–21; 4.20–35; 5.15–24), the human being (haer. 3.21–23; 4.36–41; 5.25–36). Irenaeus presents his case carefully, examining, for instance, how the word 'God' is used by Moses and the prophets and by the evangelists and Paul, in his 'hastily written' letters (haer. 3.6–7), thus demonstrating the faithfulness of his own exposition to the text of Scripture. Yet Irenaeus knows that his opponents cannot be refuted simply by laying claim to the canon of truth, tradition, or authority, or by paying close attention to the text of Scripture, without also providing an account of our existence and experience more persuasive and coherent than that which they have to offer, as fascinating as it was to some in his own time and in ours. And so, beyond his textual examination, he offers a profound analysis, running throughout his writings, of the work of God in and through the economy, touching, in the most direct way possible, issues
Irenaeus of Lyons concerning what it is to be human, the meaning of human existence and experience, life and death. In doing so, Irenaeus does not theologize in the manner of his opponents, offering a theogony describing the derivation of heavenly beings and then retelling the creation account of Genesis as a rather botched affair, but instead theologizes within the economy to offer an anthropogony, an account of how from the beginning and throughout the economy God himself fashions the mud taken from the earth, our own flesh and blood, into his own image and likeness, perfecting it in the end as a living human being, 'the glory of God' (haer. 4.20.7).1
At the heart of Irenaeus' exposition stands the person of Christ, the beginning and end of the economy, and the starting point for his theology.
The figure of Christ is, of course, pivotally important for all Christian theologians, for his opponents as much as for Irenaeus. However, the difference between how Irenaeus and his opponents understood Christ, and approached the task of expounding his person, his work, and its significance, could not have been greater. Both focused on the opening chapters of Genesis, following Paul's correlation and contrast between Adam and Christ. But his opponents latched on to the apostle's statement that 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom' (1 Cor. 15:50) to find in Christ a figure providing the supposedly liberating knowledge that their earthy and material bodies were created not by God himself but by a demiurge, in which their true being, a spiritual seed from the Pleroma, had been deposited as a seed, unknown to the demiurge, and from which it could be liberated by growth in true knowledge. Irenaeus, in contrast, ever the careful reader, keeping closer to both Genesis and Paul, emphasizes the continuity between the first and second Adam, underscores the importance of the sequence between the two—the 'animated' being first, culminating in the 'spiritual' (1 Cor. 15:45–6)—and pivots his account, following Paul, on the Passion of Christ, as that which enables the 'animated body', sown into the earth, to be raised as a 'spiritual body'
(1 Cor. 15:44). What Paul posits as a typological correlation between Adam and Christ, Irenaeus expands into an all-embracing account of the economy of God, understanding the end in terms of the beginning, with the end in turn shedding light on the beginning: the divine intention
1 Cf. Thomas Holsinger-Friesen, Irenaeus and Genesis: A Study of Competition in Early
Christian Hermeneutics, Journal of Theological Interpretation, Supplement 1 (Winona Lake,
IN: Eisenbraus, 2009), 112: 'By declaring God to be the Creator (i.e. a terminus a quo),
Irenaeus' rule of truth effectively stipulated that any accounting of God's activity—or Christ's—must begin with anthropogony rather than with theogony.'
The Glory of God (haer. 3–5)
expressed in Genesis 1:26 begins in Genesis 2:7 and concludes in Christ, who is thus the truly living human being; what is sketched out in Adam, clay animated by a breath of life, is brought to perfection by Christ vivified by Holy Spirit, the Hands of God through whom God himself has been at work throughout the whole economy. Within this economy, the sequence that Paul lays out in 1 Corinthians 15 does not result, on Irenaeus' reading, in a salvation from flesh and blood, but rather shows salvation—creation and re-creation—being worked out in and through flesh and blood, beginning with that of Christ himself. Flesh and blood do not, indeed, inherit the kingdom, but nevertheless it is inherited when humans allow themselves to be worked upon by the Hands of God.
The difference between Irenaeus and his opponents is a fundamentally hermeneutic one. For Irenaeus, Christ is not only the one who is 'preformed' in the earthy reality of Adam and the Hand who 'pre-forms' and perfects this earthy reality in himself, but also the lens who brings this scriptural account into focus.2 To be precise, Irenaeus understands the work of Christ by beginning with the divine intention stated in Genesis, and in so doing continues in the footsteps of Paul, who began his exposition of Christ's work by 'handing down' ('traditioning') that Christ died and rose 'in accordance with Scripture' (1 Cor. 15:3–4). His opponents, on the other hand, began with a figure of Christ, by which they then reread the Genesis account as part of a larger mythological narrative, accounting for a radically different way of assessing the world and ourselves as human beings within it. For Irenaeus and his opponents, Scripture must be read in the light of Christ; but the Christ whom Irenaeus expounds is himself also understood within the mosaic or matrix of Scripture, as read and preached by the apostles. And so, as was noted in the previous chapter, Irenaeus has little time or patience for speculations about things not spoken of in Scripture, such as about what happened prior to creation, before God's act of taking clay in his Hands to fashion the human being.
Beyond the exegetical level, the hermeneutic contrast also pertains to our understanding of ourselves. Staying steadfastly within what can be known by creatures, in particular the fact of their being-created and all that this entails, Irenaeus finds within this experience the deployment of the wisdom and the power of God, divine strength made known in human weakness. This world is itself, then, the stage in which the economy of God is unfolded, and as such Irenaeus finds utterly incomprehensible his
2 Cf. Holsinger-Friesen, Irenaeus and Genesis, 179.