CHAPTER 4

Economy: God as architect of time The divine economy is not an abstract composition. It is the way in which the wise architect and sovereign king disposed the salvation of mankind. This disposition reflects a firmer reality within the events which are scattered around and within it. This reality 1s nothing less than the mind of God, seen by the prophets, and Irenaeus' answer to Platonic forms or geometry.' The pattern of the supreme disposer is not found in abstraction, but in the artistry of certain events woven together in time and place. It must not be confused with the narrower and less subtle concept of salvation as the mighty acts of God. i?

In Greek literature, the use of otkonomia (oikovopia) moved from domestic to political economy, from the management of a household to the management of a city (Aristotle, Polztics 3.1 285b).

It became a common Hellenistic word for good administration or purposeful arrangement. Ephesians links it with the hidden divine purpose for the salvation of man (Eph. 1:9—1 2) and the realisation and revelation of that purpose (Eph. 3:2-11). Paul speaks of stewards, ovkonomoi, who administered the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1—2). The Stoics are the first to use ovkonomia for God and the universe (SVF 2.945,273). For them everything has purpose and place within a world of conflict and contradictions. Ozkonomia produces sympatheia to facilitate life according to nature (SVF 3.582).

Beyond theology and philosophy, ozkonomza is an important word for architecture (Vitruvius, De arch. 1.2.1). Rhetoricians also give importance to dispositio in the arrangement of discourse. Both of these uses of the word point to Irenaeus' aesthetic criterion of fitness.

" God is active in the lower half of Plato's Divided Line (Rep. 510) in the shapes and the shadows.

Economy: God as architect of time

In patristic writers before Irenaeus the word oikonomia covers four main meanings: the plan of God and its fulfilment in the incarnation,' a particular work prophesied of Christ,} the office of a bishop,' and disposition or arrangement in general.5 Justin develops the notion of multiple economies, such as events in the lives of patriarchs, within one grand economy. In this way he systematizes typology and anticipates Irenaeus.

This chapter, however, begins with a confession of defeat, for the keyword oik ovoyia has no direct equivalent in modern English.

The present convention is to translate it as 'economy' in the sense of a system or plan. For Irenaeus' sense of economy, fortunately, we have a clue from the previous chapter where creation, the first step in the plan, was attributed to the 'wise architect and sovereign king' (2.11.1).

4.1

ECONOMY AND DIVINE ARCHITECT

To understand Irenaeus on the divine economy, we may begin with the classic writings of Vitruvius on architecture. Irenaeus speaks of God 'drawing up the plans for the edifice of salvation' (4.14.2)° and goes on to speak of God's provision for what is 'most apt',

'worthy' and 'in many modes adapted to the harmony (consonantia) of salvation'. Vitruvius (De ach. 1.2.1—9) links otkonomia with order, disposition, shapeliness, symmetry and correctness/aptness, as the six values of architecture.

All these values are important for Irenaeus, although he does not copy Vitruvius. Vitruvius analyses and separates where Irenaeus is deeply concerned for unity of process.' Order (ordinatio, taxis) is for Vitruvius the initial commitment to a geometrical pattern which remains in control. Design/disposition (dispositio, diathesis)

2 Tenatius, epistula ad Ephesios 18.2; 20.1; Aristides, ap. 15.1; Justin, dial. 30.3; 31.13 45; 87.53

103.3; 120.1; Athenagoras, presbeia 22.4.

3 Justin, dial. 67.6, 107.3; 134.23 141.4.

4 Tonatius, Eph. 6.1.

5 Martyrdom of Polycarp 2.2; Tatian, oratio ad Graecos 5.1; 12.2; 12.3; 18.2; 19.4; 21.3;

Theophilus of Antioch, ad Autol. 2.12, 29; Epistula ad Diognetum 4.5.

7 Vitruvius, Ten books on architecture, translation and commentary, I. D. Rowland, T: N. Howe and M. J. Drewe (Cambridge, 1999), 149-51. See also the text and translation by Frank

Granger, LCL (2 vols. 1931, 1934).

Economy places the various elements of the building on a grid. Shapeliness (ewrythmia) is pleasing appearance and aesthetic value. Symmetry (symmetria) means that all parts of a building should be proportionate to one another and to the whole. Correctness/aptness

(decor) is a control of licence by function, tradition and nature, which renders appropriate each part. What is fitting is determined by the formal rules of a culture, the culture itself and nature.

Economy/allocation (distributio) begins with a practical reference to costs and material but goes on to consider the needs of the client.

Buildings must be variously disposed for the use of the owner, for town or country, for financiers or men of taste and for the powerful.

'And generally the distributio of buildings is to be adapted to the vocations of their owners' (De arch. 1.2.9).° Economy of salvation is adapted to the vocation of mankind; nothing human is alien to it. y Irenaeus uses the notion of economy with all the other values as supplementary.9 They are all important to him, with first place going to aptness (decor), what is correct and fitting in contrast to the licence of Gnostics.'° 'The economy of salvation must be fitting, apt, appropriate to man and God. Aptness stands beside truth in importance, as one of the two criteria. It is also the value where personal decision, of God or man, plays a dominant role. 'Given its orientation, decor stands somewhat alone among Vitruvius's fundamentals, for elsewhere his architect is not given much opportunity for making personal choices."'' By what he chooses as fitting, God tells us about himself.

For Irenaeus, the wise architect of creation continued his design in the history of man's salvation. In this he showed proportion, order, and just distribution between the parts. The beauty and disposition of God's saving work reflected his artistry in time.'?

8 A. A. Payne, The architectural treatise in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1999), 40.

° Something of the same mobility is found in rhetoric. 'In rhetoric, ovkonomia is active in realms that Vitruvius splits between dispositio and distributio— that is, it controls the ordering of the thoughts and of the appropriate means of expression', Payne, The architectural treatise,

255).

"® See Payne, ibid., 15-21, on good and bad licence.

'Y Tbid., 36.

'* 'Gottes zeithafte Kunst', H. U. von Balthasar, Herrlichkeit, 1, 76. See below, chapter g.

Economy: God as architect of time a God's exuberance is economical in the sense that nothing is superfluous in a great work of art. The Sistine Chapel is overwhelming but its plan is such that every part is necessary. That is what Irenaeus is trying to say about the economy.

God's saving work, which began with creation, was not limited to a particular event. Certainly it belonged within events and history.

God became man that man might become God. God achieves this exchange in Christ as second Adam, who is both human creature and divine being. The incarnation thus fixes the economy of God within history. "How can they be saved unless it be God who has worked their salvation on earth? And how can man pass into God if God has not passed into man?" (4.33.4).'3

This exchange is not restricted to the incarnation, however, but works through all salvation history. 'Christ died for all' is not an isolated incident but the 'divine eternal history', said

Hegel. The divine economy follows from creation as it negates the negations of creatureliness and sin. Hegel saw this divine impulse (Moment) in terms of dialectic. The return of the reconciled world to God is, for Hegel, a return to God himself as spirit, through the resurrection of Christ. 'Negation is thereby overcome and the negation of negation is thus the impulse of the divine nature.''+ Negation, in Hegel's logic, is a productive force. He sees the negation of the separation between God and man, in Irenaean words to which he gives his own meaning: 'Unity of the divine and human nature: God is become man.' Irenaeus does better than Hegel when he sees human history as the return of the jubilant divine shepherd with the lost sheep on his shoulders, but the reasoning around the metaphor is illuminated by Hegel.

The economy is the whole plan of God. One divine economy belongs to the one God, one plan to the one wise architect. 'The universal economy is made up of smaller diverse economies of events which form the different saving dispositions which God has

'3 J. T. Nielsen, Adam and Christ in the theology of Irenaeus of Lyons (Assen, 1968), 60.

™ G.W.FE Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Religion, Theorte — Werke — Ausgabe, vol. xvul

(Frankfurt, 1969), 294-5; cited in Ulrich Wilckens, Der Brief an die Romer, vol. 1 (Rom. 1-5),

(Zurich, Einsiedeln and Cologne, 1978), 334. Negation, in Hegel's logic, is a productive force.

'S Hegel, Vorlesungen, 203-4.

Economy granted (3.12.13).'° The old and new testaments display God's universal plan to bring salvation and blessing. Economy is central to Irenaeus, for the task of theology is to present the activity ( pragmateia) and the economy of God in his relationship to man (1.10.3). The Gnostics, on the other hand, are ignorant of the scriptures and of the economy of God.

What does the word mean for Irenaeus? oik ovojtia is generally translated by disposttio (twenty-seven times).'7 It has four interlocking meanings:'

(Ar) ordering or productive act (most commonly in Irenaeus); (Az) a structured entity; (Br) disposition, arrangement of things or events, the structure of an entity; (Bz) underlying purpose or plan behind things or events.

In general, early Christian writers join Bz to Ar (the disposition is never separate from the supreme disposer), defining the economy by the incarnation, and omitting the link with creation as found in the new testament. Howevey, in Irenaeus, ozkonomia becomes central, unifying creation and recapitulation. In the singular it refers chiefly to the incarnation and in the plural to the old testament manifestations of the word. In contrast, Gnosticism keeps ovkonoma within the divine pleroma and allows it to be reflected in the lower world. The monad or dyad emits a primordial pair from which follows the deployment of the pleroma; outside the pleroma a second phase introduces the creation of the world.

'Too large for exact definition, ozkonomia can be taken as the ruling metaphor which holds Irenaeus' theology together.'? One writer shows how such a synthesis could be established.*° In God's plan the creation is made for man not man for the creation (5.29.1).

'® Widmann, 'Irendus und seine theologischen Vater', 156-73.

'7 Tt is translated once only by each of dispensatio, creatio, ex omnibus factus.

'8 J. Fantino, La théologie d'Irénée (Paris, 1994), 94-9. See whole chapter, 85—1 26.

'9 'bildhafte Verdeutlichung', A. Bengsch, Heilsgeschichte und Heilswissen, EThSt 3 (Leipzig,

1957), 105-6.

*° See Fantino's chapter, 'La structure trinitaire de 'economie chez Irénée', La théologie,

203-64.

Economy: God as architect of time

Man's glory is to persevere in the service of God (4.14.1). God wishes to share his life with man.?' Economy is presented in 'different tonalities': glory, incorruptibility and immortality, vision and knowledge of God, adoption as sons of God, image and likeness.

These themes variously indicate the purpose of the economy and summarize the theology of Irenaeus.??

The economy is the history ofhumanity. Adam, asa collective figure, stands for the human race, which stems from him (4.33.15). He is the first or psychic/animal man (1 Cor. 15:45—6) (3.22.3; 5.12.2).

Christ who is spiritual man 1s also collective (3.18.1). The church is the new humanity, the place of the spirit (3.24.1). Adam, as Paul wrote (Rom. 5:1 4), was a sketch of the future man, 'the shape of the coming one' (3.22.3), and at the same time the cause of continuing sin. The contrast between the old Adam born of the virgin earth and the new Adam born of the virgin Mary (3.21.10) is overcome in Jesus who unites in himself the created and the uncreated. He bestows the spirit on the church and all the earth (3.17.3), completing the threefold plan: creation, incarnation and the fullness of the spirit.

The economy is the history of salvation, a succession of times or seasons where man participates in God. In the first stage, faith in God and his purpose is governed by natural precepts (4.13.4), the second stage is the law (4.13.1) and the third stage is the gospel (4.16.4, 5). When the natural precepts were not obeyed, the law came both in response to sin (hardness of heart, failure of love) and to prophesy Christ. In the old testament, patriarchs and prophets prepared the way for Christ. In the new testament, law and prophets disappear, there is a return to natural law accompanied by the gift of the spirit and adoption as sons (4.16.5). The gift of the spirit is partial in the church but total in the kingdom of the father.*$ Typology is integral to the economy, where it implies both a progression from Old to New and an equivalence because the New

21 Tbid., 205.

22 "tonalités différentes', ibid., 219. The five themes are identified by Fantino, ibid., 207-18.

23 Justin and other earlier writers had seen the testaments as part of the orkonomia which was linked with the Stoic and popular notion of the administration of the universe.

Economy is the realization of the Old.*4 The spirit for which David prayed (Ps. 50:1 4), for example, is given at Pentecost for all nations (3.17.2).

There are parallels between Irenaeus and Gnosticism, where perfection of knowledge is also given in the last days (2.4.2). Some forms of Gnosticism even allow for temporal progression" but it was the genius of Irenaeus 'to insert recapitulation into the oikonomia'.?° 4.2.1

ECONOMY AS ACCUSTOMING

The first purpose of the economy was to accustom man to God and to accustom God to man.*' This theme of accustoming or habituation runs throughout Irenaeus' writings. In Abraham, the first fellow-citizen of the word of God, man became accustomed to follow the word of God. In his sacrifice of*his son he was a prophet who saw the economy of the Lord's passion, by which he and all who believed would be saved. Abraham's faith looked back to the creator and forward to the promise of posterity (4.21.1).

Betweén creation and incarnation Ged accustoms himself to man and man is accustomed to God. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prefigure what is to come, and the economies of God accustom his people to live as strangers in the world and to follow the guidance of his word. Scripture prescribes a life which is alien to the world and obedient to God (4.21.3).

*4 J. Daniélou, Gospel message and hellenistic culture (ET; London, 1973), 207-9, 212-13.

Fantino, La théologie, 236.

*5_H. I. Marrou, 'La théologie de L'histoire dans la gnose Valentinienne', in U. Bianchi (ed.),

Le origini dello gnosticismo (Leiden, 1967), 220-4.

26 Fantino, La théologie, 241. But is the parousia part of recapitulation? Wingren, Houssiau and Lassiat give an affirmative answer, and are criticised for doing so by Orbe and Rousseau (Wingren, Man and the incarnation, 192; A. Houssiau, La christologie de saint Inénée

(Louvain and Gembloux, 1955), 219-20; H. Lassiat, Promotion de Vvhomme en Jésus Christ dapres Irénée de Lyon (Tours, 1974), 311-14). Incarnation and parousia are the time of the spirit, which is 'poured out in a new way on our humanity' (dem. 6). Fantino distinguishes recapitulation (incarnation) from the second coming (3.16.6), At the incarnation Jesus came in visible form, so as to be received and to accustom us to his presence (4.38.1).

One text only (1.10.1) suggests this distinction; elsewhere recapitulation and incarnation are the same. Recapitulation is where the incarnate son passes on the spirit to humans.

Incarnation joins the preparation which precedes it with the realisation which comes after it. See Fantino, La théologie, 256. Wingren, Man and the incarnation, 195-7.

*7 P. Evieux, "Théologie de ''accoutumance chez saint Irénée', RSR 55 (1967), 5-54.

Economy: God as architect of time

The incarnation marks a new stage in the process of accustoming. The spirit descends on the son of God, who has become man so that the spirit may be accustomed to live in a human being. He works, among men, the will of the father and replaces their oldness with the newness of Christ (3.17.1). In fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy, God's spirit rests on men, indwelling the work of God's hands, regenerating and renewing man in soul and body.

In Christ, man is able to see God, to contain God, to accustom himself to participate in God while God is accustomed to live in man (3.20.2). The metaphor of light describes this movement. Just as those who see the light are in the light and participate in it, so those who see God are in God and participate in his glory. At the same time, the splendour of God gives life,?® and those who see God participate in life (4.20.5). The progress from receiving

God ( percipere/ accipere) to containing God (capere), to holding on to God (continere), is set out (4.38.1, 2). The son of God, despite his perfection, takes the form of a child so that man might be able to contain him (4.38.2). Men are able to carry his glory within them because the perfect bread of the father is given to them in the form of milk. In this gentle way men become accustomed to eat and drink the word of God and to retain in themselves the bread of immortality which is the spirit of the father (4.38.1).

The notion of containing God 1s linked with that of carrying and retaining God in a life of liberty (4.13.2). God, through his spirit, gives life to the flesh on earth and the flesh, having been accustomed to that gift, can receive life eternal (5.3.3). 'To participate in God, man must simply turn his face towards God and become accustomed to the life of God within him.

Yet accustoming is intricate.?? For A to become accustomed to B, there must be difference and reciprocity. A participates in B, is accustomed to and appropriates B; but B transforms

A into something like himself by a process of assimilation. A, who accustoms himself, becomes accustomed because the good in which he participates increases his capacity to possess that good;

28 Cf. 'In him was life and the life was the light of men', Jn 1:4.

29 Evieux, 'L'accoutumance', 38.

Economy reciprocally, the object of the accustoming becomes the subject, because he accustoms himself and models himself on him who apprehends.

Between men and God the process of accustoming moves towards a goal which is never fully achieved in time and space. 'The end seems unwilling to be possessed. There is also tension when

A is participated by B but maintains his transcendence and raises B towards him. All this has to be worked out. Incarnation is a first step in accustoming man to God and God to man.

The concept of accustoming is turned to defend the resurrection of the flesh. God's hands are already accustomed to handle flesh because they formed and shaped Adam (5.5.1). The initiative lies always with God who brings life to our flesh, until in the resurrection we carry God within ourselves. We accustom ourselves little by little to contain and to carry God (5.8.1). The first perfect living man is Jesus Christ (5.1.3) and we shall be like him in the resurrection

(5.8.1).

There is a place for accustoming right to the end, says Irenaeus.

The just{are raised to their place in the kingdom and are accustomed gradually to see God (5.32.1). The righteous will reign on earth and they will accustom themselves to grasp the glory of God

(5.35.1). Even the kingdom of Christ is not yet the time nor the place to contain God (capere Deum). Rather it is the final preparation for man to receive the gift of incorruption and the vision of God. The entire creation is transformed and man is made one with Christ. Then in the kingdom of the son man will become perfectly like the son and be made incorporate in the son

(5.36.3).

Accustoming shows the personal immediacy of the economy of salvation,?° and the subtlety of Irenaeus' thought.

4.2.2

ECONOMY AS PROGRESSIVE REVELATION

Revelation is always personal. Our knowledge of God progresses as does our knowledge of other persons. 'No one knows the son but the father and no one knows the father but the son and he to 3° Thid., 53.

Economy: God as architect of time

whom the son has willed to reveal him' (Matt. 11:27; Lk. 10:22).

The Gnostics wrongly record the saying as 'no one knew the father but the son' (4.6.1). This would imply that: no one knew the true God before the coming of Christ; the prophets did not announce the true God;

Christ only came into existence at his incarnation; the father only remembered to care for men in the time of Tiberius Caesar; the word of God has not always been present to creation; therefore a charge of culpable neglect against God should be considered.

The Gnostics are wrong, Irenaeus contends, because these propositions destroy faith in God, our maker.>' Irenaeus adds a remarkable citation from Justin's lost work against Marcion, to the effect that he would not have believed the lord himself if he had declared another God beside the creator. However, says Justin, since the only begotten son came to us from the only God who sums up the work of his own hands in himself (suum plasma in semetipsum recapitulans), faith and love towards him do not waver (4.6.2).3?

Irenaeus sets out an extended argument (4.6.3~7) to show that an unchanging God was revealed in new ways.

Revelation comes from father and son. The knowledge of the father and son is mutual and only accessible if humans hold father and son together. Revelation is active and personal. 'The son performs what the father wills, while the father sends and the son 1s sent.

, Revelation is through manifestation of the son, who makes all things manifest. The son is a revealing, enlightening word, not a secretive, exclusive word. Therefore the son imparts to believers a knowledge of the father. He does this through his incarnation.

3" ut et deum quidem mutet et eam quae est erga fabricatorem, qui nos alit per suam conditionem, fidem nostram evacuet (4.6.2).

32 The citation is remarkable because it makes belief in one God the first axiom of the Christian faith, because it elevates truth above highest tradition (as does Justin in the Dialogue when he insists, 'I do not care whether Plato or Pythagoras or any other man held such views, for this is what the truth is' (dial. 6)), and because it anticipates Irenaeus' account of recapitulation. Its authenticity has been discussed. See J.

A. Robinson, 'On a quotation from Justin Martyr in Irenaeus', 77S, 31 (1930), 374-8.

Economy Only those taught by God can know God; but God wants to be known. Therefore the manifestation of the father came through the son as a light shining in darkness. The father reveals himself to all, making the word visible to all. By becoming visible, the word declared the father and son to all. Because this revelation is for all, those who have seen but have not believed, will be judged.

Revelation began with creation and continued through law and prophets. In the whole of creation, especially humanity, the word reveals the lord who is maker (fabricator) of the world and the artificer (artifex) of man. This revelation is addressed to all, as were the law and the prophets, in which the word proclaimed himself and the father.

The final revelation was complex. When the invisible word manifested the father by becoming visible and-tangible, 'the invisible reality which was seen in the son was the father, and the visible reality in which the father was seen was the son' (4.6.6). All spoke with Christ and called him God; but not all believed.

The final revelation was accessible to all. A universal revelation was needed, if all were to receive a just judgement at the end. The death of Christ received universal testimony. Everyone declared him to be truly human; testimony that he was truly God came from father, spirit, angels, creation, men, rebel spirits and demons, the devil and finally from death itself:

Revelation is one continuous history. From the eternal universal work of revelation we grasp the continuity of history under the hand of the son, who for the father administers and perfects all things from beginning to end, for without him no one could know God (4.6.7).3+ The revelation of the father by the son is not a future but a past and present event which goes on through all time. 'The son is present to his creation from the beginning, revealing the father to all whom the father wills, as and how the father wills. Unity and universality mark the godhead and the salvation given to all believers (4.6.7). 'All the history of the world appears in this synthesis, so vast and yet so closely integrated; the 33° invistbile etenim fil pater, visibile autem patris filius.

34 Omnia autem filius administrans patri perficit ab initio usque ad finem, et sine illo nemo potest cognoscere deum.

Economy: God as architect of time

divine plan reveals itself, wonderful in its unity and its progressive development.'35

The unity of history derives from the unity of the trinity, which preceded both history and creation. Not merely before Adam, but also before creation, the word and the father gave each other glory

(4.14.1; cf Jn 17:5). Universality of revelation extends to angels, archangels, principality and powers (2.30.9), but it is to man that God looks. The son shows God to men and presents man to God.

God's glory is man made alive and man is alive when he sees God (4.20.7).

The spirit plays a continuing role as he reveals the word (dem.

5, 7). He inspires the prophets so that they declare God's plans (1.10.1) and make known the economies of father and the son

(4.33.7). There is a progression from the spirit-given vision of the prophets to the 'adoptive' vision in the son and to the 'paternal' vision in the coming kingdom (4.20.5).

4.2.3

ECONOMY AS THE ASCENT OF MAN

In Irenaeus, divine plan and human development go together, for humanity never stands still. Every part of the saving plan comes from the one will and purpose of God. The central Gnostic error,

Irenaeus points out, is their denial of the providence of this one God.

They follow Epicurus in proclaiming a superfluous god deus otiosus (3.24.2). Plato's god is active in the world (Laws 715e), and his goodness (Jim. 2g9e) is consistent with the sovereign grace which Paul teaches. The economy praceeds from God's perfection (2.28.5), nearness (5.16.1) and love (3 pref.).

Human development moves through history and beyond; humans cannot be imprisoned in permanent categories or classes.

Development fits, adjusts, accustoms man to God (3.20.2) to ensure man's progress (proficere, proveht), growth (augere), maturing

(maturescere) and fruitfulness ( Jructificare).3° While Adam is in one sense perfect, the possibility of further perfection is set before him.37 The lord has ordered everything for the perfection of man

35 J. Lebreton, Histoire du dogme de la Trinité, vol. 11 (Paris, 1928), 592.

3© The Gnostics used the notion of fruitfulness differently and frequently.

37 See below, chapter 10, and Koch, 'Zur Lehre vom Urstand', 183-21 4.

Economy (4.37.7). As the new head of mankind, Christ assumes human nature (4.2.4).

Recapitulation provides points of reference which determine what fits into man's development.3° God's revelation (4.11.1) continues to the point where he offers man the gift of adoption. Man was made to grow and the logos uses every means to entice men to glory.99

Divine plan and human development are evident in the four covenants: Adam, Noah, Moses and Christ. Like Paul, Irenaeus recognises Abraham as justified before circumcision and the patriarchs as part of the history of salvation. Yet the old testament is commonly identified with Moses and slavery in contrast to new testament liberty (4.9.1).

Yet another development is the universal expansion of Christ in the church. The four winds point to the fear Gospels, which with the lifegiving spirit, produce the church (3.11.8). Christ contains in himself those whom he redeems (3.18.7). They are (3.19.1) commingled with the word of the father.t° There are some things which, Irénaeus insists, do not develop: the apostolic kerygma was already perfect on the day of Pentecost (3.1.1), so the tradition of the apostles is identical with truth (3.3.1). Nevertheless, Irenaeus did make doctrinal progress in a way he could not theoretically allow. His account of the incarnation and human nature, of church and tradition, of history of salvation and of the forces of renewal illuminates the wonder of human development.*' His sense of human evolution has made Christianity more credible in a scientific age.

4.2.4

ECONOMY AS POLEMIC: HISTORY AS KNOWLEDGE

The highest human knowledge is found in the economy as accustoming, progressive revelation and human evolution. This claim is

38 'Angemessenheitsgriinde', K. Priimm, 'Gottliche Planung und menschliche Entwicklung nach Irenaus' Adversus haereses', Schol 1 3 (1938), 34.4. Once again, the criterion is aesthetic as well as logical.

39 'die Menschen seiner Verherrlichung anzulocken', Priimm, ibid., 347.

4° commixti Verbo Dei Patris.

4 Primm, 'Gottliche Planung', 355.

Economy: God as architect of time

central to Irenaeus' attack on Gnosticism.4? The coordinates of the economy are vertical (descent and ascent of God's son to redeem the earth) and horizontal (the unbroken line of God's saving activity from the beginning to the end of time). These two coordinates leave no place for any other salvation besides that which is given in the Jesus of history and is marked by the ideas of giving/receiving, development and education.*8 How isa case made for these unambiguous claims? There are two points where Irenaeus interrupts his polemic to state his method.

At 1.10.3 and 2.25~8 he points to the one faith of the church, the incarnation of the word, the adaptation of time and the sovereign providence of God.*4 His aim (1.10.3) is 'to explain God's activity and economy which has been directed to mankind'. Knowledge begins from many questions.49 Why has one and the same God done temporal and eternal, earthly and heavenly things? Why has the invisible God appeared to prophets in different forms? Why do we find more than one covenant given to mankind? How do these covenants differ? Why did God conclude all in unbelief in order to have mercy on all? Why did the word of God become flesh and suffer? Why did the son of God, the beginning, come at the end, in the last days? What does scripture tell us about the coming end? Why has God brought the heathen into the inheritance of the saints (Eph. 3:6)? How will this mortal corruptible flesh put on immortality and incorruption (1 Cor. 15:54)? How can it be claimed (Rom. 9:25) that those who were not a people have become a people, and that those who were not loved have become beloved?

Knowledge of saving history comes from the answers to these questions. The cross, an event within history is taken as normative for all history and decisive for salvation.*° The vertical coordinates

(God to man, man to God) (5.36.3) and the horizontal coordinates ('in the end ... united to the ancient formation') (5.1.2) point to 'the economy of the cross' which indicates the height, length, breadth and depth, and the two hands which gather the two

42 Bengsch, Heilsgeschichte und Heilswissen, 229-30.

43 Thbid., 230.

44 Thid., 4.

45 Thid.,53.

4° Ibid., 54.

Economy scattered peoples under the one head who is God (5.17.4). The work of Christ is 'always' and 'now'.4/ Irenaeus often describes the economy with an exchange formula

(Tauschformel): 'the son of God became son of man, so that through him we may obtain adoption, with man bearing, seizing and embracing the son of God' (3.16.3; cf. Gal. 4:4). The person of Christ is central to his work (5.17.1), and hence the exchange formulae are in no way abstract, for Christ really became what we are (3.18.1).

This event is the final revelation to which everything else points.

Not only is the whole history of salvation directed to Christ, it is all his work.4° The continuity of the saving event lies in the person and work of Christ (3.11.8) through all four testaments (3.11.8) and the fourfold gospel. Everything is made by the logos (3.8.2), from whose image man is made (3.23.1), so that the coming'of the logos manifests both the formation and the maker (4.33.4). His work fits together logically and aesthetically; it is appropriate to the time and continuous in faithfulness (4.20—7). He is both subject and object of prophecy (4.26.1; 4.10.1); the words of Moses and the prophets are his words (4.2.3) for the prophets received their charisma from him (4.20.4). Moses and the prophets speak of him (4.10.1; 4.9.3).

As a fulfilment, Christ cannot be the end of the law unless he be its beginning too (4.12.4). The law taught in advance how man should follow Christ (4.12.5). He is both subject and object of the preaching of the apostles (3.1.1).

Within the economy there can be discontinuity, because God in his freedom chooses certain moments. All things are new because of the newness of the incarnation, so that man might return to God and learn to worship him in a new way (3.10.2). He has made all things new by the gift of himself (4.34.1). The prophets had told of a new covenant (4.33.14) and we know that newness will renew and vivify humanity (4.34.1). This newness is a fulfilment rather than a break with the past, for Christ reigns in the house of Jacob, forever and without a break (3.1.0.2). There was newness also in earlier seasons (Aairoz), for there are many precepts and 47 Thid., 88-108.

#8 9 19.3: 3.12.8; 3.16.5; 4.8.2; 4.34.2 and 4.

Economy: God as architect of time

many steps which lead man to God (4.9.3). The prophets spoke of the one and same God 'under many aspects and many titles'

(3.10.6).49

Because each season has its own character, no one should try to force the saving pace as Mary did at the marriage feast at Cana

(3.16.7). Nor could the Jews, not perceiving the word of liberty, hold back what was happening (4.33.1). All must be done at the right time (3.12.11). God does all things with harmony and proportion

(composita et apta) (3.11.9) and there is 'nothing unseemly, untimely or incongruent in what the father does' (3.16.7).5° Newness does not imply discontinuity. Even among men newness and identity are found together (4.5.3).

This move from preparation to fulfilment, from promise to reality, reflects an unlikely parallel between the world of prophecy and the world of Plato's forms.5' There is gradual progress towards the summit of the dialectic which is the first principle of truth, goodness and being. Until the summit 1s reached the believer or philosopher lives in a world of shadows. Once the finality of Christ is reached, then the shadows all make sense and one 1s no longer in the shadow but in the light. The horizontal Platonism of Irenaeus from old to new is the movement of Clement of Alexandria's true dialectic, which by joining and dividing moves towards the ultimate truth in Christ, a truth which is also the source of life and being. It is no accident that one of the two passages which Irenaeus cites with approval from Plato concerns the ancient word, which moves through beginning, middle and end.°"

, 4:3

TRINITY AND THE HANDS OF GOD

From the beginning to the end of his writings, Irenaeus declares the faith of the church in one father, one son and holy spirit (1.10.1;

5.20.1). In this name Christians are baptised (dem. 3). Both son and father are lord and God (dem. 47); they are uniquely God (3.6).

The word, who made all things, sits above the cherubim, contains 49 varus autem significationibus et multis appellationibus.

5° nihil... incomtum atque intempestioum nec incongruens... apud Patrem. Cf. also 3.12.11; 5.6.15

4-37-75' See below, 8.1.

5? The second passage declares the goodness of God (3.25.5).

go Economy all things, has appeared to men and has given them the gospel (3.11.8). In one place (dem. 10), Irenaeus identifies the son and the spirit, the word and wisdom, with the two supreme powers known as cherubim and seraphim. Here there may be echoes from Philo, who had identified cherubim and seraphim as God and Lord. For Philo, God may be seen either under a threefold or single aspect; beneath God, Philo has many intermediaries, which disappear in Christian revelation.*4 Wisdom is identified not with the word of God (as in Paul and Hebrews), but with the spirit. The spirit shares the fullness of the Godhead (5.12.2). In the rule of faith the spirit comes in third place. As a distinct person, he speaks by the prophets, teaches the patriarchs and guides the righteous (dem. 6); he is the sign or seal of the father and the son, imprinted on the believer (3.17.3) and the unction with which the father anoints the'son (3.18.3). The spirit is also called paraclete (3.17.3), gift (3.6.4), living water (5.18.1), dew of God (3.17.3) and pledge of incorruption (5.8.1). The pledge within us makes us already spiritual, so that mortal is swallowed up in immortality.

~ The sovereign grace of God gives autonomy to the action which made all things 'through himself, that is through his word and wisdom' (2.30.9). The divine self-sufficient spontaneity governs all:

'he himself in himself, according to that which is beyond our speech and thought, predestinated and made all things; by his untiring word he made all things that have been made' (2.2.4).

The divine trinity gives nourishment and growth, so that man may gently rise towards the perfection of the uncreated God (4.38).

Within the trinity the Intellect/father is the inseparable source of the word/son (2.28.4—-6),>+ for the divine Intellect possesses unbroken unity.°° Father and son exist, as the Fourth Gospel makes clear, in mutual indwelling which gives each a perfect knowledge of the other (2.17.8). The son measures the vastness of the father and as a measure (mensura) comprehends him (4.4.2). What is invisible of the son is the father and what is visible of the father is the son: invisibile

53 BH. Lanne, 'Cherubim et seraphim', RSR 43 (1955), 524-3554 Without the separation by which some apologists had distinguished inner from uttered logos.

59 As we have seen, chapter 2.

Economy: God as architect of time QI fila pater, visibile autem patris filius (4.6.6). The mutual indwelling of father and spirit who is divine wisdom is eternal (2.25.3; 2.30.9;

3.18.1; 4.13.4; 4.20.13). The eternity of the three divine powers is constantly affirmed (dem. 11, 30, 43).

Father, son and spirit are united in creation and salvation (5.18.2), and in the progress of the believer who ascends from spirit to son and from son to father (5.36.8). The move through spirit to son and father is traced in different ways (4.20.5, 6; 5.36.2 and dem. 7).

There is an ascent from spirit to son to father by whom the gift of incorruption is granted (4.20.5; 5.36.2). We move from spirit through son to father, while the father moves to us through son and spirit (dem. 7).

A striking way of expressing the divine unity and its embrace is through the description of word and spirit as the hands of God.

More recently, George Herbert wrote:

Wilt thou meet arms with man, that Thou dost stretch, A crumb of dust from heav'n to hell?

Will great God measure with a wretch?

Shall he Thy stature spell? ...

Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust, Thy hands made both, and I am there; Thy power and love, my love and trust, Make one place ev'rywhere.°° Irenaeus uses this vivid metaphor of the hands of God in Against herestes 4. and 5, and once in the Demonstration, to underline the immediacy and continuity of God's activity. Man's mixture of soul and flesh is achieved by God through his hands, the son and the spirit (4.20.1). Continuity is unbroken. Adam never left the hands of God, who made him and finally perfected him in Christ

(5.1.3). There was nothing strange in the assumption of Enoch and Elijah into heaven for, from Adam onwards, the hands of God had grown used to ordering, ruling and supporting what they had formed. As God put man in one place and then removed him, so he placed Enoch and Elijah into a place of waiting

(5.5.1). God's hand remained on Elijah and Jonah; the three young men were brought out of the furnace by God's hand as a sign

5° George Herbert, 'The temper'.

Economy of his power. No creature can resist the power and will of God 5-2). é a healing hands of the incarnate saviour carry on the first formation of man. The word forms us in the womb (cf. Ps. 139:13—

16). When the eyes of the blind man were healed, the manner of human creation was declared; the hand which healed the part was the hand which formed the whole (5.15.3).

The hands of God confirm the activity of the creator who made the world through himself, that is, through his word and wisdom

(2.30.9).°"7 He created, modelled, breathed life into and now nourishes us by his creation (3.25.1). The heavens are measured in the palm of his hand (Isa. 40:12). He who fills the heavens and looks on the abyss is with each one of us. God is near and not far off ( Jer.

22:23). 'For his hand encloses us in our hidden and secret ways'

(4.1.9.2).

AS Surrounded with the kght of the father (4.20.2), man embraces the spirit of God and enters the glory of the father (4.20.4) who is present through creation, through theophanies, miracles and prophecieS.5® As in the beginning we were shaped in Adam, so in the end we shall be shaped in the word and spirit of God. Adam will become according to God's image and likeness (5.1.3). This likeness points to a desire for intimacy between the creator and his creatures, for God cannot abide separation from what he has made.°9 His purpose is union and communion with men (5.1.33

Rane?

The hand of God is a symbol of the descending love by which God is known. For we do not merely meet God face to face, but are formed by God's hands in ineffable proximity. God does not merely talk and appear: he touches, grasps, shapes and models.°!

His hand is ultimate: we do not look for another substance nor for another hand of God 'besides that which from the beginning even

57 apse fabricator, tpse conditor... hic conditor. .

. qui_fecit ea per semetipsum, hoc est per verbum et per sapientiam. See J. Mambrino, "Les deux mains de Dieu chez S. Irénée', NRTh 79 (1957),

59.

58 Thid., 363.

59 Thid., 365.

6° While the action of each of his hands is distinct, Irenaeus affirms nothing of one person

_ which he does not affirm of another.

6 Mambrino, 'Les deux mains de Dieu', 369.

Economy: God as architect of time

to the end forms us and prepares us for life, and is present with his handwork and perfects it after the image and likeness of God'

(5.16.1).

God did not need angels to make what he had decided should be made. His own hands, his word and wisdom, son and spirit were always with him and through them he made all things freely and spontaneously (4.20.1). At the resurrection, complete, spiritual man will be made like God's son (5.6.1): 'And therefore, throughout all time, man who was in the beginning moulded by the hands of God

(i.e. the son and the spirit) is made in the image and likeness of God.'

Continuity and eternity link trinity with economy. God's goodness pours out on his creatures, who must grow towards him as if to the sun, finally receiving eternal life, which is the perfect being of God. Humanity had to be created, to grow strong and to flourish, to recover from sin, be glorified and see God. The vision of God brings immortality in his presence (4.38.3) (Wisd. 6:1 9).°? This evolution of mankind is the core of Irenaeus' trinitarian history. It points to the arrangements, harmonies and sequences which make up the divine economy. These form the plan of a loving God who is father, son and spirit.

4.4

RIVER AND MOVEMENT

The economy of the divine architect is packed with artistic detail. It gives order, rationality and sensitivity to the story of God's dealing with mankind, without losing continuity in time or universality in space. The originality of Irenaeus is at once striking and complex.

The four themes of accustoming, progressive revelation, human 8 &5e. S€ tov &VvOpwmov mp@tov yevéoba, Kal yEevowevov avénoal, Kai avénoavta avdpwOnvat, Kai avdpwbévta mAnOvvOnvat, Kai TANOVVOE

VTA évia xdoal, eviaxtvaavta 5€ d0Eac Oval, Kai Sogacbévta idetv TOV EavtoOv Aeconotnv. @€0¢ yap 6 LédAdwv dpdiobal, Spactcg dé PEoU TEpLTOLNTLKH apbapoiac, apbapaia Sé éyyts eval moLel Oeov.

63 For further discussion of Irenaeus' theory of history, see the following: R. A. Markus,

'Pleroma and fulfilment. The significance of history in St Irenaeus' opposition to Gnosticism', VigChr 8 (1954); Marrou, 'La théologie', in Le orgini dello gnosticismo, ed. Bianchi;

J. Daniélou, 'Philosophie ou théologie de Vhistoire?', DViv 19 (1951); W. Hunger, "Weltplaneinheit und Adameinheit in der Theologie des heiligen Irenaus', Schol 17,2 (1942);

J. Daniélou, 'Saint Irénée et les origines de la théologie de l'histoire', RSR 34 (1947),

297-31.

Economy development, and history as knowledge are united by the manycoloured disposing and arranging of father, son and spirit. The four elements of God's design are of universal proportion, yet never abstract. They all have a human orientation and the complexity overwhelms.

How did Irenaeus hold these ideas together? He had a sense of movement and a sense of drama. Accustoming pointed to personal action over time. Revelation showed how the great God had, through time, come nearer. Just as individuals grow, so mankind had found spectacular development. 'Time and change were not to be filtered from the process of knowledge (as Plato wished) for it was within their economies that the mind of God could be learnt. All this was like Heraclitus, one of Justin's 'Christians before Christ', for whom the flux of things was integral to their meaning. In the inexhaustible complexity of the divine economy,there was movement.

This sense of movement was linked, I have boldly suggested,°t with the landscape of Lyons, where two great rivers flowed together. Yet the divine economy went beyond the relentless flow of a great river.

Accustoming of man to God his opposite, Rrogressive revelation of divine reality, human evolution towards God, human knowledge of the mind of God — all these were dramatic. They were bound up in human interaction with one God who was father, son and spirit. They were tied to memorable events. God was not found in the vacant spaces but in a powerful, mysterious drama of change.

Negation of negation was the impulse of the divine nature. Progress to God was the law of human life.

We began with hopes for a clear plan of history drawn by the divine architect. We end overwhelmed by intricacy and grandeur, with a sense that Irenaeus has told us more than we can receive.

That may be so. Only as the accustoming, revelation, development and knowledge reach their goal in Christ will the plan make sense. As surely as the two great rivers — Rhéne and Sa6ne — come together, so the divine economy is joined in Christ and nowhere else.

64 Ty my The beginning of Christian philosophy (Cambridge, 1981), 168: "How far theologians, like poets, may be affected by their landscape, is a matter of precarious probability; but he would be a dull reader who found nothing of Africa in Tertullian and nothing of Egypt in Clement.' See Gilbert Highet, Poets in landscape (Pelican Books, 1959), for the relation between Roman writers and their landscape.

PART IL Recapitulation Christ is the last syllable which, 'being part of the whole metrical fabric, perfects the form and metrical beauty of the whole'.

Augustine, On true religion, 22,42 And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are infolded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

'TS. Eliot, Little Gidding We think that Paradise and Calvarie, Christs Crosse, and Adams tree, stood in one place;

Looke Lord and finde both Adams met in me; As the first Adams sweat surrounds my face,

May the last Adams blood my soule embrace.

John Donne, 'Hymn to God my God, in my Sicknesse'

But indeed our lord is the one true master. He, the son of God is truly good; he, the word of God became son of man, and endured suffering for us. For he has fought and conquered: on one hand, as man he fought for the fathers and redeemed their disobedience by his obedience, on the other hand, he has bound the strong man, set free the weak and poured out salvation on the work of his hands, destroying sin. For the lord is patient and merciful and loves the human race.

(3.18.6)

ey sar o> np ei > iw (Gere Hits a =p

ai itn hee parents fi * | phen ee Naga aoe 'Ville!

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-%, a nic se Rey ae ert, , i?

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'eae a hen 3A io ee Mi ool aif VA a og P aliwnens rere aoe ee a Lend - 4.

WME ——— 2) Pile a _ ~ = gi S.4f — = = t wed. i ae oy 6 ow — :

> :

: j - =Sy

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