CHAPTER 5

Recaprtulation: correction and perfection Recapitulation, summing up, does four things. It corrects and perfects mankind; it inaugurates and consummates a new humanity.

This chapter looks at correction and perfection as the work of Christ and at the consequence for the person of Christ. The work of Christ corrects and perfects being, truth and goodness. The person of Christ as corrector and perfecter is described as new Adam, divine word, only mediator, son of the father and bearer of the name above all other names.

5.1

RECAPITULATION, A COMPLEX CONCEPT

The idea of recapitulation dominates the theology of the second century. Adumbrated by Justin, it is expounded endlessly by Irenaeus' and given decisive place in Tertullian. Clement of Alexandria later takes the important step of uniting it to the Platonic

Intellect so that Christian theology becomes biblical and Platonic without a break (str, 4.25.156~7): a move which begins from the cosmic theology of Irenaeus in Book 2 of Adversus haereses is modified by recapitulation so that the son is divine Intellect and the father is the ineffable One.

The complexity of the concept is formidable. At least eleven ideas — unification, repetition, redemption, perfection, inauguration and consummation, totality, the triumph of Christus

' The works of C. Hackenschmidt, S. [renai de opere et beneficis domini nostri Jesu Christu sententia (Strasbourg, 1869) and G. Molwitz, De ANAKE®AAAIQ YE 2 in Irenaer theologia potestate (Dresden, 1874), are excellent expositions. Recapitulation is defined as "'iteratio

Adami (per idem ac contrarium) a Christo eo consilio perfecta, ut omnia sibi subiceret',

Molwitz, 11.

Recaprtulation Victor,? ontology, epistemology and ethics (or being, truth and goodness) — are combined in different permutations. Are all these ideas necessary to the concept? Even together they are an understatement, because everything that God does is part of his economy and every part of his economy is defined in relation to its recapitulation. So Irenaeus speaks of plurality: 'And the other economies of his recapitulation, some they saw through visions, others they announced by word, while others they indicated typically by action' (4.20.8). Redemption (or correction), perfection and inauguration are inseparable from being (or life), truth and goodness.

We may distinguish redemption and perfection and see Irenaeus as trying to bridge two different concepts; but it is certain that Irenaeus does not keep them apart.* Consummation is tied to inauguration.

The other two ideas are of different orders: 'totality' is applicable to the other variables because God contains all things and is not himself contained. The last idea, 'Christus Victor', is a persistent image which is used to tie the logic of recapitulation together;° it continues to dominate the Christian imagination. To find the sense of recapitulation we need all the eleven variables and their relationships. We must elucidate the connection of the parts of recapitulation, tracing the idea to scripture, especially to Paul (Rom. 5

? W. P. Loewe, 'Irenaeus' soteriology: Christus Victor revisited', AThR 17,1 (1985), 14, points out 'Christus Victor remains but a single theme among others, and it draws its meaning from the larger context of that pattern.' Aulen's insight and achievement remain.

0 My earlier accounts may be found in The beginning of Christian philosophy (Cambridge,

1981), 163-205; "The logic of recapitulation', in Pléroma, FS for Antonio Orbe, ed.

E. Romero-Pose (Santiago de Compostela, 1 990),'321—35; and in The emergence of Christian theology (Cambridge, 1 993), 142—72. Each time I tackled the problem, it seemed necessary to add another variable. Recently, the primary notion of unification has been brought to my attention by J. Fantino. He rightly makes this idea explicit. See J. Fantino, La théologie,

240-58, especially 24.0 (condenser, parfaire, restaurer).

At some points he does not even differentiate between redemption and perfection or fulfilment; for example, see N. Brox, Offenbarung, Gnosis und gnostischer Mythos bei Irendus von

Lyon (Salzburg and Munich, 1966), 186-9. If we separate the different elements of the complex and retain the idea of recapitulation for one of them, the complexity remains under different names.

Another image is the tree, of paradise and of the cross. These images are used, like Plato's myths, to tie the argument together. wo

Recafntulation: correction and perfection

and 1 Cor. 15) and John (12 and 17), and through the apostles to Christ, the first and the last, the living one.°

Christ came so that fallen man might be corrected to his first integrity and so that imperfect man might be brought to perfection.'

The saviour includes all men in himself compendiously (swmmatim) and repeats the life of the first man, correcting that life at each point.' Christ is in every event of the salvation which is fulfilled in him (3.16.6). He is the treasure hidden in the field (4.26.1). As creator, he comes to his own (5.18.2) and recapitulates his own creation in himself (4.6.2); while true man and true God, he is the end rather than the beginning (4.6.7; 1.10.3). Man who has grown old through sin is made new in the image of God (5.12.4). Recapitulation makes Christ 'head' so that men of all time are brought together under him (3.16.6). Only the incarnate word of God can do this, through his divine and human being (3.18.1; 4.33.4) and through his act of redemption which is obedience to death on the cross (5.16.3).

Christ, the new Adam, unites all by his death on the cross (3.16.9 et passim). 'Vhis union is both physical and moral. The 'physical redemption' doctrine lived on in Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa, while others followed the moral content of his argument. The moral elements in the recapitulation of Christ were his love, magnanimity or long suffering (3.20.1), his reason (5.18.3; 4.4.3), and his justice, which was indefectible, as he gave his life for our life and his flesh for our flesh.9

Recapitulation extends to all human bodies in the world and the resurrection of their flesh follows the flesh of Christ. Flesh is united under Christ as head and finds incorruptibility in Christ (3.18.7).

Christ is himself the resurrection (4.5.2). He renews and perfects the world (5.32.1) whose final perfection will come when he returns to reclaim the earth (5.35.2). Millenarianism is for many a foreign body in the thought of Irenaeus,'° and only at the end of the fifth

7 Hackenschmidt, S. /renaet, 1 4. obi. tye 9 See A. D'Alés, 'La doctrine de la récapitulation en S. Irénée', RSR 60 (191 6),1 85-211.

' According to Scharl, Recapitulatio mundi, 93.

Recapitulation book does this teaching emerge; but it is needed to fulfil the hope which springs from the recapitulation of all things.

5-2

CORRECTION

The first meaning which Irenaeus links with the concept of recapitulation is that of correction, or rectification of what has gone wrong from the beginning of human history. It is a common theme of tragedy that a decline in human life or fortune begins at a certain point ('where did it begin to go wrong?'); to this may be joined the hope that if the first error could be corrected, subsequent disaster could be averted. With this concept of correction are linked the ideas of the redemption of captive sinners, the justification of the ungodly, repetition, restoration and reconciliation.

<S Disobedience, slavery,-corruption and alienation are corrected by obedience, liberation, incorruption and reconciliation. The change is reflexive, inclusive and repetitive, for God himself corrects, redeems, justifies and rectifies by including the human objects of his action within himself and performing the essential action of correction himself. God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself and the world (sinful humanity) is summed up, united, and included in Christ just as it had been included in Adam. His action is repetitive in that it returns to the point of error and replaces the wrong deed with the right deed, thereby rectifying the ancient fault. Later piety will depict both Christ and Mary in the Garden of Eden.

Obedience All are sons of God by nature and creation but not all are God's sons by obedience and doctrine (4.41.2). This Johannine theme echoes the dominant Pauline claim that Jesus' obedience to death rectified the disobedience of Adam; one tree was set right on another tree, the cross. This only worked because the obedience of Jesus was directed to the same father as was the disobedience of Adam. In the second Adam we are reconciled to God because in lum we are made obedient to death (5.16.3).

Recafutulation: correction and perfection

The disobedience of Adam and Eve was corrected by the obedience of Jesus and Mary. The obedience and faith of Mary are contrasted with the disobedience of Eve (3.22.4). The disobedience of Adam and Eve was 'amended by correction' in Christ (5.19.1).

Liberation from slavery God offered his own son for our redemption, as Abraham had once offered his son in sacrifice (4.5.4). Man is redeemable because he is free (4.37.1). Freedom and faith are necessary to each other

(4.37-5)Christus Victor'' included us in his victory and crushed the enemy who had led us captive in Adam (5.21.1). Was there really a contest for the second Adam? Did he not have a certainty of victory? To make a valid contest, he fasted forty days; this gave the enemy a chance and made the recapitulation real (5.21.2). So he overthrew man's enemy, the devil, putting him under the power of man (5.24.4). The victory is perpetuated when we refuse to bend the knee on Sunday and stand upright because it is the day of our liberation from sin and death (frag. 7, Harvey). The enemy who unjustly led man into slavery is himself justly led as a captive and thereby the balance of justice is rectified (5.21.3). Liberation comes through Mary to replace the bondage brought by Eve (3.22.4).

Salvation from corruption For Irenaeus the incarnation was physically necessary to save humanity from death and corruption. Sin had to be killed, death had to be deprived of power and replaced by life. The corruptible had to be united to the incorruptible so that mortality might be swallowed up in immortality (3.19.1). Man was not by nature incorrupt and needed to be joined to the incorruptible God (3.19.1). God makes himself flesh and blood so that, at the end, he saves in his own person that which at the beginning had perished in Adam (5.1 4.1).

When the creator finds his handwork impaired by wickedness, he heals and restores it until it is sound and whole. When flesh 1s healed

'1 This image is especially appropriate to themes of correction and liberation.

Recapitulation by God, it can receive life and incorruption (5.12.6). Death, as Paul had said, is swallowed up in victory (3.23.7), proving the power of him who raises the flesh from the dead (5.3.2). When the whole human race is recapitulated, united in Christ, human mortality is included. Jesus dies on the same sixth day as Adam died through disobedience, and the second creation begins on the same day as Adam was created (5.23.2).

Salvation and incorruptibility are free gifts from God (5.21.3). In the constant interplay of opposites, the fasting of Jesus does away with the surfeit of Adam (5.21.2). God is the doctor who is proved by his patients (3.20.2). His healing work does not reject the flesh because of its condemnation but enables its gradual assimilation to his own likeness (3.20.2).

Reconcilration through the cross The new covenant is a law of liberty and peace where plough and pruning hook replace weapons of war. Both join iron to wood as did

Elisha, in anticipation of the cross which reclaims the savage earth and gathers with its hook the righteous race of men (4.34.4). Just as Elisha recovered the lost iron of his axe by throwing the wood into the river so we who have lost the sure word of God recover and receive it afresh by the tree of the cross. The height, length and breadth of that tree reach out to all. Its hands extend from the one head who is in the middle to join his body into one (5.17.4).

Proliferating metaphors like these mark the poetic achievement of Irenaeus, the doctor constructwus who piles image on image.

While the tree of the cross amends the disobedience of the tree of paradise (5.19.1), and cancels the written record of our debt, fastening it to a tree (5.17.3), there is more than a balancing of the scales of justice or the cancellation of a debt. In a wonderful new beginning, man who has gone away from God is won back to him; everything is new because God has come in a new way and should be worshipped in a new way. This is proclaimed in the blessing of Zacharias who, filled with a new spirit, announced all these new good things (3.10.2).

Man had been at odds with his own rationality and at odds with the righteousness of God. The word who first made man, overcame

Recapitulaton: correction and perfection

that alienation by reforming the human race and destroying its enemy, giving victory to the work of his hands (4.24.1). What happened to man's hostile disobedience to God? It was turned against the serpent who was enemy of God and of man, so that the lord as man should tread on the serpent's head. (4.40.3).

Reconciliation is inclusive and reciprocal. God became what we are so that we might be what he is. He redeemed by his own blood those who were alienated not by nature but by their own apostasy.

Giving his soul for our souls, his flesh for our flesh, God joined man to himself by his incarnation (5.1.1). He is our redeemer who with true flesh and blood summed up in himself the ancient formation of Adam (5.1.2). From his perfect work (as in John 17) comes our redemption; even Paul, for whom redemption comes first, also puts it this way. God's strength is made perfect in our weakness

(5-3-1).

In recapitulating the original work of the father he reconciles the flesh which had been alienated from God. As Paul shows (Col. 1:22), righteous flesh has reconciled the flesh that was being kept under bondage to sin (5.14.2). The blind man is healed by the hand which created him. That hand of God which formed us in the beginning, which formed us in the womb, has in the last times sought us out in our lost condition. God wins back his own, takes the lost sheep on his shoulders and restores it with joy to the fold of life (5.15.2).

In and after Adam, man has fallen into transgression and needs to be washed by baptism, just as the blind man was sent to the pool of Siloam to wash (5.15.3).

Recapitulation means 'to bring together again, to join again into a whole, to bring into unity, to gather up'.'* The notion of repetition is expressed by the verbs 'reiterate, repeat, renew' (2lerare, repelere, renovare). 'The divine initiative which searched for Adam (Adam, where art thou?) is repeated in the same word of God who in the evening of our history comes to call man, reminding him of what he had done in a life hidden from the lord (5.15.4). The word in the garden, the voice of the Lord God, is the same word which remits our sins: 'thy sins be forgiven thee'. Only he against whom

'2 Sterum colligere, iterum comprehendere in summam, in unitatem redigere, recolligere',

Molwitz, De ANAKEPAAAIQ

LEQ Y, 3.

Recafntulation a sin has been committed can remit that sin (5.17.1). The one God justifies by faith the circumcised and the uncircumcised alike

(ji22tn).

Totality is stressed in a refutation of Tatian (3.23.8), who denied the salvation of lost Adam whom Christ had replaced. Adam, insists Irenaeus, was not abandoned. Alienation was totally overcome.

The lost sheep was saved. God needed to save all humankind for his own sake; had man not been saved God would have been defeated. Man must be freed from death and condemnation. God's victory must be entire. The enemy who had captured man was justly captured in his turn by God (3.23.1). It was fitting that the original man be saved because the enemy should not retain any spoils of earlier battles and the fathers should be liberated along with the children (3.23.2).

Totality does not deny opposites and alienation. God indeed subjected the just Abel to the unjust Cain so that the just might be proved by what he suffered and the unjust by the wrong he perpetrated (3.23.4). Adam was smitten with guilt and terror; in his sudden loss of childhood innocence he was contrite and wrapped his loins in rough fig-leaves. These were replaced by a loving God with the softness of animal skins. While God curses the serpent, he leads man on gradually to better things

(3.23.5).

53.1

PERFECTION OF BEING

Perfection is the second meaning of recapitulation; it derives from John and the Synoptics rather than from Paul, who develops the theme of correction or redemption. 'The perfection which is described is both exclusive, in that it is God's unsurpassable perfection or the word's unsurpassable priority, and inclusive, in that it brings together all things within the word of God, requiring the believer to put on the perfection of the head which is Christ. As the transcendent divine Intellect contains all things, as infinite love does not remove itself but encloses mankind in immediacy, so the exclusive perfection of Christ includes all in its unity. This is the answer to the Gnostic separated God: divine perfection is both exclusive and inclusive.

Recapntulation: correction and perfection

The perfect being of Christ is exclusive There is one lord, one God (3.6.2), who is in need of nothing (4.17.1 and 5). He is ruler over all his creation (3.6.1). Gnostics try to direct their fantasies above this God (4.19.1); but this is impossible, for God is above principalities, powers and every name (4.19.2).

They look for types of types and go on and on in infinite regress (4.19.1, 2).

God's perfection overflows in goodness to what he has made. God does not merely correct what goes wrong. His perfection removes all limits on his being and on his grace which he shows in salvation.

Because he is creator he must achieve the goal of his creative work and make perfect what he has begun through his word who is author and finisher. His rich and ungrudging love confers more than man can ask (3 pref.).

This divine perfection belongs to the son as to the father. The purpose of God is declared in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel and is the work of the divine word who begins and finishes the divine plan. Priority and universality are his unique distinctions.

His priority is exclusive and his universality is inclusive. His perfection is prior to all things, beyond all men, for he is God, lord, king eternal, incarnate word (3.19.2). Perfect from the beginning (4.13.4), the word of God is beyond comparison (3.8.2).

The word/son was with the father before creation (4.20.1-4).

The Johannine prologue tells of his originality and his glorious generation. In the beginning was the word. 'For this reason too is that Gospel full of confidence for such is his person'

(3.11.8).

The perfect being of Chnist rs inclusive From his exclusive priority springs his universal inclusiveness and his work of completion or fulfilment. Because he is first he can perfect all things. He would be powerless over anything prior to and uncaused by himself. The one Christ Jesus sums up and gathers all things in himself: With him there is nothing incomplete or out of due season (3.16.7). He is Plato's ancient word which runs from beginning to end and through the middle of things (3.25.5).

His universal fourfold gospel points to the four winds (3.11.8).

Recafrtulation He is joined to the father as the universal Intellect who sees and thinks all things. Our universal lord accomplished all things in their order and season, at the hour which was foreknown and fitting.

He was one and the same, rich and great, not to be divided up as the heretics vainly do. Their fantasy destroys rather than enlarges the wonder of the divine (3.16.7, 8).

He imparts perfection by joining the end to the beginning, linking man to God (4.20.4). All is known to him, for knowledge of salvation did not come from another God but from the son of the one God

(3.10.3). At the same time, he was man that he might be tempted, and word that he might be glorified (3.19.3). He was the one man whose obedience, righteousness and life bear fruit in those who were dead from the disobedience of that other one man, Adam, who brought sin and death. Like Adam he was made man by God, so as to be analogous to Adam in respect to origin. Why then was he not made of dust? Because he had to be continuous with Adam, and not of a different race; born of Mary, he was able to sum up man's first formation (3.21.10). He went back seventy-two generations to Adam (3.22.3). This inclusive return to the beginning embraced the fulfilment of all prophecies, no mattet when they had been made.

As king and God, the infant Christ received myrrh because of his coming death. The star of Jacob shone upon him (3.9.2). He did not annul but fulfilled the law, as high priest 'propitiating God for men, cleansing lepers, healing the sick, and himself suffering death, that exiled man might go forth from condemnation and might return without fear to his own inheritance' (4.8.2). His passion fulfils the mystery of the Passover in each detail of day, place and hour (Deut.

1 6:5—6) and the curious inquirer will find every element of the rich imagery of the blessing of Jacob (Gen. 49:1 0-1 2) (4.10.2).

At the same time he makes a new beginning, for the last of the four covenants is a covenant of renewal. In himself he sums up all things by means of the gospel which raises man on its wings to the heavenly kingdom (3.11.8). This means that his treasure is new and old, for in his new song and new covenant, he surpasses

Solomon, Jonah and the temple (4.9.2). New and old are joined together for he brought all novelty by bringing himself who had been announced (4.34.1).

Recaprtulation: correction and perfection

How does perfect being achieve mankina's salvation?

There are four ways in which Christ's perfection achieves man's salvation."

(1) Union of God and man, of creator with creature. Recapitulation means incarnation, where the word, who was in the beginning and always present with mankind has, in the last days and at the appointed time, united himself to his workmanship, that is, to passible man. He recapitulated in himself the long line ofhuman beings (i.e. he united them in himself as head), so that in himself what was lost in Adam might be recovered (3.18.1). When the word/spirit united with the ancient substance of Adam's formation, man was made living and perfect and able to receive the perfection of the father (5.1.3).

For all the magnificent condescension of the incarnation, the creator word of God did not venture into foreign territory, but came to his own, to the world which he governs, and in his flesh hung on the tree to recapitulate all things (5.2.1; 5.18.3). The blood and water which flowed from the crucified proves that he is flesh, which in turn proves the salvation of his own handwork (3.22.2).

Indeed the whole dispensation is directed to the salvation of God's work, i.e. flesh (4. pref. 4). Thus he has fulfilled what the creator foretold, alike through all the prophets, and in the service of his father's will brought to completion his own dispensations for the human race (5.26.2).

(ii) Union of mortal and immortal. 'The only way to mankind's incorruption was through union with the incorruption of the'word of God (3.19.1). The strangeness of this union was overcome by the word of God who dwelt in man, and became son of man, so that he might accustom man to receive God and that he might accustom God to receive man, all to the good pleasure of the father (3.20.2). Proof that flesh can receive God's gift of life eternal is confirmed by the eucharist, where we are nourished by body and blood of the incarnate lord (5.2.3), and by the way in which God's strength is made perfect in our weakness, as our flesh participates in his wisdom and power (5.3.3).

(it) God's own work and presence; soteriology as the exchange of opposites.

The word of God became what we are that he might bring us to be '3 The term 'physical redemption' does not cover the whole intricacy of Irenaeus' thought.

Recapitulation what he is. Against Ebionites, who deny the divinity of the incarnate lord, Irenaeus argues for the reciprocity of salvation. How can man pass into God unless God has first passed into man (4.33.4)? Time and again we are told that only God himself can save: the lord himself will save them, he will set them free (3.20.4). The sign of the virgin showed that the lord himself saved us (Isa. 63:9) (3.21.1) and the sign of Emmanuel, God with.us, declares the same truth of one who, before he knows or chooses evil, will exchange it for what is good (Isa. 7:10—1 6) (3.21.4).

The unity and universality of salvation derive from the unity of one God, one word, one son and one spirit (4.6.7) who joins himself to humanity.

(iv) Process to perfection. Salvation is a process to perfection as the son of God, according to David, perfects praise from babes (4.11.3).

Man could not be made perfect from the beginning because what is created must be inferior to and later than the creator (4.38.1). Because of human immaturity, the perfect son of God passed through infancy in order that man might be able to receive him. As a recent creature man could not have received perfection at the beginning

(4.38.2), yet he grows to perfection in an ordered universe (4.38.3).

He is destined to partake of the glory of God (4.39.2) and to become the perfect work of God (4.39.2).

Reg

.2)) LOY INS DRUID PE REEC PION GP

DR Onis The truth of the gospel is always a cause for joy. Abraham knew the father through the word and confessed him to be God. When he learnt of the incarnation, he rejoiced. Simeon perfected the rejoicing of the patriarch and the angels brought tidings of great joy.

Mary rejoiced reciprocally in God. So Abraham's joy descended to his children who believed and the childrens' joy rebounded to Abraham (4.7.1).'4

Jesus points out that all knowledge of God from the beginning has been by revelation of the son himself; he is able to raise children from stones. He gives the faith of Abraham, drawing us away from the religion of stones and hard and fruitless cogitations (4.7.2). He

"4 yeciproca autem rursus et regrediente exsultatione a filiis in Abraham.

Recapitulation: correction and perfection

reveals the father as word, truth and life: no man comes to the father but by him, and he who has known him will know the father (4.7.3).

Truth 1s exclusive Against heretics, who falsely claim pure truth, Irenaeus affirms that the apostles had perfect knowledge (3.1.1). This saving truth is now written on the hearts of the faithful (3.4.2). They know, through love, the God whose greatness would make him unknowable. Only the lamb can open the book and his resplendent flesh displays the immortality of paternal light, for the word was with the father before creation (4.20.1~3). To look on the face of God once brought certain death but in the last days man shall see God (4.20.9—11).

Truth 1s inclusive Christ spoke his own truth and showed no respect of persons (3.5.2, 3). Iruth springs from the earth in the risen Christ (3.5.1).

In him the disciples had seen the father and the father is truth (3.13.2). While the heretics have three Christs, John knew one only

(3.16.1, 2), and Paul (3.1 6.3) and Simeon (3.1 6.4) affirmed the single identity of the divine word.

Yet the one word is rich in treasure which is new and old, and the new song and new covenant prove him greater than Solomon, or Jonah or the temple (4.9.1, 2). Kor the love command renews rather than supplants the law; it enlarges and fulfils the law bringing perfection to men (4.12.2). When Jesus read Isaiah in the synagogue he could say "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears' (4.23.1).

Scripture is full of proofs of his wonders for the word shows the splendour of the father (4.20.11).

F 5-3-3

PERFECTION OF GOODNESS

Goodness is central, for as the disobedience of one man Adam brought sin and death, so the obedience and righteousness of the man Jesus Christ brought life in those who were formerly dead

(3.21.10). Two features stand out.

(i) The perfect goodness of Jesus is excluswve. Free from all ambiguity, Jesus Christ presents an ethical archetype of perfect love. When he

Recapitulation had suffered to reconcile sinners, he rose to sit at the right hand of God, perfect in all things. He did not strike back at those who struck him, he prayed for the forgiveness of those who crucified him and, as word of God, only begotten of the father, Jesus Christ our lord, truly brought our salvation (3.1 6.9).

If the heretics were right in claiming the existence of two Christs, then the one who suffered and prayed 'Father forgive them' was better than the one who flew away (3.18.5). As Emmanuel he exchanges evil for good without reflection or conscious choice

(Gea) (it) The perfect goodness of fesus 1s incluswe. The Sermon on the Mount extends and fulfils the law; Jesus taught the rich young ruler to keep the commands and then to follow him towards perfection.

He included the law because he did not announce another father, son, mother or pleroma (4.12.5). As the end (fis) of the law Christ is also the beginning (znetiwm) of it. For he who has brought in (zntu/zt) the end has himself also wrought (operatus est) the beginning (4.1 2.4).

In completing the law he brings more grace, more love, more glory to the friends of God (4.13.1—3). Under the new covenant of liberty the limits of natural law are widened so that it was given to all men to become sons rather than slaves of God and to know and love the father (4.16.5).

5-4-1

CHRISTOLOGY: TWO ADAMS'9

Irenaeus has described the work of Christ with unrivalled intricacy.'® What does this mean for the person of Christ? The christology of Irenaeus is marked by a twofold reference, pointing back to the sin of Adam, which must be reversed, and forward to the perfection which Christ will bring.'® He begins from the two Adams as expounded by Paul, one whose fall destroys and one whose justice restores all mankind. Recapitulation brings together these two elements under one head (3.16.6).'7 God and man are united in Christ where the sin of Adam ts reversed and the perfection of '9 L. Duncker, Des heiligen Irendius Christologie im Zusammenhange mit dessen theologischer und anthropologischer Grundlehre (Gottingen, 1843).

16 Thid., 158.

'7 Tbid., 162-6.

Recaprtulation: correction and perfection II] Christ 1s fulfilled. As one who perfects the human race, Christ must be a member of that race, and as first of all creatures and first-born from the dead he can bring humanity to perfection (5.1.3; 3.18.7).

On the other hand, only God can redeem the human race, for the redeemer must surpass the human being which fell. The joining of God and man comes from God's side, springs from his love and takes place in his birth as a human being, for the humanity of Christ is entire in body, soul and spirit.' The notion of exchange — that Christ should become what we are in order that we might become what he is — further ensures his full humanity and the perfection of mankind.'9 Indeed Christ comes to reveal the fullness of humanity and to teach the truth. Yet one cannot learn about God without God; therefore his word is necessary to teach us.?°

5-4-2

WORD OF GOD

Irenaeus, we have seen,"' does not divide the thought of the word within the intellect of God from the thought that thinks in God or from God as a thinking being or from the reason of God. Irenaeus moves from the vagueness of the apologists towards a clearer account and makes the person of Christ, the divine word, the centre of his cosmology. Creation and redemption show the word of God to be God. He is 'the visible of the invisible father' (4.6.6).?? The son of God has been made a son of man (3.19.1) and father, spirit, creation, man, the apostate spirits, demons, the devil and death itself all bear witness to his true divinity and true humanity (4.6.7).

Only by a divine incarnation could incorruption and immortality come to men; the corruptible had to be absorbed by incorruption and the mortal by immortality (3.19.1). The word of God is the creator who exists at all times in the world, contains all things that have been made, and hung from a tree in his own creation (5.18.1;

3.18.1). He was a man in order that he might face temptation '8 Th spite of his opposition to Docetism, Irenaeus comes close to such a position when he sees the divine logos taking the place of the rational soul in the person of the incarnate

Christ; Duncker, ibid., 206.

"9 [bid., 225.

2° Thid., 256.

20 See above, 2.3.

22 FR. M. Hitchcock, Irenaeus of Lugdunum. A study of his teaching (Cambridge, 191 4), 129.

Recapitulation and he was word of God so that he might be glorified. The word remains quiescent in his trial, humiliation and death, but is evident in his conquest, endurance, beneficence, resurrection and assumption into heaven (3.19.3).

The incarnate word took his flesh, indeed his humanity, from the virgin Mary, for if he did not take the substance of flesh from a human being then neither did he become man, nor the son of man (3.22.1). The virgin birth serves as a sign of our salvation and regeneration by faith (3.16.2; 3.21.5).

5-4.3

ONE MEDIATOR

Against Gnostic and Marcionite claims that Jesus brought a message from a strange unknown God, Irenaeus insists that the son makes the father visible. In Jesus Christ there is no new God but a new manifestation of the only God.* In contrast to Justin, for whom it was important to show that there was plurality in God before the coming of Jesus, Irenaeus treats the theophanies of the bible as symbolic representations of a future reality. The world of types points to a word who is as yet invisible and whose manifestation only takes place in the new testament. The life of Christ is indeed a parousia, nothing less than an immediate manifestation of God.*#

The Valentinians divide the son of God, separating Christ from Jesus, the saviour from the word, and the word from the onlybegotten. Against such division Irenaeus sets the confession of 'one Christ only, Jesus the son of God incarnate for our salvation' (1.10.1). Because he is only-begotten (monogenes) there can be no separation between the only-begotten mind and the word, and because he is anointed Christ by the spirit, there can be no division between the spirit and Christ (dem. 53). Nor can there be a separation between the Christ and the man who suffers on the cross, for he reveals the long suffering, mercy and goodness of God (3.18.5). The beauty and strength of the one who dies on the cross breaks down any incompatibility between humiliation and glory (3.19.2). Those

*3 Houssiau, La christologie de saint Irénée, 1 27.

*4 Trenaeus does not draw on Greek ideas of a kingly visit but on the new testament to point to the physical nature of the coming of Christ. Similarly, the future coming of Christ is not in antithesis to the human existence of the word in the church but points to the same presence of the word.

Recaputulation: correction and perfection

who separate the Christ who suffered from an impassible Christ fail to realize the unity of substance in him who was first-born from the dead (4.2.4).

Through his incarnation the mediator, who has primacy over things invisible, extends his primacy over all things visible. How are we to receive, to grasp or to contain this mediator? It is impossible to lay hold of God, yet possible to lay hold of his incarnate word.

He who is beyond our grasp, incomprehensible and invisible gives himself to be seen, comprehended and grasped by men (4.20.5).

The son of God becomes son of man so that we might receive adoption as his sons; man will carry and receive and embrace the son of God (3.16.3). The son of God, the first-born word descends on the creature, that is, on the work that he himself has fashioned, and is grasped by the creature (5.36.3).

Christ mediates to enable man to participate in God. This unity is described by such words as 'unite, unite together, fuse, union'

(Evovv, oVVEVOUY, KOAAaY, Evwotc). Man is joined to God as to another person, and faith is the way to participation (k olv@via@)

(4.13.1). The word and spirit are joined to the ancient substance of Adam, to the humanity of Christ and the humanity of all Christians

(5.1.3). The son is again joined to his bride, the church, just as the prophet Hosea was rejoined to his wife (4.20.1 2).

Christ Jesus was born of the virgin in order to unite through himself man and God (3.4.2).29 Our humanity participates in incorruption because of the union of man to God (3.18.7). Christ is the agent: the union of man with God does not produce the person of Christ; rather, it is the mediation of Christ, which brings together

God and man."° Opposition' to Gnostic dualism leads Irenaeus to stress the unity of the divine word with the creation, in his ability to be seen and to suffer."/ 5-4.4

FATHER AND SON

The transcendent father is revealed by the son and the invisible is seen by those who believe and receive life (4.20.5). The invisibility

25 There is no trace of two persons in Christ, as was suggested by Loofs.

26 Houssiau, La christologie de saint Irénée, 210-15.

27 This will lead later to the explicit doctrine of the two natures of Christ; ibid., 256.

Recafntulation of the father ensures that the father is not despised. Through the law and the prophets the word proclaimed himself and the father and then showed the father in visible and tangible form; but not all believed. Yet all saw the father in the son for 'the father is the invisible of the son and the son is the visible of the father'. All, even the demons, called him God, when he was on earth (4.6.6).

The son fulfils the law and prophets, as Jerusalem ends in the new covenant. The son is the measure of the father and contains him.

God makes all things by measure and order so that nothing is unmeasured and nothing unnumbered."° Yet the immensity of the father is contained within the incarnate son (4.4.2).*9 The son is the measure of the father because he comprehends (capi) him and is his adaptation. Quintilian speaks of taking an audience as one's measure and adapting to their capacity.%°

~ 5-4.5

THE NAME Irenaeus proclaims the power of the name of Jesus Christ," a name which can only be given in the spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). His theology of the name of Jesus is based on Philippians 2:6—11. The good name of Jesus possesses sweetness and beauty which the heretics have replaced with bitter poison (1.27.4).3" The beauty of Christ (3.19.2;

4.33.11) derives from Isaiah 9:6 and especially Psalm 44:3—5.

The power of the name is evident in exorcism and again reflects Philippians 2. 'The church does not invoke angels or use incantations but turns to the lord who made all things and invokes the name of the lord Jesus Christ (2.32.5). The name of Christ is now glorified among the churches in all nations, thereby fulfilling the prophecy of Malachi (4.17.5, 6).33 From the royal stamp on coins, name and image are linked by association. 'To sum up, the invocation of the name, which begins from Philippians 2:6—11, is a source of power for the church, is glorified universally, in the eucharist and in the ?8 Wisdom 11:20 tells us that he created all things in measure, number and weight.

*9 ipsum ummensum Patrem in filio mensuratum.

3° submttere se ad mensuram discentis (Inst. 2.3.7).

3" KE. Lanne, 'Le nom de Jésus-Christ et son invocation chez saint Irénée de Lyon', Irén 48

(1975), 447-67.

3° 'The sweetness of the name may indicate a play upon Christos and chrestos.

33 E. Lanne, 'Le nom de Jésus-Christ, 2,' Zrén 4.9 (1976), 34-53.

Recaprtulation: correction and perfection

church universal, as the name of the son of God. In all these ways the name is unique and the culmination of worship, vision and glory.

LHE TOTALITY OF RECAPITULATION

The mass of detail which Irenaeus brings to describe recapitulation reflects the theme of inclusive totality.3+ Christ is not merely head or chief but the one who unites a vast plurality. He is not merely the summit but the unity of all things. Romans 5:1 2-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:45—8, must be added to Ephesians 1:10 for an appreciation of Irenaeus' cosmic view. Irenaeus' first use of the term

(1.10.1) is followed by an outline of his theology which plainly flows from this concept.?> All the questions of human destiny and salvation find their answer in the work of Christ.

The event of recapitulation defines three seasons of the economy.3° The first season in order of earthly time is creation.

There was already a saviour, so there had to be someone whom he could save, lest the existence of the saviour be pointless (3.22.3).

The creature was made in the image of God, namely his word (5.16.2). From creation onwards, the saving totality spread wider and wider. The fourth and final covenant, which came in Christ, renewed, summed up and raised humanity to the heavens (3.11.8).

This was the climax of a long process of habituation in which man had been accustomed to participate in God and God had become accustomed to dwell in man (3.20.2).

The second of these seasons (logically the first) is the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ, where totality 1s evident as he who already has primacy in the invisible realm assumes primacy over the visible realm (3.16.6). The cosmic cross implanted (znfixus) in creation becomes visible (5.18.3; dem. 34). The birth of Christ recapitulates the birth of Adam, to gather up humanity in physical form (3.21.10; dem. 32). All the generations between Christ and Adam are also assumed (3.22.4) to show that he is not derived from them but that they, through the gospel, derive their life from him.

34 A recent work presents multitudinous detail with sparkling lucidity: Sesbotié, Tout récapituler dans le Christ (Paris, 2000).

35 Tbid., 120.

36 Tbid., 131-56. Here and elsewhere Sesboiié draws on Scharl, Recapitulatio mundi.

Recafntulation Solidarity with the whole of human life is taken up, as he passes through all ages (2.22.4). He pities the disobedience of Adam and replaces it with his own obedience (4.40.3). In his temptations he overcomes man's defeat by the devil and destroys the adversary

(5.21.2). His final trial on the cross extends his unlimited reign in the visible realm and his obedience reshapes humanity. In his incarnation and death Christ has gathered up (in compendio) the whole history of salvation and restored the image and likeness of God in man.

Thirdly, the end will come with the return of Christ in glory to sum up all things (1.10.1).3"7 Here he who is the beginning becomes the end. The totality of Christ's work is reflected in the eucharist.

The new wine at Cana compressed the time of natural ripening, just as he compressed all things within himself (3.11.5; 3.16.7).

What then is recapitulation?3® Who is the > agent? It is the work of the incarnate Christ. What is summed up? The totality of humanity and the universe is recapitulated in Christ. What happens in recapitulation? First, the whole history of salvation is resumed, so that beginning, middle and end are brought together (3.24.1). Secondly, the sovereignty of Christ over all things is a8sumed; just as he reigns over the unseen world, so he is lord of the visible world, which he supports by the axis of his cross. Thirdly, all things are recreated, restored, renewed and set free.39 Lastly, all things achieve the purpose for which they were made; they are not merely repaired but are brought to perfection in Christ.

37 Sesboiié, Tout récapituler, 154.

38 Thid., 159.

39 Thid., 162: 'C'est la dimension rédemptrice de la récapitulation.'

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