Fulfilment in God
Fulfilment in God
‘Recapitulation’ describes God’s objective plan of salvation: the maturing of the earthly world in the strength of a grace that descends from above. Now comes the question of man’s subjective fulfilment within this order of salvation. The Gnostics taught that human beings fall into two groups, the higher ‘spiritual’ and the lower ‘carnal’ or ‘animal’, of which only the former can partake of true and complete redemption. Consistently with this, they also taught that the material and bodily elements in the spiritual man are just an inessential shell, which is incapable of entering into the pure spirit’s final state of perfection.
Irenaeus sees this as utterly anti-Christian. For him, the unity of body and soul is fundamental to the objective plan of salvation as revealed from above: as involving the unity of matter and spirit, law and love, nature and grace. So Gnostic ‘spirituality’ is replaced by the resurrection of the flesh as the ultimate affirmation of the complete and unabridged earthly world, the world of body as well as soul.
The indissoluble unity of body and soul is the sign that man is not a ‘pure’ anything. He is a creature, and so, in his innermost being, he is ordered, beyond himself, towards a Creator. This is expressed by the doctrine that man is made up essentially of three parts: body, soul, and spirit (pneuma). Spirit is the thing in man that is essentially more than man, something which does not ‘rise from below’ but ‘comes down from above’. Like all the Fathers, Irenaeus is thinking of just the concrete (supernatural) order of the world; the call to grace and the life of grace belong to the concrete integrity of man. The doctrine of these three elements in man (‘trichotomism’) is, therefore, to be regarded as a first attempt, admittedly not a fully worked-out one, at understanding the relationship of nature and grace.
The same is true of the view, also held by other writers of the period, that the soul is only ‘imperishable’ by grace. Imperishability (aphtharsia) here means both natural immortality and engraced eternal glory; the two aspects have not yet been separated.
The background to this doctrine is a vivid idea of man’s profound dependence on, and adherence to, God. He does not so much ‘exist’ as ‘partake’. This leads to the idea of the creature’s eternal becoming: even in heaven, in the vision of God face-to-face, there is a further, eternal movement into the ever new depths of the ever greater God.
Soul between body and spirit
(159) Just as the animated body is not itself the soul, but partakes of the soul as long as God wills, so the soul is not life, but partakes of the life God gives it. That is why the prophetic word says of the first man: ‘He was made a living soul’ (Gen 2:7). This teaches us that it is by participation in life that the soul is made alive; in other words, the soul and the life that is in it are to be seen as two separate things. Thus, when God gives life and perpetual duration, souls which had no previous existence begin from that moment to have permanent existence; it is, after all, God who wills them both to be and to continue to be. For God’s will must govern and hold sway in all things. Everything else must yield to Him, be submitted to Him, be devoted to His service.
II 34, 4
(160) The soul and the spirit (pneuma) may be part of man, but they are certainly not the man. The complete man is a mixture and a union: the soul, which has received the Spirit of the Father, mixed with the flesh fashioned in the image of God . . .
If you take away the substance of the flesh, in other words, the shaped clay, and consider just the naked spirit, what you are left with is not ‘the spiritual man’, but merely ‘the spirit of a man’ or ‘the Spirit of God’. However, when this Spirit is blended with the soul and united to the shaped clay, the result, thanks to the outpouring of the Spirit, is a spiritual and complete man, and it is this, the complete man, who is made in the image and likeness of God.
When the Spirit is missing from the soul, you have a being which, though truly animal and carnal, is incomplete. It may have the ‘image’ in the shaped clay, but it lacks the ‘likeness’ given by the Spirit. Such a being is incomplete, and so too is what results from taking away the image and rejecting the shaped clay. It can no longer be thought of as a man, but as either part of a man or something other than a man. The shaped clay of the flesh is not, on its own, a complete man, but just the body of a man, a part of a man. Similarly, the soul, on its own, is not a man, but just the soul of a man, a part of a man. And the Spirit is not a man: Spirit is called ‘Spirit’, not ‘man’. It is, then, the mixture and union of all these things which makes the complete man. Thus the apostle, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, explains that the redeemed man is the complete and spiritual man: ‘May the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may your whole being, spirit and soul and body, be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Thess 5:23).
V 6, 1
(161) As we have shown, the complete man is made up of these three things—flesh, soul, and Spirit. One of these saves and forms, namely, the Spirit; another is saved and formed, namely, the flesh; another finds itself between the other two, namely, the soul. Sometimes the soul follows the Spirit, and then, with the Spirit’s help, it takes flight. Sometimes it gives in to the flesh, and then it falls into earthly lusts.
V 9, 1
The soul’s tree decision
(162) John the Baptist . . . says of Christ: ‘He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing-floor, and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire’ (Luke 3:16f). He who makes the wheat and He who makes the chaff are not two different persons, but one and the same: it is He who judges them, that is to say, separates them. Now, of course, wheat and chaff are things which by nature lack soul and reason; this is the way they have been made. But man is rational, and in that respect he is like God. He has been created with free will and self-determination; he himself is the cause of his becoming sometimes wheat, sometimes chaff. He will, therefore, justly be judged, because, having been made rational, he has lost true rationality; by living irrationally, he has worked against the justice of God, giving himself up to every earthly spirit and serving every lust. As the prophet says, ‘Man, for all his dignity, did not understand; match him with the brute beasts, and he is no better than they’ (Ps 48:21; Knox translation adapted).
IV 4, 3
(163) Since all good things are with God, those who by their own choice fly from God defraud themselves of all good things. Consequently, defrauded of all the good things that are with God, they fall under the just judgement of God.
IV 39, 4
(164) [The wicked] do not receive the Word of incorruption, but remain in mortal flesh. They are the debtors of death, because they do not accept the antidote of life.
III 19, 1
(165) Those who do not have the element that saves, that forms and vivifies, will be, and are called, ‘flesh and blood’, because they do not have the Spirit of God within them. That is why the Lord calls them ‘dead’ (cf Luke 9:60).
V 9, 1
‘Psychic’ breath and ‘pneumatic’ spirit
(166) The ‘breath of life’ (cf Gen 2:7), which makes man an animated [‘psychic’] being, is not the same as the ‘life-giving Spirit’ (cf 1 Cor 15:45), which makes him spiritual. That is why Isaiah says: ‘Thus says the Lord, who made the heavens and established them, who founded the earth and things it contains, who gives breath to the people upon it and the spirit to those who tread upon it’ (Is 42:5). What he is saying is that the ‘breath’ is given to all the people on earth without exception, whereas the Spirit is given exclusively to those who ‘tread’ down all earthly lusts. Isaiah makes the same distinction when he says: ‘From me proceeds the Spirit, and I have made the breath of life’ (Is 57:16). He puts ‘the Spirit’ in His proper place within the Godhead: this is the Spirit whom God, in these last times, has poured out on the human race to give us adoption as His sons. By contrast, he situates the ‘breath of life’ within the general order of creation, showing it to be something created. Now there is a difference between what is made and the one who makes it. The breath is temporal, the Spirit eternal. The breath briefly increases in strength, continues for a certain time, and then departs, leaving its former abode breathless. But the Spirit, having pervaded man within and without, remains for ever and never leaves him.
‘But’, says the apostle, addressing us human beings, ‘it is not the spiritual which is first but the psychic, and then spiritual’ (1 Cor 15:46). He has good reason for saying this. First, man had to be shaped; having been shaped, he had to be given a soul; then and only then did he receive the communion of the Spirit, The first Adam, therefore, ‘was made a living soul, the second a life-giving spirit’ (1 Cor 15:45). He who was made a living soul turned to evil and lost life, but that very same man, when he returns to the good and receives the life-giving Spirit, shall find life.
V 12, 2
(167) The Lord also made it clear that, in addition to being called, we ought to be adorned with the works of justice, so that the Spirit of God might rest upon us. This is the wedding garment of which the apostle says: ‘Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life’ (2 Cor 5:4).
IV 36, 6
(168) Man is in as much need of communion with God as God is in need of nothing. For this is the glory of man: to persevere and remain in the service of God.
IV 14, 1
(169) How could they be saved unless it were God who effected their salvation on earth? How shall man go to God if God has not come to man?
IV 33, 4
The Gnostic doctrine of fulfilment
(170) When all the [spiritual] seed [in the world] comes to perfection, they say that their Mother, Achamoth [the sensible manifestation of divine Wisdom], leaves her place at the centre of the world and enters the ‘Pleroma’, and there she welcomes her Saviour, who was formed out of all [thirty Aeons], to bring about the ‘syzygy’ of the Redeemer and ‘Wisdom’ or Achamoth [they are merged into a single androgynous being]. These, then, are the ‘Bridegroom and Bride’, while the bridal chamber is the full extent of the Pleroma. The ‘spiritual’, having cast off their souls and become again pure intellectual spirits, enter the Pleroma, unhindered and unseen, so as to be given as brides to the angels who accompany the Saviour. As for the Demiurge, he takes over the place of his mother, ‘Wisdom’, at the centre of the world. The souls of the just are supposed to rest in this central place, because nothing ‘psychic’ can go into the Pleroma. When all this has been accomplished, the fire hidden in the world will blaze up, catch hold of the entire material world, and consume it. At the same time it will itself be extinguished and disappear into nothingness.
17, 1
First Objection
(171) Man’s intellect, thought,1 mental intention, and so on are not realities existing independently of the soul. They are movements and operations of the soul itself, with no existence outside the soul. What part of them, then, will be left over to enter into the Pleroma? Inasmuch as they are souls, they remain in the central place; inasmuch as they are bodies, they bum along with the rest of matter.
II 29, 3
Second Objection
(172) It is obvious that acts of justice are performed in bodies.2 One of two things follows from this: either all souls go off by necessity to the centre of the world, and there will never be a judgement [and no moral recompense]; or the bodies which have partaken of justice reach the place of refreshment together with the souls which have likewise partaken. This will happen only if justice is powerful enough to transport to that place those which have partaken of it. Then the doctrine of the resurrection of the body will emerge true and certain. That is the faith which we hold. We believe that when God resurrects our mortal bodies, which have preserved justice, He will make them incorruptible and immortal. For God is superior to nature. He has within Him the will to do it, because He is good; the power to do it, because He is mighty; and He perfects it, because He Himself is rich and perfect.
II 29, 2
The possibility of resurrection
(173) They show contempt for the power of God . . . when they dwell on the weakness of the flesh and ignore the strength of Him who raises the flesh from the dead (cf Heb 11:19). If God did not give life to the mortal and raise up the corruptible to incorruptibility (cf 1 Cor 15:53), He would no longer be mighty. But to see that He is in all things mighty, we need only to consider our own beginnings, since God took dust from the earth and formed man. It is surely much more difficult, incredibly difficult, to make an existing human being—indeed, an animated, rational human being—out of non-existent bones, nerves, and veins, in the absence, in fact, of everything that goes to make up the human organism. This, I say, is much more difficult than restoring already created man. . . once he has decomposed into the earth.
V 3, 2
(174) The flesh will be found capable of receiving and containing the power of God, since at the beginning it received the art of God, so that one part of it became the eye for seeing, another the ear for hearing, another the hand for touching and working . . . Consequently, the flesh is not excluded from the wisdom and power of God. His life-giving power is ‘made perfect in weakness’ (cf 2 Cor 12:9), in other words, in the flesh. Now if, as these people say, the flesh is incapable of receiving the life which God gives, will they please either tell us that they are here and now alive and partaking of life, or admit that they have absolutely nothing to do with life and are at present dead! But if they are dead, how can they move and speak and do all the other things which the living, but not the dead, can do? And if they are here and now alive and partaking of life, how do they dare to say that the flesh does not partake of life? After all, they admit that they have life at present. It is like holding a sponge full of water or a blazing torch and claiming that sponges cannot hold water and torches cannot take fire . . . This temporal life is so much feebler than eternal life, and yet it is strong enough to give life to our mortal members. If so, why should eternal life, which is so much more powerful, not vivify the flesh, which is trained and accustomed to bear life?
V 3, 2-3
(175) By the very same Hands which fashioned them at the beginning, [Enoch and Elijah] were taken up and away. In Adam, the Hands of God were accustomed to guide, hold, and carry Their handiwork, and to transport and place it wherever They pleased. Now where was the first man placed? In Paradise, of course . . . From there, because of his disobedience, he was thrown out. And there, according to the presbyters who are disciples of the apostles, [these two] were transferred. For Paradise was prepared for men who are just and have the Spirit. It was there that St. Paul, having been caught up, heard things which cannot be told (cf 2 Cor 12:4). And there, too, as a prelude to incorruptibility, remain those who have been transported until the final consummation.
Now some people may think that it is impossible for human beings to remain alive for such a long time, that Elijah was not taken up in the flesh, and that his flesh was consumed in the chariot of fire. If they think like that, they ought to recall that Jonah, having been thrown into the depths of the sea and swallowed by the whale, was, by the command of God, vomited out safe and sound on dry land. Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael were thrown into the seven-times heated fiery furnace, and yet suffered not the slightest harm; not even the smell of fire was on them. If the Hand of God was with them and achieved in them things so extraordinary and impossible for human nature, is it any wonder that [this same Hand], in carrying out the Father’s will, should accomplish something extraordinary in those who have been transported? Now the ‘Hand’ I am speaking about is the Son of God. In the words Scripture ascribes to Nebuchadnezzar: ‘Did we not throw three men into the furnace? But I see four men walking around in the midst of the fire, and the fourth is like the Son of God’ (Dan 3:19f). Therefore, neither the nature of any creature nor the infirmity of the flesh can be stronger than the will of God. God is not subject to created things; created things are subject to God, and all things serve His will.
V 5, 1-2
(176) As the Lord says, though ‘the flesh is weak’, ‘the Spirit’ is eager (cf Matt 26:41), in other words, capable of doing whatever He is eager to do. If, then, you join the eagerness of the Spirit, as a kind of spur, to the weakness of the flesh, the strong inevitably prevails over the weak. The weakness of the flesh will be swallowed up by the strength of the Spirit, and because of the communion of Spirit [and flesh], such a person will no longer be carnal but spiritual . . . Once swallowed up, the weakness of the flesh reveals the power of the Spirit, and the Spirit, in absorbing its weakness, takes possession of the flesh as His own inheritance. It is from these two that the living man is made. He is living because of the participation of the Spirit; he is man because of the substance of the flesh.
Thus the flesh without the Spirit of God is dead, without life, incapable of inheriting the Kingdom of God. It is like blood, like water poured out on the ground. That is why the apostle says: ‘As was the man of earth, so are those who are of earth’ (cf 1 Cor 15:48). But where the Spirit of the Father is, there is a living man. The rational blood is preserved by God for vengeance (cf Apoc 6:10), and the flesh is possessed by the Spirit, forgets itself, puts on the qualities of the Spirit, and is conformed to the Word of God. As Scripture says, ‘Just as we have borne the image of him who is of earth, so we shall bear the image of Him who is from heaven’ (1 Cor 15:49). What is earthly? The handiwork. What is heavenly? The Spirit . . .
Strictly speaking, the flesh does not inherit; it is inherited. As the Lord says, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’ (Matt 5:5), as if in the Kingdom the earth, from which the substance of our flesh comes, will be possessed as an inheritance. And so He wants the temple to be pure, so that God’s Spirit might delight in it, as the bridegroom in his bride. Just as the bride does not take the bridegroom but is taken by him when he comes to make her his own, so the flesh, in itself and on its own, cannot inherit and take possession of the Kingdom of God, but it can be inherited and possessed by the Spirit in the Kingdom, for the living inherit the goods of the deceased. Now inheriting and being inherited are two different things. The inheritor rules and commands, and disposes of his inheritance as he wants to. The inheritance, by contrast, is subject to him, obeys him, is ruled by him, is under his control. Who, then, is the living? The Spirit of God. And what are the goods of the deceased? The various parts of man which rot in the earth. It is these which are inherited by the Spirit and transported into the Kingdom of Heaven.
V 9, 2-4
(177) At present we receive a part of His Spirit to perfect us and to prepare us for incorruptibility. In this way we become gradually accustomed to receiving and bearing God. The apostle calls this gift a ‘pledge’ (cf Eph 1:14), in other words, a part of the honour promised us by God . . . This ‘pledge’ here and now dwells in us and makes us spiritual. The mortal is swallowed up by immortality (cf 2 Cor 5:4), for ‘you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you’ (Rom 8:9). What is more, this is achieved not by casting off the flesh, but by communion with the Spirit; after all, the people to whom St. Paul was writing were not fleshless beings, but simply those who had received the Spirit of God, in whom we cry ‘Abba, Father’ (cf Rom 8:15), Therefore, if, even now, we have the ‘pledge’ and cry ‘Abba, Father’, how wonderful it will be when we rise again and behold Him face to face, when all the members burst forth into a hymn of exultation, glorifying Him who raised them from the dead and gave them eternal life! If the simple pledge, wrapping itself round man, makes him cry ‘Abba, Father’, what will be achieved by the complete grace of the Spirit when it is given by God to men? It will make us like Him and accomplish the will of the Father, because it will make man after the image and likeness of God. Those, then, who have the pledge of the Spirit and are not enslaved to the lusts of the flesh, but submit themselves to the Spirit. . . are rightly called ‘spiritual’ by the apostle (cf 1 Cor 2:15; 3:1). Such spiritual persons are not bodiless spirits, but our very substance, that is, the union of soul and flesh, which, when it receives the Spirit of God, constitutes the spiritual person.
V 8, 1-2
(178) He says this lest, in pampering the flesh, we reject the grafting of the Spirit. For ‘you, a wild olive tree, have been grafted into a cultivated olive tree and made a partaker of its sap’ (cf Rom 11:17,24). Now if a wild olive tree, after being grafted into a cultivated tree, remains what it was before, it is ‘cut down and thrown into the fire’ (cf Matt 7:19). If, on the other hand, it accepts the grafting and is transformed into the cultivated olive tree, it becomes a fruit-bearing olive, planted, so to speak, in the garden (paradiso) of the king. The same is true of human beings. If, by faith, they make real progress towards the better, and receive God’s Spirit and bring forth His fruits, they will be ‘spiritual’, planted, so to speak, in the garden (paradiso) of God. But if they reject the Spirit and remain what they were before, preferring to be of the flesh rather than of the Spirit, it is rightly said of them: ‘Flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God’ (1 Cor 15:50); in other words, the wild olive is not admitted into the garden of God.
In his parable of flesh and blood and the olive tree, the apostle has given us a wonderful description of our nature and of the whole saving plan of God. A cultivated olive, if neglected and left for a time to rim to wood, begins to bear wild fruit, and becomes itself a wild olive. On the other hand, if the wild olive is carefully tended and grafted, it returns to the pristine fruitfulness of its nature. The same is true of human beings. If they are negligent, they bear the wild fruit of carnal lust, and by their own fault are unfruitful in justice. For it is while men sleep that the enemy sows the seeds of weeds (cf Matt 13:25), which is why the Lord commands His disciples to keep watch (cf Matt 24:42). On the other hand, those who have been unfruitful in justice and, so to speak, caught up in brambles can, if they are carefully tended and accept the grafting of the Word (cf James 1:21), return to the pristine nature of man, the nature, that is, which was created in the image and likeness of God. Just as grafted wild olive does not lose the substance of its wood, but changes the quality of its fruit . . . so man, when he is grafted in by faith and receives the Spirit of God, does not lose the substance of flesh, but changes the quality of those fruits which are his works.
V 10, 1-2
Eternal life is a grace
(179) The objection could at this point be made that souls which have only lately begun to exist cannot go on existing indefinitely. It could be argued that there are only two possibilities: either they must be without birth and beginning, if they are to be immortal, or they must die when the body dies, if they have had a beginning by birth.
To this we reply that only God, the Lord of all, is without beginning and end, remaining truly and for ever and unchangeably the same. As for the things which come from Him, whatever has been made, whatever is made, has a beginning of existence; they are inferior to their Maker precisely because they are not without beginning. They nevertheless continue and prolong their existence through the length of days in accordance with the will of God their Maker. He gives them first a beginning, then being.
The heavens above us—the firmament, sun, and moon, the stars in all their beauty—were created when previously they did not exist, and they continue indefinitely in accordance with God’s will. Any right-thinking person will see that the same is true of souls, spirits, and every other created thing without exception. All creatures have a beginning of existence, but they continue to exist as long as God wills them to exist and to continue to exist. The prophetic Spirit bears witness to this doctrine when He says: ‘He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created. He established them for ever, and for the ages of ages’ (Ps 148:5-6). Again, he says this of the salvation of man: ‘He asked life of you, and you gave him length of days for the ages of ages’ (Ps 20:5). In other words, the Father of all grants continued existence ‘for the ages of ages’ to the redeemed. For life does not come from ourselves, nor from our nature, but is given by God as a grace. The person, therefore, who preserves the gift of life and gives thanks to the One who gave it to him will receive ‘length of days for the ages of ages’. But the person who rejects that gift, who shows only ingratitude to his Creator for the gift of being created, and does not recognize the Giver, such a person deprives himself of continuance ‘for the ages of ages’.3
II 34, 2-3
(180) To those who keep their love for God, He grants communion with Him. And communion with God is life and light and enjoyment of all the good things He has in store. But on those who, by their own choice, turn away from Him, He inflicts the separation which they themselves have chosen. And separation from God is death; separation from the light is darkness; separation from God is the loss of all the good things He has in store. Those, then, who by their apostasy have lost these things, who are destitute of all good, experience every kind of punishment. God does not punish them immediately of Himself; no, punishment comes upon precisely because they are destitute of all good. . . ‘He who does not believe’, says the Lord, ‘is already judged’ (John 3:18).
V 27, 2
(181) [‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’, Matt 4:4; cf Deut 8:3] By this commandment the Lord is teaching us, the redeemed. When we are hungry, He says, we should wait for the food given by God. If we are placed at the summit of all grace, confident in our works of justice and adorned with excellent ministries, we must not swell with pride, nor tempt God, but should feel humility in all things and have this as our watchword: ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God’ (Matt 4:7; Deut 6:16). The apostle’s teaching was the same: ‘Do not be haughty, but associate with the humble’ (Rom 12:16). We must not be carried away by wealth and worldly glory and passing fancy, but should know that we must worship ‘the Lord your God’ and serve Him alone (cf Matt 4:10; Deut 6:13). And we must not heed him who promises what is not his own: ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’ (Matt 4:9). He himself admits that to worship him and to do his will is to fall from the glory of God. What sweet and good thing is there for such a fallen man to share? What can he hope for or expect except death? For the fallen man’s nearest neighbour is death.
V 22, 2
Freedom as grace
(182) ‘How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!’ (Matt 23:37). These words [of Christ] illustrate the ancient law of human freedom. For God made man free. From the beginning he has had his own power, just as he has had his own soul, to enable him, voluntarily and without coercion, to make God’s mind his own. God does not use force, but good will is in Him always. He, therefore, gives good counsel to all things, but in men, as in the angels (angels, after all, are rational beings), He has placed the power of choice. The obedient were to possess, in all justice, the good which He had given and they had preserved, while the disobedient were, in all justice, to be found without the good and to receive the punishment they deserved . . . If, however, some had been made bad by nature and others good, the good would not deserve praise for being good, because that was the way they were made, nor would the bad be blameworthy, because that was the way they were made.
IV 37, 1-2
(183) If all souls go to the place of refreshment on account of their nature and belong to the ‘centre of the world’ just because they are souls, then faith is superfluous, and the descent of the Saviour is superfluous. If, on the other hand, it is on account of their justice, then it is no longer because they are souls, but because they are just.
II 29, 1
(184) Just as God does not need what comes from us, so we do need to offer something to God. As Solomon says, ‘He who has pity on the poor lends to God’ (Prov 19:17). For God, who needs nothing, accepts our good works so that He can give us in return His own things (cf Prov 19:17). As Our Lord says, ‘Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the Kingdom prepared for you. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink’ (Matt 25:34f) . . . He has no need of these things Himself, but He wants them to happen for our sake, so that we are not unfruitful. In the same way, the Word commanded the people to make offerings, though He did not need them, so that they would learn to serve God. It is, therefore, also His will that we should offer our gift at the altar frequently, indeed, without ceasing. For there is an altar in heaven; for it is to that place that our prayers and oblations are directed. And there is a temple: as St. John says, ‘the temple of God was opened’ (Apoc 11:9). And a tabernacle: ‘Behold’, he says, ‘the tabernacle of God in which He dwelt with men’ (Apoc 21:3).
IV 18, 6
The eternal movement towards God
(185) Who are the pure? Those who steadily make their way by faith towards the Father and the Son.
V 8, 3
(186) To follow the Saviour is to partake of salvation, and to follow the light is to receive light.
IV 14, 1
(187) [Abraham] rightly left all earthly kith and kin, and followed the Word of God. He wandered with the Word, so that He might abide with the Word. Rightly, too, did the apostles, of the race of Abraham, leave their ship and their father, and followed the Word of God. Rightly, too, do we, who have the same faith as Abraham, take up the Cross, as Isaac took up the wood (cf Gen 22:6), and follow Him.
IV 5, 3-4
(188) It is right and fitting: God must always be ever greater, above all things . . . And not just in this world, but in the world to come as well, so that God might ever teach and man might ever learn the lessons taught by God. As the apostle says, when everything else has passed away, these three abide: faith, hope, and charity (cf 1 Cor 13:9-13). Faith in our Master will remain ever firm, assuring us that there is only one true God, and that we should love Him for ever, for He alone is our Father, and that we should hope to receive and learn more and more from God, because He is good, and possesses boundless riches, a kingdom without end, and knowledge beyond measure.
II 28, 3
(189) Those to whom God will say, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire’ (Matt 25:41), will be damned for ever. And those to whom He says, ‘Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the Kingdom prepared for you for eternity’ (Matt 25:34), will receive the Kingdom and progress in it for ever.
IV 28, 2
(190) Our face will see the face of God, and will be glad with an inexpressible joy, when, that is, it sees His joy.
V 7, 2
(191) If the revelation of God through creation bestows life on all who live on earth, how much more does the revelation of the Father through the Word bestow life on those who see God.
IV 20, 7
(192) Just as those who see the light are in the light and share in its brightness, so those who see God are in God and receive His splendour. Now the splendour of God gives life; those who see God, therefore, receive life. That is why He who is uncontainable and incomprehensible and invisible presented Himself to be seen and comprehended and contained by men. He wanted to give life to those who receive and see Him. For just as His greatness is beyond measure, so His goodness is beyond expression. By that goodness, having been seen, he bestows life on those who see Him. It is impossible to live without life, and there is only life by participation in God. But to participate in God is to know God and to enjoy His goodness. Men will, therefore, see God that they may live, and by the vision they will be made immortal and attain God.
IV 120, 5-6
ENDNOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 H. de Lubac, La postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Fiore, 2 vols, (Paris, 1979, 1981). Back to text.
THE SIGN OF THE SON OF MAN
1 St. Augustine, too, later attributed the cause of all erroneous doctrine to the denial of the Incarnation of Christ (Sermo 183; PL 38, 968f). Back to text.
THE TRUE GOD AND THE FALSE GOD
1 This text is particularly remarkable, because, not long after Irenaeus, Tertullian and the Alexandrians took over the Gnostic idea of the spoken Word, thereby endangering the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. Back to text.
2 According to the Gnostics, the ‘Abyss’ (—the Father) first of all emitted ‘Intellect’, which in turn emitted the ‘Word’, who, because of His greater distance from Him, did not know the Father. Back to text.
3 Even if the world had been created by angels—an hypothesis rejected in the texts that follow—it would only have been a case of God the Creator using them as secondary causes. Back to text.
4 God could not create man in alienation from Himself. There must have been a primeval harmony between God and man, Back to text.
5 The argument presupposes that the void, the nothing, is regarded as an absolute metaphysical principle, not just a way of expressing the creature’s radical dependence on God, but a ‘being’ in its own right. Berdyaev was fond of this Gnostic doctrine. Back to text.
6 In other words, instead of the mutual indwelling of the Divine Persons, Gnosticism posits a mutual limitation of principles, which destroys the idea of God, Back to text.
7 In other words, for Gnosticism, as later for Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Marx, man is the inventor of God. Back to text.
8 That is why, after Nicaea, the Fathers applied the credal image of enkindling (‘Light from Light’) to the Trinity. Back to text.
9 A significant statement: God cannot come under the category of ‘reason for’ (as He does for Descartes), Cf Jean-Luc Marion, La theologie blanche de Descartes (Paris, 1981). Back to text.
FAITH AND GNOSIS
1 In this Gnostic myth, Sophia (or Achamoth), the figure of ‘Wisdom’, appears as the absolute quest the quest which is an end in itself, The nature of existence is the ‘question’ here. Irenaeus points out that the Gnostics claim that this insight enables them to grasp the “nature of existence’, but that means that they are embroiled in a dialectic of (absolute) knowing and (absolute) unknowing. Although this ‘tragic dialectic” may assume a Christian disguise, it is in fundamental contradiction to the Gospel of Christ, for which the real search for God is linked with the real finding of God. Back to text.
2 The number of ‘Aeons’ in the ‘Divine Pleroma’. Back to text.
INCARNATION AS RECAPITULATION
1 Caput, kephalaion, ‘head’ in the sense of “seat”, “place of origin” Back to text.
2 On this passage, see the commentary in Sources Chrétiennes 152, pp. 286-295. Back to text.
3 Certain sects celebrated the Eucharist only with water. Irenaeus sees in the mixing of water and wine in the Eucharist the symbol of the unity of the first and second creation, of nature and grace, of creature and Creator, in and through Christ. Back to text.
4 The phrases in square brackets have been taken from the commentary in Sources Chrétiennes 210 (p. 345) in order to clarify the meaning of this difficult passage. [Translator’s note]. Back to text.
5 Compendia poculo: the Passion, through which He was to accomplish both the ‘recapitulation’ of salvation history and the final, wondrous ‘mingling’ of water (humanity) and wine (divinity). This is represented in the Eucharist and foreshadowed in the miracle at Cana. Back to text.
FULFILMENT IN GOD
1 The first objection to the Gnostics’ spiritualistic doctrine of fulfilment has already been raised. It is a doctrine which rests upon an impossible isolation of the psychic / spiritual powers and activity from the substratum of the existing soul itself. Back to text.
2 The second, even weightier objection emphasizes that, from the point of view of moral recompense, the soul together with the body, its instrument, demands eternal existence. Back to text.
3 Irenaeus is not denying the continued existence of the wicked. “But their souls are dead—and you do not say of dead bodies that they endure. Eternity, for him, signifies a supreme fulness. The sinful soul, by contrast, sinks into emptiness. Cf the following text. Back to text.