Irenaeus

“ To these men Blandina replied very admirably in these words: “How should those persons endure such [accusations] , who, for the sake of the practice [of piety] , did not avail themselves even of the flesh that was permitted [them to eat] ?”
XIV.
How [21] is it possible to say that the serpent, created by God dumb and irrational, was endowed with reason and speech? For if it had the power of itself to speak, to discern, to understand, and to reply to what was spoken by the woman, there would have been nothing to prevent every serpent from doing this also. ”

“ God is vast, and the Architect of the world, and omnipotent, He created things that reach to immensity both by the Architect of the world and by an omnipotent will, and with a new effect, potently and efficaciously, in order that the entire fulness of those things which have been produced might come into being, although they had no previous existence—that is, whatever does not fall under [our] observation, and also what lies before our eyes. ”

“ He gathered the apostles together, and preached the kingdom of heaven; gave light to the blind, and raised the dead; was seen in the temple, but was not held by the people as worthy of credit; was arrested by the priests, conducted before Herod, and condemned in the presence of Pilate; He manifested Himself in the body, was suspended upon a beam of wood, and raised from the dead; shown to the apostles, and, having been carried up to heaven, sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and has been glorified by Him as the Resurrection of the dead. ”

“ For although they go to corruption, yet they do not perish; for the earth, receiving the remains, preserves them, even like fertile seed mixed with more fertile ground. Again, as a bare grain is sown, and, germinating by the command of God its Creator, rises again, clothed upon and glorious, but not before it has died and suffered decomposition, and become mingled with the earth; so [it is seen from this, that] we have not entertained a vain belief in the resurrection of the body. ”

“ This event was also an indication of the fact, that when the holy soul of Christ descended [to Hades] , many souls ascended and were seen in their bodies. [48] For just as the wood, which is the lighter body, was submerged in the water; but the iron, the heavier one, floated: so, when the Word of God became one with flesh, by a physical and hypostatic union, the heavy and terrestrial [part] , having been rendered immortal, was borne up into heaven, by the divine nature, after the resurrection. ”

“ For this man (Balaam) , when he speaks no longer in the Spirit of God, but contrary to God’s law, by setting up a different law with regard to fornication, [42] is certainly not then to be counted as a prophet, but as a soothsayer. For he who did not keep to the commandment of God, received the just recompense of his own evil devices. [43]
XXVI.
Know [44] thou that every man is either empty or full. For if he has not the Holy Spirit, he has no knowledge of the Creator; he has not received Jesus Christ the Life; he knows not the Father who is in heaven ”

“ For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: “Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” ”

“ For [104] then there shall in truth be a common joy consummated to all those who believe unto life, and in each individual shall be confirmed the mystery of the Resurrection, and the hope of incorruption, and the commencement of the eternal kingdom, when God shall have destroyed death and the devil. For that human nature and flesh which has risen again from the dead shall die no more ”

“ But if matter be immutable, and the immutable suffers no change in regard to quality, it does not form the substance of the world. For which reason it seems to them superfluous, that God has annexed qualities to matter, since indeed matter admits of no possible alteration, it being in itself an uncreated thing. ”

“ Speaking always well of the worthy, but never ill of the unworthy, we also shall attain to the glory and kingdom of God.
XLIII.
In [91] these things there was signified by prophecy that the people, having become transgressors, shall be bound by the chains of their own sins. But the breaking of the bonds of their own accord indicates that, upon repentance, they shall be again loosed from the shackles of sin. ”

“ For truly the first thing is to deny one’s self and to follow Christ; and those who do this are borne onward to perfection, having fulfilled all their Teacher’s will, becoming sons of God by spiritual regeneration, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven; those who seek which first shall not be forsaken.
XXXVII.
Those who have become acquainted with the secondary (i.e., under Christ) constitutions of the apostles, [72] are aware that the Lord instituted a new oblation in the new covenant, according to [the declaration of] Malachi the prophet. ”

“ Patriarch among the patriarchs; Law in the laws; Chief Priest among priests; Ruler among kings; the Prophet among prophets; the Angel among angels; the Man among men; Son in the Father; God in God; King to all eternity. For it is He who sailed [in the ark] along with Noah, and who guided Abraham; who was bound along with Isaac, and was a Wanderer with Jacob ”

“ The ass was the type of the body of Christ, upon whom all men, resting from their labours, are borne as in a chariot. For the Saviour has taken up the burden of our sins. [39] Now the angel who appeared to Balaam was the Word Himself ”

“ This [15] [custom] , of not bending the knee upon Sunday, is a symbol of the resurrection, through which we have been set free, by the grace of Christ, from sins, and from death, which has been put to death under Him. Now this custom took its rise from apostolic times, as the blessed Irenæus, the martyr and bishop of Lyons, declares in his treatise On Easter, in which he makes mention of Pentecost also; upon which [feast] we do not bend the knee, because it is of equal significance with the Lord’s day, for the reason already alleged concerning it. ”

“ Just in the same way does God also, when He perceives the faithful possessing wisdom though still imperfect, and but a small degree of faith, overlook their defect in this respect, and therefore does not reject them ”

“ And if thou sayest that it attacked her as being the weaker of the two, [I reply that] , on the contrary, she was the stronger, since she appears to have been the helper of the man in the transgression of the commandment. For she did by herself alone resist the serpent, and it was after holding out for a while and making opposition that she ate of the tree, being circumvented by craft; whereas Adam, making no fight whatever, nor refusal, partook of the fruit handed to him by the woman, which is an indication of the utmost imbecility and effeminacy of mind. ”

“ For they constitute a stumbling-block to many, who simply and unreservedly receive, as coming from a presbyter, the blasphemy which they utter against God. Just [consider] the writer of these things, how by means of them he does not injure assistants [in divine service] only, who happen to be prepared in mind for blasphemies against God, but also damages those among us, since by his books he imbues their minds with false doctrines concerning God. ”

“ I may refer, for example, to the premature fruit of the grape, or of the fig, or to any fruit whatsoever, from which, during its process [of growth] , no man expects maturity or full development; yet, although any one may perceive that it is still somewhat imperfect, he does not for that reason despise as useless the immature grape when plucked, but he gathers it with pleasure as appearing early in the season ”

“ But further, if matter be uncreated, it has been made altogether according to a certain quality, and this immutable, so that it cannot be receptive of more qualities, nor can it be the thing of which the world is made. ”

“ For I have a more vivid recollection of what occurred at that time than of recent events (inasmuch as the experiences of childhood, keeping pace with the growth of the soul, become incorporated with it) ; so that I can even describe the place where the blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse— his going out, too, and his coming in—his general mode of life and personal appearance, together with the discourses which he delivered to the people; also how he would speak of his familiar intercourse with John, and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord ”

“ For it was proper that Moses should lead the people out of Egypt, but that Jesus (Joshua) should lead them into the inheritance. Also that Moses, as was the case with the law, should cease to be, but that Joshua ( ̓Ιησοῦν) , as the word, and no untrue type of the Word made
flesh (ἐνυποστάτου) , should be a preacher to the people. Then again, [it was fit] that Moses should give manna as food to the fathers, but Joshua wheat ”

“ Those persons, then, who perform these oblations in remembrance of the Lord, do not fall in with Jewish views, but, performing the service after a spiritual manner, they shall be called sons of wisdom. ”

“ Thus, in fact, the difference [in observing] the fast establishes the harmony of [our common] faith. [7] And the presbyters preceding Soter in the government of the Church which thou dost now rule—I mean, Anicetus and Pius, Hyginus and Telesphorus, and Sixtus—did neither themselves observe it [after that fashion] , nor permit those with them [8] to do so. ”

“ Taking the Saviour, therefore, apart in a retired place, she earnestly desired of Him those things which transcend every human nature.
↑ This fragment is quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v. 20. It occurred at the close of the lost treatise of Irenæus entitled De Ogdoade. ↑ This interesting extract we also owe to Eusebius, who (ut sup.) took it from the work De Ogdoade, written after this former friend of Irenæus had lapsed to Valentinianism. Florinus had previously held that God was the author of evil, which sentiment Irenæus opposed in a treatise, now lost, called περὶ μοναρχίας. ↑ Comp. p. ”

“ Massuet conjectures that it is from the De Ogdoade, addressed to the apostate Florinus. ↑ This fragment and the next three are from the Parallela of John of Damascus. Frag. ix. x. xii. seem to be quotations from the treatise of Irenæus on the resurrection. No. xi. is extracted from his Miscellaneous Dissertations, a work mentioned by Eusebius, βιβλίον τι διαλεξέων διαφόρων. ↑ Ps. cxxx. 7. ↑ This sentence in the original seems incomplete; we have followed the conjectural restoration of Harvey. ↑ “This extract is found in Œcumenius upon 1 Pet. c. iii. p. 198 ”

“ For a full account of their history, see Stieren’s edition of Irenæus, vol. ii. p. 381. [But, in all candor, let Pfaff himself be heard. His little work is full of learning, and I have long possessed it as a treasure to which I often recur. Pfaff’s Irenæi Fragmenta was published at The Hague, 1715.] ↑ 1 Cor. ii. 14. ↑ 1 Pet. ii. 3. ↑ 1 Tim. vi. 4, 5. ↑ Col. ii. 18. ↑ Rom. x. 8; Deut. xxx. 14. ↑ Phil. iii. 10. ↑ Harvey’s conjectural emendation, ἐπιπλοκὴ for ἐπιλογὴ, has been adopted here. ”

“ Harvey doubts as to this fragment being a genuine production of Irenæus; and its whole style of reasoning confirms the suspicion. ↑ Matt. xv. 17. ↑ Gen. iii. 19. ↑ The Greek reads the barbarous word ἀθριξίᾳ, which Massuet thinks is a corruption of ἀθανασίᾳ, immortality. We have, however, followed the conjecture of Harvey, who would substitute ἀπληξίᾳ, which seems to agree better with the context. ”

“ The same view of the eucharistic oblation, etc., is found in book iv. chap. xvii.: as also in Justin Martyr; see Trypho, cap. xli. supra in this volume. ↑ Rom. xii. 1. ↑ Heb. xiii. 15. ↑ Col. ii. 14. ↑ John iv. 24. ↑ Harvey explains this word ἀντιτύπων as meaning an “exact counterpart.” He refers to the word where it occurs in Contra Hæreses, lib. i. chap. xxiv. (p. 349, this vol.) as confirmatory of his view. ↑ Taken apparently from the Epistle to Blastus, de Schismate. Compare a similar passage, lib. iv. chap. xxxiii. 7. ↑ Col. ii. 16. ↑ Isa. i. 14. ”

“ Stieren would insert ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ σώματι, in His own body; see 1 Pet. ii. 24. ↑ Num. xxiii. 19. ↑ Num. xxxi. 3. ↑ Num. xxxi. 16. ↑ Num. xxxi. 8. ↑ It is not certain from what work of Irenæus this extract is derived ”