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| Chapter XVI.—Proofs from the apostolic writings, that Jesus Christ was one and the same, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man.
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Chapter XVI.—Proofs from the
apostolic writings, that Jesus Christ was one and the same, the only begotten
Son of God, perfect God and perfect man.
1. perfect God and perfect man" title="440" id="ix.iv.xvii-p1.2"/>But3569
| 3569 We here omit since,
and insert therefore afterwards, to avoid the extreme length of
the sentence as it stands in the Latin version. The apodosis does not
occur till the words, “I judge it necessary,” are
reached. | there are some who say that Jesus was merely a
receptacle of Christ, upon whom the Christ, as a dove, descended from
above, and that when He had declared the unnameable Father He entered
into the Pleroma in an incomprehensible and invisible manner: for that He
was not comprehended, not only by men, but not even by those powers and
virtues which are in heaven, and that Jesus was the Son, but that3570
Christ was the Father, and the Father of Christ, God; while
others say that He merely suffered in outward appearance, being naturally
impassible. The Valentinians, again, maintain that the dispensational
Jesus was the same who passed through Mary, upon whom that Saviour from
the more exalted [region] descended, who was also termed Pan,3571
| 3571 The Latin text has
“Christum.” which is supposed to be an erroneous reading. See
also book ii. c. xii. s. 6. | because He possessed the names
(vocabula) of all those who had produced Him; but that [this
latter] shared with Him, the dispensational one, His power and His name;
so that by His means death was abolished, but the Father was made known
by that Saviour who had descended from above, whom they do also allege to
be Himself the receptacle of Christ and of the entire Pleroma;
confessing, indeed, in tongue one Christ Jesus, but being divided in
[actual] opinion: for, as I have already observed, it is the practice of
these men to say that there was one Christ, who was produced by
Monogenes, for the confirmation of the Pleroma; but that another, the
Saviour, was sent [forth] for the glorification of the Father; and yet
another, the dispensational one, and whom they represent as having
suffered, who also bore [in himself] Christ, that Saviour who returned
into the Pleroma. I judge it necessary therefore to take into account the
entire mind of the apostles regarding our Lord Jesus Christ, and to show
that not only did they never hold any such opinions regarding Him; but,
still further, that they announced through the Holy Spirit, that those
who should teach such doctrines were agents of Satan, sent forth for the
purpose of overturning the faith of some, and drawing them away from
life.
2. That John knew the one and the same Word of God, and
that He was the only begotten, and that He became incarnate for our
salvation, Jesus Christ our Lord, I have sufficiently proved from the
word of John himself. And Matthew, too, recognising one and the same
Jesus Christ, exhibiting his generation as a man from the Virgin,3572
even as God did promise David that He would
raise up from the fruit of his body an eternal King, having made the same
promise to Abraham a long time previously, says: “The book of the
generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of
Abraham.”3573
Then, that he might free our
mind from suspicion regarding Joseph, he says: “But the birth of
Christ3574
| 3574 Matt.
i. 18. It is to be observed that Irenæus here reads
Christ instead of Jesus Christ, as in text. rec.,
thus agreeing with the reading of the Vulgate in the passage. |
was on this
wise. When His mother was espoused to Joseph,
before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost.” Then, when Joseph had it in contemplation to put Mary away,
since she proved with child, [Matthew tells us of] the angel of God
standing by him, and saying: “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy
wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she
shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall
save His people from their sins. Now this was done, that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet: Behold, a virgin
shall conceive, and bring forth a son, and they shall call His name
Emmanuel, which is, God with us;” clearly signifying that both the
promise made to the fathers had been accomplished, that the Son of God
was born of a virgin, and that He Himself was Christ the Saviour whom the
prophets had foretold; not, as these men assert, that Jesus was He who
was born of Mary, but that Christ was He who descended from above.
Matthew might certainly have said, “Now the birth of Jesus
was on this wise;” but the Holy Ghost, foreseeing the corrupters
[of the truth], and guarding by anticipation against their deceit, says
by Matthew, “But the birth of Christ was on this
wise;” and that He is Emmanuel, lest perchance we might consider
Him as a mere man: for “not by the will of the flesh nor by the
will of man, but by the will of God was the Word made flesh;”3575
| 3575 John i. 13,
14. From this, and also a quotation of the same passage in
chap. xix. of this book, it appears that Irenæus must have read ὃς … ἐγεννήθη here,
and not οἳ … ἐγεννήθησαν.
Tertullian quotes the verse to the same effect (Lib. de Carne
Christi, cap. 19 and 24). | and that we should not imagine
that Jesus was one, and Christ another, but should know them to be one
and the same.
3. Paul, when writing to the Romans, has explained this
very point: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, predestinated unto
the Gospel of God, which He had promised by His prophets in the holy
Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was made to Him of the seed of David
according to the flesh, who was predestinated the Son of God with power
through the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead of our
Lord Jesus Christ.”3576
And
again, writing to the Romans about Israel, he says: “Whose are the
fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over
all, blessed for ever.”3577
And again,
in his Epistle to the Galatians, he says: “But when the fulness of
time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the
adoption;”3578
plainly indicating one
God, who did by the prophets make promise of the Son, and one Jesus
Christ our Lord, who was of the seed of David according to His birth from
Mary; and that Jesus Christ was appointed the Son of God with power,
according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead,
as being the first begotten in all the creation;3579
the Son of God being made the Son of man, that through Him we may
receive the adoption,—humanity3580
sustaining, and
receiving, and embracing the Son of God. Wherefore Mark also says:
“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it
is written in the prophets.”3581
Knowing one
and the same Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was announced by the prophets,
who from the fruit of David’s body was Emmanuel, “the
messenger of great counsel of the Father;”3582
through whom God caused the day-spring and the Just
One to arise to the house of David, and raised up for him an horn of
salvation, “and established a testimony in Jacob;”3583
as David says when discoursing on the causes
of His birth: “And He appointed a law in Israel, that another
generation might know [Him,] the children which should he born from
these, and they arising shall themselves declare to their children, so
that they might set their hope in God, and seek after His
commandments.”3584
And again, the angel
said, when bringing good tidings to Mary: “He shall he great, and
shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord shall give unto Him
the throne of His father David;”3585
acknowledging that He who is the Son of the Highest, the same is Himself
also the Son of David. And David, knowing by the Spirit the dispensation
of the advent of this Person, by which He is supreme over all the living
and dead, confessed Him as Lord, sitting on the right hand of the Most
High Father.3586
4. But Simeon also
—he who had received an intimation from the Holy Ghost that he
should not see death, until first he had beheld Christ Jesus—
taking Him, the first-begotten of the Virgin, into his hands, blessed
God, and said, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,
according to Thy word: because mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which
Thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the
Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel;”3587
confessing thus, that the infant whom he was holding in his
hands, Jesus, born of Mary, was Christ Himself, the Son of God, the light
of all, the glory of Israel itself,
and the peace and
refreshing of those who had fallen asleep. For He was already despoiling
men, by removing their ignorance, conferring upon them His own knowledge,
and scattering abroad those who recognised Him, as Esaias says:
“Call His name, Quickly spoil, Rapidly divide.”3588
Now these are the works of Christ. He therefore
was Himself Christ, whom Simeon carrying [in his arms] blessed the Most
High; on beholding whom the shepherds glorified God; whom John, while yet
in his mother’s womb, and He (Christ) in that of Mary, recognising
as the Lord, saluted with leaping; whom the Magi, when they had seen,
adored, and offered their gifts [to Him], as I have already stated, and
prostrated themselves to the eternal King, departed by another way, not
now returning by the way of the Assyrians. “For before the child
shall have knowledge to cry, Father or mother, He shall receive the power
of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria, against the king of the
Assyrians;”3589
declaring, in a mysterious
manner indeed, but emphatically, that the Lord did fight with a hidden
hand against Amalek.3590
For this cause,
too, He suddenly removed those children belonging to the house of David,
whose happy lot it was to have been born at that time, that He might send
them on before into His kingdom; He, since He was Himself an infant, so
arranging it that human infants should be martyrs, slain, according to
the Scriptures, for the sake of Christ, who was born in Bethlehem of
Judah, in the city of David.3591
5. Therefore did the Lord also say to His disciples
after the resurrection, “O thoughtless ones, and slow of heart to
believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have
suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?”3592
And again does He say to them: “These
are the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you, that all
things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in
the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their
understanding, that they should understand the Scriptures, and said unto
them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to
rise again from the dead, and that repentance for the remission of sins
be preached in His name among all nations.”3593
Now this is He who was born of Mary; for He says:
“The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected, and
crucified, and on the third day rise again.”3594
The Gospel, therefore, knew
no other son of man but Him who was of Mary, who also suffered; and no
Christ who flew away from Jesus before the passion; but Him who was born
it knew as Jesus Christ the Son of God, and that this same suffered and
rose again, as John, the disciple of the Lord, verifies, saying:
“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have eternal life in
His name,”3595
—foreseeing these
blasphemous systems which divide the Lord, as far as lies in their power,
saying that He was formed of two different substances. For this reason
also he has thus testified to us in his Epistle: “Little children,
it is the last time; and as ye have heard that Antichrist doth come, now
have many antichrists appeared; whereby we know that it is the last time.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of
us, they would have continued with us: but [they departed], that they
might be made manifest that they are not of us. Know ye therefore, that
every lie is from without, and is not of the truth. Who is a liar, but he
that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist.”3596
6. But inasmuch as all those before mentioned, although
they certainly do with their tongue confess one Jesus Christ, make fools
of themselves, thinking one thing and saying another;3597
| 3597 The text here followed is that of two
Syriac mss., which prove
the loss of several consecutive words in the old Latin version, and clear
up the meaning of a confused sentence, showing that the word
“autem” is here, as it probably is elsewhere, merely a
contraction for “aut eum.” | for their hypotheses
vary, as I have already shown, alleging, [as they do,] that one Being
suffered and was born, and that this was Jesus; but that there was
another who descended upon Him, and that this was Christ, who also
ascended again; and they argue, that he who proceeded from the Demiurge,
or he who was dispensational, or he who sprang from Joseph, was the Being
subject to suffering; but upon the latter there descended from the
invisible and ineffable [places] the former, whom they assert to be
incomprehensible, invisible, and impassible: they thus wander from the
truth, because their doctrine departs from Him who is truly God, being
ignorant that His only-begotten Word, who is always present with the
human race, united to and mingled with His own creation, according to the
Father’s pleasure, and who became flesh, is Himself Jesus Christ
our Lord, who did also suffer for us, and rose again on our behalf, and
who will come again in the glory of His Father, to raise up all flesh,
and for the manifestation of salvation, and to apply the rule of just
judgment to all who were made by Him. There is therefore, as I have
pointed out, one God the Father, and one Christ Jesus, who came by means
of the whole dispensational arrangements [connected with Him], and
gathered
together all things in Himself.3598
But in every respect, too, He is man, the formation of God; and
thus He took up man into Himself, the invisible becoming visible, the
incomprehensible being made comprehensible, the impassible becoming
capable of suffering, and the Word being made man, thus summing up all
things in Himself: so that as in super-celestial, spiritual, and
invisible things, the Word of God is supreme, so also in things visible
and corporeal He might possess the supremacy, and, taking to Himself the
pre-eminence, as well as constituting Himself Head of the Church, He
might draw all things to Himself at the proper time.
7. With Him is
nothing incomplete or out of due season, just as with the Father there is
nothing incongruous. For all these things were foreknown by the Father;
but the Son works them out at the proper time in perfect order and
sequence. This was the
reason why, when Mary was urging [Him] on to [perform] the wonderful
miracle of the wine, and was desirous before the time to partake3599
| 3599 “Participare compendii
poculo,” i.e., the cup which recapitulates the suffering of
Christ, and which, as Harvey thinks, refers to the symbolical character
of the cup of the Eucharist, as setting forth the passion of Christ.
| of the cup of emblematic significance, the Lord, checking her
untimely haste, said, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine
hour is not yet come”3600
—
waiting for that hour which was foreknown by the Father. This is also the
reason why, when men were often desirous to take Him, it is said,
“No man laid hands upon Him, for the hour of His being taken was
not yet come;”3601
nor the time of His
passion, which had been foreknown by the Father; as also says the prophet
Habakkuk, “By this Thou shalt be known when the years have drawn
nigh; Thou shalt be set forth when the time comes; because my soul is
disturbed by anger, Thou shalt remember Thy mercy.”3602
Paul also says: “But when the fulness of
time came, God sent forth His Son.”3603
By which is
made manifest, that all things which had been foreknown of the Father,
our Lord did accomplish in their order, season, and hour, foreknown and
fitting, being indeed one and the same, but rich and great. For He
fulfils the bountiful and comprehensive will of His Father, inasmuch as
He is Himself the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Lord of those
who are under authority, and the God of all those things which have been
formed, the only-begotten of the Father, Christ who was announced, and
the Word of God, who became incarnate when the fulness of time had come,
at which the Son of God had to become the Son of man.
8. All, therefore, are outside of the [Christian]
dispensation, who, under pretext of knowledge, understand that Jesus was
one, and Christ another, and the Only-begotten another, from whom again
is the Word, and that the Saviour is another, whom these disciples of
error allege to be a production of those who were made Æons in a state
of degeneracy. Such men are to outward appearance sheep; for they appear
to be like us, by what they say in public, repeating the same words as we
do; but inwardly they are wolves. Their doctrine is homicidal, conjuring
up, as it does, a number of gods, and simulating many Fathers, but
lowering and dividing the Son of God in many ways. These are they against
whom the Lord has cautioned us beforehand; and His disciple, in his
Epistle already mentioned, commands us to avoid them, when he says:
“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an
antichrist. Take heed to them, that ye lose not what ye have
wrought.”3604
| 3604
2 John 7; 8. Irenæus seems to have read αὐτούς instead of
ἑαυτούς, as in
the received text. | And again does he say in the Epistle:
“Many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye
the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh is of God; and every spirit which separates Jesus Christ is
not of God, but is of antichrist.”3605
| 3605 1 John iv. 1, 2. This is a material
difference from the received text of the passage: “Every spirit
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” The
Vulgate translation and Origen agree with Irenæus, and Tertullian seems
to recognise both readings (Adv. Marc., v. 16). Socrates tells us
(vii. 32, p. 381) that the passage had been corrupted by those who wished
to separate the humanity of Christ from His divinity, and that the old
copies read, πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ λύει τὸν ᾽Ιησοῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστι, which
exactly agrees with Origen’s quotation, and very nearly with that
of Irenæus, now before us. Polycarp (Ep., c. vii.) seems to
allude to the passage as we have it now, and so does Ignatius (Ep.
Smyr., c. v.). See the question discussed by Burton, in his
Ante-Nicene Testimonies [to the Div. of Christ. Another
work of Burton has a similar name. See British Critic, vol. ii. (of
1827), p. 265]. | These words agree with what was said in the
Gospel, that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”
Wherefore he again exclaims in his Epistle, “Every one that
believeth that Jesus is the Christ, has been born of God;”3606
knowing Jesus Christ to be one and the same, to
whom the gates of heaven were opened, because of His taking upon Him
flesh: who shall also come in the same flesh in which He suffered,
revealing the glory of the Father.
9. Concurring with these statements, Paul, speaking to
the Romans, declares: “Much more they who receive abundance of
grace and righteousness for [eternal] life, shall reign by one, Christ
Jesus.”3607
It follows from this, that
he knew nothing of that Christ who flew away from Jesus; nor did he of
the Saviour above, whom they hold to be impassible. For if, in
truth, the one suffered, and the other remained incapable of
suffering, and the one was born, but the other descended upon him who was
born, and left him again, it is not one, but two, that are shown forth.
But that the apostle did know Him as one, both who was born and who
suffered, namely Christ Jesus, he again says in the same Epistle:
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized in Christ Jesus
were baptized in His death? that like as Christ rose from the dead, so
should we also walk in newness of life.”3608
But again, showing that Christ did suffer, and was Himself the
Son of God, who died for us, and redeemed us with His blood at the time
appointed beforehand, he says: “For how is it, that Christ, when we
were yet without strength, in due time died for the ungodly? But God
commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified by His blood, we
shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”3609
| 3609 Rom. v. 6–10.
Irenæus appears to have read, as does the Vulgate, εἰς τί γάρ, for ἔτι γάρ in text.
rec. | He declares in the plainest manner, that the same
Being who was laid hold of, and underwent suffering, and shed His blood
for us, was both Christ and the Son of God, who did also rise again, and
was taken up into heaven, as he himself [Paul] says: “But at the
same time, [it, is] Christ [that] died, yea rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God.”3610
And again, “Knowing that Christ, rising from the dead,
dieth no more:”3611
for, as himself foreseeing,
through the Spirit, the subdivisions of evil teachers [with regard to the
Lord’s person], and being desirous of cutting away from them all
occasion of cavil, he says what has been already stated, [and also
declares:] “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies.”3612
This he
does not utter to those alone who wish to hear: Do not err, [he says to
all:] Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is one and the same, who did by
suffering reconcile us to God, and rose from the dead; who is at the
right hand of the Father, and perfect in all things; “who, when He
was buffeted, struck not in return; who, when He suffered, threatened
not;”3613
and when He underwent tyranny, He
prayed His Father that He would forgive those who had crucified Him. For
He did Himself truly bring in salvation: since He is Himself the Word of
God, Himself the Only-begotten of the Father, Christ Jesus our Lord.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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