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| Chapter XX.—That one God formed all things in the world, by means of the Word and the Holy Spirit: and that although He is to us in this life invisible and incomprehensible, nevertheless He is not unknown; inasmuch as His works do declare Him, and His Word has shown that in many modes He may be seen and known.
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Chapter XX.—That one God formed all
things in the world, by means of the Word and the Holy Spirit: and that
although He is to us in this life invisible and incomprehensible, nevertheless
He is not unknown; inasmuch as His works do declare Him, and His Word has shown
that in many modes He may be seen and known.
1. As regards His
greatness, therefore, it is not possible to know God, for it is
impossible that the Father can be measured; but as regards His love (for
this it is which leads us to God by His Word), when we obey Him, we do
always learn that there is so great a God, and that it is He who by
Himself has established, and selected, and adorned, and contains all
things; and among the all things, both ourselves and this our world. We
also then were made, along with those things which are contained by Him.
And this is He of whom the Scripture says, “And God formed man,
taking clay of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of
life.”4063
It was not angels,
therefore, who made us, nor who formed us, neither had angels power to
make an image of God, nor any one else, except the Word of the Lord, nor
any Power remotely distant from the Father of all things. For God did not
stand in need of these [beings], in order to the accomplishing of what He
had Himself determined with Himself beforehand should be done, as if He
did not possess His own hands. For with Him were always present the
Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom,
freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He
speaks, saying, “Let Us make man after Our image and
likeness;”4064
He taking from Himself the
substance of the creatures [formed], and the pattern of things made, and
the type of all the adornments in the world.
2. Truly, then, the Scripture declared, which says,
“First4065
| 4065 This
quotation is taken from the Shepherd of Hermas, book ii. sim.
1. | of all believe that there is one God, who has established
all things, and completed them, and having caused that from what had no
being, all things should come into existence:” He who contains all
things, and is Himself contained by no one. Rightly also has Malachi said
among the prophets: “Is it not one God who hath established us?
Have we not all one Father?”4066
In
accordance with this, too, does the apostle say, “There is one God,
the Father, who is above all, and in us all.”4067
Likewise does the Lord also say: “All things are delivered
to Me by My Father;”4068
manifestly by Him who made all things; for He did not deliver to Him the
things of another, but His own. But in all things [it is implied
that] nothing has been kept back [from Him], and for this reason the same
person is the Judge of the living and the dead; “having the key of
David: He shall open, and no man shall shut: He shall shut, and no man
shall open.”4069
For no one was able, either
in heaven or in earth, or under the earth, to open the book of the
Father, or to behold Him, with the exception of the Lamb who was slain,
and who redeemed us with His own blood, receiving power over all things
from the same God who made all things by the Word, and adorned them by
[His] Wisdom, when “the Word was made flesh;” that even as
the Word of God had the sovereignty in the heavens, so also might He have
the sovereignty in earth, inasmuch as [He was] a righteous man,
“who did no sin, neither was there found guile in His
mouth;”4070
and that He might have
the pre-eminence over those things which are under the earth, He Himself
being made “the first-begotten of the dead;”4071
and that all things, as I have already said, might behold their
King; and that the paternal light might meet with and rest upon the flesh
of our Lord, and come to us from His resplendent flesh, and that thus man
might attain to immortality, having been invested with the paternal
light.
3. I have also largely demonstrated, that the Word,
namely the Son, was always with the Father; and that Wisdom also, which
is the Spirit, was present with Him, anterior to all creation, He
declares by Solomon: “God by Wisdom founded the earth, and by
understanding hath He established the heaven. By His knowledge the depths
burst forth, and the clouds dropped down the dew.”4072
And again: “The Lord created me the
beginning of His ways in His work: He set me up from everlasting, in the
beginning, before He made the earth, before He established the depths,
and before the fountains of waters gushed forth; before the mountains
were made strong, and before all the hills, He brought me
forth.”4073
| 4073
Prov. viii. 22–25. [This is one of the
favourite Messianic quotations of the Fathers, and is considered as the
base of the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel.] | And
again: “When He prepared the heaven, I was with Him, and when He
established the fountains of the deep; when He made the foundations of
the earth strong, I was with Him preparing [them]. I was He in whom He
rejoiced, and throughout all time I was daily glad before His face, when
He rejoiced at the completion of the world, and was delighted in the sons
of men.”4074
4. There is therefore one God, who by the Word and
Wisdom created and arranged all things; but this is the Creator
(Demiurge) who has granted this world to the human race, and who, as
regards His greatness, is indeed unknown to all who have been made by Him
(for no man has searched out His height, either among the ancients who
have gone to their rest, or any of those who are now alive); but as
regards His love, He is always known through Him by whose means He
ordained all things. Now this is His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in
the last times was made a man among men, that He might join the end to
the beginning, that is, man to God. Wherefore the prophets, receiving the
prophetic gift from the same Word, announced His advent according to the
flesh, by which the blending and communion of God and man took place
according to the good pleasure of the Father, the Word of God foretelling
from the beginning that God should be seen by men, and hold converse with
them upon earth, should confer with them, and should be present with His
own creation, saving it, and becoming capable of being perceived by it,
and freeing us from the hands of all that hate us, that is, from every
spirit of wickedness; and causing us to serve Him in holiness and
righteousness all our days,4075
in
order that man, having embraced the Spirit of God, might pass into the
glory of the Father.
5. These things did the prophets set forth in a
prophetical manner; but they did not, as some allege, [proclaim] that He
who was seen by the prophets was a different [God], the Father of
all being invisible. Yet this is what those [heretics] declare,
who are altogether ignorant of the nature of prophecy. For prophecy is a
prediction of things future, that is, a setting forth beforehand of those
things which shall be afterwards. The prophets, then, indicated beforehand that
God should be seen by men; as the Lord also says, “Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God.”4076
But in respect to His greatness, and His wonderful glory,
“no man shall see God and live,”4077
for the Father is incomprehensible; but in regard to His love,
and kindness, and as to His infinite power, even this He grants to those
who love Him, that is, to see God, which thing the prophets did also
predict. “For those things that are impossible with men, are
possible with God.”4078
For man
does not see God by his own powers; but when He pleases He is seen by
men, by whom He wills, and when He wills, and as He wills. For God is
powerful in all things, having been seen at that time indeed,
prophetically through the Spirit, and seen, too, adoptively through the
Son; and He shall also be seen paternally in the kingdom of heaven, the
Spirit truly preparing man in the Son4079
| 4079 Some read “in filium” instead of “in
filio,” as above. | of God, and the Son leading him to
the Father, while the Father, too, confers [upon him] incorruption for
eternal life, which comes to every one from the fact of his seeing God.
For as those who see the light are within the light, and partake of its
brilliancy; even so, those who see God are in God, and receive of His
splendour. But [His] splendour vivifies them; those, therefore, who see
God, do receive life. And for this reason, He, [although] beyond
comprehension, and boundless and invisible, rendered Himself visible, and
comprehensible, and within the capacity of those who believe, that He
might vivify those who receive and behold Him through faith.4080
| 4080 A part of the original Greek
text is preserved here, and has been followed, as it makes the better
sense. | For as His greatness is past finding out, so also His
goodness is beyond expression; by which having been seen, He bestows life
upon those who see Him. It is not possible to live apart from life, and
the means of life is found in fellowship with God; but fellowship with
God is to know God, and to enjoy His goodness.
6. Men therefore shall see God, that they may live,
being made immortal by that sight, and attaining even unto God; which, as
I have already said, was declared figuratively by the prophets, that God
should be seen by men who bear His Spirit [in them], and do always wait
patiently for His coming. As also Moses says in Deuteronomy, “We
shall see in that day that God will talk to man, and he shall
live.”4081
For certain of these men
used to see the prophetic Spirit and His active influences poured forth
for all kinds of gifts; others, again, [beheld] the advent of the Lord,
and that dispensation which obtained from the beginning, by which He
accomplished the will of the Father with regard to things both celestial
and terrestrial; and others [beheld] paternal glories adapted to the
times, and to those who saw and who heard them then, and to all who were
subsequently to hear them. Thus, therefore, was God revealed; for God the
Father is shown forth through all these [operations], the Spirit indeed
working, and the Son ministering, while the Father was approving, and
man’s salvation being accomplished. As He also declares through
Hosea the prophet: “I,” He says, “have multiplied
visions, and have used similitudes by the ministry (in manibus) of
the prophets.”4082
But the apostle expounded
this very passage, when he said, “Now there are diversities of
gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of ministrations,
but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the
same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is
given to every man to profit withal.”4083
But as He who worketh all things in all
is God, [as to the points] of what nature and how great He is, [God] is
invisible and indescribable to all things which have been made by Him,
but He is by no means unknown: for all things learn through His Word that
there is one God the Father, who contains all things, and who grants
existence to all, as is written in the Gospel: “No man hath seen
God at any time, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the
Father; He has declared [Him].”4084
7. Therefore the Son of the Father declares [Him]
from the beginning, inasmuch as He was with the Father from the
beginning, who did also show to the human race prophetic visions, and
diversities of gifts, and His own ministrations, and the glory of the
Father, in regular order and connection, at the fitting time for the
benefit [of mankind]. For where there is a regular succession, there is
also fixedness; and where fixedness, there suitability to the period; and
where suitability, there also utility. And for this reason did the Word
become the dispenser of the paternal grace for the benefit of men, for
whom He made such great dispensations, revealing God indeed to men, but
presenting man to God, and preserving at the same time the invisibility
of the Father, lest man should at any time become a despiser of God, and
that he should
always possess something towards which he
might advance; but, on the other hand, revealing God to men through many
dispensations, lest man, falling away from God altogether, should cease
to exist. For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man
consists in beholding God. For if the manifestation of God which is made
by means of the creation, affords life to all living in the earth, much
more does that revelation of the Father which comes through the Word,
give life to those who see God.
8. Inasmuch, then, as the Spirit of
God pointed out by the prophets things to come, forming and adapting us
beforehand for the purpose of our being made subject to God, but it was
still a future thing that man, through the good pleasure of the Holy
Spirit, should see [God], it necessarily behoved those through whose
instrumentality future things were announced, to see God, whom they
intimated as to be seen by men; in order that God, and the Son of God,
and the Son, and the Father, should not only be prophetically announced,
but that He should also be seen by all His members who are sanctified and
instructed in the things of God, that man might be disciplined beforehand
and previously exercised for a reception into that glory which shall
afterwards be revealed in those who love God. For the prophets used not
to prophesy in word alone, but in visions also, and in their mode of
life, and in the actions which they performed, according to the
suggestions of the Spirit. After this invisible manner, therefore, did
they see God, as also Esaias says, “I have seen with mine eyes the
King, the Lord of
hosts,”4085
pointing out that man should
behold God with his eyes, and hear His voice. In this manner, therefore,
did they also see the Son of God as a man conversant with men, while they
prophesied what was to happen, saying that He who was not come as yet was
present proclaiming also the impassible as subject to suffering, and
declaring that He who was then in heaven had descended into the dust of
death.4086
Moreover, [with regard to] the other
arrangements concerning the summing up that He should make, some of these
they beheld through visions, others they proclaimed by word, while others
they indicated typically by means of [outward] action, seeing visibly
those things which were to be seen; heralding by word of mouth those
which should be heard; and performing by actual operation what should
take place by action; but [at the same time] announcing all
prophetically. Wherefore also Moses declared that God was indeed a
consuming fire4087
(igneum) to the
people that transgressed the law, and threatened that God would bring
upon them a day of fire; but to those who had the fear of God he said,
“The Lord God is
merciful and gracious, and long-suffering, and of great commiseration,
and true, and keeps justice and mercy for thousands, forgiving
unrighteousness, and transgressions, and sins.”4088
9. And the Word spake to Moses, appearing before him,
“just as any one might speak to his friend.”4089
But Moses desired to see Him openly who was speaking with him,
and was thus addressed: “Stand in the deep place of the rock, and
with My hand I will cover thee. But when My splendour shall pass by, then
thou shalt see My back parts, but My face thou shalt not see: for no man
sees My face, and shall live.”4090
Two facts are thus signified: that it is impossible for man to
see God; and that, through the wisdom of God, man shall see Him in the
last times, in the depth of a rock, that is, in His coming as a man. And
for this reason did He [the Lord] confer with him face to face on the top
of a mountain, Elias being also present, as the Gospel relates,4091
He thus making good in the end the ancient
promise.
10. The prophets, therefore, did not openly behold the
actual face of God, but [they saw] the dispensations and the mysteries
through which man should afterwards see God. As was also said to Elias:
“Thou shalt go forth tomorrow, and stand in the presence of the
Lord; and, behold, a wind
great and strong, which shall rend the mountains, and break the rocks in
pieces before the Lord. And
the Lord [was] not in the
wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord [was] not in the earthquake;
and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord [was] not in the fire; and
after the fire a scarcely audible voice” (vox auræ
tenuis).4092
For by such means was the
prophet—very indignant, because of the transgression of the
people and the slaughter of the prophets—both taught to act in a
more gentle manner; and the Lord’s advent as a man was pointed out,
that it should be subsequent to that law which was given by Moses, mild
and tranquil, in which He would neither break the bruised reed, nor
quench the smoking flax.4093
The mild and peaceful
repose of His kingdom was indicated likewise. For, after the wind which
rends the mountains, and after the earthquake, and after the fire, come
the tranquil and peaceful times of His kingdom, in which the spirit of
God does, in the most gentle manner, vivify and increase mankind. This,
too, was made still clearer by Ezekiel, that the prophets
saw the dispensations of God in part, but not actually God
Himself. For when this man had seen the vision4094
of God, and the cherubim, and their wheels, and when he had
recounted the mystery of the whole of that progression, and had beheld
the likeness of a throne above them, and upon the throne a likeness as of
the figure of a man, and the things which were upon his loins as the
figure of amber, and what was below like the sight of fire, and when he
set forth all the rest of the vision of the thrones, lest any one might
happen to think that in those [visions] he had actually seen God, he
added: “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of
God.”4095
11. If, then, neither Moses, nor Elias, nor Ezekiel,
who had all many celestial visions, did see God; but if what they did see
were similitudes of the splendour of the Lord, and prophecies of things
to come; it is manifest that the Father is indeed invisible, of whom also
the Lord said, “No man hath seen God at any time.”4096
But His Word, as He Himself willed it, and for
the benefit of those who beheld, did show the Father’s brightness,
and explained His purposes (as also the Lord said: “The
only-begotten God,4097
| 4097
“This text, as quoted a short time ago, indicated ‘the
only-begotten Son;’ but the agreement of the Syriac version induces
the belief that the present reading was that expressed by Irenæus, and
that the previous quotation has been corrected to suit the Vulgate. The
former reading, however, occurs in book iii. c. xi. 5.”—
Harvey. | which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared [Him];” and He does
Himself also interpret the Word of the Father as being rich and great);
not in one figure, nor in one character, did He appear to those seeing
Him, but according to the reasons and effects aimed at in His
dispensations, as it is written in Daniel. For at one time He was seen
with those who were around Ananias, Azarias, Misaël, as present with them
in the furnace of fire, in the burning, and preserving them from [the
effects of] fire: “And the appearance of the fourth,” it is
said, “was like to the Son of God.”4098
At another time [He is represented as] “a stone cut out of
the mountain without hands,”4099
and
as smiting all temporal kingdoms, and as blowing them away (ventilans
ea), and as Himself filling all the earth. Then, too, is this same
individual beheld as the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, and
drawing near to the Ancient of Days, and receiving from Him all power and
glory, and a kingdom. “His dominion,” it is said, “is
an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom shall not perish.”4100
John also, the Lord’s disciple, when
beholding the sacerdotal and glorious advent of His kingdom, says in the
Apocalypse: “I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And,
being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the
candlesticks One like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment
reaching to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle; and
His head and His hairs were white, as white as wool, and as snow; and His
eyes were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto fine brass, as if He
burned in a furnace. And His voice [was] as the voice of waters; and He
had in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth went a sharp
two-edged sword; and His countenance was as the sun shining in his
strength.”4101
For in these words He sets
forth something of the glory [which He has received] from His Father, as
[where He makes mention of] the head; something in reference to the
priestly office also, as in the case of the long garment reaching to the
feet. And this was the reason why Moses vested the high priest after this
fashion. Something also alludes to the end [of all things], as [where He
speaks of] the fine brass burning in the fire, which denotes the power of
faith, and the continuing instant in prayer, because of the consuming
fire which is to come at the end of time. But when John could not endure
the sight (for he says, “I fell at his feet as dead;”4102
that what was written might come to pass:
“No man sees God, and shall live”4103
), and the Word reviving him, and reminding him that it was He
upon whose bosom he had leaned at supper, when he put the question as to
who should betray Him, declared: “I am the first and the last, and
He who liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and have
the keys of death and of hell.” And after these things, seeing the
same Lord in a second vision, he says: “For I saw in the midst of
the throne, and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the
elders, a Lamb standing as it had been slain, having seven horns, and
seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the
earth.”4104
And again, he says, speaking
of this very same Lamb: “And behold a white horse; and He that sat
upon him was called Faithful and True; and in righteousness doth He judge
and make war. And His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were
many crowns; having a name written, that no man knoweth but Himself: and
He was girded around with a vesture sprinkled with blood: and His name is
called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven followed Him upon white
horses, clothed in pure white linen. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp
sword, that with it He may smite the nations; and He shall
rule (pascet) them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth
the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of God Almighty. And He
hath upon His vesture and upon His thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of
Lords.”4105
Thus does the
Word of God always preserve the outlines, as it were, of things to come,
and points out to men the various forms (species), as it were, of
the dispensations of the Father, teaching us the things pertaining to
God.
12. However, it was not by means of visions alone which
were seen, and words which were proclaimed, but also in actual works,
that He was beheld by the prophets, in order that through them He might
prefigure and show forth future events beforehand. For this reason did
Hosea the prophet take “a wife of whoredoms,” prophesying by
means of the action, “that in committing fornication the earth
should fornicate from the Lord,”4106
that is, the men who are upon the earth; and from men of this
stamp it will be God’s good pleasure to take out4107
a Church which shall be sanctified by fellowship with His Son,
just as that woman was sanctified by intercourse with the prophet. And
for this reason, Paul declares that the “unbelieving wife is
sanctified by the believing husband.”4108
| 4108 1 Cor. vii. 14. [But
Hosea himself says (Hos. xii. 10), “I have
used similitudes;” and this history may be fairly referred to
prophetic vision. Dr. Pusey, in his Minor Prophets, in loc.,
argues against this view, however; and his reasons deserve
consideration.] | Then again, the prophet names his children,
“Not having obtained mercy,” and “Not a
people,”4109
in order that, as
says the apostle, “what was not a people may become a people; and
she who did not obtain mercy may obtain mercy. And it shall come to pass,
that in the place where it was said, This is not a people, there shall
they be called the children of the living God.”4110
That which had been done typically through his actions by the
prophet, the apostle proves to have been done truly by Christ in the
Church. Thus, too, did Moses also take to wife an Ethiopian woman, whom
he thus made an Israelitish one, showing by anticipation that the wild
olive tree is grafted into the cultivated olive, and made to partake of
its fatness. For as He who was born Christ according to the flesh, had
indeed to be sought after by the people in order to be slain, but was to
be set free in Egypt, that is, among the Gentiles, to sanctify those who
were there in a state of infancy, from whom also He perfected His Church
in that place (for Egypt was Gentile from the beginning, as was Ethiopia
also); for this reason, by means of the marriage of Moses, was shown
forth the marriage of the Word;4111
| 4111 The text is here uncertain; and while the general
meaning of the sentence is plain, its syntax is confused and obscure.
| and by means of the Ethiopian bride, the Church taken from among
the Gentiles was made manifest; and those who do detract from, accuse,
and deride it, shall not be pure. For they shall be full of leprosy, and
expelled from the camp of the righteous. Thus also did Rahab the harlot,
while condemning herself, inasmuch as she was a Gentile, guilty of all
sins, nevertheless receive the three spies,4112
| 4112 Irenæus seems here to have written
“three” for “two” from a lapse of memory.
| who were spying out all the land, and hid them at her home;
[which three were] doubtless [a type of] the Father and the Son, together
with the Holy Spirit. And when the entire city in which she lived fell to
ruins at the sounding of the seven trumpets, Rahab the harlot was
preserved, when all was over [in ultimis], together with all her
house, through faith of the scarlet sign; as the Lord also declared to
those who did not receive His advent,—the Pharisees, no doubt,
nullify the sign of the scarlet thread, which meant the passover, and the
redemption and exodus of the people from Egypt,—when He said,
“The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before
you.”4113
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