Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Chapter 28. That we cannot have complete knowledge in this life. Holding, then, the rule that is the truth itself, and the plainly given testimony concerning God, we ought not, by turning aside into resolving one question after another, to throw away our sure and genuine grasp of God. Rather, we should direct our efforts at resolving questions toward this pattern: it is fitting to be exercised in it, but to live our lives loving him who has accomplished such great things on our behalf and who is most clearly proclaimed as being alone truly God and Father — who made this world, and formed man, and granted increase within his own creation; who brings forth into the light of the sun what was conceived, small as it is, in the womb, and who, after wheat has grown strong within the stalk, stores it in the granary. And it is one and the same Demiurge who formed the womb and created the sun; and it is one and the same Lord who brought forth the stalk and, causing the wheat to grow, multiplied it and prepared the granary.
But if we cannot find resolutions for everything that is asked about in the Scriptures, let us nevertheless not seek some other God besides the one who exists — for this would be the greatest impiety. We ought instead to yield such matters to God, who also made us, knowing full well that the Scriptures are indeed flawless, seeing that they were uttered through God's Word together with his Spirit, while we, being lesser and coming later in time than God's Word along with his Spirit, are correspondingly lacking in the knowledge of his mysteries. Nor is it surprising that we suffer this with regard to spiritual and heavenly things, and things that are still to be revealed, when even of the things that lie before our very feet — I mean the things in this created world, which we can touch and see and which are with us — many escape our knowledge, and we entrust these very things to God, for it belongs to him to exceed all things. For suppose we should attempt to account for why the Nile rises as it does? We would say many things, some perhaps persuasive, some perhaps not; but what is true, certain, and firm lies with God. And likewise the habits of migratory birds, which arrive among us in spring and depart again as soon as autumn comes — even though this happens in this world, it escapes our knowledge. What can we explain about the ebb and flow of the ocean, though it is certain that there is a fixed cause for it? Or what can we say about what lies beyond it, and of what sort it is? What can we say of how rains, and flashes of lightning, and thunders, and the gathering of clouds, and mists, and the sending forth of winds, and similar things come about; and can we also declare the storehouses of snow and hail and things akin to these; what is the formation of clouds, or the condition of mist, or what is the cause by which the moon waxes and wanes, or the cause of the differences among waters, metals, stones, and things like these? In all these matters we would merely talk on, seeking their causes; but only God, who alone is truthful, actually makes them.
If, then, even in the case of created things, some matters lie close to God alone while others have come within our own knowledge, what is wrong if, among the things sought out in the Scriptures — all the Scriptures being spiritual — we resolve some by the grace of God, while committing others to God, and this not only in this age but also in the age to come? Thus God will always be teaching, and man will always be learning the things that come from God. As the Apostle said, when the other parts are done away, these then remain: faith, hope, and love. For faith in our Teacher always stands firm, assuring us that He alone is truly God; and so that we may always love God in truth, since He alone is the Father; and that we may hope to receive ever more, and to learn from God, because He is good, and possesses riches beyond reckoning, and a kingdom without end, and teaching without measure. If, then, in the manner we have described, we commit some of these questions to God, we shall both keep our faith intact and continue without danger, and every Scripture given to us by God will be found consistent with itself; the parables will harmonize with what is plainly stated, and the plain statements will explain the parables; and through the many voices of its words we shall perceive in ourselves one harmonious melody, praising with hymns the God who made all things. For example, suppose someone poses the question: 'What occupied God before He fashioned the world?' our reply is that such a question belongs to God alone. For that this cosmos was fashioned by God, taking its start within time, is what the Scriptures instruct us; yet what occupied God prior to that, no Scripture discloses. This answer, then, belongs to God; we ought not, in foolishness and undisciplined blasphemy, to try to invent explanations, and so, supposing we have discovered the origin of matter, reject the very God who made all things. [HOW THEIR EMANATIONS ARE NOT EVEN CONSISTENT WITH ONE ANOTHER] Consider, then, all you who invent such things: the Father alone is called God, and He truly is — this very one whom you call the Demiurge; and yet the Scriptures acknowledge this God and no other, and the Lord owns this same God as His very own Father, recognizing none besides Him, as we shall demonstrate from His own sayings. When, concerning the very phrase 'And God saw that it was good,' you say that through such worlds this was the fruit of a defect and the offspring of ignorance, not knowing what lay above him — and whatever else you say of him — consider the magnitude of the blasphemy against Him who is truly God. This blindness and this foolish talk come upon you because you reserve nothing to God, but wish to declare the births and emanations of God Himself, and of His Ennoea, and of the Word, and of Life, and of Christ, taking these from nowhere else but from human feelings. You fail to understand that in man, a composite living being, it is fitting to speak of a 'sense' in this way, as we said before, but not of a 'logos.' For among the Greeks 'logos' means one thing as the ruling principle that thinks, and another as the instrument through which the logos is uttered; and man is sometimes silent and at rest, sometimes speaking and active. [PROOF THAT MIND IS LOGOS AND LOGOS IS MIND, AND THAT HE HIMSELF IS THE FATHER OF ALL] But God, being entirely Mind, entirely Reason, entirely active Spirit, and entirely Light, and ever constant, subsisting always in the same fashion — this being how it befits us to conceive of God, and as the Scriptures instruct us on the matter — such passions and divisions can no longer rightly be ascribed to Him. [Here the text teaches that Satan does not dare to utter this blasphemy.] For the sense of men, because of its spiritual object, is not adequately served by the tongue, the tongue being itself fleshly; hence our inward word is stifled and is not brought forth all at once, just as it was conceived by the mind, but part by part, according to what the tongue is able to convey. [THAT THE SON HAS HIS EMISSION FROM THE FATHER] But God, being wholly Mind and wholly Logos, what He thinks, that He also speaks, and what He speaks, that He also thinks. For what He thinks is Logos, and that Logos is itself Mind, and this all-containing Mind — that is the Father. Whoever, then, speaks of the Mind of God and grants to that Mind an emission of its own, declares Him composite, as though God were one thing and the ruling Mind existing in Him another. Likewise again with the Logos: granting Him a third emission from the Father — whence they also misjudge His greatness — they have thereby separated the Logos far from God. And the prophet says of Him: 'Who shall declare his generation?' But you, guessing at His generation from the Father, and transferring to the Word of God an emission modeled on the human word produced through the tongue, are rightly told that our own word is stifled within us before it can be uttered; you are covered with shame by your own arguments, for you know neither human things nor divine.
[HOW THE LORD CONCEDES CERTAIN THINGS TO THE FATHER] Unreasonably puffed up, you boldly claim to know the inexpressible mysteries of God — although the Lord himself, the Son of God, conceded that the Father alone possesses knowledge of that day and hour of judgment, declaring in plain terms: 'Concerning that day and hour, none has knowledge — not the Son himself, but the Father alone.' Seeing, then, that the Son felt no shame in referring the knowledge of that day back to the Father, but spoke honestly, let us likewise feel no shame in committing to God those weightier matters that arise among our own questions. For no one is above his teacher. If, then, someone should ask us: 'How, then, was the Son brought forth from the Father?' we tell him that this emission — whether one calls it generation, or naming, or opening-forth, or by whatever name he chooses for His inexpressible generation — is unknown to Saturninus and to Basilides alike, unknown to angels and to archangels, to principalities and to powers — known to none save the Father who did the begetting, and the Son who was thereby begotten. Since, then, His generation is inexpressible, whoever attempts to explain such generations and emissions is not in his right mind, promising to explain what cannot be explained. For that a word is emitted from thought and sense — this all men know well. Those, then, who devised these emissions have discovered nothing great, nor any hidden mystery, if they have merely transferred what everyone understands onto the only-begotten Word of God; and Him whom they call inexpressible and unnameable, they nevertheless declare — as though they themselves had served as midwives — the emission and generation of His first begetting.
We shall not go wrong in saying the same thing also about the substance of matter — namely, that God brought it forth. For the Scriptures have taught us that dominion over all things rests with God. But from what, or in what manner, He brought it forth, no Scripture has declared; and we should not go inventing endless private opinions about God, but should grant that this knowledge belongs to God. Likewise too the reason why, although all things were made by God, some transgressed and fell away from subjection to God, while others — indeed the greater number — have persevered and continue to persevere in subjection to Him who made them; and of what nature are those that transgressed, and of what nature those that persevere — this too we ought to yield to God and to His Word, the one to whom alone was spoken: 'Take your seat at my right hand, until I have made your enemies a footstool beneath you.' We, however, remaining still on earth, have not yet taken our seat upon His throne. For though the Spirit of the Savior dwelling within Him searches out all things, even the very depths of God, yet so far as we ourselves are concerned, there are divisions of graces, and divisions of ministries, and divisions of operations, and we upon earth, as Paul also says, know in part and prophesy in part. As, then, we know in part, so too concerning all such questions we ought to yield to Him who grants us grace only in part. [Chapter 43.] Since it is plain that eternal fire has been prepared for transgressors, and the Lord has said this openly, and the rest of the Scriptures show it; and that God foreknew this would happen, the Scriptures likewise show, just as, from the very outset, He made ready an unending fire for those destined to transgress; but the very cause of the nature of those who transgress no Scripture has related, nor has the apostle stated, nor has the Lord taught. We ought, then, to leave this knowledge to God, just as the Lord left the hour and the day; and we should not run such a risk as to grant God nothing at all, receiving even these things only in part. For when we inquire into things that are above us, and which it is not given us to attain, we ought not to fall into such presumption as to suppose we have laid bare God and things not yet discovered — as though we had already found, in the idle talk about emissions, that God the maker of all things Himself derived His being from defect and ignorance — and so to fashion an argument impious against God.
After this, moreover, they have no testimony at all for this fiction which they have recently invented — sometimes trying to establish their fabulous account by means of certain numbers, sometimes by syllables, sometimes by names, sometimes even by the letters found in writing, sometimes by parables wrongly interpreted, or by mere conjectures. [WHAT IS THE REASON WHY THE FATHER ALONE KNOWS THE DAY] For if anyone should ask the reason why, although the Father shares all things in common with the Son, the Lord declared that the Father alone knows the hour and the day, he will discover, upon reflection, no reply more fitting, more apt, or safer than this: that inasmuch as the Lord alone is the true Teacher, it is through Him we come to grasp that the Father surpasses all things in greatness. For, as He himself states, 'the Father is greater than I.' The Father, then, has been declared by our Lord to be superior in knowledge, to this end: that we too, so far as we exist within the pattern of this world, should yield to God perfect knowledge and such questions as these — lest, perhaps, while seeking to search out the depths of the Father, we fall into so great a danger as to ask whether there is another God above God. But if anyone, loving contention, should contradict what we have said and what the Apostle has reported — namely, that our knowledge is partial and our prophecy likewise partial — supposing that he himself, being some Valentinus, or Ptolemy, or Basilides, or one of those who claim to have searched out the depths of God, has grasped, not in part, but wholly and universally, the entire knowledge of these things — let him not adorn himself with empty boasting over things invisible or things that cannot be demonstrated, boasting that he has learned more than the rest; but rather let him inquire diligently into the causes of things in this world which we do not know — for instance, the number of the hairs of his own head, and about the sparrows caught each day, and the other things not foreseen by us — and let him learn these from the Father, and report them to us, so that we may believe him also concerning greater things. But if those who claim to be perfect do not yet know the things that are in their hands, and before their feet, and before their eyes, and the things of earth, and above all the arrangement of the hairs of their own head, how shall we believe them concerning spiritual and supercelestial things, and the things which, by vain persuasion, they affirm to be above God? And let this much be said by us concerning their numbers and names and syllables, and concerning the questions about things above us, and about how improperly they expound the parables — since much more could be said by you on this.