Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
What is meant by Paul's words, that the god of this world darkened the reasoning of the faithless. 1. As for what they claim — that Paul openly wrote, in his second letter sent to the church at Corinth, that the deity ruling this present age darkened the reasoning of those without faith — and that from this they infer a god belonging only to this age, distinct from another set above every rule, origin, and dominion — the blame lies not with us if men who claim insight into secrets beyond God cannot even manage to construe Paul rightly. For should someone read him in keeping with his customary manner — as we have already demonstrated elsewhere that he frequently employs transposed word-order — taking it so: "in whom God," then breaking off briefly with a slight pause, and afterward reading what follows as a single continuous clause — "of this age darkened the reasoning of those without faith" — he will discover this to be accurate; so that the sense conveyed becomes: God darkened the reasoning of the faithless belonging to this age. The pointing of the sentence itself bears this out. Paul is not naming "the god of this age" as if acknowledging some further deity above the true one; rather he was simply acknowledging God as God, while describing as "faithless of this age" those who will have no share in the incorruptible age to come. In what manner God darkened the reasoning of the faithless we will explain from Paul's own words as this discussion moves forward, so as not, for now, to wander too far off from the subject before us.
That the Apostle habitually employs this transposed word-order, owing to the rapidity of his speech and the driving impulse of the Spirit within him, one may confirm from many further passages. So also, writing to the Galatians, he states: what purpose, then, does the law of deeds serve? It was appended, to remain in force until the offspring should arrive to whom the pledge had been given, set in place through messengers by a go-between's hand. For the true sequence runs rather: what purpose, then, does the law of deeds serve? It was set in place through messengers by a go-between's hand, and appended, to remain until the offspring should arrive to whom the pledge had been given — as if one voice were posing the question and the Spirit supplying the reply. And once more, writing his second letter to the Thessalonians concerning the Antichrist, he says: the lawless figure will then be unveiled, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath from his mouth and abolish at the brightness of his arrival — that one whose arrival follows Satan's operation, accompanied by every kind of power, and portents, and deceptive marvels. Here again the true sequence of the words runs: the lawless figure will then be unveiled, whose arrival follows Satan's operation, accompanied by every kind of power, and portents, and deceptive marvels, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath from his mouth and abolish at the brightness of his arrival. For he does not intend that the Lord's arrival should follow Satan's operation, but rather the arrival of the lawless figure — the very one we also name Antichrist. Now if a reader fails to attend properly and does not mark the breathing-pauses where they belong, the outcome will be not merely awkward but downright blasphemous, as though it were the Lord's own arrival that followed Satan's operation. Just as, then, this transposed order must in such instances be brought out through the reading, with the Apostle's sense thereby kept intact, so here too we ought not read "the god of this age" but rather grasp "God" — whom we rightly confess as God — and understand that those blinded in their unbelief are "of this age," seeing that they will have no portion in the life of the age still to come.