Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
In what respect God is known, and how the Father himself, the maker of all things, formed man by his own hands; and how the prophets foretold future things through their actions.
It is not, then, according to his greatness that God is to be known -- for it is impossible to measure the Father -- but according to his love; for it is this love which, through his Word, leads us to God, so that, always obeying him, we learn that so great a God exists, one who by himself established, chose, adorned, and contains all things; and among all things, us also, and this world which belongs to us. We, then, together with the things that are contained, were made by him who contains all things. And this is he of whom Scripture says: "And God shaped man, drawing soil from the ground, and blew into his countenance the breath that gives life." It was therefore not angels who fashioned us or gave us form -- angels being unable to produce a likeness of God -- nor was it anyone else beyond the Lord's own Word, nor any power set at a distance from the universal Father. God required none of these to accomplish what he himself had already resolved within his own purpose should come to be, as if he lacked hands of his own. For always present with him are the Word and Wisdom, that is, the Son and the Spirit, through whom and in whom he made all things freely and of his own will, and to whom he also speaks, saying, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness" -- drawing from his own self the material of the creatures, together with the model for the things fashioned, and the design of the world's adornments.
Well, then, did the Scripture pronounce which says: "First of all believe that God is one, who established all things and completed them, and made all things to be out of that which did not exist" -- he who contains all and is contained by none. Well also did Malachi say among the prophets: "Is there not one God who established us? Is there not one Father of us all?" And accordingly the Apostle too says: "One God, the Father, who is over all, and in all of us." And so too the Lord: "Everything," he states, "has been handed over to me by my Father" -- clearly by the one who made everything, since he handed to him what was properly his own, not something belonging to another. Nothing at all has been kept back; and for that reason this same one serves as arbiter of both the living and the dead, "holding David's key: what he opens, none shall close; what he closes, none shall open." For no one else -- not in heaven, not on earth, not beneath the earth -- was able to unseal the Father's scroll or gaze upon it, save the Lamb once slain, who ransomed us with his own blood -- taking up all authority from that very God who fashioned everything through his Word and arrayed it by Wisdom, when the Word took on flesh, so that, just as the Word of God had held the principality in the heavens, so also he might hold the principality on earth -- since he was a righteous man, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth; and that he might hold the principality also of those who are under the earth, himself having become the firstborn of the dead, so that all might see, as we have said before, their own King; and that the paternal light might reach the flesh of our Lord, and from his flesh might come radiantly to us, and that man might thus attain to incorruption, encompassed by the paternal light.
We have shown by many proofs that the Word, that is, the Son, was always with the Father. But that Wisdom too, who is the Spirit, was with him before every created thing, he declares through Solomon: "God founded the earth by wisdom, and by prudence he prepared the heavens; by his understanding the depths broke open, and the clouds dropped down dew." And again: "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works, he founded me before the ages, at the very outset, prior to his fashioning of the earth, prior to his settling of the depths in place, and prior to the springs of water bursting forth, prior to the mountains being set firm; and before all the hills he begot me." And again: "When he was preparing the heavens, I was with him, and when he made firm the fountains of the deep, and when he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was beside him, fitting all things together. I was the one in whom he rejoiced; and I was glad daily before his face at all times, when he rejoiced over the completed world, and delighted in the sons of men."
There is, then, one God who by his Word and Wisdom made and disposed all things. This is the Demiurge who has assigned this world to the human race, who, as to his greatness, is unknown to all those who were made by him -- for no one, neither the ancients who have gone to rest nor those now living, has traced out his depth -- but in his love he continually makes himself known through the one by whom he arranged all things. And that one is his own Word -- our Lord Jesus Christ -- who came in these final times to be man among men, thereby uniting the beginning with its end -- that is, uniting man with God. For this reason the prophets, having received the gift of prophecy from that very Word, foretold his coming in the flesh, a coming through which the blending and fellowship of God and man came to pass, as pleased the Father well; the Word of God proclaiming ahead of time, from the outset, that God would be seen by men, and that Baruch would dwell among them on earth and converse with them, and would come to rescue us from the grip of all who despise us, that is, from every guise of the spirit of transgression, leading us to minister to him with devotion and uprightness throughout our days, so that man, once he had welcomed the Spirit of God into himself, could pass into the Father's glory.
These things the prophets signified prophetically, but not, as some say, on the supposition that the Father of all is invisible while another is the one who was seen by the prophets. Those who say this simply do not know what prophecy is. For prophecy is a foretelling of things to come, that is, a pre-signifying of what will happen afterward. The prophets, then, foretold that God would be seen by men, just as the Lord also said: "How blessed are those clean of heart, since they will look upon God." Yet in view of his greatness and marvelous glory, "no man will look upon God and go on living," for the Father is beyond grasp; but in view of his love, his kindness, and his capacity to do all things, he grants even this to those who love him -- namely, that they should see God -- which is precisely what the prophets foretold. For "what men cannot do, God can." Man cannot see God on his own initiative; but whenever God wills it, he lets himself be seen by men, by whichever men he chooses, at whatever moment and in whatever manner suits him. For God has power over all things: in ages past he was seen prophetically, by means of the Spirit; now he is seen, in adoption, by means of the Son; and in the coming kingdom of heaven he will be seen in fatherly fashion -- the Spirit making man ready within the Son of God, the Son bringing him onward to the Father, and the Father conferring incorruption unto life without end, which each person receives from gazing upon God.
Just as those standing inside the light share in its brilliance and are surrounded by it, so those who look upon God stand within God, sharing in his brilliance. And this brilliance confers life on them; hence those who look upon God share in life. For this reason he who exceeds all grasp and understanding renders himself visible, understandable, and within reach for men, so that he might give life to those who see and take him in. For just as his vastness cannot be fathomed, neither can his goodness be fully told; and it is through this goodness, once beheld, that he grants life to those who behold him. Since living apart from life is not possible, and life itself has its existence from sharing in God, and sharing in God means looking upon God and delighting in his goodness -- men, then, will look upon God so that they may live, rendered deathless through that sight and drawn all the way to God. This, as noted above, was pictured beforehand through the prophets, namely that God would show himself to men carrying his Spirit within them and looking forward continually to his arrival. So too Moses says in Deuteronomy: "This very day we have witnessed that God converses with man, and man lives." For some among them beheld the prophetic Spirit and its operations poured forth in gifts of every sort; others beheld the Lord's advent and that plan set in place from the first, by which he carried out the Father's will both in the heavens and upon the earth; and others still beheld the Father's glories fitted to their several seasons, both for the onlookers themselves and for their contemporary hearers, and for every future listener. In this way, then, God was disclosed: through all these things the Father is brought into view -- the Spirit at work, the Son ministering, the Father giving approval, and man being carried forward toward salvation's completion. So too through the prophet Hosea he says: "I have multiplied visions, and through the ministry of the prophets I have been given form." And the Apostle unfolded this same truth, saying: "There are various kinds of gifts, yet a single Spirit is behind them; and various kinds of service, yet one and the same Lord governs them; and various kinds of activity, yet one God alone produces every one of them in everyone. To each person is granted a manifestation of the Spirit meant for the common good." But since it is God who produces all things in everyone, what sort of being he is and how vast he is remains hidden and beyond description to everything he has made -- yet he is hardly unknowable, for every creature comes to learn, by way of his Word, that there exists a single God and Father, holding all things together and giving being to everything, exactly as scripture records in the Gospel: "God has never at any time been seen by anyone; it is the only Son, close to the Father's own breast, who has made him known." The Son, accordingly, makes the Father known from the very start, since he has been alongside the Father from the very start, and has disclosed to humankind, in proper order and fitting sequence, the prophetic visions, the assorted gifts, his own acts of service, and the Father's glorification, each at its appointed and beneficial moment. For wherever order exists, harmony follows; and wherever harmony exists, right timing follows; and wherever right timing exists, benefit follows; and so the Word became steward of the Father's grace for the good of mankind, for whose sake he arranged such great dispensations, revealing God to men while presenting man to God, all the while safeguarding the Father's hiddenness so that man would never grow contemptuous toward God and would always retain something further to strive after; and, conversely, revealing God to men in visible form through many dispensations, lest man, drifting entirely away from God, should stop existing altogether. For God's glory shows itself in a living man, and a man's life consists in beholding God. If, then, that display of God which comes by way of creation grants life to everyone who lives on earth, how much more will that display of the Father which comes by way of the Word grant life to those who look upon God.
Since, then, the Spirit of God through the prophets signified things to come, shaping us in advance and readying us so that we would be subject to God; and since it was destined that mankind, by the Holy Spirit's kind favor, would one day look upon God -- those very men through whom the things to come were foretold had to look upon that same God themselves, whom they proclaimed to others as one who would be seen, so that it would not be merely a prophetic claim that God exists, and the Son of God, and Father and Son, but that this would be actually witnessed by everyone whose faculties had been consecrated and schooled in the matters of God, so that man could be shaped and trained beforehand to be fit for that glory which would later be unveiled to those who love God. For the prophets prophesied not only through speech, but also through vision, through their manner of living, and through the actions they carried out, following the Spirit's prompting. In this way, then, they beheld the invisible God, as Isaiah too says: "My own eyes have beheld the King, the Lord of Hosts" -- signifying that man will look upon God with his eyes and hearken to his voice. Yes, in just this way they beheld the Son of God as well, as a man speaking with men, foretelling coming events, presenting as already here the one not yet arrived, proclaiming the one incapable of suffering as one who would undergo it, and setting forth the arrangements of his recapitulation -- some things they beheld in visions, some they declared in words, and some they marked out symbolically through deeds: what could be seen, they saw with their own eyes; what could be heard, they announced aloud; what could be enacted, they carried out in deed; and all of it they set forth prophetically. For this reason Moses declared that to the people who broke the Law, God was a devouring fire, threatening them with a day of flame sent from God; yet to those who revered God he said, "The Lord God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in mercy and faithful, preserving justice and mercy for thousands, forgiving lawlessness and offenses and sins." And the Word did indeed converse with Moses, showing himself before him, the way one friend addresses another. Yet Moses wished to see openly the one conversing with him, and he was told: "Take your place upon the rock's height, and I will shield you with my hand; and once my glory has gone past, you shall see what lies behind, but my face you shall not see, for no man looks upon my face and remains alive" -- pointing to two truths together: that man cannot see God, and that in the final times man would see him through God's wisdom, upon the height of the rock, meaning in the one who came in human form. For this very reason he later conversed with him face to face atop the mountain's height, with Elijah also present, as the Gospel recounts, restoring at that culmination the promise given long before. The prophets, then, did not openly behold God's very face, but rather the arrangements and hidden truths through which mankind would come to behold God. So too it is written: "Watch, the Lord is about to pass by, and watch, a great, forceful wind will split the mountains apart and shatter the rocks in front of the Lord -- yet the Lord was not present in the wind; then, following the wind, an earthquake -- yet the Lord was not present in the earthquake; then, following the earthquake, flame -- yet the Lord was not present within that flame; then, following the flame, a faint whisper of breeze." By these events the prophet, deeply provoked over the people's wrongdoing and over the slaying of the prophets, was schooled toward a gentler bearing, and the Lord's coming in human form was thereby foreshadowed as one that would arrive, following that law delivered through Moses, mild and unassuming -- one who would break neither the crushed reed nor snuff the smoldering wick. And the calm, peaceable repose of his kingdom was likewise indicated. For following the wind that splits the mountains, and following the earthquake, and following the flame, there arrive, out of the settled and tranquil seasons of his reign, days in which God's Spirit, wholly at peace, gives life to man and causes him to flourish. This was made plainer still through Ezekiel, since the prophets glimpsed only in part the arrangements of God, without properly beholding God himself. For when this man of God had witnessed the vision, together with the cherubim and their wheels, and had recounted the entire mystery of their motion, and had glimpsed something resembling a throne set above them, with above that throne a form resembling, as it were, a human figure -- what appeared above the loins like amber, and what appeared below like fire -- and had described the whole remaining vision of the thrones, lest anyone suppose he had thereby properly beheld God, he added: "This was the vision of the likeness of the Lord's glory."
If, then, none of them -- not Moses, not Elijah, not Ezekiel, who witnessed many things concerning heavenly realities -- for what these men witnessed were likenesses of the Lord's radiance and forecasts of things to come -- it stands clear that the Father cannot be seen at all, the very one about whom the Lord likewise stated, "Nobody has ever set eyes on God." Yet his Word, exactly as he himself chose and for the good of those beholding, brought to light the Father's radiance and set forth his arrangements; just as the Lord also stated, "The only Son -- the one close against the Father's breast -- that one has made him known"; and this Word himself interprets the Father, being abundant and varied, and he appeared to those beholding him not through one shape or a single guise, but according to the causes and operations behind his arrangements, in the manner recorded by the prophet Daniel. For on one occasion he appeared standing next to Ananias, Azariah, and Mishael inside the blazing furnace, amid the flames, rescuing them out of the fire: "the appearance," it says, "of the fourth resembled a son of the gods" -- overturning earthly kingdoms and scattering them like chaff, filling the whole heaven himself as he arrives, drawing close to the Ancient of Days, and taking from him dominion and honor together with a kingdom. "His dominion," it says, "is a dominion without end, and his kingdom will never be destroyed."
John, the Lord's disciple, sitting in the Apocalypse and beholding the priestly and glorious coming of his kingdom, says: I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like the Son of Man, robed in a garment falling all the way to his feet, cinched around the chest with a band of gold. His head and hair had gone white, white as wool, white as snow; his eyes blazed like fire's flame; and his feet gleamed like polished bronze, as though heated within a furnace. His voice sounded like the roar of many waters, seven stars rested in his right hand, from his mouth came forth a two-edged sword honed sharp, and his countenance shone like the sun at full strength. In these details something shows forth the brightness that comes from the Father, namely the head; something priestly is meant by the robe (and it was for this reason that Moses, following this same pattern, clothed the high priest and the Levite); and something pointing toward the end is meant by the bronze heated within the furnace, which stands for the strength of faith and the endurance shown in prayer. And when John could not endure that vision (for, it says, he collapsed at his feet like a dead man, so that the written word might be fulfilled: no man looks upon God and remains living), the Word who grants him life raises him up and gives him courage, being none other than the one on whose chest John had leaned during the supper, asking who would hand him over to betrayal; he declared: I am the beginning and the end, and the living one; though I died, look, I am alive for all ages without end, and death and Hades I hold the keys to. Then, in a further vision, beholding that same Lord, he reports: Amid the throne and the four living beings, and amid the elders, I beheld a Lamb standing though it had been slaughtered, bearing seven horns and seven eyes, these being the seven spirits of God dispatched across the whole earth. And once more, regarding this Lamb, he writes: and look, a white horse appeared, its rider called Faithful and True, and he renders judgment and wages war in righteousness; his eyes gleamed like fire's flame, upon his head sat many crowns, and he bore a name inscribed that none but he himself can know; he was dressed in a robe drenched with blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. The heavenly hosts followed after him mounted on white horses, dressed in linen fine, white and unstained; from his mouth issues forth a sword honed sharp, with which he shall strike down the nations, and he shall rule them under an iron rod, and he tramples the winepress from which flows the fury of Almighty God's wrath; and inscribed on his robe and upon his thigh stands a name: King over kings, Lord over lords. Thus the Word of God always holds the outlines of things to come, and showed to men, as it were, the visible forms of the Father's arrangements, teaching us the things that are God's.
Not only through the visions that were seen and the words that were proclaimed, but also in his works, was he seen by the prophets, so that through them he might prefigure and foreshow beforehand the things to come. For this reason Hosea took a wife of fornication, prophesying by this very act, that the earth would indeed go whoring away from the Lord — namely, those who dwell upon its surface; and that from among such people God would choose to gather for himself a Church, to be made holy through fellowship with his Son, in the same way that woman was made holy through her fellowship with the prophet. And for this same reason Paul states that the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the believing husband. Furthermore the prophet also named his children Not-pitied and Not-my-people: so that, as the Apostle says, the one who was not-my-people might become my people; and she who had not obtained mercy might obtain mercy; and in the place where it was said, You are not my people, there they shall be called sons of the living God. What the prophet did typologically in this act, the Apostle shows to have been truly accomplished in the Church through Christ. In the same way Moses also took an Ethiopian wife, making her thereby an Israelite, foreshowing that the wild olive is grafted into the olive tree and comes to share in its richness. For since he who according to the flesh was born Christ was, on the part of the [Jewish] people, sought in order to be killed, but was delivered in Egypt — that is, among the Gentiles — and there sanctified the infants who were there (whence also he made the Church perfect; for Egypt from the beginning was a Gentile land, as was Ethiopia too), for this reason, through the marriage of Moses, the marriage of the Word was foreshown; and through the Ethiopian wife, the Church that is from the Gentiles was made known — a Church which those who disparage, accuse, and mock will not themselves be found clean, for they will be lepers, and will be cast out of the camp of the just. So likewise Rahab the harlot, though a Gentile who condemned herself as guilty of every sin, welcomed the three scouts who were surveying the whole land, and concealed within herself, namely, the Father, together with the Son and the Holy Spirit. And when the whole city in which she lived had fallen in ruin, at the sounding of the seven trumpets, in the end Rahab the harlot alone was preserved with her whole household, through the sign of the scarlet cord — just as the Lord told those who refused his coming, the Pharisees, who despised the sign of the scarlet cord, which stood for the Passover, the ransoming and departure of the people out of Egypt, declaring: Tax collectors and prostitutes enter the kingdom of heaven ahead of you.