Untitled Sermon
If someone should reply, what then? Are the giving of names and the choice of apostles, and the Lord’s activity, and the arrangement of created things something empty and aimless?1 We would answer: Certainly not! On the contrary, all things have clearly been made by God harmonious and beautiful with great wisdom and care, both the ancient things and whatever his Word has made in this last epoch. One must, however, not connect these things with the number thirty, but with an existing system.2 Nor should one make an inquiry into God by means of numbers and syllables and letters. For that would be a weak system because of the multitude and variety [of numbers, syllables, letters], and because at the present day every kind of system that has been similarly devised by someone can draw from these numbers testimonies contrary to the truth, since they [numbers] can be adapted to many things. On the contrary, the numbers themselves and all created things must be harmonized with the existing system of truth. For a rule does not come from numbers, but numbers from a rule; neither does God [come] from created things, but created things come from God. For all things are from the one and same God.
For a rule does not come from numbers, but numbers from a rule; neither does God [come] from created things, but created things come from God. For all things are from the one and same God.
For a rule does not come from numbers, but numbers from a rule; neither does God [come] from created things, but created things come from God. For all things are from the one and same God.
These activities can be spoken of in men and women, since men and women are composite in nature, consisting of body and soul.10 But whoever asserts that Thought is emitted from God, and Mind from Thought, and from these Word, are in the first place to be convicted of applying these emissions improperly. Second, although they are ignorant of [the nature of] God, they describe men’s and women’s actions and passions and intentions of the mind. They apply to the Father of all things, who, they assert, is unknown to all, the actions that occur in men and women that lead to the spoken word.11 They deny that he made the world lest he be considered small, but they ascribe human actions and passions to him! Now, if they had known the Scriptures and had been taught by the Truth, they would indeed have known that God is not like men and women,12 and that his thoughts are not like the thoughts of men and women.13 For the Father of all things is far removed from the actions and passions that men and women experience. He is simple and not composite; with all members of similar nature, being entirely similar and equal to himself. He is all Mind, all Spirit, all Understanding, all Thought, all Word, all Hearing, all Eye, all Light, and the whole Source of all blessings. That is how devout people can speak properly of God.14
For since the Father is invisible, the Son who is in His bosom declares Him to all. On this account, those to whom the Son has revealed Him, know Him; in turn, the Father, through the Son, gives knowledge of His Son to those who love Him.
through His Son in these last times—the incomprehensible through the comprehensible, and the invisible through the visible, since He does not exist outside of the Father, but in His bosom.
If, however, anyone should not find the reason for all things about which he inquired, let him remember that man is infinitely inferior to God, and that man has received grace only in part and is not yet equal or like to the Creator; and, unlike God, he cannot experience and know all things. On the contrary, to the degree that he who today was made and began to exist as creature is inferior to him who was not made and who is always the same, to that degree he is inferior to him who made him, in knowledge and for investigating the reasons of all things. For you, O man, are not increate, nor did you always exist along with God, as his own Word did; but because of his preeminent goodness you now begin to exist as a creature and gradually learn from the Word the economies of God who made you.6
For the prophets did not announce different gods, but one and the same God under various expressions and by many titles. For, as we have shown in the preceding book, the Father is abundant and rich.38 This we shall show, too, from the prophets in the course of our treatise.
He says plainly that the voice of the holy prophets is the beginning of the Gospel
Really, all things were present in a new manner when the Word arranged His coming in the flesh, so that He might make into God’s possession that human nature [hominem/ἄνθρωπον) which had gone astray from God
that He might become the Son of Man, in order that man in turn might become a son of God
For He Himself is uncreated, without beginning and without end, in need of no one, self-sufficient, bestowing existence on all the rest. But the things made by Him have a beginning; and all things that have a beginning are also liable to dissolution, and are subject to, and in need of, Him who made them.14
Certainly, the Father of all things is not some composite, ensouled being, apart from Mind, as we have demonstrated before; but Mind is the Father, and the Father is Mind. And so the Word who springs from him, and much more so, Mind, since it is the Word, must necessarily be perfect and without passion; likewise, the emissions that sprang from him, being of the same substance as he, are perfect and without passion and must always remain like him who emitted them.
The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.3 This shows the Father speaking to the Son, who gave to Him the inheritance of the Gentiles and subjected to Him all enemies.4 Since, therefore, the Father is truly Lord, and the Son truly Lord, the Holy Spirit deservedly designated them by the title “Lord.
It is this proclamation of the scriptural Christ that is at the heart of the book.
In the same way, Irenaeus is keen to identify and stress the apostolic origins of each account of what he does not call “the four Gospels” (as we are wont to do today), but, rather, the “fourfold Gospel which is held together by the one Spirit” (3.11.8)—stressing its common and divinely united proclamation.
Thus, for Irenaeus, the oral origins of the Gospel are part and parcel of the common voice of the Church’s true witness—for the four gospel accounts do not emerge out of independent textual or historical traditions, but out of the same, common oral preaching that was the product of the apostolic experience of Christ. So it is that, with respect to the written volumes of the evangelists, “all these have handed down to us that there is one God, the Creator of heaven and earth … and one Christ, God’s Son” (3.1.2)—that is, they each proclaim that common foundation of the true faith that is Irenaeus’s focus in this book.
not only of the ancient Scriptures but also of the apostolic witnesses of the one Gospel; and second, the receptive, transmitting nature of the Church, which receives that one Gospel and, like a nurturing mother, distributes it to her children.
As he notes in the preface, the teachings of the Valentinians and other groups (whom he has considered in Books 1 and 2) are varied and contradictory; but the teaching of the apostles, the teaching of the Church, is singular and true.
Now if anyone likes to pick a fight and contradict what we have stated and what the Apostle has said, namely, that we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part,42 and thinks that he has received not only partial knowledge but absolutely real knowledge of all things that exist—he is really another Valentinus, or Ptolemaeus, or Basilides, or any other of those who claim that they have searched out the depths43 of God.
If, then, anyone asks the reason why the Father, who has all things in common with the Son
If, then, anyone should ask us, How was the Son emitted by the Father? we reply, No one understands this emission, or generation, or calling, or manifestation, whatever name one might call his ineffable generation.25
Since, however, God is all Mind and all Word, what he thinks he speaks, and what he speaks he thinks. For his thought is his Word, and what he speaks he thinks. For his thought is his Word, and his Word is his Mind; and the Mind that contains all things is the Father himself. Whoever, therefore, speaks of God’s Mind and gives to this Mind an emission of its own proclaims him [God] to be a composite being, as if God were one thing and Mind, his principal [emission] another.21 Again, [if anyone speaks] of the Word in the same manner, making it the third emission in line from Father, which means that he is ignorant of his [Father’s] greatness, he has separated the Word very far from God. The Prophet, indeed, said of him: Who shall declare his generation?22 But you who divine his origin from Father and apply to God’s Word the emission of the human word made with the tongue are with good reason exposed by your own selves as ignorant of both human and divine matters.
But since God is all mind, all intelligence, all spirit who is active, all light, and always existing the same and unchangeable,20 things beneficial for us to know about God, as we also learn from the Scriptures, such activities and parts cannot properly belong to God. The tongue, being fleshy, is not able to keep up with the speed of the human mind, which is spiritual; hence our word is held back within and is not instantaneously uttered as it was conceived by the mind, but piecemeal, as the tongue can minister to it.
So if, according to the method stated, we leave some of the questions in God’s hands, we shall keep our faith, and we ourselves shall persevere without danger; and we will find that all the Scripture given us by God harmonizes, and the parables harmonize with the things that are expressly stated, and the plain statements explain the parables. Thus, through the many voices of the passages there will be heard among us one harmonious melody12 that hymns praises to God who made all things. If, for example, anyone should ask us what God did before he created the world, we reply that the answer to this is in God’s keeping. The Scriptures do teach us that this world was made complete13 by God when it began in time; but no Scripture reveals what God did before this. So the answer to this is in God’s keeping; and you should not desire to discover foolish, senseless,14 and blasphemous emissions, nor reject God himself who made all things, by thinking you have discovered the emission of matter.15
We, however, precisely inasmuch as we are inferior to God’s Word and his Spirit, have need of a knowledge of his mysteries
If, however, we cannot find a solution for all things in the Scriptures, nevertheless let us not look for another God besides the one who exists. That is the greatest impiety. Such matters we must leave to God who created us, since we know very well that the Scriptures are perfect, inasmuch as they were given by God’s Word and Spirit.5
To be sure, it is impossible to admit any longer that from such an emission some are with passion and some without passion. So if they claim that all are without passion, they demolish their own system.
And were they simple and of one form, and in every way equal and similar, just as air and light are emitted; or were they composite and of different form, dissimilar to their fellow members?
They [heretics] do not believe that this God who is above all things made, just as he willed, the diversified and dissimilar things in his own realm through the Word, since as a wise Architect1 and a very great king he is the Maker of all things.
It is not proper to assert that God, who is above all things, since he is free and has self-determining power, is a slave of necessity, inasmuch as something might be according to a concession of his but independent of his counsel. For then they would make necessity greater and more powerful than God, since whatever is more powerful is also more ancient than all. For immediately in the very beginning he would have had to do away with the cause of necessity and not bind himself to necessity by allowing something beyond what is becoming to him. Really, it would have been far better and more consistent and more godlike if he had cut off such a beginning of necessity from the start, than later, as if repentant, attempt to root out such a large crop of necessities. And if Father of all things would be a slave of necessity and fall under fate, unwillingly tolerating the things that happen, without being able to do anything against necessity or fate, he would be just like the Homeric Jupiter, who of necessity says, “For I gave to you, as if willing, yet with unwilling soul.”10 According to this reasoning, therefore, their Profundity will be found to be a slave of necessity and fate.
One God, the Father, who is above all and throughout all and in us all
It is proper to God’s preeminence not to be in need of other instruments for creating things to be made.
On the contrary, he predetermined in himself all things in advance according to his nature, which to us is ineffable and inscrutable, and he made them as he willed, bestowing on all things their form10 and order, and the principle of their creation—giving to spiritual beings a spiritual and invisible substance; to supercelestial, a supercelestial;11 to Angels, an angelic; to animals, an animal; to swimming creatures, an aquatic; to land creatures, one fitted for land; that is, giving to all a suitable substance.12 But all beings that have been made he made through his indefatigable Word.
God has no need of anything that exists7 since he created all things and made them by his Word.8 He did not need Angels as helpers to make the things that are made, nor did he need any Power much inferior to himself and ignorant of the Father
Next, let them tell us whether these things were made among the things enclosed by him and in his own realm, or in a realm that belongs to others and is outside of himself.
And it would be necessary to acknowledge that each one of them be, as it were, enclosed and remaining in his own realm. However, none of all these would be God, for each one of them would be deficient since that one possesses only a very small portion in relation to all the rest. And so the name Omnipotent would be destroyed, and such an opinion would of necessity fall into impiety.
And then, by the same line of reasoning by which they attempt to teach that there is some Fullness or God above the Creator of heaven and earth, one would have to set up a Fullness above the first, and another above that, and another sea of deity9 above the Profundity. The same thing would have to be set up on the sides. And so their opinion would go on indefinitely, and it would always be necessary to think up other Fullnesses and other Profundities; and one would never come to a stop, always seeking others besides those mentioned.
And so, talk about what is contained and what contains would go on forever. For, if this third something would have a beginning in the things above it and an end in the things below it, it is entirely necessary that it be limited also on the sides, either beginning or ending at some other beings. And these in turn, and others above and below, would have a beginning in relation to some other beings; and this would go on forever, so that their speculation would never come to a stop in the one God; but on the pretext of seeking after more than exists, this speculation would fall away into what does not exist and would separate itself from God.
These remarks are likewise appropriate against the followers of Marcion, for his two Gods will be contained and limited by the immeasurable interval that separates the one from the other.
This third something will put bounds around and contain both,8 and this third something will be greater than the Fullness and what is outside of it, inasmuch as it will contain both within itself.
For anyone who is the end of the things below him necessarily and absolutely circumscribes and surrounds the thing of which he is the end. Again, according to them, Father of all, whom they style their Fullness and who is the good God of Marcion, will be contained, enclosed by something else, and surrounded from the outside by some other Authority5 that must, of necessity, be greater, since what contains something must be greater than that which is contained. Moreover, what is greater is also more stable and more powerful; and what is greater and more stable and more powerful—that will be God.6
He would have a beginning, a middle, and an end in relation to the things outside of him.
Really, how would it be possible for another Fullness or Beginning or Power or another God to be above him, since God, the Fullness of all things, necessarily contains them all without limit and is not contained by anyone?3 Now if there is anything outside of him, then he is no longer the Fullness of all things, and he does not contain all things, because whatever they say is outside of him will be lacking to the Fullness or to the God who is above all things. But what is lacking or taken away from something is not the Fullness of all things.
he alone contains all things