Irenaeus of Lyon on the Deity and Humanity of Christ and the Incarnation

 

The Deity of Christ

In speaking of the deity of Christ, Irenaeus holds that “the Son, eternally co-existing with the Father, from of old, yea, from the beginning, always reveals the Father to Angels, Archangels, Powers, Virtues, and all to whom He wills that God should be revealed.”[1] 

 

The Humanity of Christ

Irenaeus then goes on to comment on Christ’s sinlessness and perfect humanity in saying, “If, then, any one allege that in this respect the flesh of the Lord was different from ours, because it indeed did not commit sin, neither was deceit found in His soul, while we, on the other hand, are sinners, he says what is the fact.  But if he pretends that the Lord possessed another substance of flesh, the sayings respecting reconciliation will not agree with that man.”[2] As a result of the incarnation, Christ Jesus “caused man (human nature) to cleave to and to become, one with God.”[3]  Christ Jesus, then, is affirmed to be sinless, but any idea of His being a created being or something other than fully human is thereby rejected.

 

The Necessity of the Incarnation

This, then, raises the question of why the eternally existing Son of God would become man.  It is sometimes suggested that Jesus became man to teach us about God and show us how to live.  This idea finds support in the statement of Irenaeus that, “in no other way could we have learned the things of God, unless our Master, existing as the Word, had become man.  For no other being had the power of revealing to us the things of the Father, except His own proper Word.”[4]  That is not the only reason for the incarnation, however, as Irenaeus is quick to reject the idea that what someone believes about man does not matter.  On the contrary, he points out that “the advent of the Lord will appear superfluous and useless, if He did indeed come intending to tolerate and to preserve each man’s idea regarding God rooted in him from of old.”[5] Instead of this, Irenaeus tells us that “while destroying the error of the Gentiles, and bearing them away from their gods ... [and] removing those which were no gods, they pointed out Him who alone was God and the true Father.”[6]

 

Irenaeus then goes on to provide a more complete explanation in a passage that has some striking similarities to Anselm of Canterbury’s classic answer to that question in his Why God Became Man.

 

For unless man had overcome the enemy of man, the enemy would not have been legitimately vanquished. And again: unless it had been God who had freely given salvation, we could never have possessed it securely. And unless man had been joined to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility. For it was incumbent upon the Mediator between God and men, by His relationship to both, to bring both to friendship and concord, and present man to God, while He revealed God to man. ...

For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons?[7]

 

For Irenaeus, then, although God the Father was under no compulsion in sending Christ Jesus to earth, and the Son of God Himself voluntarily agreed to take on the form of a man, it was also true that God the Father did not send His Son to the cross needlessly as man’s salvation could not be obtained in any other way.

 

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[1]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book II, Chapter 29 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 406.

[2]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 14 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 541-542. 

[3]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 18 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 448.  

[4]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 1 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 526. 

[5]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 12 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 432. 

[6]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 12 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 432. 

[7]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 19 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 448-449.  

Irenaeus of Lyon on the Virgin Birth and the quotation of Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:23

The biblical doctrine of the virgin birth is undoubtedly best known from Matthew 1:23, but many Christians are also likely aware that Matthew is quoting from Isaiah 7:14, and some Christians are undoubtedly aware that Matthew’s quotation from Isaiah is taken from the Greek version of the Old Testament (the Septuagint or LXX for short) and not from the Hebrew Masoretic text.   When one consults the Hebrew version, it is discovered that the word used in Isaiah 7:14 which is translated ‘virgin’ in the LXX can either be translated ‘young woman’ or ‘virgin’ (and is more often translated ‘young woman’), and in some modern Christian versions of the Bible (such as the Revised Standard Version, the New English Bible and the Good News Bible) Isaiah 7:14 actually is translated ‘young woman.’ 

 

But like most other supposedly “new” interpretations of central Christian doctrines, this interpretation is something that was considered and rejected by the early church.  The first discussion of Jewish interpretations of Isaiah 7:14 is found in Justin Martyr’s document to survive from Dialogue with Trypho, he writes, “since you and your teachers venture to affirm that in the prophecy of Isaiah it is not said, ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive,’ but, ‘Behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son;’ and [since] you explain the prophecy as if [it referred] to Hezekiah, who was your king, I shall endeavor to discuss.”[1] 

 

Irenaeus, meanwhile, also refers to various people who have interpreted Isaiah 7:14 as if it were speaking of a ‘young woman’ rather than to a ‘virgin’, and, in an extremely important passage, he refutes this interpretation.  Irenaeus writes the following:

 

God, then, was made man, and the Lord did Himself save us, giving us the token of the Virgin. But not as some allege, among those now presuming to expound the Scripture, [thus:] “Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bring forth a son,” as Theodotion the Ephesian has interpreted, and Aquila of Pontus, both Jewish proselytes. The Ebionites, following these, assert that He was begotten by Joseph; thus destroying, as far as in them lies, such a marvellous dispensation of God, and setting aside the testimony of the prophets which proceeded from God. For truly this prediction was uttered before the removal of the people to Babylon; that is, anterior to the supremacy acquired by the Medes and Persians. But it was interpreted into Greek by the Jews themselves, much before the period of our Lord’s advent, that there might remain no suspicion that perchance the Jews, complying with our humour, did put this interpretation upon these words.”[2] 

 

Translating the first part of the above passage into simpler English, Irenaeus begins by saying that two Greek converts to Judaism (by the names of Theodotion of Ephesus and Aquila of Pontus) argued that Isaiah 7:14 should be understood as ‘Behold a young woman shall conceive and bring forth a son.”  Immediately following that, he mentions that the Ebionites (those ???) follow this interpretation and add that Joseph (and not the Holy Spirit) was the biological father of Jesus.   

 

Irenaeus’ argument against this is as good as any argument that could be made by a modern Christian apologist.  He naturally assumes that the book of Isaiah was actually written by Isaiah and that since Isaiah lived while Hezekiah was king of Judah, that it was written before the Jews were taken captive to Babylon and therefore before the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon.  Then, Irenaeus points out that Isaiah (and the rest of the Old Testament) was translated from Hebrew into Greek by the Jews themselves long before Christ Jesus was born, and that those Jewish translators decided that the proper meaning of Isaiah 7:14 was “the virgin shall conceive.”  Irenaeus then concludes by indicating that God arranged it so that this translation would be made before the birth of His Son to prevent the Jews from arguing that it really referred to a ‘young woman’. 

 

Although Irenaeus did not make this last point, it can also be added that the LXX was in wide use among first century Jews.  In fact, we have comments that have survived from both Josephus[3] and Philo[4] testifying that the LXX translation was regarded with divine accuracy).  And, although arguments from silence are notoriously weak, it can be suggested that since there is not any evidence of this translation being questioned before the time of Christ, it can be concluded that it was regarded as the correct translation by Old Testament Jews until such time as those Jews who rejected Christianity found it necessary to reinterpret the passage so it could not be used by Christians as support for the Christian doctrine that Jesus is the Messiah.

 

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[1]Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 43, in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 216.

[2]Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 21 in Ante-Nicene Fathers ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), I, 451.  

[3]Josephus, Antiquities Book 12, Chapter 2, Paragraphs 11-14, in The Works of Josephus translated by William Whiston (:Hendrickson, 1987), pp. 313-315. 

[4]Philo, On the Life of Moses, II Chapter V (25) – VIII (46) in The Works of Philo translated by C.D. Yonge (:Hendrickson, 1993), pp. 493-495.