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Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

St Irenaeus of Lyons, tr. Robinson, 1920

Chapter 36

And He fulfilled the promise to David; for to him God had promised that of the fruit of his body¹ He would raise up an eternal King,² whose kingdom should have no end. And this King is Christ, the Son of God, who became the Son of man; that is, who became the fruit of that Virgin who had her descent from David. And for this cause the promise was, Of the fruit of thy body ³—that He might declare the peculiar uniqueness of Him, who was the fruit of the virgin body that was of David, (even of Him) who was King over the house of David, (and) of whose kingdom there shall be no end.

Notes

Ps. cxxxii. 11.
III, xxvi. 1: ἐκ καρποῦ τῆς κοιλίας αὐτοῦ αἰώνιον ἀναστήσειν βασιλέα: III, xi. 4, xvii. 1, xxix. 1. In all these places the phrase “eternal king” is used in connexion with this particular promise. The phrase also occurs in III, xx. 2, and below in cc. 56, 66, 95. Justin uses it several times (Dial. 34, 36, 118, 135), but not in this connexion.
Here and above I have used “body” as in A. V. for κοιλία: but the strange argument is thus somewhat obscured. The words which immediately follow in the Armenian text may be more easily rendered in Latin: “de fructu ventris tui, quod est proprium feminae praegnantis: non de fructu lumborum, nec de fructu renum, quod est proprium viri generantis: ut declararet,” etc. Almost the same words are found in III, xxvi. 1: cf. also III, ix. 2: “ex fructu ventris David, id est, ex David virgine.” The argument is used by Tertullian, Adv. Marcion, III, 20.