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Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
St Irenaeus of Lyons, tr. Robinson, 1920
Chapter 6
This then is the order of the rule of our faith, and the foundation of the building, and the stability of our conversation: God, the Father, not made, not material, invisible; one God, the creator of all things: this is the first point1 of our faith. The second point is: The Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who was manifested to the prophets according to the form of their prophesying and according to the method of the dispensation of the Father:2 through whom all things were made; who also at the end of the times, to complete and gather up3 all things, was made man among men, visible and tangible,4 in order to abolish death and show forth life and produce a community of union5 between God and man. And the third point is: The Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied, and the fathers learned the things of God, and the righteous were led forth into the way of righteousness; and who in the end of the times was poured out in a new way6 upon mankind in all the earth, renewing man unto God.
Notes
- Lit. “head:” cf. cc. 7, 100.
- This is fully worked out in IV, lv. 1-6: the prophets were “members of Christ,” and so each, according to the “member” that he was, declared his portion of prophecy, all together announcing the whole.
- The same double rendering of ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι (Eph. i. 10) is found in the Arm. version of V, i. 2.
- IV, xi. 4: “visibilem et palpabilem;” cf. IV, xiii. 1, where the Arm. shows that the Latin “passibilis” should be corrected to “palpabilis.”
- This double rendering occurs in the Arm. of IV, xxxiv. 4 and V, i. 1, where the Latin has simply “communio.” With the whole of this passage compare IV, xxxiv. 4: “qui novissimis temporibus homo in hominibus factus est, ut finem conjungeret principio, id est, hominem Deo.”
- We have the same words in IV, lv. 6: “in novissimis temporibus nove effusus est in nos.”