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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 30/11/2018, SPi
General Editors
Gillian Clark Andrew Louth
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 30/11/2018, SPi
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For Kate
optima puellula in mundo
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 30/11/2018, SPi
Acknowledgments
This book would not have come to be if I had not come to Candler School of
Theology six years ago. So, it is right for me to first thank Jan Love, Candler’s
Dean, for taking a risk and hiring this one-time adjunct professor. Beyond
giving me a chance to prove myself, Jan with Ian McFarland, then Associate
Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs, approved a Teaching and Research
Grant that funded a portion of the research for Chapter 1. Chapter 5 and a
portion of Chapter 3 were written during a semester’s leave funded by the
Emory University Research Committee. I am grateful for the financial support
of these grants, but also for the encouragement that came with them.
During the course of pursuing this research, I have learned what it means to
be a member of faculty. Beyond the establishment of treasured friendships,
I have been the beneficiary of wise counsel and considerable encouragement.
Candler’s most senior faculty have been unfailingly generous in these ways,
and their words have formed and shaped my thinking on matters too
numerous to mention. I think especially of my emails and conversations
with Carl Holladay, Luke Timothy Johnson, Carol Newsom, David Pacini,
and Philip Reynolds. Two of my colleagues, Philip Reynolds and Jonathan
Strom, left their intellectual fingerprints on this book when they solved a
mystery that had baffled me for well over a year (you can read about it in my
essay on theological speculation in Chapter 1). Colleagues beyond Emory
also read that essay on theological speculation and assured me I had not lost
my mind: I’m grateful for the time (and the psychological support) given by
Mark DelCogliano and Jackson Lashier.
I must thank Tom Perridge at Oxford University Press for first inviting me
to submit a proposal for this book and then for awaiting a good one. Karen
Raith ably managed the production process, kindly kept in touch, and
patiently awaited the receipt of certain very late forms. Christine Ranft’s
copyediting process brought the text into fine form. I am very pleased to
have this study join my first in Oxford Early Christian Studies. Gillian Clark
and Andrew Louth continue to direct the series as well as ever, ensuring its
vitality and continuing significance.
This book is much better—and far more useful—thanks to the diligence of
three of my doctoral students. Grayden McCashen sought out all the refer-
ences in the Index Locorum. Micah Miller spent hours checking and format-
ting the pages that follow, as well as constructing the Bibliography and the
General Index. Amanda Knight saved the day. I am deeply grateful to each
of them.
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viii Acknowledgments
Portions of Chapters 1 and 4 have appeared previously in press, in earlier
forms, as “Irenaeus’ Christology of Mixture,” JTS 64.2 (2013): 516–55;
“Irenaeus on Natural Knowledge,” CHRC 95.2 (2015): 133–54; “Literary
and Rhetorical Theory in Irenaeus, Part 1,” VC 69.5 (2015): 500–27; and
“Theological Speculation in Irenaeus: Perils and Possibilities,” VC 71.2
(2017): 175–98.
Writing a book places particular pressures and stresses upon one’s family.
I’ve found that pressure and stress reveal character, and I am ever grateful to
have married a woman with the character of my wife. Kelly is our family’s
North Star: her ideals and convictions keep us true. I don’t know where I’d be
without her, but I know this book wouldn’t be done. Over the course of writing
this study our daughter, Kate, grew from a precocious four-year-old, who
“graded” papers and read books under my desk, into the most intelligent, kind,
loving, and funny ten-year-old I have ever known. She is the best little girl in
the whole world. This book is dedicated to her.
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Contents
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1. Prolegomena 9
1.1. Rhetorical Education 10
1.1.1. Hypothesis (ὑπόθεσις) 11
1.1.2. Œconomia (οἰκονομία) 23
1.1.3. Fiction (πλάσμα and μῦθος) 29
1.1.4. Section Conclusion 32
1.2. Theological Speculation 33
1.2.1. The Current Narrative 35
1.2.2. Critique and New Reading 39
1.2.3. Section Conclusion 51
1.3. Natural Knowledge 52
1.3.1. Angelic or Angelic and Human Knowledge? 54
1.3.2. Natural Knowing or Knowing Aided by God? 58
1.3.3. Ratio: Natural Reasoning or the Divine Word? 63
1.3.4. Section Conclusion 69
1.4. Chapter Conclusion 69
2. God 71
2.1. God is Infinite 72
2.1.1. Transcendence 79
2.1.2. Incomprehensibility 80
2.1.3. Immanence 87
2.2. God is Simple 90
2.3. God is Spirit 99
2.4. Chapter Conclusion 102
3. Word-Son 104
3.1. Reciprocal Immanence 107
3.2. Logical Foundation of Reciprocal Immanence 115
3.3. Divine Production 121
3.4. Chapter Conclusion 136
4. Christological Union 139
4.1. Stoic Mixture Theory 140
4.2. Appropriation of Mixture Theory in Early Christianity 146
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x Contents
4.3. Mixture in Irenaeus 152
4.3.1. Mixture’s Union 153
4.3.2. Mixture of Body and Soul 155
4.3.3. Mixture Christology 163
4.4. Chapter Conclusion 179
5. Christ and his Work 181
5.1. Security, Incorruptibility, Adoption 181
5.1.1. Section Conclusion 186
5.2. Revelatory Activity 186
5.2.1. Section Conclusion 203
5.3. Chapter Conclusion 204
Conclusion 205
Bibliography 211
Index Locorum 223
Scripture Index 228
General Index 229
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Abbreviations
xii Abbreviations
ST Studia Theologica
VC Vigiliae Christianae
ZAC Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum
ZNW Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und Kunde der Alteren
Kirche
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Now the splendor of God gives life; therefore, those who see God partici-
pate in life. And for this reason the one who is uncontainable and
incomprehensible and invisible renders himself visible and comprehen-
sible and graspable, in order that he may give life to those who grasp and
see him. For just as his greatness is inscrutable, so also is his goodness
ineffable; by which, having been seen, he bestows life on those who see
him. For it is not possible to live without life, and the means of life comes
from participation in God, and participation in God is to see God and to
enjoy his goodness.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.20.5
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Introduction
I never planned to write this book. Toward the end of working on my first
book, Irenaeus of Lyons and the Theology of the Holy Spirit, I found myself
thinking more and more about Ronald Heine’s seminal article on early
Christology, “The Christology of Callistus.”¹ Heine spends considerable time
analyzing the Roman Monarchian use of Stoic mixture theory—namely,
blending (κρᾶσις)—to explain the union of the divine and human in the
person of Christ. This caught my attention, for Irenaeus too refers to the
Christological union as a mixture, but no one had ever investigated its
significance. So, upon sending to Oxford the proofs of the first book, I began
reading Irenaeus again. I soon decided that I had something to say about
Irenaeus’ Christological appropriation of mixture theory. Still more, my sense
that there was something amiss in scholarly construals of Irenaeus’ doctrine of
God and his understanding of the person of Christ had solidified. Around this
time the exigencies of tenure were made clear to me, and another book on
Irenaeus was born.
When it comes to the history of Christian thought, Irenaeus is most famous
as the greatest opponent of Gnosticism in the early Church. Until the finds of
Nag Hammadi, Irenaeus’ corpus represented the greatest cache of informa-
tion about Gnostic thought we possessed. For that reason his polemic has
received considerable attention and at times his polemical significance has
overshadowed his importance as a theologian. But a focus on his polemical
significance was not the only thing that discouraged nuanced analysis of his
theological account. For his theological ability and even intelligence have been
impugned for generations.
The coherence of Irenaeus’ thought was first questioned by Hans Wendt in
1882.² Wendt argued that Irenaeus maintained two incompatible strains of
thought with regard to the original state of humanity: one that involved
the notion of a continual growth and increase toward perfection in which the
Fall plays a positive role, and another that involved the notion of an original
³ Wendt (1882: 21–6, 29). These lines of thought were first raised by L. Duncker, who
discussed the image and likeness of God in Irenaeus, but affirmed the internal consistency of his
logic (1843: 99–104).
⁴ von Harnack (1901, vol. 2: 269–74, esp. 274 n. 1). ⁵ Loofs (1930: 1–4).
⁶ A. Benoît has noted the parallel between the rise of the source-critical and form-critical
treatments of Scripture and the application of these approaches to Irenaeus (1960: 38). Though
Benoît critiqued the merit of Loofs’s approach (1960: 33–5), H.-I. Marrou has shown that Benoît
himself failed to grasp the unity of Irenaeus’ thought (RevEA 65 1963: 452–6).
⁷ Loofs (1930: 432). ⁸ Reynders, RTAM 7 (1935: 5–27, here 26–7).
⁹ F.R.M. Hitchcock soon offered a stringent critique of Loofs’s methodology and conclusions
(JTS 38 1937: 130–9, 255–66). G. Wingren then proposed a harmonious reading of the two lines
of thought previously assessed as irreconcilable (1959: esp. 26–32, 50–4, 52 n. 33, on p. 27 n. 78).
A. Rousseau aligned himself with Wingren and declared, “If one wants to have some chance of
getting back to the thought of a writer, one ought not first seek to discover in him borrowings and
plagiarisms—as if it would suffice to make then a simple subtraction so that the residue thus
obtained represents the contribution belonging to the author!” (SC 152 1969: 190).
¹⁰ Grillmeier (1965; 2nd ed. 1975, vol. 1: 98).
¹¹ Bacq (1978), see esp. his appendix devoted to AH 4.37–9, pp. 363–88, which includes a
discussion of past scholarship on this issue, pp. 364–9.
¹² As may be seen in Loofs’s evaluation, related above.
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Introduction 3
dans l’ordre practique.”¹³ Such opinions took hold quickly. The narrative was
so fixed by the middle of last century that Johannes Quasten wrote in his
standard Patrology, “The whole work suffers from a lack of clear arrangement
and unity of thought. Prolixity and frequent repetition make its perusal
wearisome. . . . Evidently he did not have the ability to shape his materials
into a homogenous whole.”¹⁴ A few years later Philip Hefner wrote, “Irenaeus’
use of terms in this treatise is so fluid, at points even ambiguous, and the man’s
naïveté at times so great, that any interpreter must be cautious in applying
sharp distinctions and sophisticated schematisms to Irenaeus’ theological
work.”¹⁵ More recently, Denis Minns, who stands in this tradition of inter-
pretation, described Irenaeus as “unwitting” and “naïve.”¹⁶
Yet, just as the failure to recognize the intellectual unity and plan of
Irenaeus’ argumentation often led to a low regard for his intellectual ability,
the recognition of its intellectual unity and plan led to a renewed appreciation
for his theological account. So it was that six years after Bacq Hans Urs von
Balthasar said, “Irenaeus’ work marks the birth of Christian theology. With it,
theology merges as a reflection on the world of revealed facts, a reflection
which is not just a tentative, partial approximation but achieves the miracle of
a complete and organized image in the mind of faith.”¹⁷
But while a few undertook nuanced and subtle investigations into aspects of
Irenaeus’ theology,¹⁸ other narratives besetting the scholarly imagination
continued to discourage investigation into the most fundamental of theologic-
al articles. Irenaeus, it was said, strictly opposed theological speculation¹⁹ and
had little interest in philosophical reasoning.²⁰ As a result, scholarship on
remained constant: “In his opinion truth is to be found only within the church. An instructive
passage shows his dislike of philosophical learning. In natural science ‘many things escape our
knowledge, and we entrust them to God; for he must excel over all. What if we try to set forth the
cause of the rising of the Nile? We say many things, some perhaps persuasive, others perhaps not
persuasive: what is true and certain and sure lies with God’ [2.28.2]” (Grant with Tracy 1984: 50).
Not all accepted this reading, especially as the century progressed. For instance, C. Stead wrote,
Irenaeus “has, I suspect, more philosophical talent than is easy to detect in his surviving
work . . . But when philosophical methods are used, they are ably handled, and one regrets the
disappearance of other works known to Eusebius, especially the treatise arguing that God is not
the author of evil” (1994: 90).
²¹ Grant (1952: 102). ²² Lebreton (1928, vol. 2: 540–75 esp.).
²³ Grant, HTR 42 (1949: 41–51); Schoedel (1972: 88–108); van Unnik (1979: 33–43); Schoedel
(1979: 75–86); and Norris (1979: 87–100).
²⁴ Norris (2009: 9–36); Barnes, NV 7 (2009: 67–106); Lashier (2014: esp. 70–91).
²⁵ Houssiau (1955).
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Introduction 5
pass: the neglect of these matters has allowed “serious distortions” to creep
into contemporary appreciations of these facets of Irenaeus’ theology.²⁶
The most “serious distortion” pervading these discussions of Irenaeus’
theology is the minimization of the metaphysical dimension of his thought.
We see this minimization in descriptions of Irenaeus’ theology as economic or
in characterizations of his theology as unconcerned with the Trinitarian
relations and even modalistic—descriptions which have become so common
within certain scholarly circles as to be banal.²⁷ The most recent, and perhaps
the most direct, example of this minimization of the metaphysical comes from
the pen of Michael Slusser.
Slusser argues that Richard Norris—one of the few to highlight the meta-
physical dimension of Irenaeus’ theology—was incorrect to emphasize the
philosophical basis of Irenaeus’ account of the unity and transcendence of
God. According to Slusser, Norris’s “philosophical angle of approach” suggests
Irenaeus was looking for a “metaphysical solution” in the conflict with his
Gnostic opponents, and thus “obscures Irenaeus’ real agenda, which goes
beyond metaphysics and portrays God in terms of love and will. . . . (Irenaeus)
appeals, rather, to a divine initiative that overrides the insuperable metaphys-
ical obstacle constituted by God’s incomprehensibility and magnitude.”²⁸
Slusser is correct to argue that Irenaeus did not simply author a metaphys-
ical response to his Gnostic opponents.²⁹ But he is incorrect to minimize the
importance of metaphysics to Irenaeus’ response and to characterize meta-
physics as an obstacle that Irenaeus had to overcome by emphasizing the
divine economy.³⁰ Far from being an obstacle that must be overcome by the
economy, metaphysics is the foundation for key elements of Irenaeus’ account
of the divine economy. This is the fundamental insight into Irenaeus’ thought
that lies at the origin of this investigation.
The purpose of this study is to elucidate the metaphysical dimension of
Irenaeus’ thought, namely, his understanding of the divine being, his account
of the standing of the Word-Son in relation to God the Father, his conception
of how the divine Word-Son is united to humanity in the person of Christ
(which ironically depends upon Stoic physics), and the manner in which he
grounds central aspects of his account of the economic activity of Christ upon
his understanding of the divine being and the divinity of the Word-Son.
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