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Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

St Irenaeus of Lyons, tr. Robinson, 1920

Chapter 3

Now, that we may not suffer ought of this kind, we must needs hold the rule of the faith without deviation,¹ and do the commandments of God, believing in God and fearing Him as Lord and loving Him as Father. Now this doing is produced by faith: for Isaiah says: If ye believe not, neither² shall ye understand. And faith is produced by the truth; for faith rests on things that truly are. For in things that are, as they are, we believe; and believing in things that are, as they ever are, we keep firm our confidence in them. Since then faith is the perpetuation of our salvation, we must needs bestow much pains on the maintenance thereof, in order that we may have a true comprehension of the things that are. Now faith occasions this for us; even as the Elders, the disciples of the Apostles,³ have handed down to us. First of all it bids us bear in mind that we have received baptism for the remission of sins, in the name of God the Father, and in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was incarnate and died and rose again, and in the Holy Spirit of God. And that this baptism is the seal of eternal life, and is the new birth unto God, that we should no longer be the sons of mortal men, but of the eternal and perpetual God; and that what is everlasting and continuing is made God;⁴ and is over all things that are made, and all things are put under Him; and all the things that are put under Him are made His own; for God is not ruler and Lord over the things of another, but over His own;⁵ and all things are God’s; and therefore God is Almighty, and all things are of God.

Notes

Cf. I, i. 20: ὁ τὸν κανόνα τῆς ἀληθείας ἀκλινῆ ἐν ἑαυτῷ κατέχων, ὃν διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος εἴληφε. The Arm. has taken over the Greek word κανών.
Isa. vii. 9
Cf. V, xxxvi. 1: “presbyteri apostolorum discipuli.”
This passage is obscure, and I cannot feel any confidence in my rendering of it. The Armenian translator has probably misunderstood the construction of the Greek: his verbs are all in the infinitive, which suggests that Irenaeus is recording what the faith teaches. The words “made God” represent θεοποιεῖσθαι. This word, if not traceable elsewhere in Irenaeus, is found in other early writers: e. g. Hippolytus, Philos. x. 34: γέγονας γὰρ θεός . . . ἐθεοποιήθης ἀθάνατος γεννηθείς· οὐ γὰρ πτωχεύει θεὸς καὶ σὲ θεὸν ποιήσας εἰς δόξαν αὐτοῦ. It is frequent in Athanasius; e. g. De Incarn. 54: αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν. In Irenaeus the thought finds expression in various forms: see IV, lxiii. 3: “quoniam non ab initio dii facti sumus, sed primo quidem homines, tunc demum dii:” also III, vi. 1.
This is a reminiscence of controversy with the heretics who denied that the Good God of the New Testament was the Creator God of the Old Testament: see IV, xxxiv. 2: “non enim aliena sed sua tradidit ei” (of the Father committing all things to the Son); V, ii. 1: “vani autem qui in aliena dicunt Dominum venisse, velut aliena concupiscentem” (where the Arm. enables us to correct the Latin, which has “Deum”).