Library › St Irenaeus of Lyons › Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
St Irenaeus of Lyons, tr. Robinson, 1920
Chapter 71
And in another place Jeremiah says: The1 Spirit of our face, the Lord Christ;2 and how He was taken in their snares, of whom, we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles. That, being (the) Spirit of God, Christ was to become a suffering man the Scripture declares; and is, as it were, amazed and astonished at His sufferings, that in such manner He was to endure sufferings, under whose shadow we said that we should live. And by shadow he means His body.3 For just as a shadow is made by a body, so also Christ’s body was made by His Spirit.4 But, further, the humiliation and contemptibility of His body he indicates by the shadow. For, as the shadow of bodies standing upright is upon the ground and is trodden upon, so also the body of Christ fell upon the ground by His sufferings and was trodden on indeed. And he named Christ’s body a shadow, because the Spirit overshadowed it, as it were, with glory and covered it.5 Moreover oftentimes when the Lord passed by, they laid those who were held by divers diseases in the way, and on whomsoever His shadow fell, they were healed.6
Notes
- Lam. iv. 20.
- III, xi. 2: “Spiritus enim inquit faciei nostrae Christus Dominus.” See for this whole passage Introd. p. 63.
- Or “flesh,” as elsewhere.
- Cf. c. 59, ad fin.
- The words appear to mean literally: “the Spirit becoming as it were a shadow with glory and covering it (or him).”
- This is said of St Peter in Acts v. 15.