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Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
St Irenaeus of Lyons, tr. Robinson, 1920
Chapter 9
Now this world is encompassed by seven heavens,1 in which dwell powers and angels and archangels, doing service to God, the Almighty and Maker of all things: not as though He was in need, but that they may not be idle and unprofitable and ineffectual.2 Wherefore also the Spirit of God is manifold in (His) indwelling,3 and in seven forms of service4 is He reckoned by the prophet Isaiah, as resting on the Son of God, that is the Word, in His coming as man. The Spirit of God,5 he says, shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, (the Spirit of knowledge)6 and of godliness; the Spirit of the fear of God shall fill him. Now the heaven which is first from above,7 and encompasses the rest, is (that of) wisdom; and the second from it, of understanding; and the third, of counsel; and the fourth, reckoned from above, (is that) of might; and the fifth, of knowledge; and the sixth, of godliness; and the seventh, this firmament of ours, is full of the fear of that Spirit which gives light to the heavens. For, as the pattern (of this), Moses received the seven-branched candlestick,8 that shined continually in the holy place; for as a pattern of the heavens he received this service, according to that which the Word spake unto him: Thou shalt make (it) according9 to all the pattern of the things which thou hast seen in the mount.10
Notes
- An account of the late Jewish teaching as to the Seven Heavens is given in Mr. H. St John Thackeray’s valuable book St Paul and Contemporary Jewish Thought, pp. 172-179, where three parallel tables of their descriptions will be found. References to them in Christian apocryphal literature are collected in Dr Charles’s Book of the Secrets of Enoch (from the Sclavonic), pp. xliv-xlvii. Hippolytus in his Commentary on Daniel (ed. Achelis, p. 96), referring to εὐλογεῖτε οὐρανοί in the Benedicite, says: τοὺς ἑπτὰ οὐρανοὺς . . . προσκαλούμενοι. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iv. 25) says: εἴτε ἑπτὰ οὐρανοί, οὕς τινες ἀριθμοῦσιν κατ᾽ ἐπανάβασιν. Origen (c. Cels. vi. 21) likewise mentions the Seven Heavens, but without committing himself to the exact number.
Irenaeus in I, i. 9 refers to the Valentinian teaching which identified the Seven Heavens with angels of varying degrees of power. In our passage he strangely connects the Seven Heavens with the Seven Gifts of the Spirit. We observe two peculiarities in his description. First, that, numbering from above downwards, he reckons the highest as the First Heaven: secondly, that his Seventh, or lowest, is the firmament. Evil is wholly excluded from these heavens: so it is in the Ascension of Isaiah (for which see Introd. p. 41), where however it is found in the firmament, which is not reckoned as one of the heavens.
The belief in the Seven Heavens soon came to be discredited; and it is curious to find a survival of it, due apparently to Irish influences, in the invocation of the septem caelos in a book of prayers of the seventh or eighth century (Brit. Mus. Reg. 2. A. xx, f. 47 v.). - Compare the reason given by Justin Martyr (Dial. 22) for the worship in the Temple: οὐχ ὡς ἐνδεὴς ὢν . . . ἀλλ᾽ ὅπως κἂν κατὰ τοῦτο προσέχοντες αὐτῷ μὴ εἰδωλολατρῆτε.
- Perhaps the text should be emended so as to give “operation” (ἐνέργεια).
- Or “ministrations” (=διακονιῶν in Arm. version of 1 Cor. xii. 5).
- Isa. xi. 2f.
- Omitted by oversight: cf. c. 59, and III, x. 1, xviii. 2, where the words are correctly given.
- The heavens are enumerated from above, in order to correspond with the prophet’s words and put Wisdom first and Fear of God last.
- V, xx. 2: “ecclesia . . . ἑπτάμυχος lucerna.”
- Ex. xxv. 40.
- IV, xxv. 3: “Quoniam facies omnia juxta typum eorum quae vidisti in monte:” LXX, τὸν δεδειγμένον σοι: the variation may be due to a reminiscence of Acts vii. 44, ὃν ἑωράκει.