INTRODUCTION

I

THE DOCUMENT AND ITS VALUE

IT is a remarkable fact, and much to be regretted, that none of the works of St Irenæus, the greatest theologian of the second century, have come down to us in the language in which they were written. Of his chief work, the five books Against Heresies, we have a very early Latin translation, and a few fragments of the original Greek preserved through quotation by other writers. ^[1] The work now before us, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, has recently been found in an Armenian translation, and no portion of it seems to have survived in any other language.

This new treatise does not come upon us entirely as a surprise; for Eusebius ^[2] had mentioned its title, Eis epideixin tou apostolikou kerugmatos, and had said that it was addressed to "a brother named Marcianus." This is all he tells us; but we can now add from the book itself that it was written after the completion of the greater work, and therefore somewhere about A.D. 180; and that Marcianus was on intimate terms with the writer, but absent from him at the time of writing. ^[3] The work Against Heresies is, of course, controversial from first to last: but the present treatise is a sort of Vade mecum for an intelligent Christian, explaining his faith, placing it in its historical setting in relation to Judaism, and confirming it by the citation and exposition of a great number of Old Testament passages. It is in no sense a manual for catechumens: it is a handbook of Christian Evidence, though its form is not controversial.

A tract of this kind from the pen of a great teacher in any age must needs be of interest. How was Christianity presented as a whole to an educated believer? What were the main points of doctrine and of life on which stress was laid? What were the grounds of belief. which appeared to be most convincing then? These are the things which the historian of religious development wants to know in each of the Christian centuries, and which he finds it exceptionally difficult to get at. The great events and the leading personalities have left their mark on the records of the time: the development of doctrine and the growth of ecclesiastical institutions can be traced with increasing clearness as the documents are tested and studied and compared: but the religious sense of an age, the beliefs which affected life, and the grounds of those beliefs, the ruling motives of conduct, the things that to the best minds seemed to matter most—these escape us unless we are insistent in our search for them; and often, search as we will, we find little to reward our pains. We have special reason to be grateful for a plain statement of the Christian religion as it presented itself to a master mind at the end of the second century. A long and varied experience had qualified Irenæus for such a task. As a boy he had listened to St Polycarp at Smyrna, and he may have conversed with others—the Elders, as he calls "Gnosticism," in all its divergent forms, with the Christian truth as he had come to conceive it in a long life of patient study and practical ministry. He had given to the Church his five books of The Exposure and Overthrow of Knowledge (Gnosis) falsely so called. When such a man lays controversy aside and takes up his pen to talk, as he says, to his absent friend, and furnish him with a summary statement of the Apostolic message and the reasons for believing it in terms of his own day, he deserves our close attention. We shall make little of him if we insist on judging him by modern standards: we shall miss the definiteness of post-Nicene doctrine; we shall be disappointed at finding nothing about ecclesiastical organization; we shall be distressed at the quaint conceits of his exposition of Old Testament prophecies. But if we come to him fresh from the study of Justin Martyr's First Apology, written some thirty-five years before, we shall appreciate the atmosphere in which he had grown up and shall recognize the advance which he had made in the thoughtful interpretation of the Faith.

The manuscript which contains our treatise was found in December 1904, in the Church of the Blessed Virgin at Eriwan in Armenia, by Dr Karapet Ter-Mekerttshian, one of the most learned of the Armenian clergy. It was edited by him with a translation into German, in conjunction with Dr Erwand Ter-Minassiantz, in 1907, in the Texte and Untersuchungen (xxxi. 1); and Dr Harnack added a brief dissertation and some notes. Then in 1912 Dr Simon Weber, of the Faculty of Catholic Theology in the University of Freiburg in Breisgau, being dissatisfied with this presentation of the work, published a fresh translation with the help of some Armenian scholars. Neither of these translations satisfies the needs of English patristic students. The second, though it corrects some errors of the first, is far less close to the original text. And both are vitiated by a want of acquaintance with the textual criticism of the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament, and also with the larger work of St Irenæus himself. The present translation is an attempt to remedy these defects, and at the same time to bring the treatise to the knowledge of those who have hitherto been debarred by linguistic difficulties from reading it. My own acquaintance with the Armenian language and literature is so limited that I cannot hope to have altogether avoided mistakes, and I shall be grateful to those who will point them out. I owe very much to the first of the translations into German, and something also to the second: if I am sometimes right where they were wrong, it is mainly because I have sought to read the text in the light of what Irenæus has said elsewhere.

The same manuscript contains an Armenian version of Books IV and V of the great work Against Heresies. ^[4] These come immediately before our treatise, and are embraced with them under the single title, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. We cannot say whether this error of title goes back beyond the date of the manuscript, which was probably written between 1270-1289, that is in the time of the learned Archbishop John, the brother of King Hetum of Cilicia. A note at the end states that it was written for this archbishop. The Armenian editors believe that the same translator is responsible for the two books of the larger work and for our treatise, and that the translation was made at some date between 650 and 750. The version of Books IV and V is of high value, as enabling us to check the Latin version, the MSS. of which differ considerably among themselves. It is useful also as illustrating the fondness of the Armenian translator for a double rendering of a single word of the original. When we read the Armenian and the Latin side by side, we gain the impression that the Greek text has been very closely followed; and thus we are assured that for our present treatise also the Armenian version is a faithful representative of the lost original.

II

THE DEBT OF IRENÆUS TO JUSTIN MARTYR

If we are to proceed with safety in forming a judgment as to the relation between Justin and Irenæus in respect of the matter which they have in common, it will be necessary not merely to consider a number of selected parallels, but also to examine the treatment of a particular theme in the two writers. Let us set side by side, for example, c. 32 of Justin's First Apology with c. 57 of the Demonstration. Justin has been explaining to his Roman readers who the Jewish prophets were, and then giving a list of the chief things which they expressly foretold concerning the coming of Christ. Then he proceeds thus:

Moses then, who was the first of the prophets, speaks expressly as follows: There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until he shall come for whom it is reserved: and he shall be the expectation of the Gentiles; binding his colt to the vine; washing his robe in the blood of the grape. It is your part then to make careful enquiry and to learn up to what point the Jews had a prince and king of their own. It was up to the appearing of Jesus Christ, our teacher and the expounder of the prophecies which were not understood, namely how it was foretold by the divine holy prophetic Spirit through Moses that there should not fail a prince from the Jews, until he should come for whom is reserved the kingdom. For Judah is the ancestor of the Jews, from whom also they obtained that they should be called Jews. And you, after His appearance took place, both ruled over the Jews and mastered their land.

Now the words He shall be the expectation of the Gentiles were meant to indicate that from among all the Gentiles men shall expect Him to come again—which you yourselves can see with your eyes and believe as a fact: for men of all races are expecting Him who was crucified in Judah, immediately after whose time the land of the Jews was conquered and given over to you.

And the words Binding his colt to the vine and Washing his robe in the blood of the grape were a sign to show what was to happen to Christ, and what was to be done by Him. For the colt of an ass was standing at the entrance to a village, tied to a vine; and this He commanded His disciples at that time to bring to Him; and when it was brought He mounted and sat on it, and entered into Jerusalem, where was that very great temple of the Jews, which afterwards was destroyed by you: And after these things He was crucified, that the remainder of the prophecy might be accomplished. For Washing his robe in the blood of the grape was the announcement beforehand of the passion which He was to suffer, cleansing by blood those who believe on Him. For what is called by the divine Spirit through the prophet (His) robe means the men who believe in Him, those in whom dwells the seed from God, (that is) the Word. And that which is spoken of as blood of the grape signifies that He who is to appear has blood indeed, yet not from human seed, but from a divine power. Now the first power after God, the Father and Lord of all, is the Son, the Word of whom we shall presently tell after what manner He was made flesh and became man. For even as the blood of the vine not man hath made, but God; so also is it signified that this blood shall not be of human seed, but of the power of God, as we have said before.

Moreover Isaiah, another prophet, prophesying the same things in other words said thus: There shall rise a star out of Jacob, and a flower shall spring rip from the root of Jesse, and on his arm shall the Gentiles hope.

The points that strike us at once in this passage are these:

(1) The well-known Blessing of Jacob is cited as the prophecy of Moses, who is called the "first of the prophets."

(2) The quotation is abbreviated, and Justin comments on it in its abbreviated form.

(3) The statement that Judah was the ancestor of the Jews, and that from him they got their name, is on a par with many such explanations which Justin makes for the sake of his Roman readers.

(4) That the Jews had no prince or king of their own after the time of Christ, and that their land was conquered and ruled by the Romans, was a good point of apologetic and one which his readers would fully appreciate.

(5) We are somewhat surprised that "the expectation of the Gentiles" should be referred to the second coming of Christ.

(6) The statement that the ass's colt was tied to a vine is not found in our Gospels.

(7) Washing his robe in the blood of the grape easily suggested our Lord's passion; but that His robe should be those who believe on Him seems to us far-fetched.

(8) Equally far-fetched is the explanation of the blood of the grape as pointing to blood made not by man, but by God.

(9) The combination of Balaam's prophecy with words of Isaiah, and the attribution of the whole to Isaiah, strikes us as a strange piece of carelessness.

Now let us read c. 57 of the Demonstration. After a few prefatory sentences in which he notes certain points regarding Christ which are the subject of prophecy, Irenæus goes on:

Moses in Genesis says thus: There shall not fail a Prince from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until he shall come for whom it remaineth: and he shall be the expectation of the Gentiles: washing his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape. Now Judah was the ancestor of the Jews, the son of Jacob; from whom also they obtained the name. And there failed not a prince among them and a leader, until the coming of Christ. But from the time of His coming the might of the quiver was captured, the land of the Jews was given over into subjection to the Romans, and they had no longer a prince or king of their own. For He was come, for whom remaineth in heaven the kingdom; who also washed his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape: His robe as also His garment are those who believe on Him, whom also He cleansed, redeeming us by His blood. And His blood is said to be blood of the grape: for even as the blood of the grape no man maketh, but God produceth, and maketh glad them that drink thereof, so also His flesh and blood no man wrought, but God made. The Lord Himself gave the sign of the virgin, even that Emmanuel which was from the virgin; who also maketh glad them that drink of Him, that is to say, who receive His Spirit, (even) everlasting gladness. Wherefore also He is the expectation of the Gentiles, of those who hope in him; for we expect of Him that He will establish again the kingdom.

We may now take our nine points one by one:

(1) Here again the Blessing of Jacob is cited as the prophecy of Moses; and a little earlier (§ 43) we find the words: "Moses, who was the first that prophesied."

(2) The text of the quotation is the same as in Justin: but the words about binding the colt to the vine are omitted, and the remainder of the passage is given without abbreviation, as in the LXX.

(3) That Judah is the ancestor of the Jews, who got their name from him, is found in Irenæus; and the actual words would seem to have been taken over from Justin. The statement is somewhat superfluous in a book written for a fairly well instructed Christian, whereas it comes quite naturally in Justin's Apology. Though several parallels between Justin and Irenæus might be explained by the hypothesis of their both having used a book of "Testimonies against the Jews," such a solution could hardly be advanced in this case; for the statement in question would not be likely to occur in such a book.

(4) Justin's words are: meth'hon euthus dorialotos humin he ge Ioudaion paredothe. The translation of the first part of the parallel in Irenæus is obscure but it is possible that the phrase "the might of the quiver was captured" is no more than the translator's attempt to make something of dorialotos. If so, it would appear certain that here also Irenæus was practically writing out a sentence of Justin, only changing humin into tois Rhomaiois.

(5) The expectation of the Gentiles is here also explained of the Second Advent; and the word "kingdom" is offered, as in Justin, as the unexpressed subject of o apokeitai.

(6) The passage about the ass's colt is omitted both from the quotation and from the interpretation. Irenæus has it in IV, xx. 2, where he quotes, again as from Moses, the whole section (Gen. xlix. 10-12), ending with: lætifici oculi ejus a vino, et candidi dentes ejus quam lac. He then goes on: "Let these persons who are said to investigate all things search out the time at which there failed prince and leader from Judah, and who is the expectation of the Gentiles, and what the vine, and what his colt, and what the robe, and what are eyes and teeth and wine; and search out every point; and they shall find that none other is foretold, than our Lord Jesus Christ." Here again Irenæus is very close to the passage in Justin, so far as the general method of putting the argument goes.

(7) and (8) reappear in Irenæus, and it is most natural to suppose that he took them over from Justin. He has a point of his own when he goes on to add to the interpretation of the blood of the grape the gladness produced by the wine. It seems to be introduced without any obvious reason, until we observe that the words which follow in the passage in Genesis tell of the gladness of the eyes produced by wine (lætifici oculi, etc. quoted above).

(9) In c. 58 Irenæus proceeds at once to the quotation of Balaam's prophecy, as follows: "And again Moses says: There shall rise a star out of Jacob, and a leader shall be raised up out of Israel." He does not make the combination with Isaiah which we find in Justin; nor does he attribute Balaam's words to Isaiah. It is however to be noted that in III, ix. 2, where he quotes the passage as here, he does attribute it to Isaiah: "Cujus et stellam Ysaias quidem sic prophetavit: Orietur stella ex Jacob, et surget dux in Israel." On this coincidence in error Dr Rendel Harris remarks (Testimonies, I. p. ii): "Justin shews us the passage of Isaiah following the one from Numbers, and the error lies in the covering of two passages with a single reference. It is clear, then, that Justin's mistake was made in a collection of Testimonies from the prophets, and that the same collection, or one that closely agreed with it, was in the hands of Irenæus." In view, however, of the intimate connection which appears to exist between Irenæus and Justin we must not exclude the alternative possibility that the mistake began with Justin, and was at first reproduced by Irenæus, but was afterwards corrected by him in his later work.

Another example of a whole section drawn from Justin Martyr will be found in cc. 44 f. Here it is the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew to which Irenæus is indebted. The whole of these two chapters should be read consecutively: but the chief parts must be given here. Irenæus cites Gen. xviii. 1 ff., to show that it was the Son of God who spake with Abraham. This is Justin's view also, but the nearest parallels come after the quotation of Gen. xix. 24. At this point Irenæus says:

And then the Scripture says: And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven: that is to say, the Son, who spake with Abraham, being Lord, received power to punish the men of Sodom from the Lord out of heaven, even from the Father who rules (or is Lord) over all. So Abraham was a prophet and saw things to come, which were to take place in human form: even the Son of God, that He should speak with men and eat with them, and then should bring in the judgment from the Father, having received from Him who rules over all the power to punish the men of Sodom.

Justin had said (Dial. 56 ad fin.): "And He is the Lord, who from the Lord who is in heaven, that is, from the Maker of all things, received (power) to bring these things on Sodom and Gomorrah, which the narrative recounts, saying: The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven (kai kurios esti para kuriou tou en to ourano, toutesti tou poietou ton holon, labon to tauta apenenkein Sodomois k.t.l.)." And he then goes on to discuss the question of the eating and drinking with Abraham, but does not treat it as Irenæus does here.

The interpretation of the passage may already have been common Christian apologetic: it is the expression "received power (or authority)" to punish the Sodomites that suggests a direct literary connection; and this expression is found again in Irenæus III, vi. 1, quoted below in the note on this passage.

After this Irenæus goes on at once as follows (Dem. c. 45):

And Jacob, when he went into Mesopotamia, saw Him in a dream, standing upon the ladder, that is, the tree, which was set up from earth to heaven; for thereby they that believe on Him go up to the heavens. For His sufferings are our ascension on high. And all such visions point to the Son of God, speaking with men and being in their midst. For it was not the Father of all, etc. (See below.)

This idea that Jacob's Ladder was "the tree" (xulon), that is to say, the cross, is found in Justin (Dial. 86), among a number of other types equally strange to us: "It says that a ladder was seen by him; and the Scripture has declared that God was supported upon it; and that this was not the Father we have proved from the Scriptures." Irenæus again expands the comment in his own way, but he recurs to the theme "It was not the Father."

For it was not the Father of all, who is not seen by the world, the Maker of all who said: Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me, or what is the place of my rest? and who comprehendeth the earth with his hand, and with his span the heaven—it was not He that came and stood in a very small space and spake with Abraham; but the Word of God, etc.

Now the words "in a very small space" , are clearly reminiscent of Justin. For in Dial. i 27 he says: "Think not that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from anywhere. For the unutterable Father and Lord of all has never come any whither," etc. "How then should He either speak to any one, or be seen by any, or appear in some very small portion of earth (en elachisto merei ges)?" Cf. Dial. 60: en oligo ges morio pephanthai.

These repeated coincidences, in large matters and in small, make us feel that Irenæus was very familiar with Justin's writings. Everywhere he goes beyond him: but again and again he starts from him.

The advantage to be gained by the recognition of the dependence of Irenæus upon Justin may be illustrated from c. 53 of our Treatise. The Armenian text here presents several difficulties, probably from corrupt transcription. The original cannot have been very easy to understand; but when we read with it c. 6 of Justin's Second Apology some points at any rate are cleared up. Irenæus has just quoted Isa. vii. 14 ff., following the LXX with slight variations:

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son, and ye shall call him Emmanuel: butter and honey shall he eat; before he knoweth or selecteth the evil, he chooseth the good; for, before the child knoweth good or evil, he rejecteth wickedness to choose the good. So he proclaimed His birth from a virgin; and that He was truly man he declared beforehand by His eating; and also because he called Him the child: and further by giving Him a name; for this is the custom also for one that is born.

We must pause here for a moment to quote some parallel words from Irenæus himself (III, xxv. 2). He has quoted the same Scripture, and in commenting upon it he says: "Et manifestat quoniam homo, in eo quod dicit: Butyrum et mel manducabit; et in eo quod infantem nominat eum; et priusquam cognoscat bonum et malum: hæc enim omnia signa sunt hominis infantis."

In my translation I have written: "this is the custom also for one that is born." But the Armenian text has: "this is the error also of one that is born." I have accepted Mr F. C. Conybeare's simple and attractive emendation sovoruthiun, "custom," for moloruthiun, "error." ^[5]

We now return to our passage:

And His name is two-fold: in the Hebrew tongue Messiah Jesus, and in ours Christ Saviour. And the two names are names of works actually wrought. For He was named Christ, because through Him the Father anointed and adorned all things; and because on His coming as man He was anointed with the Spirit of God and His Father. As also by Isaiah He says of Himself: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me: wherefore he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. And (He was named) Saviour for this, that He became the cause of salvation to those who at that time were delivered by Him from all sicknesses and from death, and to those who afterwards believed on Him the author of salvation in the future and for evermore.

The Armenian text reads: "in the Hebrew tongue Messiah Christ, and in the Armenian Jesus Saviour." I have adopted the emendation proposed by the Armenian scholars who made the first translation into German. No doubt Christos Soter was what Irenæus wrote as the rendering of "Messiah Jesus": compare Just. M. Ap. I, 33, "Now the name Jesus in the Hebrew speech signifies Saviour in the Greek language."

Having disposed of these preliminary difficulties, we note some curious matters that remain for consideration. What is the point of saying, "names of works actually wrought"? Is there any parallel to the explanation of "Christ" as "He through whom the Father anointed"? And why does our author lay stress on the cure of the sick as the explanation of the name "Jesus"?

Let us now look at the passage of Justin to which we referred at the outset (Ap. II, 6):

Now a name imposed on the Father of all, unbegotten as He is, is an impossibility. For he to whom a name is applied must have one older than himself who has imposed on him the name. Father and God and Creator and Lord and Master are not names: they are appellations derived from benefits and works (ek ton eupoiion kai ton ergon).

Here we see the force of what Irenæus had said about the naming spoken of by Isaiah, as indicating the manhood of the promised Child of the Virgin. The Unbegotten has no name, in the strict sense there was none before Him to impose a name on Him. The Begotten, when begotten as man, has a name, though before that He has what is at once an appellation and a name. Justin goes on:

But His Son, who alone is called Son in the full sense, the Word who before all created things both was with Him and was generated, when at the beginning He created and ordered (or adorned) all things through Him, is called on the one hand Christ, in respect of His being anointed and of God's ordering (or adorning) all things through Him a name which also in itself contains a signification beyond our knowledge, just as the title God is not a name, but a conception, innate in human nature, of a thing (or work) too hard to be declared (pragmatos dusexegetou).

Here Justin is explaining that "Christ" is a name indeed, but more than a name. It is a designation derived from a work, just as the designation God is derived from a work (cf. ergon above, and pragmatos). What then is this work? The anointing which made Him the Christ is something which to Justin's mind occurred before His coming as man. He was anointed that through Him God might order (or adorn) the universe. The sense of the words is fairly plain, if it be somewhat surprising.

But the construction of the Greek at the crucial point is at least awkward. The words are: Christos men kata to kechristhai kai kosmesai ta panta di' autou ton theon legetai. Long ago Scaliger proposed to read kai chrisai, instead of kechristhai. This would mean: "in respect of God's both anointing and ordering all things through Him." The emendation found little favour with the editors of Justin, until the discovery of the Demonstration. Now it seems likely to find a wider acceptance in view of these words of Irenæus: "For He was named Christ because through Him the Father anointed and adorned all things." At any rate it will not be doubted that Irenæus so understood the passage, whatever he may have actually read in his copy of Justin. I have not myself ventured to correct Justin's text: for it is intelligible as it stands; whereas to say "He was called Christ," not because He was anointed, but "because the Father anointed all things through Him," is not very intelligible, even though Irenæus has said it.

Justin continues:

Jesus, on the other hand, offers both the name of a man and the significance of Saviour. For, as we have already said, He has become man, born in accordance with the counsel of God the Father on behalf of the men that believe on Him and for the overthrow of the demons: and this you can learn at the present tune from what takes place under your eyes. For many possessed of demons, in the world generally and in your own city, have been healed and are still being healed by many of our men, the Christians, who exorcise them by the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, though they could not be healed by all the rest of the exorcists.

Jesus is a man's name, familiar enough to Greek readers of the Bible from having been given by Moses to his successor whom we call Joshua. It also has a significance: for it means Saviour. As Soter to the Greeks suggested specially the giving of health (soteria), Justin finds a connection between Iesous and iasis, "healing." You can see this today, he says: for the Christians who use the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, can heal when no one else can (me iathentas iasanto kai eti nun iontai).

Turning back to the last words of the passage quoted above from Irenæus, we note that the same interpretation of "Jesus" is in his mind, even if he does not play on the word iasis. For soteoia itself includes "healing" among its meanings: and Irenæus refers to our Lord's own acts of healing, though he does not at this point follow Justin in instancing the healing of the possessed by Christians in the name of Jesus.^[6]

We have now to consider a passage in which the help to be gained from Justin is not so clear. In c. 43 we read: "This Jeremiah the prophet also testified, saying thus: Before the morning-star I begat thee; and before the sun (is) thy name; and that is, before the creation of the world; for together with the world the stars were made."

Here we have a composite quotation, made up from two different Psalms and attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. The words of Ps. cx. 3, which are familiar to us in the form "The dew of thy youth is of the womb of the morning," were understood by the LXX to mean "From the womb before the morning-star I begat thee" (ek gastros pro heosphurou egennesa se). In our passage the phrase "from the womb" is dropped; and thus the text can be the more easily applied to the pre-existent Son of God. We feel the difficulty of combining the two phrases when we find Tertullian (Adv. Marcion. V. 9), who applies the passage to our Lord's human birth, constrained to interpret "before the morning-star" as meaning while it was yet dark, and offering various proofs from the Gospels that Christ was born in the night.

The second half of our quotation is a modification of Ps. lxxii. 17: "Before the sun his name remaineth" (pro tou heliou diamenei to onoma autou), or "shall remain" (diamenei).

It is obvious that the two texts have been drawn together by a recollection of the parallel phrases "before the morning-star" and "before the sun." But again, in the neighborhood of the latter, we find "before the moon," in the difficult verse (Ps. lxxii. 5): kai sunparamenei to helio, kai pro tes selenes geneas geneon. We shall see that in other writers this phrase also is drawn in.

We may now consider the use made of these texts by Justin Martyr. In his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho (c. 45) he speaks of Christ, as "the Son of God, who was before the morning-star and the moon," and was incarnate and born of the Virgin. This is not exactly a mixed quotation, but we see how readily phrases from the two Psalms are combined. Then in c. 63 he quotes "that which was spoken by David: In the brightness of thy holy ones, from the womb before the morning-star I begat thee:" and he comments thus: "Does this not show you that from of old (anothen) and through a human womb the God and Father of all was to beget Him?" Here there is no combination of texts: but in c. 76 we have the three texts brought together, though "the morning-star" is not mentioned: "And David proclaimed that before sun (Ps. lxxii. 17) and moon (Ps. lxxii. 5) He should be begotten from the womb (Ps. cx. 3), according to the counsel of the Father."

If, as we may well believe, these passages of Justin were familiar to Irenæus, it is not difficult to understand that by a trick of memory he should produce the quotation: "Before the morning-star I begat thee and before the sun is thy name." It was a more serious lapse to assign the quotation to Jeremiah.

In a book of Testimonies against the Jews, attributed to Gregory of Nyssa,^[7] we have the following quotation which combines all three texts: "From the womb before the morning-star I begat thee: and before the sun is his name, and before the moon." This is not assigned to any particular author; and as we have "his name," not "thy name," it may be intended for two separate quotations.^[8] It is possible that by this date the words "and before the moon" had got into some MSS. of the LXX. The Old Latin Psalter has: "Ante solem permanebit nomen ejus in sæcula, et ante lunam sedes ejus;" and some cursive MSS. of the LXX have a Greek text which corresponds with this.

Dr Rendel Harris also quotes from the Syriac writer Bar Salibi:^[9] "David said: Before the day-star I begat thee. And before the sun is his name, and before the moon." From these and other parallels he concludes that Irenæus made use of a common body of proof texts contained in a very ancient book of "Testimonies against the Jews." The existence of such a work has been suggested more than once. Dr Rendel Harris has propounded it in a fresh and attractive form in a book entitled "Testimonies," of which as yet only the introductory portion has appeared (Cambridge, 1916). The body of evidence on which it rests is promised us in a second volume; and judgment must necessarily be suspended until this is available. So far as the Demonstration of Irenæus is concerned, this is the only passage in which them might conceivably be a gain in calling in such a hypothesis. Direct dependence on Justin, on the other hand, can be demonstrated in various portions of our treatise; and this may be the true explanation here.

Irenæus goes on to attribute to Jeremiah a yet more strange quotation: "Blessed is he who was, before he became man." The German translations render the last words differently: one of them has "before the coming into being of man (vor dem Werden des Menschen):" the other has: "before through him man was made (bevor durch ihn der Mensch warde)." We have however an exact parallel to the construction in the Armenian rendering of the words "before he knoweth" in c. 53. The Greek there is prin e gnonai auton (Isa. vii. 15); and we may suppose that here it was prin e genethenai auton anthropon.

No such text is to be found in any book now known to us which is attributed to Jeremiah. Dr Rendel Harris has been the first to point to its occurrence in a slightly different form, and again as quoted from Jeremiah, in Lactantius (Divin. Inst. iv. 8). The whole passage must be given: "First of all we affirm that He was twice born, first in spirit, afterwards in flesh. Wherefore in Jeremiah it is thus spoken: Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee. Also: Blessed is he who was, before he was born: which happened unto none save Christ; who, being from the beginning Son of God, was reborn anew according to the flesh." The Latin, "Beatus qui erat antequam nasceretur," may represent a Greek reading, prin e gennethenai.

The words which follow in Lactantius: "qui, cum esset a principio filius dei, regeneratus est denuo secundum carnem," appear to be taken from Cyprian's Testimonia (II, 8), where a section is headed: "Quod, cum a principio filius dei fuisset, generari denuo haberet secundum carnem;" but the only O.T. quotation that there follows is Ps. ii. 7 f.

So far, then, we have no clue to the source from which either Irenæus or Lactantius derived this strange quotation. It is not likely that Lactantius got it, directly at any rate, from the Demonstration of Irenæus, which does not appear to have had a wide circulation. It is possible that this and certain other passages which are attributed to Jeremiah may be derived from some apocryphal work bearing that prophet's name.

III

THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN JUSTIN AND IRENÆUS

If we are to do justice to the teaching of Irenæus as to the Holy Spirit, it is imperative that we should pay some attention first of all to the view of Justin Martyr, whose First and Second Apologies, as well as the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, were in his hands, and indeed must have been very familiar to him.

1. The Holy Spirit in relation to Prophecy. Justin first mentions the Holy Spirit under the designation of "the prophetic Spirit" (Ap. 1, 6); and this designation frequently recurs. It is noteworthy that prophecy itself is first introduced in answer to the supposed objection, why should not Christ have been a mere man, who by magic performed the miracles attributed to him and so was considered a Son of God? No Christian writer of that day would have been prepared to answer this by denying the power of magic. Justin's answer is on quite a different line. Many generations before the coming of Christ the main events of His life on earth, including the wonders of healing which He should perform, had been foretold by the Jewish prophets. The verification of these prophecies in the story contained in the Gospels was the surest testimony to the truth of what Christians claimed for Christ.

The expression "the prophetic Spirit," occurs frequently both in the First Apology and in the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Sometimes Justin says "the holy prophetic Spirit," and once (Ap. 32) "the divine holy prophetic Spirit." Now "the prophetic Spirit," means the Spirit of the prophets. So Athenagoras, who follows Justin, interpreting and sometimes correcting him, says that it is the Spirit "which works in those who make prophetic utterances," and he adds that it is "an effluence of God," as the ray is of the sun.^[10] The prophets in question are the Jewish prophets: and Justin's insistence on "the prophetic Spirit" is understood when we remember the attempt that was then being made to distinguish the God of the Old Testament ("the Just God") from the God of the New Testament ("the Good God"). This was to cut off Christianity from the past, and to destroy its historical background and its function as the fulfillment of the age-long purpose of God. There was, however, a further reason for emphasizing "the prophetic Spirit," a reason of even greater importance from the standpoint of Christian evidence. The correspondence between the Gospel facts and the prophetic utterances proved two things: namely, that the claim of Jesus to be the Christ was valid, and that the Spirit of the prophets was of God.

We do not in our apologetic today make this use of the exact correspondence of Old Testament texts with facts recorded in the Gospels. But the deeper meaning of the argument—deeper than those who used it knew—the preparation in Jewish history for the coming of the Christ, and the continuity of the self-revelation of God—that is of the essence of the Christian argument still. And we must not forget how great a debt we owe to those who, with a narrow and tiresome literalness of exposition, claimed the Old Testament as the sacred book of the early Christian Church. "Who spake by the prophets" represents the primary conception of the Holy Spirit in the writers of the second century: just as the great sentence which precedes it in the Creed—"Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified"—goes beyond what they were able to say, and represents the final pronouncement of the Church after two more centuries of uncertainty and debate.

2. The Holy Spirit in relation to the Father and the Son. The passage above alluded to as the first in which Justin mentions the Holy Spirit will show us how great a distance the Church had to travel before the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity could find adequate expression. Justin has been saying to his Roman readers: You call us atheists and put us to death, being urged thereto by the demons who have contrived to get themselves called gods. Socrates long ago by true Reason (logos) exposed them, and they got him slain, just as they get us slain today. For today not only Greeks like Socrates, but mere barbarians have cast them off, being enlightened by the Reason Himself, who has taken form and become man and is called Jesus Christ. Yes, we are atheists—in respect of your pagan gods: but not in respect of the most true God, the Father of justice and temperance and the other virtues. "But"—and here we must quote the exact words—"Him, and the Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels that attend Him and are made like unto Him, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, honoring them with reason and with truth."^[11] It would not be fair to say that here Justin ranks the Holy Spirit after the angels: other passages, to be quoted later, show that this is not his meaning. It is rather that the angels are brought into prominence as the escort of the Son, to whom Justin again and again insists on applying the title "Angel" in the sense of divine messenger,^[12] especially when he is explaining various passages in Genesis as manifestations of the divine Son to the patriarchs. Justin's immediate purpose was to show what a wealth of spiritual powers Christianity could set out in contrast to the "many gods"—the demons—of the heathen world: how absurd therefore it was to call Christians atheists. The same argument is handled thirty years later by Athenagoras with Justin's language in mind, but with more caution. Father, Son and Spirit he mentions in due order: but he adds: Not that our theology stops here, for it includes a multitude of angels and ministrants to whom the heavenly bodies, the heavens themselves, and our world have been entrusted by the Creator.^[13] He has retained Justin's argument, but he has carefully avoided the imperfections of its expression.

A little later Justin returns to the charge of atheism, and, having described the kind of worship which Christians offer to the Creator of the universe, he goes on to speak of Him who has taught them this, even Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and whom they had learned to know as the Son of the true God; "having Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third rank."^[14] Such language would have been challenged in later times as unduly subordinating the Son to the Father and the Holy Spirit to the Son; but it is of value as correcting the impression which might have been derived from the earlier passage in which the Holy Spirit was mentioned after the angelic host.

Towards the end of the Apology Justin touches again on this order of the three divine Powers. He finds it in Plato, and gives it as one of several proofs that Plato had read but not understood Moses. Plato had read of the Brazen Serpent which Moses set up "on a sign" (en semeio), but had not understood that the sign was the cross: he had taken it as the form of the Greek letter Ch, a chiasma (i. e. "St. Andrew's cross," or a saltire, as we say in heraldry). Moreover he had read in the first chapter of Genesis that the Spirit of God moved upon the waters. Accordingly, says Justin, "he gives the second place to the Word that is from God, whom he declared to have been extended saltire-wise (kechiasthai) in the universe; and the third to the Spirit who was said to move on the water."^[15]

In the closing chapters of his First Apology Justin describes, in language such as his heathen readers might understand, the Christian sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. He gives a paraphrase only of the baptismal formula, perhaps with a view to lucidity, but possibly also through unwillingness to give the actual words.^[16] He does not even use the terms "baptism" and "baptize," but only speaks of "making the washing" or "bath." "For in the name of the Father of all and Lord God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then make the washing in the water."^[17] He uses similar words a little lower down, with some additions: "There is named on him the name of the Father of all, etc. ... And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, who by the prophets announced beforehand all the things concerning Jesus."^[18] This last addition is of special interest in view of the ultimate inclusion of "Who spake by the prophets" in the Creed.

In describing the Eucharist which followed after Baptism Justin speaks first of the people's prayers: "We make prayers in common, for ourselves, for the person baptized (lit. enlightened), and for all men everywhere." These "common prayers" are followed by the kiss of peace. Then he who presides over the brethren (Justin avoids any technical term such as "bishop") receives the Bread and the Cup, and "he sends up praise and glory to the Father of all through the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and makes thanksgiving ("eucharist") for being accounted worthy of these gifts from Him;" and this he does "at some length." "When he has completed the prayers and the thanksgiving, all the people present respond saying Amen."^[19]

We note that the Holy Spirit is only mentioned in reference to the offering of praise to the Father "through the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit." When he goes on to describe the character of "this food, which we call Eucharist," there is no reference to the Holy Spirit, but only to the Word of God so far are we from that Invocation of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of consecration which came into the liturgies two hundred years later.

Presently Justin says: "And over all our food we bless the Maker of all things through His Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit."^[20] Once again we observe that praise is directed to the Father through the Son and Holy Spirit.

3. The Holy Spirit and the Incarnation of the Word. We are so familiar with the part assigned in our Creeds to the Holy Spirit in connection with our Lord's birth, that the passage now to be quoted from Justin may at first sight seem very surprising. It may be well to approach it by citing some words from the learned and orthodox Waterland, who in 1734, in his book on The Trinity (c. vi: Works, III, 571: Oxford, 1843), wrote as follows in reference to a passage of St Irenæus: "I may remark by the way, that Irenæus here (V, c. 1) seems to understand Spirit of God, and Holy Spirit before, of the second Person, of the Logos himself coming down upon the Virgin. So the earliest Fathers commonly do, interpreting Luke i. 35, to that sense: which I the rather note, because so their asserting Christ's birth of a virgin, and his preexisting as Spirit of God, and God, amounted to the same thing." Waterland appends in a note a catena of eight passages, the texts of which he cites in full. Our passage from Justin is among them.

Justin mentions the subject in his First Apology when he is interpreting Jacob's Blessing in Gen. xlix. The passage is given in full above on p. 7. "The blood of the grape," he says, "signifies that He who is to appear has blood indeed, but not of human seed, but of divine power. Now the first power after the Father of all and Lord God... is the Word."^[21] Later he says: "The power of God came upon the Virgin and overshadowed her." Then he quotes the angel's message in a composite form: "Behold, thou shall conceive in the womb, of (the) Holy Spirit, and shalt bear a son, and he shall be called Son of the Most High," etc. (Luke i. 31, Matt. i. 20): These things, he adds, have been taught us by those who recorded them; and we believe them because "the prophetic Spirit" declared through Isaiah that so it should be. Then he says: "But the Spirit and the Power that is from God, it is not allowable to regard as any other than the Word (the Logos), who also is the first-begotten unto God... It was this (Spirit) that came upon the Virgin and overshadowed her," etc.^[22]

This interpretation of the words "Holy Spirit" in Matt. i 20 and Luke i. 35 is all the more striking because it follows immediately upon the reference to the "prophetic Spirit," whose function it was to announce the birth from the Virgin beforehand. No further comment is necessary here on this passage; but it may be worth while to note that the belief that the Word was Himself the agent of His own Incarnation finds its natural place side by side with the belief that it is through His direct agency, and not through that of the Holy Spirit, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are made the Body and Blood of the Incarnate Word: see the well-known passage in Ap. 1, 66, where however Justin's intricate constructions make the exact meaning of his words difficult to determine.

While "the prophetic Spirit" is thus expressly excluded from, the part in the mystery of the Incarnation which a later interpretation of the words of the Gospels assigned to Him, it is to be noted that Justin makes much of His descent upon Christ at the Baptism. In Dial. 87 the Jew Trypho is made to quote Isa. xi. 2-3: "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding," etc. Conceding that it is Christ on whom the Spirit is to rest in His sevenfold power, Trypho proceeds to ask how, if Christ be God, He should be in need of this gift. Justin's answer is that He is in no such need that, when the prophet says that the Spirit shall "rest" upon Him, he means that He will go no further, that He will have reached a termination, so far as His prophetic work among the Jewish people is concerned. This, he says, you yourselves see to be true: you have had no prophet since. The gifts enumerated were divided among your prophets, some had one, some had another. But they all met on Christ. "When He was come, the Spirit rested, paused" (anepausato oun, toutestin epausato, elthontos ekeinou).^[23] A new era then began, in which Christ "having received gifts," as was prophesied, "gives them, from the grace of the power of that Spirit, to those who believe on Him, according as He knows each to be worthy." Today "you can see among us both women and men who have gifts of grace (charisimata) from the Spirit of God" (c. 88). In an earlier chapter he had said (c. 82: cf. also c. 39): "Among us at the present time there are gifts of prophecy (prophetic charismata); "and he had just before referred to the prophecies of St John's Apocalypse.

While Justin thus recognizes the existence of special gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Church, he does not expressly connect Him with the ordinary graces of the Christian life. Even when he is dealing with the interpretation of the prophecies inspired by the Holy Spirit, he does not say, as later writers do, that we need the enlightenment of the same Holy Spirit to explain their meaning: he says, again and again, that we need "the grace of God" for this purpose. And just as he stops short of saying that this "grace" is, or proceeds from, the Holy Spirit, so also he stops short of saying that "the living water" given by Christ, the true Rock, is the Holy Spirit (Dial. 114).

We pass now from Justin's teaching about the Holy Spirit to that of Irenæus in the Demonstration, to which we shall add illustrations taken from his larger work Against Heresies. It will be convenient at first at any rate to consider it under the same headings as before.

1. The Holy Spirit in relation to Prophecy. Justin's favorite term "the prophetic Spirit" does not occur in the Demonstration: but the work of the Holy Spirit in the ancient prophets is frequently mentioned. Thus for Moses in Genesis we have in c. 24: "God bare witness unto [Abraham] by the Holy Spirit, saying in the Scripture: And Abraham believed God," etc. So in c. 26, with regard to the Tables written with the finger of God, we have the curious explanation: "Now the finger of God is that which is stretched forth from the Father in the Holy Spirit." We shall see presently that Irenæus elsewhere regards the Holy Spirit as one of the hands of God in the work of creation. Here no doubt he is influenced by the words of our Lord in St Luke, "If I by the finger of God cast out devils," where in St Matthew's Gospel the expression is changed to "the Spirit of God."^[24] Then, again, in c. 30 we are told more generally that the prophets were "sent by God through the Holy Spirit."

A fuller treatment is found in several passages. Thus in c. 49 we read: "For it is not a man who speaks the prophecies; but the Spirit of God, assimilating and likening Himself to the persons represented, speaks in the prophets and utters the words sometimes from Christ and sometimes from the Father." The thought is found in Justin (Ap. 1, 36 ff.), where it is fully dealt with and illustrated by examples.

Again, in c. 67: "He took our infirmities," etc. "that is to say, He shall take, etc. For there are passages in which the Spirit of God through the prophets recounts things that are to be as having taken place... and the Spirit, regarding and seeing the time in which the issues of the prophecy are fulfilled, utters the words (accordingly)." This again is found in Justin (Dial. 114).

In his description of the third point of the Rule of Faith (c. 6) he begins with the prophetic function: "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 way upon mankind in all the earth, renewing man unto God." Here we see the wider conception of the Spirit's work, which marks the advance upon Justin to which we shall refer presently.

So far all has been plain: but, in view of the fact that "the Word of God" is so frequently mentioned in Holy Scripture as coming to the prophets, it was inevitable that difficulty should be felt in distinguishing the functions of the Word and the Spirit in this connection. In c. 5 we read, "Now the Spirit shows forth the Word, and therefore the prophets announced the Son of God; and the Word utters the Spirit, and therefore is Himself the announcer of the prophets." A passage in c. 73 illustrates this yet further, "David said not this of himself... but the Spirit of Christ, who (spake) also in other prophets concerning Him, says here by David: I laid me down and slept: I awoke, for the Lord received me."

A few illustrations may be appended from the five books of the great treatise Against Heresies, II, xli. 1: Some Scriptures are too hard for us: "but we know that the Scriptures are perfect, seeing that they are spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit; whereas we are minores et novissimi a verbo dei et spiritu ejus." We are at a great remove from the Word and the Spirit who inspired them. He adds in striking words (§ 3) that "the Scriptures are spiritual: some things we can interpret, others are left with God, and that not only in this world but in that which is to come; that God may for ever be teacher, and man for ever a learner."

Next we may note that Irenæus extends the work of the Holy Spirit to the evangelists: "The Holy Spirit says by Matthew: Now the birth of Christ was on this wise" (III, xvii. 1). And a curious collocation is found in III, vi. 1: "Neither the Lord nor the Holy Spirit nor the apostles would have definitely called any God, unless He were truly God; nor any Lord save the Ruler of all, the Father, and His Son who received rule from Him." Here perhaps the Holy Spirit is referred to for the Old Testament, the Lord and the apostles for the New. In III, vii. 2, however, he recognizes the "impetus" of the Spirit in St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, especially in his rapid questions and answers: "as though man asked the question, and the Spirit gave the answer."

Enough has been said to show that Irenæus goes beyond Justin's expressions, and widens the function of the Holy Spirit in relation to Scripture. But before we leave the topic we may note that the designation "prophetic Spirit" does occur in Irenæus, only with another or a modified connotation. In III, xi. 12 we are told that certain heretics, "in order to frustrate the gift of the Spirit," which in the last days has been poured forth, reject St John's Gospel with its account of the Paraclete: "they reject at once the Gospel and the prophetic Spirit"^[25] ; and, as he says again, "they reject from the Church the grace of prophecy." So also in IV, xxxiv. 6: "Some of the prophets beheld the prophetic Spirit and His operations in all manner of charismata" or gifts of grace. The context shows that it is the working of the Spirit in the Christian Church which was foreseen by some of the prophets. We may compare two passages from the end of the Demonstration (cc. 99 f.). "Others receive not the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and cast away from themselves the prophetic grace, watered whereby man bears the fruit of life unto God:" and again: "Or else they receive not the Spirit, that is, they reject prophecy."

2. The Holy Spirit in relation to the Father and the Son. Under this heading we began by considering Justin's remarkable words, in which he declares that "we worship and adore the Father, and the Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels that attend Him and are made like unto Him, and the prophetic Spirit." Hardly less remarkable, though in a very different way, is the following passage from the Demonstration (c. 10); and it has a special interest from the fact that here also we have a reference to the functions of angels.

"Now this God is glorified by His Word who is His Son continually, and by the Holy Spirit who is the Wisdom of the Father of all: and the powers of these, (namely) of the Word and Wisdom, which are called Cherubim and Seraphim, with unceasing voices glorify God; and every created thing that is in the heavens offers glory to God the Father of all. He by His Word has created the whole world, and in the world are the angels;" etc.

The liturgical ring of this passage is unmistakable. We saw that Justin spoke of Eucharistic praise as being offered to the Father "through the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit." But this. hardly prepares us for such a passage as we have just read. Two interesting parallels, however, may prove suggestive. The first is from the Eucharistic Prayer of Bishop Serapion (c. A.D. 350):

"May the Lord Jesus speak in us, and (the) Holy Spirit, and hymn thee through us. For thou art far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come. Beside thee stand thousand thousands and myriad myriads of angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers: beside thee stand the two most honorable six-winged Seraphim, with two wings covering," etc., leading up to the Ter Sanctus^[26]

This Prayer comes to us from Egypt. When we look at the Liturgy of Alexandria, known as that of St Mark, we find that the reference to the praise offered to the Father by the Son and the Spirit is absent. And in the place of "the two most honorable Seraphim" we read: "the two most honorable living creatures (Hab. iii. 2, LXX), the many-eyed Cherubim, and the six winged Seraphim."^[27] In the other Greek Liturgies "the two living creatures" are not found, but Cherubim and Seraphim remain; and we in the West are familiar with this combination in the words of the Te Deum: "Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus," etc. ^[28]

The second parallel is not less remarkable. It comes from the Eucharistic Preface of the so-called Clementine Liturgy contained in the Apostolic Constitutions (viii. 12). But it does not appear in the ordinary texts. Mr C. H. Turner has recently called attention to a MS. in the Vatican (Vat. Gr. 1506), as offering a more original text of this work and presenting Arian features no longer to be found in the current recension. This early text contains the following words towards the close of the Preface:

"Thee every incorporeal and holy order (of beings) worshippeth; [thee the Paraclete worshippeth] and, before all, thy holy Servant Jesus the Christ, our Lord and God and thy angel and captain of the host and eternal and unending high priest: thee the well-ordered hosts of angels and archangels worship," etc.^[29]

When now we look back to the passage in the Demonstration, with its reference to Cherubim and Seraphim who "with unceasing voices" glorify God, we feel that there is matter here which deserves the attention of students of the earliest forms of the Liturgy.

But a yet earlier witness must be called before we leave this passage. There are several places in the Demonstration which suggest that Irenæus was acquainted with the splendid vision of the Ascension of Isaiah, a Christian apocryphal writing which probably belongs to the first half of the second century. A brief outline of that vision must be given here.^[30]

Isaiah is taken (c. 7) by an angel, whose name he may not know, because he is to return to his mortal body, first up into the firmament, where he finds perpetual warfare between Satanic powers. Next he ascends into the first heaven, where he sees a throne with angels on either side; they chant a hymn of praise, which he learns is addressed to the Glory of the seventh heaven and to His Beloved. In the second heaven he finds also a throne with angels, but more glorious; he would fain fall down and worship, but is not permitted. In the third heaven he finds the like; there is there no mention of the deeds of the vain world from which he has come, but he is assured that nothing escapes observation. In the fourth heaven he again sees angels on either side of a throne, the glory of those on the right being, as before, greater than of those on the left; and all are more glorious than those below. The same in yet greater degree is true of the fifth heaven. But in the sixth heaven (c. 8) there is no throne, and no left hand, but all are alike in splendor: it is in close connection with the seventh heaven, and its glory makes the glory of the five heavens below seem but darkness. At length he comes (c. 9) to the seventh heaven, where his entry is challenged, but permitted. Here he sees the just clothed in their heavenly robes, but not yet having received their thrones and crowns. These they cannot have until the descent and the return of the Beloved has been accomplished. He is shown also the books which contain the transactions of the world below, and learns that all is known in the seventh heaven. He beholds the Lord of Glory, and is bidden to worship Him. He then beholds a second most glorious one, like unto Him, and again is bidden to worship; and then again a third, who is the angel of the Holy Sprit, the inspirer of the prophets. These two latter worship the ineffable Glory; and the chant of praise (c.10) sounds up from the sixth heaven. Then the voce of the Most High is heard speaking to the Lord the Son, bidding Him descend through the heavens to the firmament, and to the world, and even to the angel of the infernal regions; He is to assimilate Himself to those who dwell in each region in turn, so that He may not be recognized as He passes down. He will ascend at length with glory and worship from all. The prophet now beholds the descent of the Beloved. In the sixth heaven there is no change of His appearance, and the angels glorify Him. But in the fifth He is changed, and not recognized, and so in each of the lower heavens, down to the firmament, where He passes through the strife that rages there, still unrecognized. At this point the angel calls the prophet's special attention to what follows (c. 11).

Here follows a description of the Birth from a Virgin, and a notice of the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord, and the sending forth of the Twelve (11^2.23).

Then the prophet beholds the ascent through the firmament and the six heavens: the Lord is recognized and glorified as He ascends: at length He reaches the seventh heaven, and takes His seat on the right hand of the great Glory; and the angel of the Holy Spirit sits on the left hand. The prophet is then sent back to his mortal clothing. On his return he warns Hezekiah that these things will come to pass, but that they may not be communicated to the people of Israel.

Now it is to be observed that in c. 9 of the Demonstration Irenæus gives us an account of the Seven Heavens; in c. 10 he speaks of God as being glorified by His Word and by the Holy Spirit; and in c. 84 he says that the Lord in His descent was not recognized by any created beings, and he thus explains the dialogue with the heavenly powers in Ps. xxiv: "Lift up your gates, ye rulers... Who is the King of Glory?" and so forth. We cannot therefore reasonably doubt that Irenæus was acquainted with the vision in the Ascension of Isaiah.

The words which immediately concern us here are at the end of the ninth chapter of that book: "I saw that my Lord worshipped, and the angel of the Spirit, and that both of them together glorified God. And immediately all the saints approached and worshipped: and all the saints and angels approached and worshipped, and all the angels glorified."

We see then that Irenæus by no means stands alone in his statement that the God and Father of all is glorified by the Son and by the Holy Spirit. Strange as the conception is to us it was not strange to the religious mind of the second Christian century. It would appear to have found place in an early form of the Liturgy, and to have been retained by the Arian compiler of the so-called Clementine Liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions: for the Arians not infrequently could claim to be conservative in points of detail. Possibly we may even trace it, in a form modified into harmony with a later orthodoxy, in the Liturgy of Serapion; but it is cast out altogether in the Greek Liturgies of the subsequent period, and by the orthodox reviser of the Apostolic Constitutions.

As the Demonstration starts from the Rule of Faith—the "three points" of the Creed—it necessarily has something to say of the relation of the Spirit to the Father and the Son: but at once we feel that Irenæus finds difficulty in drawing a clear distinction between the functions of the Word and the Spirit. In c. 5 he says: God is rational (logikos); therefore He creates by the Word (logos): God is Spirit; therefore He orders all by the Spirit. Here Ps. xxxiii. 6 comes to his aid: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by his spirit all their power." Then, having identified the Word with the Son, he identifies the Spirit with the Wisdom of God. After this he takes refuge in St Paul: "One God, the Father," etc. But the passage must be given in full.

"Since God is rational, therefore by (the) Word [or Reason] He created the things that were made; and God is Spirit, and by (the) Spirit He adorned all things: as also the prophet says: By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by his spirit all their power. Since then the Word establishes, that is to say, gives body and grants the reality of being, and the Spirit gives order and form to the diversity of the powers; rightly and fittingly is the Word called the Son, and the Spirit the Wisdom of God. Well also does Paul His apostle say: One God, the Father, who is over all and through all and in us all. For over all is the Father; and through all is the Son, for by means of Him all things were made by the Father; and in us all is the Spirit, who cries Abba Father, and fashions man into the likeness of God.^[31] Now the Spirit shows forth the Word," etc. ^[32]

Here we have moved a long way from Justin, who does not connect the Holy Spirit with the work of creation, nor quote Ps. xxxiii. 6; and who expressly tells us more than once that it is the Son who is called Wisdom by Solomon (Dial. 62 and 126). It is to other writings of Irenæus himself that we must look for illustration of these words of the Demonstration.

We begin with Isa. xxxiv. 1 ff., a passage which contains so many illustrations of the language of the Demonstration that we must quote it at some length. The translation is made from a comparison of the Latin and Armenian versions: where it does not accord with the Latin, it is to be assumed that the Armenian is followed.

(1) So then according to His greatness it is not possible to know God; for it is impossible that the Father should be measured. But according to His love—for love it is which leads us to God through His Word—as we obey Him we ever learn that He is so great a God, and that it is He who by Himself created and made and adorned and contains all things. Now in all things are both we and this world of ours:^[33] therefore we also were made together with those things that are contained by Him. And it is this concerning which the Scripture says: And the Lord God formed man, dust of the earth; and breathed in his face the breath of life (Gen. ii. 7). Angels therefore made us not, nor formed us: for neither could angels make the image of God, nor could any other except the true God, nor any power standing remote from the Father of all. For of none of these was God in need to make whatsoever He of Himself had foreordained should be made: as though He Himself had not His own Hands. For ever with Him is the Word and Wisdom—the Son and the Spirit—through whom and in whom freely and of His own power He made all things; unto whom also the Father speaks,^[34] saying: Let us make man after our image and likeness: taking from Himself the substance of the things created, and the pattern of those made, and the form of those adorned.

(2) "Well then spake the Scripture which says: First of all believe that there is one God, who created and fashioned all things, and made all things to be from that which was not; and containeth all things, and alone is uncontained.^[35] Well also in the prophets says the Angel:^[36] Hath not one God created its? Is there not one Father of us all (Mal. ii. 10)? And agreeably with this the Apostle says: One God and Father, above all and through all and in us all (Eph. iv. 6). In like manner also the Lord says: All things have been delivered unto me by my Father (Matt. xi. 27); plainly by Him who made all things: for He gave Him not the things of another, but His own."^[37]

"And in all things there is nothing excepted. And for this cause He is Judge of quick and dead; having the key of David, opening and none shall shut, and He shall shut and none shall open (Rev. iii. 7). For none other was able, neither in heaven nor on earth nor beneath the earth to open the Father's book, nor to look thereon, save the Lamb that was slain and redeemed us by his blood Rev. v. 2); having received all power from Him, who by the Word made and by Wisdom adorned all things, when the Word was made flesh (John i. 14) that as in heaven He had the preeminence,^[38] because He was the Word of God, so also on earth He should have the preeminence, because He was a just man,^[39] who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth (1 Pet. ii. 22); and that He should have the preeminence also over those who are beneath the earth, being made the first-begotten from the dead (Rev. i. 5): and that all things should behold, as we have said, their King: and that the Father's light should come upon the flesh of our Lord, and from His flesh sparkling and flashing back should come to us, and so man should be drawn and caught into the incorruption of the Father's light.

(3) Now that the Word, that is, the Son, was always with the Father,^[40] we have shown by many proofs. And that Wisdom, which is the Spirit, was with Him before all creation, He says by Solomon, thus: God by wisdom founded the earth, and he prepared the heaven by understanding: by His knowledge the depths were broken up, and the clouds dropped down the dew (Prov. iii. 19 f.). And again: The Lord created me (in Arm.) the beginning of his ways, for his works," etc. (Prov. viii. 22-25).

(4) "There is therefore one God, who by the Word and Wisdom made and fashioned all things..."

So the great passage runs on: later portions of it describe the work of the Holy Spirit among men. The footnotes have shown how much of it is repeated in almost the same words in the Demonstration, apart from the particular section which we have called it in to illustrate. To that section we must return; for we are now concerned with the Spirit's work in connection with Creation.

First we must deal with the quotation, By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by his spirit all their power. This is quoted more correctly—"by the spirit (or breath') of his mouth"—in I, xv and also in III, viii. 3. In the latter place he makes no comment; but in the former, after having quoted this text to prove that God made all things by His Word, he presently adds a reference to the Spirit: "By His Word and Spirit making all things, and disposing and governing them, and granting existence to them all." Here the Word and the Spirit seem to be brought together merely because they have occurred in the quotation, and there is no further reference to the Holy Spirit in the context. It might therefore appear that they are no more distinguished from one another than they are in the parallelism of the Hebrew poet, to whom "the word" and "the breath of his mouth" are but one and the same. But Irenæus has no eye for such parallelisms, and the dropping of the phrase "of his mouth" in our present passage makes this only too plain.

Next we note the expression "by the Spirit He adorned them." This word "adorned" (Lat. adornavit) recurs several times in the passage we have quoted from Bk. IV: "created and made and adorned and contains all things;" "the form of the things adorned," "who by the Word made and by Wisdom adorned all things." The Armenian word is the same throughout, and probably represents the Greek ekosmesen and ton kekosmemenon.^[41] At the end of the passage we have a similar phrase: "who by the Word and Wisdom made and fashioned all things (Lat. adaptavit)."^[42]

The passage in the Demonstration goes on to say that "rightly and fittingly is the Word called the Son, and the Spirit the Wisdom of God." The proof texts for this latter statement are not given: but we have had them in the long passage from the fourth book Against Heresies. For the purpose of asserting the part of the Holy Spirit in Creation, Irenæus has boldly taken over the texts which speak of Wisdom in this connection—texts which Justin before him and Origen^[43] after him would have referred to the Son.

This equivalence in creative function of the Son and the Spirit, as the Word and the Wisdom of God, is strangely expressed in Bks. IV and V, by calling them the Hands of God. In IV, pref. 3 we read: "Man is a mingling of soul and flesh,^[44] fashioned after the likeness of God and formed (plasmatus) by His Hands, that is, by the Son and the Spirit, to whom also He said: Let us make man." The conception is developed in IV, xiv. 1: "The Father had no need of angels to make the world and to form man for whose sake the world was made; nor again was He in want of ministration for the making of created things and the dispensation of the work that concerned man but He had abundant and unbounded ministration; because there ministers unto Him His own Offspring for all purposes, and His own Hands,^[45] that is, the Son and the Spirit, the Word and Wisdom to whom all the angels render service and are in subjection." The next occurrence of the metaphor is in the great passage we have quoted above (IV, xxxiv. 1, "as though He had not His own Hands"), where he practically repeats what he has said before.

Then in V, i. 3 we have: "For never at any time has Adam escaped the Hands of God, to whom the Father spake, saying: Let us make man after our image and likeness. And for this cause in the end (of the times), not of the will of flesh nor of the will of man (John i. 13), but of the good pleasure of the Father, His Hands made the Living Man, that Adam might become after the image and likeness of God." Here we see the conception carried on from the Creation to the Incarnation.

In V, v. 1, speaking of Enoch and Elijah, he says: "By those Hands by which they were formed (eplasthesan) at the beginning they were translated and taken up: for in Adam the Hands of God were habituated to order and hold and carry their own formation (plasma), and to bear it and set it where they themselves would." He goes on to say that "the Hand of God was present "with the Three Children in the Furnace—namely "the Son of God."

Then in V, vi. 1 the continual molding of man is indicated: "God shall be glorified in His own formation (plasmate), conforming and conjoining it to His Son. For by the Hands of the Father, that is, the Son and the Spirit, man is made after the image and likeness of God—but not part of man." He is arguing for the resurrection of the flesh, not of the soul alone.

In V, xv. 2 f. our Lord's cures in the Gospels are said to show the Hand of God, which formed man at the beginning: cf. also xvi. 1. This is not at variance with the conception, for the Son is one of the Hands of God.

Lastly, in V, xxviii. 3, he returns to the two Hands: "Wherefore in all this time (viz. the 6000 years) man, formed at the beginning by the Hands of God, that is, the Son and the Spirit, is being made after the image and likeness of God."

In the Demonstration the same thought is suggested by the phrase in c. 11: "But man He formed with His own Hands;" but it is not further dwelt upon.

The identification of the Spirit with Wisdom was made after a fashion by some of the "Gnostics," but not in a way that is likely to have influenced Irenæus.^[46] Nor do I know where else to find it at this date except in Theophilus of Antioch. But on his name we must pause for a brief digression. He seems to have written a little earlier than Irenæus, who is generally admitted to have had some acquaintance with his works.

In approaching what Theophilus of Antioch has to say concerning the Holy Spirit, it is of the first importance to bear in mind that his three books addressed to Autolycus represent a systematic attempt to convert a heathen from the worship of a plurality of Gods. A higher faith is set before him, but it is not what we today should speak of as distinctively Christian. There is no Christian theology, properly so called, propounded: the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection of our Lord are not mentioned; the very names Christ and Jesus are absent:^[47] the Gospels are referred to only in passing for certain moral precepts. Much of the work is directly controversial and negative: his positive arguments are concerned with the process of Creation as revealed to Moses and with prophecies of the Old Testament. In these Scriptures and in the Gospels, so far as he touches on them, he finds the inspiring activity of the Spirit of God: but Creation, not less than Inspiration, is for him a function of God's Wisdom as well as of God's Word; and, though he does not explicitly identify Wisdom with the Holy Spirit, his language certainly implies that this was his meaning.

Theophilus leads off with a general statement which is perhaps to be explained by his anxiety to keep the Unity of God in the front of his exposition. The form of God, he says, is ineffable: "if I call Him Light, I speak of His handiwork; if Word of His rule"—for he explains later that arche means "rule" (hoti archei) as well as "beginning"; "if I call Him Mind, I speak of His understanding; if Spirit, of His breath; if Wisdom, of His offspring; if Strength, of His might; if Power, of His working; if Providence, of His goodness," and so on.^[48]

Here we have "Word," "Spirit," "Wisdom "—as it were Names of God: a sort of warning that, if these are hereafter mentioned as active powers, they are not to be thought of as infringing on the Unity of the Deity.

Next, in i. 5, we read: "the whole creation is embraced by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit that embraces it is together with the creation embraced by the hand of God." This does not encourage us to expect a very clear definition of terms.

In i. 7 we get what is more to our purpose. He is speaking of God as the Physician who can open the eyes of the soul: "God, who heals and quickens by the Word and Wisdom. For God by His Word and Wisdom made all things. For by his word were the heavens established, and by his spirit all their power. Most excellent is His Wisdom: God by wisdom founded the earth, and prepared the heavens by understanding: by (his) knowledge the depths were broken up, and the clouds dropped down the dew."

This might be Irenæus himself.^[49] There is the same inexact quotation of Ps. xxxiii. 6, with "his spirit," instead of "the spirit (or breath') of his mouth"; and the same full quotation of Prov. iii. 19, 20, where the former verse only might have been expected. Moreover the next sentences of Theophilus give in summary form much which is said with great fullness by Irenæus, touching the vision of God and the resurrection of the flesh as well as of the soul.

In ii. 9 Wisdom and Holy Spirit are found in close conjunction. The prophets being "spirit-bearers of holy Spirit" (pneumatophoroi pneumatos hagiou) were able to take in the Wisdom that is from Him (i. e. from God) and by this Wisdom spoke of creation and of other things, future as well as past. Wisdom is here connected with the Holy Spirit, yet not expressly identified with Him.

We go on (ii. 10) to what the prophets have told us about the creation. Out of what did not exist God made all things. For God has no coeval. Though in need of nought in His existence before the ages, yet He willed to make man, by whom He might be known. So He made the world in preparation for man. And this is how He did it: "God having His own Word existent within His own heart (endiatheton), begat Him, together with His own Wisdom, uttering Him forth before all things.^[50] This Word He used as minister for the things brought into being by Him, and through Him He made all things. This (Word) is also called Rule (arche, hoti archei), because He rules and dominates all that has been created through Him. This (Word) therefore, being Spirit of God and Rule and Wisdom and Power of the Highest, came down upon the prophets and through them spoke of the world's creation and all other things. For the prophets were not there when the world was made, but (only) the Wisdom of God which is in Him, and His holy Word who is ever present with Him. So Solomon says "When he prepared the heaven I was present with him," and so on. "And long before Solomon Moses, or rather the Word of God through him as an instrument, says: In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth." Then follows a mention of the Divine Wisdom "as foreknowing the foolish idolatries of men, and as saying In the beginning God made, that it might be understood that "in His Word God made the heaven and the earth."

It may be that Theophilus thus passes from the Word of God to the Wisdom of God, and back again, and even calls the Word both Spirit of God and Wisdom, in order to maintain the ruling conception of the Unity of the Deity. He speaks of God as begetting His own Word together with His own Wisdom—and we remember that in an earlier place he spoke of Wisdom as the offspring (gennema) of God—but he has not used the word "Son," though this he will have to do later. He writes so clearly when he chooses, that we are almost forced to conclude that he is withholding the fuller doctrine with intentional reserve from one who still persists in his heathen beliefs.

He now quotes (ii. ii) the whole of the first chapter of Genesis, and begins to comment on it, first noting "the exceeding greatness and riches of the Wisdom of God" displayed in it. Presently (ii. 13) he says that, unlike man, God can begin His building from the roof. Therefore "In the beginning God made the heaven, that is, through the Beginning (dia tes arches) the heaven was made, as we have explained." He has already called the Word arche, though in the sense of Rule. The Spirit appears as the vivifying power in connection with the water. Then "the Command (he diataxis) of God, that is, His Word," introduces light. Then the Word of God gathers the waters "into one assembly" (eis sunagogen), a phrase which presently allegorized.^[51]

When he comes to the fourth day, on which the luminaries were created, he offers some allegorical interpretations. Man, though not yet created, is in a way anticipated and prefigured. The sun, never waning, is a type of God in His eternal fullness: the moon with her changes is a type of man, his rebirth and resurrection. "In like manner also," he proceeds, "the three days before the luminaries were made are types of the triad—God and His Word and His Wisdom;^[52] and to the fourth type (what corresponds) is man, who needs the light: so that there may be God, Word, Wisdom, Man. This is why the luminaries were made on the fourth day." And he goes on to interpret the stars, bright and less bright, as the prophets and other just men; and the planets as wanderers from God.

Here for a moment we seem to have got the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and the identification of Wisdom with the Spirit. And we have no earlier example of the use of the word Trias in this sense. But we are instantly warned off from such a view by his introduction of Man as a fourth member of the series. If he has come too near enunciating the Trinity, he certainly escapes, covering his tracks. Is it possible that these were "words to the wise"? At any rate he has said nothing that could raise in the mind of Autolycus any thought of plurality of Gods.

In ii. 18 he comes on to the creation of man. First the high dignity of man is indicated in the words, Let us make man after our image and likeness. "For when God had made all things by word, and counted them all as subsidiary (parerga), the making of man He alone counted work of His own hands. Yea more, as though needing assistance, God is found saying, Let us make... But to none other did He say it, save to His own Word and His own Wisdom."

Here again we almost seem to be listening to Irenæus. Is it possible that it is in view of the indistinctness of this very teaching that Irenæus so often reiterates that the Word and the Wisdom are the Son and the Spirit, and that these are the Hands of God? Theophilus has almost said it himself: but he has stopped short of saying it. And in a later chapter (ii. 22) he will return to the old vagueness, and tell us that it was "not the God and Father of all... but His Word, through whom He made all things, who, being His Power and His Wisdom, represented the Father of all," and conversed in Paradise with Adam. And he adds that the Voice Adam heard is "the Word of God, who is also His Son (huios autou): not indeed as poets and mythologers speak of sons of the gods begotten by intercourse; but as truth declares concerning the Word who is ever existent within (endiatheton) the heart of God. For before anything was made He had Him to His Counselor, as being His own mind and understanding. But when He willed to make what He had counseled, He begat this Word into outwardness (prophorikon), as first-begotten of all creation: not being Himself emptied of the Word, but having begotten the Word, and for ever conversing with His Word." He then quotes the first verses of St John's Gospel; but he does not go on to "the Word made flesh."

In all this we have much that reminds us of Irenæus, and there are yet closer parallels to be found in later chapters. We cannot but regret that we have none of those works of Theophilus which would have given us his more distinctively Christian teaching, such as Autolycus might have received had he been willing to become a catechumen. We have enough at any rate to make us feel that Irenæus was not on wholly new ground in this particular matter, even if he trod it much more firmly than his predecessor.

We now return to the Demonstration and read a passage in which Irenæus sums up a portion of his argument (c. 47). "So then the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, and the Father is God and the Son is God: for that which is begotten of God is God." This surprises us alike by its anticipation of a later formula, and by its silence in regard to the Holy Spirit. It is only at a later point after a quotation from Ps. xlv, that the Spirit is mentioned: "The Son, as being God, receives from the Father, that is, from God, the throne of the everlasting kingdom, and the oil of anointing above His fellows. The oil of anointing is the Spirit, wherewith He has been anointed." This statement is also found in III, xix. 3: and in III, vi. 1 we read: "Since therefore the Father is truly Lord and the Son is truly Lord, the Holy Spirit duly indicated them by the title of Lord;" and, after certain texts have been quoted: "For the Holy Spirit indicated both by the title of Lord—Him who is anointed, even the Son, and Him who anoints, that is, the Father."^[53]

The concern of Irenæus, as of Justin before him, is with the Father and the Son; and he writes always with the heresy of Marcion in the back of his mind. It would seem as though no question of the Deity of the Holy Spirit occurred to him. The Spirit was the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. It was necessary to insist that "that which is begotten of God is God:" the Godhead of the Son required proof. But to say that "the Spirit of God" is truly God would have been to him a tautology. The thought of the Spirit as God did not as yet involve any such distinction as could seem to conflict with the Unity of the Deity.

To do justice to the teaching of Irenæus so far as it regards the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, it would be necessary to examine what he has to tell us of the Spirit's work in the process of man's restoration. An adequate consideration of this would correct the one-sided view which is all that we gain, from treating of the points on which his conceptions are farthest removed from those with which we ourselves are familiar. It has been necessary to consider these points with some fullness, because it is important to observe how much still remained unsettled, and how great a task still lay before the leaders of Christian thought before such definitions could be reached as should adequately guard the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity. It is not possible however to do more within our present limits, and it is fortunate for us that the gap may be filled by a reference to the careful and sympathetic exposition of Dr. Swete in his valuable work on The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (1912, pp. 89-94). "Irenæus," he tells us, "enters into the details of the Holy Spirit's work on the hearts and lives of men with a fullness which is far in advance of other Christian writers of the second century." And he sums up by saying: "On the whole, the pneumatology of Irenæus is a great advance on all earlier Christian teaching outside the Canon." With this apology for incompleteness we must pass on to the third and last point of our subject.

3. The Holy Spirit and the Incarnation of the Word. We have seen how Justin declared that it was not permissible to regard "the Spirit" and "the Power" that came upon the Virgin as any other than the Word of God Himself. And we also noted in passing that Theophilus of Antioch spoke of the Word as being "Spirit of God" and "Power of the Highest," the second of which designations comes from Luke i. 35. We have now to ask whether the language of Irenæus corresponds with this interpretation and makes the Word Himself to be the agent of His own Incarnation.

We begin with a strange passage of the Demonstration (c. 71) in which he expounds Lam. iv. 20: The Spirit of our face, the Lord Christ, was taken in their snares; of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles. He has used part of this text in III, xi. 2, a passage which must be cited here. Christ, he says, is Salus, Salvator, and Salutare in various Scriptures. "He is Salvator (Saviour), because He is Son and Word of God: Salutare (perhaps as saving-principle), because He is Spirit; for the Spirit of our face, it says, Christ the Lord: and He is Salus (Salvation), because He is flesh." He has in his mind some "Gnostic" error which he is refuting; but we are only concerned with his use of the text to prove that Christ is Spirit. In the passage in the Demonstration he makes the same use of it. This Scripture, he says, declares "that Christ being (the) Spirit of God was to become a suffering man." Then he adds: "And by shadow he means His body. For just as a shadow is made by a body, so also Christ's body was made by His Spirit." Here again we are not concerned with the general argument, but only with these two statements: Christ was Spirit of God, and Christ's body was made. by His Spirit. This is as much as to say that the Word of God was the agent of His own Incarnation.

In c. 59 we read: "By flower [of the root of Jesse] he means His flesh (or "body"): for from spirit it budded forth, as we have said before." The reference would appear to be to c. 51: "that the same God forms Him from the womb, that is, that of the Spirit of God He should be born."

In V, i. 2, controverting Docetic views, he says "If He were not man and yet appeared to be man, then neither did He remain what He was in truth, (viz.) Spirit of God, since the Spirit is invisible; nor was any truth in Him, since He was not what He appeared to be."

In c. 97, after quoting from Baruch iii. 38, Afterward did he appear upon earth, and was conversant with men, he says: "mingling and mixing the Spirit of God the Father with the plasma (formation') of God, that man might be after the image and likeness of God." There is a close parallel in IV, xxxiv 4, a continuation of the great passage cited at length above: "His advent according to flesh, whereby a mingling and communion of God and man was made, according to the good-pleasure of the Father: the Word of God having foretold from the beginning that God should be seen of men and should be conversant with them on the earth... that man being intermingled^[54] with the Spirit of God should be brought to the glory of the Father."

The general thought here is that the restoration of man takes place after the pattern of the Incarnation—the intermingling of human flesh with the Spirit of God. If the Spirit of God in the Incarnation is thought of primarily as Christ Himself, yet there is no sharp distinction drawn between Christ as Spirit and the Spirit that works in believers. The indistinctness is not greater than in St Paul: "if the Spirit of God be in you... but if any man have not the Spirit of Christ... but if Christ be in you... if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you"—all in consecutive verses in Rom. viii. 9 ff.

We have left to the last a phrase, which taken alone might have suggested a later view. If we are not to misinterpret Irenæus, we must bear in mind that the clause "Conceived of the Holy Ghost" does not appear in any credal confession before the Council of Ariminum in 359, and it was not until some years later that it found final acceptance. It belongs to a period of definition long subsequent to the age of Irenæus.

The words in question are these (c. 40): "He from whom all things are, He who spake with Moses, came into Judea; generated from God by (the) Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary." I have been compelled to use the word "generated," at the risk of misunderstanding: but the Armenian word means simply "sown." And we shall do well at once to compare III, xvii. 6: "The Word, ... united and sown together with that which He Himself had formed (or, as the Latin has it, unitus et consparsus suo plasmati) according to the good pleasure of the Father, and made flesh." It is the Word that the Father "sows" by His Spirit. And to show the wide scope of the metaphor, we may compare IV, xx. 1: "The Son of God is sown everywhere in the Scriptures; at one time speaking with Abraham and eating with him," and so forth. And, again, in IV, xlviii. 2 we have: "the seed of the Father of all, that is, the Spirit of God, through whom all things were made, mingled and united with flesh, that is, His plasma (formation')." This is said of the Holy Spirit in His work amongst men.

The whole topic is further illustrated by V, i. 3:

"The Ebionites... not willing to understand that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and the power of the Highest overshadowed her; wherefore also that which was born was holy, and Son of the Most High God, the Father of all, who wrought His incarnation, and manifested a new birth; that, as by the former birth we inherited death, so by this birth we should inherit life." Presently he adds: "and not considering that, just as at the beginning of our formation (plasmatio) in Adam that breath of life which was from God, being united toy the thing formed (plasmata), animated man and manifested a rational animal, so at the end the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God, being united (adunitus, singular) to the original substance of the formation (plasmatio) of Adam, made man living and perfect, capable of receiving the perfect Father; that, as in the animal we all died, so in the spiritual we should all be made alive."^[55]

It results from this examination that the teaching of Irenæus as to the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Incarnation is vague, perhaps even transitional. He does not, like Justin, plainly assert that the Spirit of God who came down upon the Virgin was the Word of God Himself; nor, on the other hand, does he definitely preclude that view. He seems to prefer to think of a cooperation of the Word of God and the Wisdom of God—the Two Hands of God to whom the creation of the first formed man was due.

We may conclude by quoting a striking passage from the Demonstration,^[56] the earlier part of which will recall the noble lines of Newman's hymn:

O wisest love! that flesh and blood,

Which did in Adam fail,

Should strive afresh against the foe,

Should strive and should prevail.

And that a higher gift than grace

Should flesh and blood refine,

God's presence and his very Self,

And Essence all-divine.

"So the Word was made flesh, that, through that very flesh which sin had ruled and dominated, it should lose its force and be no longer in us. And therefore our Lord took that same original formation as (His) entry into flesh, so that He might draw near and contend on behalf of the fathers, and conquer by Adam that which by Adam had stricken us down. Whence then is the substance of the first-formed (man)? From the Will and the Wisdom of God, and from the virgin earth. For God had not sent rain, the Scripture says, upon the earth, before man was made; and there was no man to till the earth. From this, then, whilst it was still virgin, God took dust of the earth and formed the man, the beginning of mankind. So then the Lord, summing up afresh this man, took the same dispensation of entry into flesh, being born from the Virgin by the Will and the Wisdom of God; that He also should show forth the likeness of Adam's entry into flesh, and there should be that which was written in the beginning, man after the image and likeness of God."