Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I:
IRENÆUS: Chapter XIX.—Jesus Christ was not a...

Chapter XIX.—Jesus Christ was not a mere man, begotten from Joseph in the ordinary course of nature, but was very God, begotten of the Father most high, and very man, born of the Virgin.

1. But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” 3665 But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; 3666 and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: “I said, Ye are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but ye shall die like men.” 3667 He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, 3668 defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had p. 449 become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons?

2. For this reason [it is, said], “Who shall declare His generation?” 3669 since “He is a man, and who shall recognise Him?” 3670 But he to whom the Father which is in heaven has revealed Him, 3671 knows Him, so that he understands that He who “was not born either by the will of the flesh, or by the will of man,” 3672 is the Son of man, this is Christ, the Son of the living God. For I have shown from the Scriptures, 3673 that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. But that He had, beyond all others, in Himself that pre-eminent birth which is from the Most High Father, and also experienced that pre-eminent generation which is from the Virgin, 3674 the divine Scriptures do in both respects testify of Him: also, that He was a man without comeliness, and liable to suffering; 3675 that He sat upon the foal of an ass; 3676 that He received for drink, vinegar and gall; 3677 that He was despised among the people, and humbled Himself even to death and that He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, 3678 coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men; 3679 —all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him.

3. For as He became man in order to undergo temptation, so also was He the Word that He might be glorified; the Word remaining quiescent, that He might be capable of being tempted, dishonoured, crucified, and of suffering death, but the human nature being swallowed up in it (the divine), when it conquered, and endured [without yielding], and performed acts of kindness, and rose again, and was received up [into heaven]. He therefore, the Son of God, our Lord, being the Word of the Father, and the Son of man, since He had a generation as to His human nature from Mary—who was descended from mankind, and who was herself a human being—was made the Son of man. 3680 Wherefore also the Lord Himself gave us a sign, in the depth below, and in the height above, which man did not ask for, because he never expected that a virgin could conceive, or that it was possible that one remaining a virgin could bring forth a son, and that what was thus born should be “God with us,” and descend to those things which are of the earth beneath, seeking the sheep which had perished, which was indeed His own peculiar handiwork, and ascend to the height above, offering and commending to His Father that human nature (hominem) which had been found, making in His own person the first-fruits of the resurrection of man; that, as the Head rose from the dead, so also the remaining part of the body—[namely, the body] of everyman who is found in life—when the time is fulfilled of that condemnation which existed by reason of disobedience, may arise, blended together and strengthened through means of joints and bands 3681 by the increase of God, each of the members having its own proper and fit position in the body. For there are many mansions in the Father’s house, 3682 inasmuch as there are also many members in the body.

Footnotes

John viii. 36.

Rom. vi. 23.

Ps. 82:6, 7.

The original Greek is preserved here by Theodoret, differing in some respects from the old Latin version: καὶ ἀποστεροῦντας τὸν ἄνθρωπον τῆς εἰς Θεὸν ἀνόδου καὶ ἀχαριστοῦντας τῷ ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν σαρκωθέντι λόγῳ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ ὁ λόγος ἄνθρωπος … ἵνα ὁ ἄνθρωπος τὸν λόγον χωρήσας, καὶ τὴν υἱοθεσίαν λαβὼν, υἱὸς γένηται Θεοῦ. The old Latin runs thus: “fraudantes hominem ab ea ascensione quæ est ad Dominum, et ingrate exsistentes Verbo Dei, qui incarnatus est propter ipsos. Propter hoc enim Verbum Dei homo, et qui Filius Dei est, Filius Hominis factus est … commixtus Verbo Dei, et adoptionem percipiens fiat filius Dei.” [A specimen of the liberties taken by the Latin translators with the original of Irenæus. Others are much less innocent.]

Isa. liii. 8.

Jer. xvii. 9.

Matt. xvi. 16.

John i. 13.

See above, iii. 6.

Isa. vii. 14.

Isa. liii. 2.

Zech. ix. 9.

Ps. lxix. 21.

Isa. ix. 6.

Dan. vii. 13.

Isa. vii. 13.

Eph. iv. 16.

John xiv. 2.