Irenaeus

Martin Marprelate said:

People may know that Irenaeus, one of the earliest Church Fathers, proposed a theory of Recapitulation, whereby many of the matters of the Old Testament re-appear in the New. For example, Christ is the new Israel (Matthew 2:15). Some of his ideas work quite well, but he sometimes went too far. Can we see the origins of Mariolatry in this extract?

Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word. Luke 1:38 But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise they were both naked, and were not ashamed, Genesis 2:25 inasmuch as they, having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult age, and then multiply from that time onward), having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race.........
that deception being done away with, by which that virgin Eve, who was already espoused to a man, was unhappily misled — was happily announced, through means of the truth [spoken] by the angel to the Virgin Mary, who was [also espoused] to a man. For just as the former was led astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she had transgressed His word; so did the latter, by an angelic communication, receive the glad tidings that she should sustain (portaret) God, being obedient to His word. And if the former did disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become an intercessor (advocata) for the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience.
[Irenaeus Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 22, sect. 4 and Book 5, Chapter 19, Sect. 1]

Click to expand...

Thanks for the post. I have never read or heard anyone propose that concept above relative to the two virgins yet it has come to my mind and I have posted kind of the like thought here before.

Redemption through a virgin birth.

Gal 4:4 YLT and when the fulness of time did come, God sent forth His Son, come of a woman, [A virgin who out of Spirit conceived] come under law, ['Lo, the virgin shall conceive, and she [the virgin], How do we know. See V 24,25 And Joseph, having risen from the sleep, did as the messenger of the Lord directed him, and received his wife, and did not know her till she brought forth her son -- the first-born, and he called his name Jesus.] shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,' which is, being interpreted 'With us he is God.'
Cont Gal 4:5 that those under law [ thou shalt not eat of it ] he may redeem, that the adoption of sons we may receive;

Consider to redeem. Redeem from what? Death brought fourth through sin? Now consider Eve a virgin taken from man as a helper for him. Him who had been given a law, command, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: Was the first woman, the first virgin, espoused to the man to be his helper by bring forth the Son of God?

Could she have been taken from the man a virgin who was with child? I ask because of the way Gen 4:1 YLT And the man knew Eve his wife, and she conceiveth and beareth Cain, and saith, 'I have gotten a man by Jehovah;'

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Gen 2:25

Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
From Gen 3:6 she taketh of its fruit and eateth, and giveth also to her husband with her, and he doth eat;
and the eyes of them both are opened, and they know that they are naked,
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Did Adam lust for someone who was not yet his?

I will be the first to say there is a lot of conjecture above but like Irenaeus methinks birth may have been the result of the sin that brought forth the need for redemption.


Just some thoughts for more thoughts.

Irenaeus. Can we trust the testimony of a man that says Jesus taught for 15 years and was fifty years old when he died?

kyredneck said:

Irenaeus. Can we trust the testimony of a man that says Jesus taught for 15 years and was fifty years old when he died?

Click to expand...

Never heard that one beforet if true it does give one pause. But I read the next post by T Cassidy he shows that what you are saying here is in error.

{What Irenaeus actually said was:

"For how could He have had disciples, if He did not teach? And how could He have taught, unless He had reached the age of a Master? For when He came to be baptized, He had not yet completed His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed it: Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old, when He came to receive baptism); and, [according to these men,] He preached only one year reckoning from His baptism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that this extends onwards to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord, [affirming] that John conveyed to them that information. And he remained among them up to the times of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also, and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the [validity of] the statement. Whom then should we rather believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles, and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle?"
What he said was a man was young until 30, mature until 40, and old at 50. As the Sanhedrin required a man to be at least 50 years of age to be considered a Master (teacher), all Irenaeus was saying was that Christ fulfilled that requirement, not by his age, but due to his extraordinary teaching ability.

Irenaeus' point is that Jesus' humanity identifies with human beings of every age,} T Cassidy

A study of the "Revelation" - date & significance, then & now

JonC said:

I agree.

Your post just had me thinking about calling my mother....or calling my wife...."woman". If we do that we have to be very careful about choosing the words that follow .

But yes, Mary was blessed among women, she was honored (not worshipped but counted by blessed because she was highly favored by God among women) by all generations, and she was the one God chose to give birth to Jesus.

My point is sometimes we, as Baptists, reduce the account of Mary to merely a vessel (not considering her highly favored by God, blessed among women) as a reaction to the Catholic practice of making Mary an idol.


For example, if I were to post that Mary was highly esteemed, favored by God, blessed among women, and that Elizabeth was honored by Mary, the mother of her Lord, visiting her....how long do you think it would take before some member objected or offered counter posts to prevent the idea of Mary worship?

I bet it would take no more than 3 posts.

The irony is that my post would not have anything to do with worshipping Mary. It would be simply speaking God's Word.

BUT because of our experience with Catholic paganism we (myself included) would automatically go to defending against the heresy.

We would read such a post in light of the Catholic Church, which did not even exist when those words were written.


It is easy to assume Irenaeus had some type of vibration towards Mary in mind. But there is no evidence that this is true. It is reading what came later into his writings.

Click to expand...

And you know what happens when you assume

Here is a snippet from the OP:

Does scripture say Eve was a virgin? Nope
Does scripture say Eve was "disobedient?" Nope

Scripture tells us Adam "knew" Eve and she conceived Cain, Genesis 4:1. But scripture does not say they had not "become one flesh" before that recorded event.

Did sin enter the world (humanity) be the sin of one woman? Nope. Did sin enter the world by the sin of both Adam and Eve? Nope. Sin entered the world by the disobedience of Adam alone, one man. Eve was deceived.

Van said:

Scripture tells us Adam "knew" Eve and she conceived Cain, Genesis 4:1. But scripture does not say they had not "become one flesh" before that recorded event.

Click to expand...

After the fall.

37818 said:

After the fall.

Click to expand...

After the fall, the snow falls. Please say something rather than suggest.

Scripture does not say they did not become "one flesh" before the fall.

The question of the virgin Mary is not the only place where Irenaeus might be considered unreliable. Here is an extract concerning Episcopal Succession abd the primacy of the Church of Rome.

1. It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to the perfect apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

2. Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority [potiorem principalitatem]
[Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 3, Sect. 1]

The errors here, it seems to me, are firstly that he assumes that a church that was founded by an apostle will always continue to have orthodox leaders. From this has grown up the doctrine of 'Apostolic Succession' which is upheld today as a proof of the Church of Rome's orthodoxy, whereas even a slight knowledge of papal history will show that entirely unworthy popes have been elected and apostate bishops appointed. Orthodoxy is not found in bishops but in adherence to the word.
Secondly, there is no evidence from the Bible that Peter ever visited Rome, much less planted the church there. Paul, of course, wrote to an existing church some years before he ever visited Rome. Nor is there any suggestion in the Bible that the antiquity of a church is any guarantee of its orthodoxy.

Van said:

Scripture does not say they did not become "one flesh" before the fall.

Click to expand...

That is because Eve was made from Adam. Genesis 2:22-23.

JonC said:

Aquinas developed Substitution where Jesus is punished for us but not for sins. He distinguished between simple punishment (a man being punished for a crime) and substitution (a punishment for that man but not for the crime). God could punish Christ for us because He is not punishing Christ for our sins.

But where Anselm based Atonement on restoring God's honor Aquinas based Atonement on merit. This is where things like penance, indulgences, and the "treasury of merit" become important

Click to expand...

Just so. Because Roman Catholic doctrine fell so far short of the truth, it developed the idea that Christ's atonement was, in itself, insufficient, and so the idea of Purgatory came about, I believe some of the ECFs mooted this, but it seems to have been turned into doctrine by pope Gregory the 'Great.'

So why are there so many darn Catholics and so many of their parishes operating today? For example there is one Baptist church in a radius of 25 miles from my home (shuttered

) but 8-9 RC’s actively operating.HELP!!! I’m surrounded by Catholics!

Earth Wind and Fire said:

So why are there so many darn Catholics and so many of their parishes operating today? For example there is one Baptist church in a radius of 25 miles from my home (shuttered

) but 8-9 RC’s actively operating.HELP!!! I’m surrounded by Catholics!

Click to expand...

Tradition.

Earth Wind and Fire said:

So why are there so many darn Catholics and so many of their parishes operating today? For example there is one Baptist church in a radius of 25 miles from my home (shuttered

) but 8-9 RC’s actively operating.HELP!!! I’m surrounded by Catholics!

Click to expand...

Polish immigration?

Martin Marprelate said:

Polish immigration?

Click to expand...

Would Catholic Charities be financing the Polish?

Martin Marprelate said:

Polish immigration?

Click to expand...

Irish.

Martin Marprelate said:

People may know that Irenaeus, one of the earliest Church Fathers, proposed a theory of Recapitulation, whereby many of the matters of the Old Testament re-appear in the New. For example, Christ is the new Israel (Matthew 2:15). Some of his ideas work quite well, but he sometimes went too far. Can we see the origins of Mariolatry in this extract?

Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word. Luke 1:38 But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise they were both naked, and were not ashamed, Genesis 2:25 inasmuch as they, having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult age, and then multiply from that time onward), having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race.........
that deception being done away with, by which that virgin Eve, who was already espoused to a man, was unhappily misled — was happily announced, through means of the truth [spoken] by the angel to the Virgin Mary, who was [also espoused] to a man. For just as the former was led astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she had transgressed His word; so did the latter, by an angelic communication, receive the glad tidings that she should sustain (portaret) God, being obedient to His word. And if the former did disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become an intercessor (advocata) for the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience.
[Irenaeus Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 22, sect. 4 and Book 5, Chapter 19, Sect. 1]

Click to expand...

Recapitulation is more of a hermeneutic. Applied to the atonement it becomes a type of theory of how the mechanism works, and in that regard I would say it is essential, but not complete.

As a hermeneutic, recapitulation is all over the Bible and the Bible is impossible to understand without it. The Biblical writers are constantly telling the same stories (recapitulating the same stories) over and over again with slight modifications or inversions to make their point. The logic of recapitulation is "just as, so also."

For example, when Exodus says that Moses was put in an "ark" and put into the waters of the Nile, clearly the writer wants us to think of Moses as the new Noah. Just as Noah, so also Moses. Then when Joshua parts the Jordan and the Israelites pass through, clearly the writer wants us to think of Joshua as the new Moses. This type of stuff is all over the place in the Bible. Literally thousands of connections like this. Just as Moses, so also Joshua.

Again regarding Exodus, there are 7 women in the first two chapters who save the world. They are all women who "undo" the failings of Eve, and who prepare the salvation story of the Exodus through the Red Sea. Mary is yet another recapitulation of women such as these. Irenaeus is correct to say that Mary succeeds where Eve fails, and to draw all the appropriate connections. Where he oversteps is calling her an "intercessor" or advocate.

JonC said:

Tradition.

Click to expand...

Holy Cow! Nobody gives a fig conserning tradition in New Jersey any more LOL. Otherwise we would have an outgrowth of Dutch Reformed Churches and Quaker meeting houses populating the area.

No the RC church is terribly corrupt with heroin and Fentonol (sp?) distribution (mostly to children) and CHILD PROSTITUTION funding the existence of these parishes. It’s these activities that allow them to exist even though they are facing empty pews and almost no middle class patronage. However if you flood the boarders and give them freebies they will come in droves to partake. Again, Catholic Charities facilitates in the “America For Grabs” activities.

JonC said:

Irish.

Click to expand...

Irish?!? What’s that? Irish/Italian, Irish/ Black, Irish/Indian yada, yada. I personally am in solidarity with them on St. Patty’s Day, Mostly due to the Guinness product line, but they are so diluted into modern society today that Roman Catholicism takes a back seat to other mainstream interests.

Earth Wind and Fire said:

Irish?!? What’s that? Irish/Italian, Irish/ Black, Irish/Indian yada, yada. I personally am in solidarity with them on St. Patty’s Day, Mostly due to the Guinness product line, but they are so diluted into modern society today that Roman Catholicism takes a back seat to other mainstream interests.

Click to expand...

Irish that immigrated to New Jersey in the middle of the 19th century.

JonC said:

Irish that immigrated to New Jersey in the middle of the 19th century.

Click to expand...

Their all dead or moved on to Florida. Any Irish are in Boston or in London pretending to be Brits or up in Canada. You might find some in politics, unions and police & fire departments but my Irish cousins primarily participate in drug trafficking, and murder… maybe gambling & prostitution. Money laundering is big with them also. But then, who am I to judge. And they aren’t the type that go to Mass on Sunday.