The "Eight" According to Irenaeus

[Secret Alias]

And this is the perplexing nature of Adversus Haereses. On the surface the tome is very well organized. Someone has taken the time to write the words that Peter cited and prefaces and closing words to tie together each of the five books. This gives the work a superficial appearance of a 'plan.' But beyond that - and periodic excursus which are from the same editorial hand - the work appears as a kind of literary head cheese. Almost random ideas thrown into a literary blender.



Bits and pieces of Justin, Theophilus, Papias and other writers thrown together with editorial jelly. Sort of like the way a harmony gospel is imagined to be manufactured. It's so bad that its odd to think how little he actually quotes authors despite stealing their ideas to make the literary head cheese.

For instance in Book Three he starts by robbing Papias's general notion of a 'gospel of Matthew' written in Hebrew which is the source of the other gospels but doesn't cite him or credit him openly. The first real quote outside of the NT is the chronicle of Polycarp (or apostolic succession list WITH original commentary IMHO). Then there is that apocryphal stories about the John and Cerinthus in the bathhouse and the meeting between Polycarp and Marcion followed by a historical understanding of John and Paul operating in Ephesus around the same time. But there is very, very little open citation of the very material that makes up the literary head cheese which is odd.

About the only thing he cites is 'the elder' (strangely unnamed), Papias who may be one and the same with 'the elder,' and Justin's words again Marcion. But in five books very little in the way of open citation of material outside of the Bible. The one that stands out here is the succession list that appears in Hegesippus's (or Joseph the Jew's) chronicle.

But why if this really is the tradition that emerged from Rome and every other place in the Empire established by the founding apostles and disciples of Jesus is there this 'head cheese' quality to everything? Head cheese is secondary. You take stuff that was made a day or two ago and shred it up and make something new out of it.

I can't see how a believer - a believer in a set tradition for a long time - allows himself to pick and choose between gospels and writings of his own and other groups and shred them up to make something new. Irenaeus can't have been a Christian for very long or even a Christian at all. Can't shake that thought in my head.

[Secret Alias]

Maybe the four gospels were created in order to argue that the single long gospels of the Ebionite community as well as Justin, Tatian and Marcion's community were really 'head cheese' texts. Maybe Irenaeus really was that devious.

[davidbrainerd]

That's why I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Irenaeus wasn't even a Christian at all. He is so outside any of the normal 'traditions' within Christianity up to hat point - picking and choosing often self-contradictory positions

The ancient version of you, then.

[Secret Alias]

Well yes in a sense. I faithfully report the contradictions in the ancient sources and don't attempt to make them fit within preconceived notions. Yes exactly

[Secret Alias]

Now of course the most puzzling thing about Irenaeus's embrace of Justin's 'seven powers of the Spirit' (Isa 11:2) is how and why this differs from the Marcosian notion of seven powers based on the vowels of the Greek alphabet. He reports in chapter 14 of Book One:

And the first heaven indeed pronounces Alpha, the next to this Epsilon, the third Eta, the fourth, which is also in the midst of the seven, utters the sound of Iota, the fifth Omicron, the sixth Upsilon, the seventh, which is also the fourth from the middle, utters the elegant Omega,— as the Sige of Marcus, talking a deal of nonsense, but uttering no word of truth, confidently asserts. And these powers, she adds, being all simultaneously clasped in each other's embrace, do sound out the glory of Him by whom they were produced; and the glory of that sound is transmitted upwards to the Propator. She asserts, moreover, that the sound of this uttering of praise, having been wafted to the earth, has become the Framer and the Parent of those things which are on the earth.

8. He instances, in proof of this, the case of infants who have just been born, the cry of whom, as soon as they have issued from the womb, is in accordance with the sound of every one of these elements. As, then, he says, the seven powers glorify the Word, so also does the complaining soul of infants. For this reason, too, David said: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings You have perfected praise; and again: The heavens declare the glory of God. Hence also it comes to pass, that when the soul is involved in difficulties and distresses, for its own relief it calls out, Oh (Ω), in honour of the letter in question, so that its cognate soul above may recognise [its distress], and send down to it relief.

One can argue that Irenaeus disputes the relationship between the powers in heaven and the vowels of the Greek alphabet but surely if Irenaeus believed the seven heavens corresponded to the seven powers of Isaiah 11:2 he should have said - in the manner of a grade school teacher - yes seven powers but no to the vowels of the alphabet.

And that's what's so perplexing about Irenaeus. In the citation from the Defense THERE ARE SEVEN POWERS and the seven powers are represented in the shape of the menorah. But notice how cagey he appears here and in another passage from the second book of Against Heresies where he disputes the attempts of the Marcosians to draw from Jewish culture:

Moreover, the table of shew-bread(4) was two cubits in length, while its height was a cubit and a half. These stood before the holy of holies, and yet in them not a single number is of such an amount as contains an indication of the Tetrad, or the Ogdoad, or of the rest of their Pleroma. What of the candlestick,(5) too, which had seven(6) branches and seven lamps? while, if these had been made according to the type, it ought to have had eight branches and a like number of lamps, after the type of the primary Ogdoad, which shines pre-eminently among the Aeons, and illuminates the whole Pleroma.

Why, if Irenaeus, is speaking openly and honestly doesn't he say what he says in the Proof:

Now this world is encompassed by seven heavens, in which dwell powers and angels and archangels, doing service to God, the Almighty and Maker of all things: not as though He was in need, but that they may not be idle and unprofitable and ineffectual. Wherefore also the Spirit of God is manifold in (His) indwelling, and in seven forms of service is He reckoned by the prophet Isaiah, as resting on the Son of God, that is the Word, in His coming as man ... For, as the pattern (of this), Moses received the seven-branched candlestick, that shined continually in the holy place; for as a pattern of the heavens he received this service, according to that which the Word spake unto him: Thou shalt make (it) according to all the pattern of the things which thou hast seen in the mount

There is an obvious disconnect between the positive affirmation of the heavenly Hebdomad and the menorah rather than the manner in which Irenaeus conditionally evokes the menorah in Against Heresies.

[Secret Alias]

And the odd thing is that in the discussion where Irenaeus only says "why shouldn't the heavens be seven rather?" there is a clear sign that he copied out a text which must have indeed said something like that. The discussion of the tabernacle (in which the sevenfoldness of the menorah is referenced) seems t connect the two and a half letters in Jesus's name with the two and a half cubits of the tabernacle:

Moreover, Jesus, which is a word belonging to the proper tongue of the Hebrews, contains, as the learned among them declare, two letters and a half, and signifies that Lord who contains heaven and earth; for Jesus in the ancient Hebrew language means "heaven," while again "earth" is expressed by the words sura usser. The word, therefore, which contains heaven and earth is just Jesus. Their explanation, then, of the Episemon is false, and their numerical calculation is also manifestly overthrown. For, in their own language, Soter is a Greek word of five letters; but, on the other hand, in the Hebrew tongue, Jesus contains only two letters and a half. The total which they reckon up, viz., eight hundred and eighty-eight, therefore falls to the ground. And throughout, the Hebrew letters do not correspond in number with the Greek, although these especially, as being the more ancient and unchanging, ought to uphold the reckoning connected with the names ... The name Christ, too, ought to be capable of being reckoned up in harmony with the Aeons of their Pleroma, inasmuch as, according to their statements, He was produced for the establishment and rectification of their Pleroma. The Father, too, in the same way, ought, both by means of letters and numerical value, to contain the number of those Aeons who were produced by Him; Bythus, in like manner, and not less Monogenes; but pre- eminently the name which is above all others, by which God is called, and which in the Hebrew tongue is expressed by Baruch, which also contains two and a half letters. From this fact, therefore, that the more important names, both in the Hebrew and Greek languages, do not conform to their system, either as respects the number of letters or the reckoning brought out of them, the forced character of their calculations respecting the rest becomes clearly manifest.

For, choosing out of the law whatever things agree with the number adopted in their system, they thus violently strive to obtain proofs of its validity. But if it was really the purpose of their Mother, or the Saviour, to set forth, by means of the Demiurge, types of those things which are in the Pleroma, they should have taken care that the types were found in things more exactly correspondent and more holy; and, above all, in the case of the Ark of the Covenant, on account of which the whole tabernacle of witness was formed. Now it was constructed thus: its length was two cubits and a half ... but such a number of cubits in no respect corresponds with their system, yet by it the type ought to have been, beyond everything else, clearly set forth. The mercy-seat(3) also does in like manner not at all harmonize with their expositions ... These stood before the holy of holies, and yet in them not a single number is of such an amount as contains an indication of the Tetrad, or the Ogdoad, or of the rest of their Pleroma. What of the candlestick, too, which had seven(6) branches and seven lamps? while, if these had been made according to the type, it ought to have had eight branches and a like number of lamps, after the type of the primary Ogdoad, which shines pre-eminently among the Aeons, and illuminates the whole Pleroma.

[Secret Alias]

So to keep score we have now three kabbalistic arguments used by Irenaeus:

1. the fourfold gospel = the cosmic quaternion, four seasons
2. the name 'Jesus' = two and a half like the tabernacle
3. the seven services of the Spirit = the seven heavens and the menorah

Notice however that two of these three kabbalistic arguments are covered by a lost fragment of Clement of Alexandria:

That mystic name which is called the Tetragrammaton, by which alone they who had access to the Holy of Holies were protected, is pronounced Jehovah, which means, Who is, and who shall be. The candlestick which stood at the south of the altar signified the seven planets, which seem to us to revolve around the meridian, on either side of which rise three branches; since the sun also like the lamp, balanced in the midst of the planets by divine wisdom, illumines by its light those above and below. On the other side of the altar was situated the table on which the loaves were displayed, because from that quarter of the heaven vital and nourishing breezes blow.

Notice at once how the tabernacle is divided into four corresponding with the four seasons and in the middle the sevenfold candle which symbolizes the planets. Irenaeus just said arguments should go back to the shape of the tabernacle. Odd how Clement, who's sixth book of the Stromata is often taken word for word in Irenaeus's account of the Marcosians, seems to mirror Irenaeus in this critical issue.

[Secret Alias]

Maybe Irenaeus does reference the tabernacle after all in his discussion of the four gospels:

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the "pillar and ground" of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh.

The four pillars here are most likely those from Exodus 26:

"You shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen; it shall be made with cherubim, the work of a skillful workman. You shall hang it on four pillars of acacia overlaid with gold, their hooks also being of gold, on four sockets of silver. You shall hang up the veil under the clasps, and shall bring in the ark of the testimony there within the veil; and the veil shall serve for you as a partition between the holy place and the holy of holies.

The identification of the gospel with a 'veil' is very reminiscent of Clement's discussion of Secret Mark:

Thus he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue, lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of that truth hidden by seven veils. Thus, in sum, he prepared matters, neither grudgingly nor incautiously, in my opinion, and, dying, he left his composition to the church in 1, verso Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.

[Secret Alias]

Irenaeus mention of the 4 gospels = the 4 covenants is from Philo and is shared also by Clement. https://books.google.com/books?id=pOc3A ... ur&f=false

[Secret Alias]

I am starting to wonder whether Irenaeus's justification for the four gospels derived from Philo. Look how closely Clement's language is in Stromata 5 resembles Irenaeus's:

Again, there is the veil of the entrance into the holy of holies. Four pillars there are, the sign of the sacred tetrad of the ancient covenants. Further, the mystic name of four letters which was affixed to those alone to whom the adytum was accessible, is called Jave, which is interpreted, "Who is and shall be." The name of God, too, among the Greeks contains four letters.

Now the Lord, having come alone into the intellectual world, enters by His sufferings, introduced into the knowledge of the Ineffable, ascending above every name which is known by sound. The lamp, too, was placed to the south of the altar of incense; and by it were shown the motions of the seven planets, that perform their revolutions towards the south. For three branches rose on either side of the tamp, and lights on them; since also the sun, like the lamp, set in the midst of all the planets, dispenses with a kind of divine music the light to those above and to those below.

The golden lamp conveys another enigma as a symbol of Christ, not in respect of form alone, but in his casting light, "at sundry times and divers manners," on those who believe on Him and hope, and who see by means of the ministry of the First-born. And they say that the seven eyes of the Lord "are the seven spirits resting on the rod that springs from the root of Jesse."

North of the altar of incense was placed a table, on which there was "the exhibition of the loaves;" for the most nourishing of the winds are those of the north. And thus are signified certain seats of churches conspiring so as to form one body and one assemblage.

And the things recorded of the sacred ark signify the properties of the world of thought, which is hidden and closed to the many.

And those golden figures, each of them with six wings, signify either the two bears, as some will have it, or rather the two hemispheres. And the name cherubim meant "much knowledge." But both together have twelve wings, and by the zodiac and time, which moves on it, point out the world of sense. It is of them, I think, that Tragedy, discoursing of Nature, says: "Unwearied Time circles full in perennial flow, Producing itself. And the twin-bears On the swift wandering motions of their wings, Keep the Atlantean pole."

And Atlas, the unsuffering pole, may mean the fixed sphere, or better perhaps, motionless eternity. But I think it better to regard the ark, so called from the Hebrew word Thebotha, as signifying something else. It is interpreted, one instead of one in all places. Whether, then, it is the eighth region and the world of thought, or God, all-embracing, and without shape, and invisible, that is indicated, we may for the present defer saying. But it signifies the repose which dwells with the adoring spirits, which are meant by the cherubim.

For He who prohibited the making of a graven image, would never Himself have made an image in the likeness of holy things. Nor is there at all any composite thing, and creature endowed with sensation, of the sort in heaven. But the face is a symbol of the rational soul, and the wings are the lofty ministers and energies of powers fight and left; and the voice is delightsome glory in ceaseless contemplation. Let it suffice that the mystic interpretation has advanced so far.

Now the high priest's robe is the symbol of the world of sense. The seven planets are represented by the five stones and the two carbuncles, for Saturn and the Moon. The former is southern, and moist, and earthy, and heavy; the latter aerial, whence she is called by some Artemis, as if Aerotomos (cutting the air); and the air is cloudy. And cooperating as they did in the production of things here below, those that by Divine Providence are set over the planets are rightly represented as placed on the breast and shoulders; and by them was the work of creation, the first week. And the breast is the seat of the heart and soul.

Differently, the stones might be the various phases of salvation; some occupying the upper, some the lower parts of the entire body saved. The three hundred and sixty bells, suspended from the robe, is the space of a year, "the acceptable year of the Lord," proclaiming and resounding the stupendous manifestation of the Saviour. Further, the broad gold mitre indicates the regal power of the Lord, "since the Head of the Church" is the Savour. The mitre that is on it [i.e., the head] is, then, a sign of most princely rule; and otherwise we have heard it said, "The Head of Christ is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Moreover, there was the breastplate, comprising the ephod, which is the symbol of work, and the oracle logion; and this indicated the Word logos by which it was framed, and is the symbol of heaven, made by the Word, and subjected to Christ, the Head of all things, inasmuch as it moves in the same way, and in a like manner. The luminous emerald stones, therefore, in the ephod, signify the sun and moon, the helpers of nature. The shoulder, I take it, is the commencement of the hand.

The twelve stones, set in four rows on the breast, describe for us the circle of the zodiac, in the four changes of the year. It was otherwise requisite that the law and the prophets should be placed beneath the Lord's head, because in both Testaments mention is made of the righteous. For were we to say that the apostles were at once prophets and righteous, we should say well, "since one and the self-same Holy Spirit works in all." And as the Lord is above the whole world, yea, above the world of thought, so the name engraven on the plate has been regarded to signify, above all rule and authority; and it was inscribed with reference both to the written commandments and the manifestation to sense. And it is the name of God that is expressed; since, as the Son sees the goodness of the Father, God the Saviour works, being called the first principle of all things, which was imaged forth from the invisible God first, and before the ages, and which fashioned all things which came into being after itself. Nay more, the oracles exhibits the prophecy which by the Word cries and preaches, and the judgment that is to come; since it is the same Word which prophesies, and judges, and discriminates all things.