The economic vision of human existence, wrought by the interplay of protology and eschatology, is central to Irenaeus because it is at the heart of his understand- ing of Christ as salvifi c ‘recapitulator’. Indeed, it is the anthropological basis through which his doctrine of recapitulation holds together. Once again, the full nature of his anthropology in its protological/eschatological scope can only be ascertained in the person of the incarnate Christ and his economy as Saviour. In this regard, Irenaeus presents what has become his most famous Christological statement:
Being a master, therefore, he also possessed the age of a master, not despising or evading any condition of humanity, nor setting aside in himself that law which he had appointed for the human race, but sanctifying every age, by that period corresponding to it which belonged to himself. For he came to save all through means of himself – all, I say, who through him are born again to God – infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at the same time made to them an example of piety, righteousness, and sub- mission; a youth for youths, becoming an example to youths, and thus sancti- fying them for the Lord. So likewise he was an old man for old men, that he might be a perfect master for all, not merely as respects the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, and becoming an example to them likewise. Then, at last, he came even to death itself, that he might be ‘the fi rst-born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence’, the prince of life, existing before all, and going before all.65
This text has become the cardinal defi nition of a recapitulative soteriology. That which Christ comes to save, he saves by becoming. The maxim of Gregory the Theologian, that ‘what is unassumed is unhealed’, has a forebear in Irenaeus.66
Christ’s salvifi c action is primarily to become human, to exist as human, redeem- ing what is human by joining it to God. Irenaeus is literal here, insisting that this means Christ must have entered into old age so as to be ‘an old man for old men [. . .] sanctifying the aged’. Jesus was nearly fi fty when he was crucifi ed, a tradi- tion Irenaeus curiously claims was passed down from John.67 The entering of the
65 Ref. 2.22.4.
66 Cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Ep. 101 (‘To Cledonius’).
67 Cf. Ref. 2.22.6; a puzzling statement inasmuch as we retain no textual evidence in support of
its being part of the Johannine tradition. Yet Irenaeus inherits his sense of proximity to John through his relationship to Polycarp, received orally by ‘sitting at his feet’ (cf. our note above on Irenaeus’ discipleship to Polycarp), and likely refers to this oral tradition.
Son into the full realm of human existence is guaranteed through Christ’s great age, the requirement for the whole range of ‘ages of life’ further emphasizing Irenaeus’ point that humanity is ‘unable to have any participation in incorruptibil- ity if it were not for his [the Word’s] coming to us’.68 He must come to humanity
as it is, in every stage of its being.
The question that lies behind many a student’s discomfort with this doctrine of recapitulation is ‘how?’ How does the Son’s becoming man, specifi cally a histori- cal man who exists on earth under Pontius Pilate at a precise moment in world history, have salvifi c bearing on the life of others in the race? A ransom theory of atonement, while presenting theological diffi culties of its own, at least provides a straightforward answer to how Christ saves humanity: a ransom is paid (either to God the Father or the devil) and the shattered relationship of creator and created is thereby restored. Yet Irenaeus, while affi rming the sacrifi cial character of Christ’s offering on the cross, stringently dismisses the idea of ransom.69 What, then, is the
answer to ‘how?’ in his recapitulative understanding of Christ’s salvifi c work? The answer lies in the two principles at the root of his anthropological discus- sion. Humanity as image of the Son, the very creation of God the Father by the Son and Spirit, has from the fi rst (and to the last) its antitype in Christ. Moreover, the conception of ‘image’ embraced by Irenaeus, which we have explored as grounded in the participatory imaging of the Son’s relation to the Father and Spirit, makes Christ as ‘antitype’ more than a mere example or paradigm for human life. For humanity to be in the image of Christ means, above all, that Christ’s life is man’s life. The foundation of the creature’s being is the life of the creator. Thus is man fashioned at the beginning as actively in the image of God, actively in participatory communion with the Son who is his Father’s image, breathed to life by none other than the Spirit of this same Father. If it is the life of God through the image of the Son that is the defi ning characteristic of human being, then there is a unifying principle that runs right across the human race. Human persons may each be individuals, but as human persons are all, through the image in which they participate (whether or not the likeness is manifest) united as one through the common foundation of the Son. This idea stands behind Irenaeus’ repeated statement that God forms, in Adam, ‘one race’ or ‘one blood’.70
68 Epid. 31. Irenaeus’ conception in this regard does, it should be noted, tend to promote a reading of Adam and Eve’s ‘infancy’ as literal as that of his reading of the great age of Christ; cf. Steenberg, ‘Children in Paradise’.
69 Most specifi cally of ransom paid to the devil; cf. the assembled notes to Ref. 3.18.7 in Steenberg and Unger, Against Heresies III (ACW, forthcoming 2009); cf. Wingren, Man and the Incarnation 129. We will have more to say on the sacrifi ce of the cross in what follows.
70 See for example, Ref. 3.12.9 – a comment on humanity as one blood and race that has direct bearing on Christ’s recapitulative economy; for, as at 5.14.2, ‘If the Lord became incarnate for the reason of any other economy, or took fl esh of any other substance, then he has not summed up human nature in himself, nor indeed can he even be called “fl esh”; for fl esh has been truly made to consist in a transmission of that thing moulded originally from the dust’. It is the singularity of the human race that makes Christ’s recapitulative life redemptive to all.
Humanity is multiple, complex and divided, but also intrinsically unitary, simple and whole. Adam was a particular human person, but as the fi rst of the one race is also The Human Person – the prototypical manifestation of the ‘one blood’ shared by all humankind. Only here does it truly make sense to say, as does Paul, that ‘in Adam all sinned’ (Romans 5.12); or, as Irenaeus, that ‘because all are implicated in the fi rst-formation of Adam, we were bound to death through the disobedi- ence’.71 Irenaeus does not believe the guilt of Adam’s transgression was imputed
to his descendents, but he does believe that Adam’s act as transgressor was of impact on future generations.72 The one life of the one race (especially in Eden
where that race is as yet confi ned to two persons who together transgress) becomes a life imbued with, and thus accustomed to, transgression. When the race is expanded, the lives born within it are members of that common life, now the har- bour of sin. So does Irenaeus characterize the expansion: ‘wickedness, spreading out for a long time, seized the entire race of men, until there was very little seed of righteousness in them’.73 It is only because humanity is one race and one blood
that the life of Adam can be of such universal impact on his descendents.
‘One race’ in Christ, by the Spirit
The notion of humanity as ‘one race’ founded after the image of Christ, the image of the Father, is the key principle in discerning not just humanity’s interconnec- tion, but also Christ’s saving power as recapitulator. Irenaeus follows Paul in call- ing Jesus the ‘new Adam’, and even more dramatically, simply ‘Adam’, grounding his soteriological discussion in this terminology.74 These are not mere poetic titles
or aesthetic pairings. Irenaeus calls Christ ‘Adam’ because Christ is the image in which Adam was fashioned – he is ‘in person’ that which the whole race is as
eikon. At length the image has become wholly visible in an economy that had
grown ever less aware of it through the departure in likeness occasioned by sin. So explains Irenaeus:
In times long past it was said that man was created after the image of God, but this image was not actually shown, for the Word was as yet invisible, after
71 Epid. 31.
72 On Irenaeus’ belief that responsibility/guilt for disobedience cannot be imputed to another, see
Ref. 4.27.2–3, 4.33.2, 5.15.2. Yet sin in one generation clearly effects those of subsequent eras; thus
the whole scope of Irenaeus’ treatment of Cham, Sem and Japheth in Epid. 20, 21, the latter two of whom are enlarged by a blessing of prosperity, while the descendents of Cham are marked by his transgression, ‘whence it happened that every generation after him, being cursed, increased and multi- plied in sin (cf. Gen 10.6–20). [. . .] They all fell under the curse, the curse extending for a long time over the ungodly’ (Epid. 20).
73 Epid. 18; cf. Ref. 3.23.7. A similar comment is found in ps-Justin, Sole Gov. 1. 74 See Epid. 31.
whose image man was created [. . .]. When, however, the Word of God became fl esh, he [. . .] showed forth the image truly, since he became himself that which bore his image; and he re-established the likeness after a sure manner, assimi- lating man to the invisible Father through means of the visible Word.75
Irenaeus speaks of the image becoming ‘visible’, that is, present before the eyes of humanity in the true reality of the likeness the latter has failed to approximate. The incarnate Son manifests to the world the authentic reality of that which it is called to be ‘like’. This we might extrapolate somewhat, relating the concept back to Irenaeus’ discussion at Ref. 2.22.4 on Jesus passing through every age of human life. In experiencing childhood, Christ shows forth the likeness to himself in the realm of human childhood. As an aged man, he reveals the likeness as it ought to be expressed at that stage of human existence.
But thus far Irenaeus’ notion of Christ as recapitulator seems only a doctrine of manifestation. It might be suggested that Christ’s salvifi c function is nothing other than to ‘show’ humankind what the realized image ought to look like, how it ought to be actualized, and what it implies for obedience and the human-divine relationship. A reading of Ref. 2.22.4 as solitary testimony to recapitulation might allow for such an interpretation, and too often does precisely as much. To under- stand why this cannot in fact be Irenaeus’ meaning, however, we are obliged to read his comments in the Refutation, on Christ becoming the visible image, along- side a treatment of the same theme in the Epideixis:76
He united man with God and wrought a communion of God and man, we being unable to have any participation in incorruptibility if it were not for his coming to us, for incorruptibility, whilst being invisible, benefi ted us nothing: so he became visible, that we might, in all ways, obtain a participation in incorruptibility. And because all are implicated in the fi rst-formation of Adam, we were bound to death through the disobedience, it was fi tting, therefore, by means of the obedience of the one, who on our account became man, to be loosed from death. [. . .] And for this reason our Lord received that same
75 Ref. 5.16.2. See also 3.9.1.
76 The relationship of the two texts to each other, vis-à-vis date of composition, is highly contested. Composition of at least book 3 of the Refutation can be fi xed to sometime within the episcopal reign of Eleutherus in Rome (c. 175–189); cf. Ref. 3.3.3. Whether the Epideixis was written before or after the longer text is at the heart of continuing scholarly debate. In a paper given in Oxford, S. L. Graham, ‘Irenaeus and the Covenants: Immortal Diamond’ (Oxford: 22 August 2003), argued against the tradi- tional ascription of Ref. as the earlier text; J. Behr, in attendance at the communication, agreed with her assertions of an earlier date for the Epid.; see his comments to this end in Way to Nicaea 30 n. 34; cf. Behr, Apostolic Preaching 118 n. 229. For my support of a traditional later dating, and a summary of the situation, see Steenberg, Irenaeus on Creation 218–19.
embodiment as the fi rst-formed, that he might fi ght for the fathers and van- quish in Adam that which had struck us in Adam.77
Once again, Irenaeus employs the conceptual framework of ‘visible’ versus ‘invis- ible’ image. The Word ‘became visible’ in the incarnational communion of the Son and humanity, wrought through the economy of the Virgin, making manifest that which humankind might never have beheld without that coming. But here Irenaeus makes a clarifi cation: the Word comes visibly into the human economy, that the one race might obtain participation in the incorruptibility properly his as Son of God. Without the ‘communion of God and man’ the latter has no participa- tion in the fullness of divine life thus beheld, for the iconic participation by which this life is realized in humanity has been held captive by the non-likeness of a fallen bondage to sin. When Christ binds together that which is after the image and the prototype of the image proper, he enables between them the union which is the eschatological hope of the kingdom. The economic attainment of the like- ness is made a new possibility in visibly beholding the eternal Son-made-fl esh.