T&T Clark Handbook of Theological Anthropology

Mary Ann Hinsdale, Stephen Okey, Mary Ann Hinsdale, Stephen Okey

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780567678348
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología

Including classical, modern, and postmodern approaches to theological anthropology, this volume covers the entire spectrum of thought on the doctrines of creation, the human person as imago Dei, sin, and grace.
The editors have gathered an exceptionally diverse range of voices, ensuring ecumenical balance (Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox) and the inclusion of previously neglected perspectives (women, African American, Asian, Latinx, and LGBTQ). The contributors revisit authors from the "Great Tradition" (early church, medieval, and modern), and discuss them alongside critical and liberationist approaches (ranging from feminist, decolonial, and intersectional theory to critical race theory and queer performance theory). This is a much-needed overview of a rapidly evolving field.

PART III

Key Figures

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Irenaeus: As It Was in the Beginning

FRANCINE CARDMAN

“Theological anthropology” is not a category that would have been recognizable to Irenaeus. For him, to ask “What does it mean to be human?”—a common shorthand today for the locus of theological anthropology—would be, at best, only a partially formed question. In his eyes, its poor formulation would be due to its dislocation from its necessary context and corollary: “What does it mean to be Godlike?” Together these questions point to the unified and unifying matrix from which they arise, namely the reciprocal relationship of creation and eschatology, God’s plan “from the beginning” for eternal communion with humankind.

In addressing these fundamental questions, Irenaeus’ vision is large, encompassing time and eternity, humankind and God, the beginning and the end. An often (but seldom completely) quoted declaration characterizes his perspective: “The glory of God is a living human being and (but) the life of humankind is beholding God” (gloria enim Dei vivens homo, vita autem hominis visio Dei, AH 4.20.7).¹ It is in the movement toward beholding God that humankind has its being and meaning. The order or arrangement (taxis) of God’s plan, as Irenaeus explicates it in his two extant treatises, is more open, dynamic and generous than later views of fall and redemption, sin and grace, typically filtered through interpretations of Augustine, that have been prominent in much of Western Christian theology. In a sense Irenaeus represents a road not taken in the West, while also having resonances with Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and later Eastern Christian theology. Now, however, it may be a road that re/opens some useful vistas for seeing, believing and understanding humankind and God in their unfolding historical and salvific relationship.

CONTEXT

Irenaeus appears in Lyons in the 170s ce and soon takes a prominent place among Christian leaders and writers of the second century. Believers from Asia Minor who were immigrants, missionaries and merchants had brought Christianity to Gaul in recent decades, settling along the upper Rhone river. When and how Irenaeus joined them is unknown. He does report that, as a boy in Smyrna (in modern-day Turkey), he had avidly listened to the preaching and instruction of the bishop Polycarp (c. 70?–155/6), whom he regards as his teacher and reveres for his witness to the preaching of the apostles.² Beyond these references, Irenaeus provides no further biographical information; but it is likely that he again heard Polycarp proclaim the apostolic preaching in Rome around 154/5, which suggests that Irenaeus was born between 130 and 140.³

The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, written c. 177 after the persecution of Christians in those cities by the emperor Marcus Aurelius, was addressed to churches in Asia Minor and Phrygia. It detailed the great works of the Spirit demonstrated in the witness and endurance of the martyrs, at least some of whom would have been known to the recipients. Recent scholarship tends to be receptive toward the view that Irenaeus was the author of the letter, which is preserved by Eusebius.⁴ Among the martyrs was the elderly bishop of Lyon, Pothinus, who was over 90 years old when he died in the persecution. It is plausible that Irenaeus then became the leader (presbyter or bishop, the terms were still interchangeable at the time) of the church in the more prominent city of Lyons.⁵

WRITINGS

Eusebius does not mention Irenaeus in connection with the churches’ letter about the persecution, but he does list Irenaeus’ known writings, some of which have survived. Irenaeus wrote in Greek, the language of imperial administration as well as of his homeland. His major work, the five-book Refutation and Overthrow of All Heresies, only survives completely in Latin translation and is commonly known as Against Heresies.⁶ The first two books describe and refute teachers and systems of “gnosticism”⁷ and related interpretations of Christian faith with their multifarious teachings that Irenaeus considers erroneous and misleading; the next three elucidate the apostolic scriptures (graphe, writings) and faith that have been handed down to believers by the apostles. The Demonstration (or proof, epideixis) of the Apostolic Preaching (Dem.) is a compact and more accessible, probably earlier, treatment of the main themes of Christian faith and its scriptural sources.⁸ Within the vision of creation and salvation in his extant writings we can discern Irenaeus’ theological anthropology.

These two major works reveal Irenaeus’ deep commitment to the unity of the apostolic preaching in itself and its coherence with God’s plan of salvation from the beginning of creation to its completion. In demonstrating that vision and arguing against its opponents, Irenaeus engages beliefs elemental to understanding the relationship of God and humankind: one God, the Creator; one creation and the goodness of materiality and flesh; the formation of human being in the image and likeness of God; the incarnation of the Word, the image and likeness of God made flesh; recapitulation, the summing up and remaking of humankind, which (re)connects the end to the beginning. Irenaeus does not present these fundamental themes in a systematic way in Against Heresies (AH). Rather, they appear repeatedly and somewhat haphazardly within the five books as he exposes and refutes erroneous teachings, explicates the apostolic preaching and defends the authenticity of its tradition (paradosis, handing on). The Demonstration summarizes that tradition briefly while also confirming it by proofs from the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.

BEGINNING AND END

Key to Irenaeus’ exposition of the apostolic faith is the unity of beginning and end, creation and completion, within which works the dual dynamic of the Word as both the image and likeness of God and the maker and model of humankind, who were created at the beginning as the Word’s image and likeness. Incarnate in human flesh, the Word is the remaker of the “earth creature,”⁹ its perfecter and perfection. Made flesh, joining creature and creator, flesh and Spirit, the incarnate Word is visible proclamation and proof of the goodness of the flesh and its capacity for salvation. The work of the Word incarnate is twofold: making God (“the Father”) visible in the flesh and restoring humankind to its original formation, thus making it possible for them to reach their intended goal of communion with God. For Irenaeus there is but one Creator God and one material creation, one author of both covenants, one formation of humankind that is fleshly and one salvation that includes the flesh (4.7.3). There is no other creation and no solely spiritual human being. Within these parameters it is possible to discern the outlines of an emerging theological anthropology.

THE “ANCIENT FORMATION”

Humankind is God’s handiwork, formed in the image and likeness of God from the dust of the earth by the Word and the Spirit, God’s hands (4.20.1; 4.7.3). This “ancient formation” (4.33.4; 5.1.2) is composed of flesh, soul and Spirit. The Word is its archetype (4.36.40); God’s breath animates and makes it a living being (4.18.5); the Spirit vivifies and perfects human being so that they might do the works and know the fruits of the Spirit (5.11.1; 5.12.2). Thus formed, humankind is oriented from the beginning to God, who is “accustoming” (adsuescens) them to bear the Spirit and be in communion with Godself (4.14.2).

Endowed with reason and free will, “the ancient law of liberty” (4.37.1; 4.38.4), they had power over themselves, the capacity to choose and to change (4.15.3). Because they are like God in their reason and free will, they alone are the cause of harm to themselves through disobedience (4.4.3). Yet, given the dynamic of growth and increase that permeates all of creation (2.28.1), imbuing it with the power of development, Irenaeus envisages Adam and Eve as “infants” (infantes, children), young people not fully matured morally, intellectually or sexually.¹⁰ They were inexperienced and imperfect (4.38.1) in the sense that they were unfinished and needed to grow into themselves, into the image and likeness of the Word and the Spirit, into communion with God. Given this foundational assumption, it is not surprising that Irenaeus reads the story of Adam and Eve’s fateful choice in Genesis 2 through a softer lens than that of later Western tradition.

Yet, their choice is not without consequences. Mortality sets a boundary to disobedience. The garden is closed to them. Hard labor is their due—bringing forth food from the earth and progeny from their bodies. Their minds are no longer guileless (3.23.5). They need to learn anew by experience, from both obedience and disobedience, how to choose obedience (4.39.1). Distanced from God, they need to avail themselves of God’s plan of salvation (4.14.2), prepared for them from the beginning: guides and teachers, Moses, the Law and the Prophets; the Word and the Spirit. They are slow learners. They need mercy.

RECAPITULATION

Mercy comes in the person of the Word made flesh, God’s compassion present to humankind (3.10.2; 5.21.3). Within the paradigm of beginning and end, Irenaeus delineates a process of remaking that sums up the work of creation, bringing it to completeness through the Word’s recapitulation and righting of human experience.¹¹ The Word who formed humanity in the beginning now restores and perfects them in God’s image and likeness by entering into every human experience, including infancy (4.38.2) and death (5.23.2). Obedience undoe...