stephan huller

I guess my question is why isn't it interesting to learn what the first Christians actually believed? Why stay in a self-serving bubble?

outhouse

that would be fine if you were learning something.


Deuteronomy 13:3 - 4 has nothing to do with the hearafter.


You havnt showed it or demonstrated it.


you have to make a valid connection between Clement and Marqe and the script you posted. So far it doesnt exist.

stephan huller

It might not have anything to with the hearafter (I made a typo in the title of the thread but you have repeatedly misspelled the word) but it is interesting to me at least that these two representatives of two different traditions should think so.

Please go away.

stephan huller

Andrew that was actually a very helpful reference. It is even better in full:

stephan huller

Just look at how our received text of Thessalonians 5:13

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ

Αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης ἁγιάσαι ὑμᾶς ὁλοτελεῖς, καὶ ὁλόκληρον ὑμῶν τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ τὸ σῶμα ἀμέμπτως ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τηρηθείη.

differs from what is preserved in Against Heresies:

Now the God of peace sanctify you perfect (perfectos); and may your spirit, and soul, and body be preserI ved whole withI out complaint to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I wonder whether the original reference was just 'perfect' rather than 'in every part' (= ὁλοτελεῖς)

stephan huller

So here is what Irenaeus is saying:

Humanity was created after the image of the Son.

One might suspect that the text originally said that the Father refashioned man after the likeness (i.e. "that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit" was added later or by someone else). From memory I think Philo says that man's soul is after the image of God that's the qualifying bit about 'not merely part of man'

Irenaeus continues to 'correct' the Philonic view that only the soul was made after the image of God (or perhaps a view that God was anthropomorphic). We can already see that 'after the likeness' means the mixing of the spirit and the soul of man to resemble God.

This is a favorite passage of the heretics. I know Irenaeus condemns their views on these words at the beginning of Book Three. It is interesting that Irenaeus uses 1 Thessalonians 5.23 near the end of this section with the same idea in mind - i.e. that people who receive the Holy Spirit are 'perfect' (and thus 'after the likeness').

Irenaeus is clearly redefining an Alexandrian notion here. The reference to "stripping away" flesh is very reminiscent of Clement. I can look up the reference later.

More criticism of Clement's interpretation of the 'likeness of God' (even though Irenaeus's understanding seems dependent on the pre-existing Alexandrian understanding).

Irenaeus makes explicit what we have noted before - flesh is an integral part of the admixture. It receives the likeness (= spirit) but nevertheless does not change its essential nature (I think Irenaeus is unhappy with the negative implications such a view has on flesh and the original creation).

Is this a possible intimation that the heretics didn't care much about the old flesh? In other words, once they came into contact with the likeness they believed they no longer possessed the old flesh?

Clearly the heretics must have argued that they were all spirit. I wonder though if the difficulty comes down to a bungling of Hebrew terminology. The tripartate division of humanity makes more sense in terms of nefesh, ruah and neshamah (i.e. 'heavenly ether' because this substance put into Adam at the very beginning).

Again I think we can surmise that Irenaeus's opponents believe that the new man is wholly spiritual.