(5) The expectation of the Gentiles is here also explained of the Second Advent; and the word "kingdom" is offered, as in Justin, as the unexpressed subject of ᾧ ἀπόκειται .
(6) The passage about the ass's colt is omitted both from the quotation and from the interpretation. Irenaeus has it in IV, xx. 2, where he quotes, again as from Moses, the whole section (Gen. xlix. 10-12), ending with: laetifici oculi ejus a vino, et candidi dentes ejus quam lac. He then goes on: "Let these persons who are said to investigate all things search out the time at which there failed prince and leader from Judah, and who is the expectation of the Gentiles, and what the vine, and what his colt, and what the robe, and what are eyes and teeth and wine; and search out every point; |11 and they shall find that none other is foretold, than our Lord Jesus Christ." Here again Irenaeus is very close to the passage in Justin, so far as the general method of putting the argument goes.
(7) and (8) reappear in Irenaeus, and it is most natural to suppose that he took them over from Justin. He has a point of his own when he goes on to add to the interpretation of the blood of the grape the gladness produced by the wine. It seems to be introduced without any obvious reason, until we observe that the words which follow in the passage in Genesis tell of the gladness of the eyes produced by wine ( laetifici oculi, etc. quoted above).
(9) In c. 58 Irenaeus proceeds at once to the quotation of Balaam's prophecy, as follows: "And again Moses says: There shall rise a star out of Jacob, and a leader shall be raised up out of Israel. " He does not make the combination with Isaiah which we find in Justin; nor does he attribute Balaam's words to Isaiah. It is however to be noted that in III, ix. 2, where he quotes the passage as here, he does attribute it to Isaiah: "Cujus et stellam Ysaias quidem sic prophetavit: Orietur Stella ex Jacob, et surget dux in Israel. " On this coincidence in error Dr Rendel Harris remarks ( Testimonies, I. p. 11): "Justin shews us the passage of Isaiah following the one from Numbers, and the error lies in the covering of two passages with a single reference. It is clear, then, that Justin's mistake was made in a collection of Testimonies from the prophets, and that the same collection, or one that closely agreed with it, was |12 in the hands of Irenaeus." In view, however, of the intimate connexion which appears to exist between Irenaeus and Justin we must not exclude the alternative possibility that the mistake began with Justin, and was at first reproduced by Irenaeus, but was afterwards corrected by him in his later work.
Another example of a whole section drawn from Justin Martyr will be found in cc. 44 f. Here it is the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew to which Irenaeus is indebted. The whole of these two chapters should be read consecutively: but the chief parts must be given here. Irenaeus cites Gen. xviii. 1 ff., to show that it was the Son of God who spake with Abraham. This is Justin's view also, but the nearest parallels come after the quotation of Gen. xix. 24. At this point Irenaeus says:
And then the Scripture says: And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven: that is to say, the Son, who spake with Abraham, being Lord, received power to punish the men of Sodom from the Lord out of heaven, even from the Father who rules (or is Lord) over all. So Abraham was a prophet and saw things to come, which were to take place in human form: even the Son of God, that He should speak with men and eat with them, and then should bring in the judgment from the Father, having received from Him who rules over all the power to punish the men of Sodom.
Justin had said (Dial. 56 ad fin.): "And He is the Lord, who from the Lord who is in heaven, that is, from the Maker of all things, received (power) to bring these things on Sodom and Gomorrah, which the narrative recounts, saying: The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah |13 brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven ( καὶ κύριός ἐστι παρὰ κυρίου τοῦ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, τουτέστι τοῦ ποιητοῦ τῶν ὅλων, λαβὼν τὸ ταῦτα ἀπενεγκεῖν Σοδόμοις κ.τ.λ. )." And he then goes on to discuss the question of the eating and drinking with Abraham, but does not treat it as Irenaeus does here.
The interpretation of the passage may already have been common Christian apologetic: it is the expression "received power ( or authority)" to punish the Sodomites that suggests a direct literary connexion; and this expression is found again in Irenaeus III, vi. 1, quoted below in the note on this passage.
After this Irenaeus goes on at once as follows (Dem. c. 45):
And Jacob, when he went into Mesopotamia, saw Him in a dream, standing upon the ladder, that is, the tree, which was set up from earth to heaven; for thereby they that believe on Him go up to the heavens. For His sufferings are our ascension on high. And all such visions point to the Son of God, speaking with men and being in their midst. For it was not the Father of all, etc. (See below.)
This idea that Jacob's Ladder was "the tree" ( ξύλον ), that is to say, the cross, is found in Justin (Dial. 86), among a number of other types equally strange to us: "It says that a ladder was seen by him; and the Scripture has declared that God was supported upon it; and that this was not the Father we have proved from the Scriptures." Irenaeus again expands the comment in his own way, but he recurs to the theme "It was not the Father."
For it was not the Father of all, who is not seen by the |14 world, the Maker of all who said: Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me, or what is the place of my rest? and who comprehendeth the earth with his hand, and with his span the heaven ----it was not He that came and stood in a very small space and spake with Abraham; but the Word of God, etc.
Now the words "in a very small space" are clearly reminiscent of Justin. For in Dial. 127 he says: "Think not that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from anywhere. For the unutterable Father and Lord of all has never come any whither," etc. "How then should He either speak to any one, or be seen by any, or appear in some very small portion of earth ( ἐν ἐλαχίστῳ )?" Cf. Dial. 60: ἐν ὀλίγῳ γῆς μορίῳ πεφάνθαι .
These repeated coincidences, in large matters and in small, make us feel that Irenaeus was very familiar with Justin's writings. Everywhere he goes beyond him: but again and again he starts from him.
The advantage to be gained by the recognition of the dependence of Irenaeus upon Justin may be illustrated from c. 53 of our Treatise. The Armenian text here presents several difficulties, probably from corrupt transcription. The original cannot have been very easy to understand; but when we read with it c. 6 of Justin's Second Apology some points at any rate are cleared up. Irenaeus has just quoted Isa. vii. 14 ff., following the LXX with slight variations:
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son, and ye shall call him Emmanuel: butter and honey shall he eat; before he knoweth or selecteth the evil, he chooseth the good: |15 for, before the child knoweth good or evil, he rejecteth wickedness to choose the good. So he proclaimed His birth from a virgin; and that He was truly man he declared beforehand by His eating; and also because he called Him the child: and further by giving Him a name; for this is the custom also for one that is born.
We must pause here for a moment to quote some parallel words from Irenaeus himself (III, xxv. 2). He has quoted the same Scripture, and in commenting upon it he says: "Et manifestat quoniam homo, in eo quod dicit: Butyrum et mel manducabit; et in eo quod infantem nominat eum; et priusquam cognoscat bonum et malum: haec enim omnia signa sunt hominis infantis."
In my translation I have written: "this is the custom also for one that is born." But the Armenian text has: "this is the error also of one that is born." I have accepted Mr F. C. Conybeare's simple and attractive emendation sovoruthiun, "custom," for moloruthiun, " error."
We now return to our passage:
And His name is two-fold: in the Hebrew tongue Messiah Jesus, and in ours Christ Saviour. And the two names are names of works actually wrought. For He was named Christ, because through Him the Father anointed and adorned all things; and because on His coming as man He was anointed with the Spirit of God and His Father. As also by Isaiah He says of Himself: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me: wherefore he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. And (He was named) Saviour for this, that He became the cause of salvation to those who at |16 that time were delivered by Him from all sicknesses and from death, and to those who afterwards believed on Him the author of salvation in the future and for evermore.
The Armenian text reads: "in the Hebrew tongue Messiah Christ, and in the Armenian Jesus Saviour." I have adopted the emendation proposed by the Armenian scholars who made the first translation into German. No doubt Χριστὸς Σωτήρ was what Irenaeus wrote as the rendering of "Messiah Jesus": compare Just. M. Ap. I, 33, "Now the name Jesus in the Hebrew speech signifies Saviour in the Greek language."
Having disposed of these preliminary difficulties, we note some curious matters that remain for consideration. What is the point of saying, "names of works actually wrought"? Is there any parallel to the explanation of "Christ" as "He through whom the Father anointed"? And why does our author lay stress on the cure of the sick as the explanation of the name "Jesus"?
Let us now look at the passage of Justin to which we referred at the outset (Ap. II, 6):
Now a name imposed on the Father of all, unbegotten as He is, is an impossibility. For he to whom a name is applied must have one older than himself who has imposed on him the name. Father and God and Creator and Lord and Master are not names: they are appellations derived from benefits and works ( ἐκ τῶν εὐποιϊῶν καὶ τῶν ἔργων ).
Here we see the force of what Irenaeus had said about the naming spoken of by Isaiah, as indicating the manhood of the promised Child of the Virgin. The Unbegotten has no name, in the strict sense: there was none before Him to impose a name on Him. The Begotten, when begotten as man, has |17 a name, though before that He has what is at once an appellation and a name. Justin goes on: