Irenæus

Footnotes

Introductory Note to Irenæus Against Heresies

Chapter XXV.—Both covenants were prefigured in Abraham, and in the labour of Tamar; there was, however, but one and the same God to each covenant.

^[4141] Matt. iii. 9.

^[4142] Eph. ii. 20.

^[4143] [Note, the Gentile Church was the old religion and was Catholic; in Christ it became Catholic again: the Mosaic system was a parenthetical thing of fifteen hundred years only. Such is the luminous and clarifying scheme of Irenæus, expounding St. Paul (Gal. iii. 14-20). Inferences: (1) They who speak as if the Mosaic system covered the whole Old Testament darken the divine counsels. (2) The God of Scripture was never the God of the Jews only.]

^[4144] Gen. xxxviii. 28, etc.

^[4145] John iv. 37.

^[4146] 1 Cor. iii. 7.

^[4147] Jer. ix. 2. [A “remote dwelling-place” rather (σταθμὸν ἔσχατον according to LXX.) to square with the argument.]

^[4148] [The touching words which conclude the former paragraph are illustrated by the noble sentence which begins this paragraph. The childlike spirit of these Fathers recognises Christ everywhere, in the Old Testament, prefigured by countless images and tokens in paternal and legal (ceremonial) forms.]

Chapter XXVI.—The treasure hid in the Scriptures is Christ; the true exposition of the Scriptures is to be found in the Church alone.

^[4149] Matt. xiii. 44.

^[4150] Matt. xiii. 38.

^[4151] Harvey cancels “non,” and reads the sentence interrogatively.

^[4152] Dan. xii. 4, 7.

^[4153] Jer. xxiii. 20.

^[4154] The Latin is “a multis justis,” corresponding to the Greek version of the Hebrew text. If the translation be supposed as corresponding to the Hebrew comparative, the English equivalent will be, “and above (more than) many righteous.”

^[4155] Dan. xii. 3.

^[4156] The text and punctuation are here in great uncertainty, and very different views of both are taken by the editors.

^[4157] Luke xxiv. 26, 47. [The walk to Emmaus is the fountain-head of Scriptural exposition, and the forty days (Acts i. 3) is the river that came forth like that which went out of Eden. Sirach iv. 31.]

^[4158] Matt. xiii. 52. [I must express my delight in the great principle of exposition here unfolded. The Old Scriptures are a night-bound wilderness, till Christ rises and illuminates them, glorying alike hill and dale, and, as this author supposes, every shrub and flower, also, making the smallest leaf with its dewdrops glitter like the rainbow.]

^[4159] Lev. x. 1, 2.

^[4160] Num. xvi. 33.

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