Irenæus

Footnotes

Introductory Note to Irenæus Against Heresies

^[4461] [Again, the carefully asserts that the bread is the body, and the wine (cup) is the blood. The elements are sanctified, not changed materially.]

^[4462] The Greek text, of which a considerable portion remains here, would give, “and the Eucharist becomes the body of Christ.”

^[4463] Eph. v. 30.

^[4464] Luke xxiv. 39.

^[4465] 1 Cor. xv. 53.

^[4466] 2 Cor. xii. 3.

^[4467] This is Harvey’s free rendering of the passage, which is in the Greek (as preserved in the Catena of John of Damascus): καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἠνέσχετο ὁ Θεὸς τὴν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἡμῶν ἀνάλυσιν. In the Latin: Propter hoc passus est Deus fieri in nobis resolutionem. See Book iii. cap. xx. 2.

Chapter III.—The power and glory of God shine forth in the weakness of human flesh, as He will render our body a participator of the resurrection and of immortality, although He has formed it from the dust of the earth; He will also bestow upon it the enjoyment of immortality, just as He grants it this short life in common with the soul.

^[4468] 2 Cor. xii. 7-9.

^[4469] We have adopted here the explanation of Massuet, who considers the preceding period as merely parenthetical. Both Grabe and Harvey, however, would make conjectural emendations in the text, which seem to us to be inadmissible.

^[4470] The ancients erroneously supposed that the arteries were air-vessels, from the fact that these organs, after death, appear quite empty, from all the blood stagnating in the veins when death supervenes.

Chapter V.—The prolonged life of the ancients, the translation of Elijah and of Enoch in their own bodies, as well as the preservation of Jonah, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the midst of extreme peril, are clear demonstrations that God can raise up our bodies to life eternal.

^[4471] Gen. ii. 8.

^[4472] 2 Cor. xii. 4.

^[4473] Jon. ii. 11.

^[4474] Dan. iii. 19-25.

^[4475] Luke xviii. 27.

Chapter VI.—God will bestow salvation upon the whole nature of man, consisting of body and soul in close union, since the Word took it upon Him, and adorned with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, of whom our bodies are, and are termed, the temples.

^[4476] 1 Cor. ii. 6.

^[4477] The old Latin has “audivimus,” have heard.

^[4478] 1 Thess. v. 23. [I have before referred the student to the “Biblical Psychology” of Prof. Delitzsch (translation), T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1868.]

^[4479] 1 Cor. iii. 16.

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