Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Numbers 14-15 and Irenaeus Selections: Doctrine of Redemption in Reply to the Gnostics

Numbers 14 – The exaggerated reports of the scouts—that the Anakim are giants, etc—bring threats of revolt from the people.  Again they yearn for the old slavery: “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt. . .Why is the Lord bringing us into this land only to have us fall by the sword?” (14:2-3)

They even agitate to appoint another leader who will bring them back! What does Moses do? He (and Aaron) prostrate themselves before the community, reassure them that the land is good, and that if they will only do what the Lord has commanded, they will be settled on the land.  But the people only “threaten to stone them” (14:10). They are afraid to trust in God; the palpable dangers ahead are more real to them than the promises they hear through Moses. 

But then there is some manifestation of the Lord’s presence among them at the Meeting Tent and once again Moses must wrestle with God for His support!  God wants to abandon them, but Moses says to God, “Are the Egyptians to hear of this? . . . by your power you brought out this people from among them. . .If now you slay this whole people, the nations . . .will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them; that is why he slaughtered them in the desert’” (14:13-16) And he asks the Lord to pardon . . .the wickedness of this people in keeping with your great kindness, even as you have forgiven them from Egypt until now” (14:19). And He does—but he will not let anyone who deserted Him after having witnessed his saving presence see the land into which He is bringing the people; only Caleb will see it because he “has a different spirit and follows me unreservedly” (14:24). Joshua is also exempted.

For the present, however, the Lord tells them to turn away and set out on the Red Sea road. [This is great stuff here. I love it] Moses recounts all this to the people and they feel remorse; in their remorse, they disobey again—they go ahead with the assault rather than turning back temporarily—but they do not take the ark or Moses; this is equivalent to leaving God behind, so of course, they do not succeed.  The Amalakites and Canaanites defeat them and drive them back to Hormah (14:44-45).

Numbers 15 – Supplemental instructions are given on offerings to the Lord.  With every meat offering, there should also be a cereal offering and a libation. Also, the rules for aliens living amongst them is the same as for them (15:15).

Sin offerings for inadvertent violations are prescribed.  The main focus seems to be application of all regulations equally on Jews and aliens alike.  A Sabbath breaker is stoned. Schocken editors speculate that this could be here because it constitutes an individual act of rebellion.  And tassels are prescribed for the corners of Israeli garments to remind them of the commandments.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c.180 AD)

Selections from the Work Against Heresies

Book V – Redemption and the World to Come

Doctrine of Redemption in Reply to the Gnostics

2 – The Gnostic message that the Christ came into a world that His God had nothing to do with, in order to bring man to a god who neither made nor created him” is vain and wrong. And Jesus could not have redeemed us “by his blood if he had not been truly made man.”

“For since we are his members, and are nourished by [his] creation—and he himself gives us this creation, making the sun to rise, and sending the rain as he wills—he declares that the cup, [taken] from the creation, is his own blood, by which he strengthens our blood, and he has firmly assured us that the bread, [taken] from the creation, is his own body, by which our bodies grow. For when the mixed cup and the bread that has been prepared receive the Word of God, and become the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, and by these our flesh grows and is confirmed, how can they say that flesh cannot receive the free gift of God, which is eternal life, since it is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and made a member of him?” This is pretty deep stuff. I don’t think most modern Christians appreciate how deeply intelligent people were two thousand years ago.

“And just as the wooden branch of the vine, placed in the earth, bears fruit in its own time—and as the grain of wheat, falling into the ground and there dissolved, rises with great increase by the Spirit of God, who sustains all things, and then by the wisdom of God serves for the use of men and when it receives the Word of God becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ—so also our bodies which are nourished by it, and then fall into the earth and are dissolved therein, shall rise at the proper time, the Word of God bestowing on them this rising again, to the glory of God the Father.”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Numbers 12-13 and Irenaeus Selections: Redemption and the World to Come

Numbers 12 – Miriam and Aaron both complain to Moses of his marriage to Zipporah, whom they consider a “despised foreigner.”

But the complaint is a pretext for their jealousy of him. “The complained, ‘Is it through Moses alone that the Lord speaks?  Does he not speak through us also?’” (12:2) The Lord orders the three of them to come out to the meeting tent where he has this to say: “Should there be a prophet among you, in visions will I reveal myself to him, in dreams will I speak to him; Not so with my servant Moses! Throughout my house he bears my trust: face to face I speak to him, plainly and not in riddles.  The presence of the Lord he beholds.  Why, then, did you not fear to speak against my servant Moses?” (12:6-8)

The result of it is that Miriam is afflicted with a skin disease (leprosy?) for seven days (as a result of Moses’ supplication to God to go easy on her).  God compares what he did to a father spitting in the face of a daughter—that it brings her shame that would last for a week at least (12:14).

In this interesting chapter, we see Moses’ brother and sister jealous of Moses’ intimacy with the Lord and wishing to assert their own “right” to be intermediaries between God and he people.  Schocken editors suggest this might have been inspired by the coming of the spirit on the elders in the previous chapter. How many times in the history of God’s people have people had this competitive spirit that makes them say “Is it through Moses alone that the Lord speaks?  Does he not speak through us also?” 

So it is that even those who have every reason to know and appreciate the gifts of those who seem especially called to help us know and understand God’s will, choose to challenge God’s own call by asserting their right to be treated as equals.   I guess people have always had trouble with leadership.  But God does not totally reject their assertion.  He simply maintains that Moses sees the Lord and his will more clearly.  The lovely sentence, “Now, Moses himself was by far the meekest man on the face of the earth” seems to negate any thought we might entertain that Moses sought some kind of personal authority to exalt himself.   Miriam is further punished by a week-long episode of a leprosy-like condition, but then we hear no more of this family strife among the three. 

Certainly it must not have been easy to be the sibling of Moses.  From his childhood he seemed to have been chosen for God’s special favor.  Miriam, who must have been seven or eight years his senior, stood beside the basket as it drifted along the shore near the dwelling of the Pharaoh, so she could be there when the little bundle was discovered.   It was her suggestion that reunited the baby with its mother and permitted the family to rest assured that Moses would escape the fate assigned to all the other little Hebrew boys.  And later Moses looked to Aaron to help him speak to the Pharaoh, so shy or hesitant was he in delivering God’s message to the mighty one.  Certainly they who were most likely to know the frailties and humanity of God’s prophet were also the most likely to wonder why he should be given so much authority in the gathering of God’s people.  They understood that in a human sense there was little distance between them and him.  They were therefore most likely to wonder why God’s wisdom and authority were present in him in such a large measure.

Numbers 13 - Moses sends out scouts from the tribes to ascertain the strength and character of the inhabitants of the Promised Land.  Hoshea, son of Nun of the tribe of Ephraim, Moses’ own household, is called Joshua by Moses. 

They reconnoiter the land for 40 days and find the land to be all that God promised, but the word that the inhabitants are fierce and the towns fortified, is not received well and some try to exaggerate the Israelites disadvantages so as to discourage the people and create ill-feeling towards Moses.  So Moses faces rebellion not only from his family but from some of the leaders of the tribes.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c.180 AD)

Selections from the Work Against Heresies

Book V – Redemption and the World to Come

Doctrine of Redemption in Reply to the Gnostics

1 – “We could in no other way have learned the things of God unless our Teacher, being the Word, had been made man. For none could declare to us the things of the Father, except his own Word. For who else has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become his counselor? Nor again could we have learned in any other way than by seeing our Teacher, that we might become imitators of his works and doers of his words, and so have communion with him, receiving our increase from him who is perfect and before all creation.”

He is the “true man” – “redeeming us by his blood in accordance with his reasonable [Logos-like] nature, he gave himself a ransom for those who had been led into captivity. Since the apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly, and when we belonged by nature to God Almighty had unnaturally alienated us, God’s Word, mighty in all things, [reclaimed us], making us his own disciples.”

“[H]e acted justly against the apostasy itself, not redeeming his own from it by force, although it at the beginning had merely tyrannized over us, greedily seizing the things that were not its own, but by persuasion, as it is fitting for God to receive what he wishes by gentleness and not by force.” This is pretty amazing language, language brought to us in the 20^th century by men like Gandhi and M.L. King, Jr.

“So, then, since the Lord redeemed us by his own blood, and gave his soul for our souls, and his flesh for our bodies, and poured out the Spirit of the Father to bring about the union and communion of God and man—bring God down to men by [the working of] the Spirit, and again raising man to God by his incarnation—and by his coming firmly and truly giving us incorruption, by our communion with God, all the teachings of the heretics are destroyed.”

“These things did not take place fictitiously but in reality.” “He would not have had real flesh and blood, by which he paid the price [of our salvation], unless he had indeed recapitulated in himself the ancient making of Adam.” This puts to rest some of the assertions of Valentinus.

The Ebionites, “who do not accept in their souls by faith the union of God and man; but remain in the old leaven of [merely] human birth—not wishing to understand that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, and so what was born [of her] is holy and the Son of God Most High, the Father of all who thus brought about his incarnation and displayed the new birth, so that as we by the former birth were heirs of death, by this birth we should be heirs of life.”

Ebionites were a Jewish-Christian sect that regarded Jesus as the Messiah but thought they had to retain the Jewish law and rites, They looked to a separate Gospel, which is cited by other writers but has disappeared. It was said to be similar to Matthew’s Gospel but rejected the Virgin Birth.

“”They do not reflect that as at the beginning of our creation in Adam the breath of life from God, united with the created substance, animated man and made him a rational animal, so at the end of the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God, united with the ancient substance of the creation of Adam, made a living and perfect man, receiving the perfect Father, so that as in the animal we were all dead, in the spiritual we are all made alive. For Adam never escaped those hands of God, to whom the Father said, ‘Let us make man after our image and likeness.’ “

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Numbers 9-10 and Irenaeus' Work Against Heresies: The Apostolic Tradition

Numbers 9 – The second Passover is celebrated and Moses, after consulting with the Lord, decides that uncleanness due to contact with the dead or absence on a journey will not totally prevent celebration of the holiday, but it will need to be celebrated in the second month, fourteenth day—not the first month.

The Israelites have been organized into the various offices, both military and religious that will characterize it during the time in the desert.  We see in this chapter the importance of the cloud, called a fiery cloud in directing the movements of the Israelites during their time in the desert.  The presence of the Lord for the community as a whole is made known by the presence of this fiery cloud.  The cloud comes and goes.  When it hovers over the Dwelling, the Israelites are to stay.  When it departs, the camp is to be broken and moved.  There are times when the cloud lingers over the Dwelling for days or months, and times when it lingers only for the night.  In this way the Israelites make their way around the desert and finally to the Promised Land.  The critical thing is that whether we are speaking of the leadership or of the community as a whole, the delivered people stay close to the presence of the Lord and are directed by Him in all things.  The Lord comes through the voice and through the cloud.  

It is interesting to think that the cloud of the presence may also reappear in the New Testament stories of the ascension of our Lord.  In the tradition of the church also, Mary was said to be taken up into heaven on a cloud and the Lord is believed to destined to return to us on the clouds (Matt.24: 30).

Numbers 10 – Two silver trumpets are made to be used in gathering the community—one for everyone, two for just the leaders.  When there is a signal of alarm the order of march will be as follows:  first the east side of the camp, then the south, then the west and lastly the north. They shall also have a role in signaling the start of celebrations and festivals (10:10).

The narrative continues—second year, twentieth day—the cloud rose and they set out until “the cloud came to rest in the desert of Paran” (10:12). Moses’ brother-in-law, Hobab—brother of Zipporah—is the guide; they are in the region north-west of Midian. Moses begs him to come with them since he knows the region so well, but at first he says he doesn’t want to.  Moses persists though and chances are he did go with them. (10:29-32).

Moses says, when they set out: “Arise, O Lord, [Schocken translates this, “Arise to attack, O YHWH”] that your enemies may be scattered, and those who hate you may fee before you.” And when they stop, he says, “Return, O Lord, you who ride upon the clouds, to the troops of Israel” (10:35-36).

Irenaeus of Lyons (c.180 AD)

Selections from the Work Against Heresies

Book III – The Faith in Scripture and Tradition

The Apostolic Tradition

11 – John, the Lord’s disciple, proclaimed the faith and “wished by the proclamation of the gospel to destroy the error which had been planted among men by Cerinthus, and much earlier by those who are called Nicolaitans.”

“It is not true, as they say, that the Fashioner is one and the Father of the Lord another, and the Son of the Fashioner one being, the Christ form on high another, who remained free from suffering, descending on Jesus the Son of the Fashioner and returning again to his Pleroma; [they allege] that the Beginning was the Only-begotten, and Logos the true Son of the Only-begotten, and that this world order in which we live was not made by the supreme God but by some power fare inferior to him and cut off from contact with those things which are invisible and ineffable.”

“The disciple of the Lord [John] wished to cut off all such ideas and to establish the rule of truth in the Church, that there is one God Almighty who made all things by his Word, both visible and invisible, and also to indicate that through the same Word through whom God made this world order he also bestowed salvation on the men who belong to this order.” And so he starts his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God; this was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made . . .” The word “All” in this preface includes this physical world we live in, not just the Pleroma they talk about.

“John himself indeed takes away all our disputes on this matter when he says; ‘He was in this world, and the world was made by him, and the world know him not.’”

“According the some of the Gnostics, this world was made by angels and not through the Word of God. According to the followers of Valentinus again, it was not made through him, but through the Demiurge.” They insist that the Word/Christ “never came into this world, and that the Savior was neither incarnate nore suffered, but that he descended as a dove upon that Jesus who was made by [higher] dispensation, and when he had proclaimed the unknown Father, ascended again into the Pleroma.”

The wine that was made from water in Jesus’ first miracle at Cana was also real and physical. And though “the Lord could have provided wine for the feasters and satisfied the hungry with food without using any object of the created order, he did not do so; but taking loaves which came from the earth, and giving thanks, and again making water into wine, he satisfied those who lay down to eat, and he gave drink to those who were invited to the wedding.” In these times too, “his Son gives to the human race the blessing of food and the favor of drink [in the Eucharist], the incomprehensible [acting] through the comprehensible and the invisible through the visible, since there is none beyond him, but he is in the bosom of the Father.” 

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Numbers 6-8 and Irenaeus Selections: The Apostolic Tradition

Numbers 6 – Nazirite vows - nazir means “set apart as sacred, dedicated.” Those who take the vow may not drink wine or strong drink (anything from grapes). He may not cut his hair or enter where a dead person is—even family.  If someone dies suddenly in his presence he must cut his hair seven days after, bring two turtle doves or pigeons to the priest to offer as sin offering and holocaust and renew his vow.

        

When the period of dedication is over, he shall go to the Meeting Tent, bring a yearling lamb for a holocaust, and unblemished yearling ewe for a sin offering, a ram as a peace offering along with cereal offering and libations with unleavened cakes and wafers.  He shall then shave his head, collect his hair and put it in the fire that is under the peace offering.  He shall then take a part of each offering and give it to the priest.  Then he may drink wine again.

        

Moses passes on a priestly blessing from the Lord for Aaron and his sons to use: “The Lord bless you and keep you.  The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.  The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace” (6:24-26).

Numbers 7 – The princes (“exalted leaders” in Schocken) of the twelve tribes present their gifts—six baggage (litter) wagons (one for every two princes) and twelve oxen to pull them (for transporting the Tent and everything). Then follows the individual offerings of individual princes for the dedication of the altar (7:88)—one each day--emphasizes the importance of the ceremony, but is repetitious. It describes the offerings and the sacrifices given by all the tribes over a period of twelve days.

        

Of special interest is Moses’ entrance into the Dwelling in verse 89 and his hearing of God’s voice speaking from the ark between the two cherubim that decorate the ark. As the prophet of the Lord, Moses has access to the voice of the Lord and it is to this voice that Moses continually resorts for guidance.

Numbers 8 – The setting up of the lampstand and purification of the Levites. Only the priests were “consecrated”—made sacred and set aside for the Lord. Purification meant being “sprinkle[d] with the water of remission [hattat or decontamination]” (8:7); then they must shave their whole body and wash their clothes; make a sin offering. When the community is assembled before the Meeting Tent, they shall “lay their hands” on the Levites before the Lord. 

The Levites themselves are a “wave offering” (elevation-offering) made on behalf of the people (8:11). Then the Levites lay their hands on the heads of the bulls – one a sin offering, the other a holocaust “in atonement for the Levites.”  Then they shall enter into service, as substitutes for all the first-born rightfully considered God’s - those saved in the passover.  They served from age 25 to age 50.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c.180 AD)

Selections from the Work Against Heresies

Book III – The Faith in Scripture and Tradition

The Apostolic Tradition

5 – Irenaeus begins his discourse with an examination of the Writings of “those apostles who recorded the gospel.”

These apostles did not “name any other being as God.” There is only One who is Lord of all. And they did not, as the Gnostics claim, “adjust their teaching to the capacity of their hearers, . . . telling blind fables to the blind according to their blindness, to the sick according to their sickness, and to those who were going astray according to their error, and to those who thought that the Demiurge was the only God declaring that this was the case, but to those who can understand the ineffable Father expounding the unspeakable mystery by parables and riddles.”

“The is not the behavior of those who heal and give life, but rather of those who aggravate disease and increase ignorance.” “The apostles were sent to find those who were lost, and to bring sight to those who did not see, and healing to the sick, and so they did not speak to them in accordance with their previous opinions but manifestation of the truth.”

The Lord “displayed the Son of God to those of the circumcision, the Christ who was predicted by the prophets—that is, he showed himself, who restored freedom to men and gave them the heritage of incorruption. Then the apostles taught the Gentiles that they should leave the vain sticks and stones which they thought of as gods, and worship the true God, who had established and made the whole human race, and by his ordinance nourished, increased, and preserved them, and gave them their being; and that they should look for his Son Jesus Christ—who redeemed us from the apostasy by his blood, that we also might be made a holy people—who is to come down from heaven in the power of the Father, and who is to execute judgment upon all, and give the good things that come from God to those who have kept his commandments.”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Numbers 1-5 and Irenaeus Selections: Scripture and Tradition

Introduction to Numbers:

The common Hebrew name for this book is “bemidbar” (in the wilderness). It seems to collect everything relevant relating to the wilderness travel of the Jews. Schocken Bible editors see it as a narrative about “the death of the old and the birth of the new.” It starts with life in the camp, goes on to stories of rebellion and challenge, both from within and later from without.  It ends with preparations to enter the Holy Land.  The book is bracketed by two censuses—the first when they start, the second as they prepare to enter Canaan—hence the name “Numbers” (647-648).

        

The first ten chapters cover the camp life of the Israelites.  It is centered on the ark and primarily a military ordering, based on a head count of men over twenty. An Egyptian mustering would have been around the king’s throne Schocken says (653). Much discussion has gone on with respect to the numbers of men given—600,000.  This would put the entire population in the millions.  It may also have represented a number system we are not aware of, a purposeful exaggeration.  We don’t know.

Numbers 1 - Today’s reading concerns Moses’ preparations for his departure from the encampment at Sinai where the Israelites stayed for the first two years after their deliverance.  It shows how the many tribes and households of the Israelites were organized.  The main principal behind the system of organization was military.  Each of the twelve tribes was counted according to the number of males. Leaders are named for each tribe: Reuben – 46,500; Simeon – 59,300; Gad – 45,650; Judah – 74,600; Issachar – 54,400; Zebulun – 57,400; Joseph (Ephraim) – 40,500 and (Manasseh) 32,200; Benjamin – 35,400; Dan – 62,700; Asher – 41,500; Naphtali – 53,400.

Levites are not counted.  They attend to the Tent of Dwelling. Omitting the Levites, the family from which Moses and Aaron came and the least numerous of the tribes, there were 603,550 men.

Numbers 2 - The camp is ordered physically around the meeting tent.  The companies of Judah, Issachar and Zebulun are arrayed to the east of the tent (the place of pride); the companies of Reuben, Simeon, and Gad are situated to the south; the companies of Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin are on the west and the companies of Dan, Asher and Naphtali are on the north.  Looking at a map of how the various tribes of the Israelites were later arrayed in the Promised Land, one sees a very rough correspondence to this desert arrangement. 

Their organization includes an “order of march” when they break camp beginning with the companies in the east, then south, then west and finally north.  This order of march is set in motion with prescribed trumpet alarms and is fully described in chapter 10.

Numbers 3  – The sons of Aaron are set aside—but the sons Nadab and Abihu were killed for offering “profane (outside) fire” (3:4).

Eleazar and Ithamar inherit their responsibilities.  The Levites under them care for the tent of the Dwelling, but there is an order of service within among the clans of the Levites. 

The Gershonites are housed behind the Dwelling to the west and have responsibility for the Dwelling tent, its covering and the curtains and hangings. 

The Kohathite clans camp to the south of the Dwelling and have charge of the ark, the table the lampstand, the altars, utensils and the veil. 

The Clans of Merari, camped to the north of the Dwelling take care of the boards of the Dwelling, its bars, columns, pedestals and fittings; and to the east of the Dwelling, east of it (towards the sunrise) lived the families of Moses and Aaron and they were priest of the sanctuary.  One can see that nothing in the ordering and placement of the clans and tribes was left to chance.  Everything was ordered around the holy sanctuary of the Lord’s presence and religious and military order governed it entirely.

It is interesting that the Levites were considered to take the place of the first-born among all the other tribes.  Because they were saved from death during the Passover, they were considered to be the Lord’s and dedicated to him.  But the establishment of the priesthood was thought to be a redemption of these first born who were properly thought to belong to the Lord.   As the number of Levites was less than the total number of first-born sons among the Israelites to be redeemed, the ransom for the surplus of first-borns was a payment of five shekels silver to be given to Aaron and his sons.

Numbers 4 – Kohathites aged thirty to fifty have charge of the most sacred objects.  Aaron and his sons have charge of taking down the veil and covering the ark with it.  Over the veil they shall put a cover of tahash skin (tanned leather in Schocken) and an all violet cloth. (blue-violet in Schocken, made from a mollusk)  A violet cloth shall be spread of the table of the presence, a scarlet cloth and tahash skin.  Violet cloths shall also be spread over plates and cups, etc., over the lampstand and containers of oil, over the cleaned altar.  Only after all the sacred objects have been covered as prescribed shall the Kohathites enter to carry them off on a litter.  They cannot touch any of them or they will die.

The Gershonites have other tasks and things to carry.  So also the Merarites—either the boards or the sheets, etc.

Numbers 5 – The “unclean” are to be expelled from the camp.  If people wrong others, it is God they have broken faith with.  They must restore ill-gotten goods and pay a penalty of 1/5^th their value back as well or to the priest if there is no next of kin.

        

If a man becomes suspicious of his wife’s faithfulness, he can bring her to a priest with an offering of cereal.  The priest performs a ceremony intended to uncover any guilt in her conscience—she is to hold the cereal offering in her hands while the priest holds bitter water that brings a curse and he says to her, if she has been unfaithful, “May this water,. . .that brings a curse, enter your body to make your belly swell and your thighs waste away!” (5:22).  Then he puts the imprecations into writing, washes them off into the bitter water and has her drink it.  If she is guilty she will suffer the swelling and become infertile.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c.180 AD)

Selections from the Work Against Heresies

Book III – The Faith in Scripture and Tradition

Preface – Irenaeus says he is called to bring the teachings of the Gnostics into the open and to show how they are linked to Simon, whom he calls “the father of all heretics.” He believes he can refute all of them.

He will use arguments from Scripture, and he hopes he will demonstrate to others how these heresies can be dealt with. We “will be able to resist them faithfully and boldly on behalf of the one true and life-giving faith, which the Church has received from the apostles and imparts to her children. For the Lord of all gave to his apostles the power of the gospel, and by them we also have learned the truth, that is, the teaching of the Son of God—as the Lord said to them, ‘He who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me, and him who sent me.’”

The Traditions of the Gospels – “[W]e earned the plan of our salvation from no others than from those through whom the gospel came to us. They first preached It abroad, and then later by the will of God handed it down to us in Writings, to be the foundation and pillar of our faith.”

Some of the Gnostics try to convince us “that they preached before they has come to perfect knowledge” and that THEY “are the correctors of the apostles.”

We believe that after the Lord has risen from the dead, “they were clothed with the power from on high when the Holy Spirit cam upon them, [and] they were filled with all things and had perfect knowledge.”

Matthew went to the Hebrews and wrote a gospel in their tongue, while “Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel at Rome and founding the Church.” Mark handed down what Peter had preached and then Luke, a follower of Paul, recorded everything in his gospel. “Finally John, the disciple of the Lord, who had also lain on his breast, published [his] Gospel while he was residing at Ephesus in Asia.”

“All of these handed down to us that there is one God, maker of heaven and earth, proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets, and one Christ the Son of God.” People who do not accept this gospel are “resisting and refusing his own salvation.”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Leviticus 24-25 and Irenaeus Selections

Leviticus 24 –A perpetual flame of olive oil shall burn regularly in the lamp-stand of the sanctuary.  “It shall burn there before YHWH from evening to morning continually. This is a perpetual law for your descendants: Aaron is to see to the lamps on the pure lamp-stand before YHWH, continually” (24:3-4).

Showbread of fine flour shall be baked into twelve cakes and put in two piles on the gold table that stands before YHWH (24:6). On each row, there must be frankincense. They are to be set out fresh each Sabbath, and they shall be eaten by Aaron and his sons in a holy place (24:9).

        

A story is told about a man “whose mother was an Israelite woman and whose father was an Egyptian” 24:10). He got into a quarrel with an Israelite and “blasphemed the name and curse it” (24:11). Moses meditated on what to do and “YHWH spoke to Moses” (24:13) and instructed him to have the man taken outside the camp and killed – stoned to death (24:16). This precedent becomes a law: blasphemers are to be stoned by everyone in the community after everyone who heard him lays hands on his head.

        

Murderers are to die too; killers of animals must make restitution. “Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth! The same injury that a man gives another shall be inflicted on him in return” (24:19-20)—everyone, alien and Israelite alike—is to be treated the same.

Leviticus 25 – The land too is to keep a Sabbath for the Lord.  Sow fields for six years, but in the seventh, the land should rest, leaving the after-growth to be eaten by anyone.

        

The Jubilee year comes after 7 times 7 years.  On the 10^th day of 7^th month, let the trumpet sound. “You shall make [this 50^th year] sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants” (25:10). There shall be no sowing, nor reaping the after-growth except directly from fields and vines.  Return to your own property, and let there be no unfair dealing in repurchasing lands transferred during the preceding 50 years.  No lands shall be alienated in perpetuity, except in walled towns. No kinsmen may be slaves.  Alien slaves may be bought and sold, but you must not ‘lord it over them” harshly.

Irenaeus (c. 180)

Selections from the Work Against Heresies

The Faith of the Church

10 – Irenaeus’ words are so to the point, it is hard not to just write every word out, so there will be a lot of quoting.

“Now the Church, although scattered over the whole civilized world to the end of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples its faith in one God, the Father Almighty, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the seas, and all that is in them, and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the dispensations of God—the comings, the birth of a virgin, the suffering, the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily reception into the heavens of the beloved, Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from the heavens in the glory of the Father to restore all things, and to raise up all flesh, that is, the whole human race, so that every knee may bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, to Christ Jesus our Lord and God and Savior and King, according to the pleasure of the invisible Father, and every tongue may confess him, and that he may execute righteous judgment on all.”

The power of wickedness and the “angels who transgress and fell into apostasy, and the godless and wicked and lawless and blasphemers among men he will send into the eternal firs. But to the righteous and holy, and those who have kept his commandments and have remained in his love, some from the beginning [of life] and some since their repentance, he will by his grace give life incorrupt, and will clothe them with eternal glory.”

“Having received this preaching and this faith, as I have said, the Church, although scattered in the whole world, carefully preserves it, as if living in one house. She believes these things [everywhere] alike, as if she had but one heart and one soul, and preaches them harmoniously, teaches them, and hands them down, as if she had but one mouth.”

The languages of the world may be varied, but the message of the Church is the same wherever the faithful are.

It is true that some have more understanding than others of the basic idea, and can articulate it better, but the “faith is one and the same, [and] he who can say much about it does not add to it, nor does he who can say little diminish it.”

He addresses the mistaken view of the Gnostics who “imagine another God above [what they call] the Demiurge and Maker and Nourisher of this universe, as if he were not enough for us.” What the Gnostics called the Demiurge was the Old Testament Creator-God depicted in Genesis. They thought that the narrative of God that in so many ways personifies or “humanizes” him could never really be the eternal and fathomless deity they imagined God to be. But Irenaeus thinks they just don’t get the complex truth of the Old Testament narrative.

“[I]t consists in working out the things that have been said in parables, and building them into the foundation of the faith: in expounding the activity and dispensation of God for the sake of mankind; in showing clearly how God was long-suffering over the apostasy of the angels who transgressed, and over the disobedience of men; in declaring why one and the same God made some things subject to time, others eternal, some heavenly, and some earthly; in understanding why God, being invisible, appeared to the prophets, not in one form, but differently to different ones; in showing why there were a number of covenants with mankind, and in teaching what is the character of each of the covenants; in searching out why God shut up all in disobedience that he might have mercy on all; in giving thanks that the Word of God was made flesh, and suffered; in declaring why the coming of the Son of God [was] at the last times, that is, the Beginning was made manifest at the end; in unfolding what is found in the prophets about the end and the things to come; in not being silent that God has made the despaired-of Gentiles fellow heirs and of the same body and partners with the saints . . .”

He ends the section with discussion of terms that modern people are completely ignorant of – I was at least. Aeons and Pleroma. Gnostics believed that Aeons [30 of them] were emanations from the Pleroma, which is the fullness of the highest God. Irenaeus’ goal in most of his writings was to refute the claims of the Gnostics, so there will be a lot of very detailed discussion of their ideas, most of which I have only the lamest understanding of. I am hoping I will not have to go too deeply into these details. I am just looking forward to his explanation of the apostolic message that he embraced.