Reading Scripture: Types and Figures

Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.33

Irenaeus of Lyons · c. 130–c. 202 AD

Such is the spiritual disciple who truly receives the Spirit of God. From the beginning, in all the arrangements of God, this Spirit was present to men: he announced future things, he showed present things, he narrated past things. He judges all, yet he himself is judged by no one.

For he judges the nations, creatures who serve the Creator more than the Oreator, and who with a reprobate mind consume their whole operation in vain. And he judges the Jews as well, who do not perceive the word of liberty, nor are willing to go forth free, though they have the present Liberator. Instead they pretend to serve outside the law at an unseasonable time, acting as if God needed nothing, and they do not know the advent of Christ, which he accomplished for the salvation of men, nor are they willing to understand. For all the prophets announced his two advents.

The first advent: he was made man in affliction, knowing how to bear infirmity; he sat on a foal of an ass; he was the stone rejected by the builders; like a sheep he was led to sacrifice; by the extension of his hands he overthrew Amalek. He gathered the scattered sons from the ends of the earth into the fold of the Father; he remembered his own dead who had fallen asleep, and he descended to them so that he might raise them up.

The second advent: he will come upon the clouds, bringing the day that is like a burning clibanus. He will strike the earth with the word of his mouth, and with the spirit through his lips he will kill the impious. He will hold a winnowing fan in his hand, and he will purify his threshing floor; he will gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn the chaff with inextinguishable fire.

Latin

Ta is discipulus spiritalis vere recipiens Spiritum Dei, qui ab initio in universis dispositionibus Dei adfuit hominibus, et futura annuntiavit et preesentia ostendit et preeterita enarrat, judicat quidem omnes, ipse autem a nemine judicatur. Nam judicat gentes, creature magis quam Oreatori servientes, et reprobabili mente universam suam operationem in vanum consumentes. Judicat autem etiam Judos, non percipientes verbum libertatis, neque volentes abire liberos, cum habeant preesentem liberatorem ; sed intempestive extra legem servire simulantes nihil indigenti Deo, et Christi adventum, quem propter salutem hominum fecit, non cognoseentes, neque intelligere volentes, quoniam duos adventus ejus omnes annuntiaverunt prophetee: unum quidem, in homo in plaga factus est, sciens ferre imbecillitatem, et in pullo asinee sedens, et reprobatus lapis ab eedificantibus, et sicut ovis ad victimam adductus, et per extensionem manuum dissolvens quidem Amalech; congregans autem dispersos filios a terminis terre in ovile Patris, et recommemoratus mortuorum suorum qui dormierant, et descendens ad eos, uti erueret eos®; secundum autem, in quo super nubes veniet, superducens diem que est sicut clibanus ardens, et percutiens terram verbo oris sui, et spiritu per labia sua interficiens impios, et ventilabrum in manu habens, et’ emundans aream suam, et triticum quidem in horreum comburens autem paleas igne inexstinguibili.

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