86 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacysoteriological dynamics that underlie the account continue to be played out anywhere
faithful men marry faithless women, concluding, “And on account of this Paul says
that the faithless wife [infidelem mulierem] is sanctified by her faithful husband [viro
fideli] .”^31 Thus his nuptial theology does not only provide a framework for interpreting
texts, but social structures more broadly.
A similar logic informs his typological reading of the marriage of Moses to the
Ethiopian woman in Num. 12:10-14. Irenaeus emphasizes that in taking her as a
wife (accipiebat uxorem) and making her an Israelite (quam ipse Israelitidem fecit),
Moses foreshows (praesignificans) the grafting of the “wild olive tree” into the “culti-
vated one,”^32 that is, the incorporation of the Gentiles into the elect nation of Israel.
Being more explicit, he says, “Through the marriage of Moses the marriage of the
Logos was revealed [ostendebantur] and through the Ethiopian bride the Church
from among the Gentiles became manifest [manifestabatur] .”^33 Human marriage
once again becomes a profound symbol of redemption and communion with the
divine. The story of Moses and the Ethiopian is, however, quite different in that it
is not presented in the biblical text as a prophetic enactment of God’s redemptive
union with his people. It is only on analogy with the story of Hosea that such an
ecclesiological reading is given. Irenaeus establishes Hosea as the lens, as it were,
through which other Old Testament narratives of marriage and courtship are to be
read. The next time we encounter an interpretation of Moses’ marriage to the Ethio-
pian woman—nearly half a century later in Origen’s Homilies on Numbers and Homi-
lies and Commentary on the Song of Songs—the need for any such explicitly stated
analogy has dropped out. The hermeneutical principle is assumed: human marriage
signifies God’s redemptive act toward his people.
We find a rather different take on the nuptial theme in the Demonstration. Once
again, the relevant passage comes in the context of a lengthy list of typological readings
of the prophets pertaining to the salvation of the Gentiles (86ff.). The incarnation of
the Word, says Irenaeus, marked a turning point for the Gentiles, who at that moment
experience a “change of hearts [mutatio cordium] .”^34 Irenaeus then juxtaposes the ste-
rility of the church—a term that he uses interchangeably with Gentiles—before the
incarnation with its fecundity afterward: “Isaiah demonstrated saying, ‘Rejoice, barren
one, who did not bear children’—the barren one is the Church, who never in earlier
times presented sons to God—‘Cry out and shout, you who did not labour, since the
many sons of the desolate one are more than she who had a husband (Isa. 54:1).’”^35 He
also juxtaposes the spouse of the church, who is Christ, with the spouse of the “first
assembly [prima synagoga] ,”^36 which is the Law. Specifically of importance is Irenaeus’s
emphasis that the church consorts with Christ directly, rather than by the mediation
of the prophets: “For it was neither Moses the legate nor Elijah the messenger, but the
Lord himself who has saved us.” This becomes a stock theme in exegesis of Song of
Songs 1:1 from Origen onward.^37
Irenaeus and Origen
Irenaeus, as I have attempted to demonstrate, is the first “orthodox” Christian writer
to make any sustained use of the nuptial analogy in expressing his ecclesiology and