100 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, LegacyPhilo used the expression πρώτῃ ἡλικίᾳ (“first age”) fairly often, usually to describe
someone old enough to take instruction of various kinds. On two occasions, however,
he associates the expression with a definite age. First, in On Joseph he says that Joseph
the patriarch was immersed in civil affairs “from his first age [ἐκ πρώτης ἡλικίας],” and
this pertains to activities Joseph embarked upon at age seventeen, and not before (On
Joseph 1–2). Elsewhere (Jos. 270), he says that at age seventeen Joseph was just enter-
ing the age of a youth (μειράκιον),^21 that is, he was just passing beyond the age of a
παῖς. Second, in On the Embassy to Gaius 87, Philo expresses horror at the actions of
the young emperor Gaius, who had his cousin Tiberius Gemellus murdered when the
latter was “in the prime of first age” (ἐν ἀκμῇ τῆς πρώτης ἡλικίας). He also says that
Gemellus was “just emerging from childhood and becoming a youth [εἰς μειράκιον]”
(Embassy 23). Although Philo does not tell us exactly how old the youth was, it is
recorded that Gemellus was born 10 October 19 c.e. and was killed late in 37 or early
in 38 and thus had just turned eighteen.^22
Based on the usage of Philo, Irenaeus’s ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ ἡμῶν ἡλικίᾳ might have been
seventeen or eighteen years old, or older. For Philo clearly does not conceive of “the
first age” as limited to the stage of childhood. And there is good reason to think that
Irenaeus didn’t either. LSJ defines the phrase “in the prime of life, manhood,” citing an
example from Pindar (ἐν ἁλικίᾳ πρώτᾳ, Nemean Odes 9.42), which pertains to a period
well past the age of a παῖς. Support for understanding Irenaeus in this way comes from
his own statements in Against Heresies Book II, where he had employed a five-stage
scheme for human life. The Greek, unfortunately, does not survive here, but the Latin
progression of infans, parvulus, puer,^23 juvenis, senior (II.22.4; II.24.4), probably trans-
lates βρέφος (or νήπιος?), νήπιος (or παιδίον?), παῖς, νεανίας, πρεσβύτερος.^24 Also unfor-
tunate, for our purposes, is that Irenaeus does not define these stages by years. One
could translate ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ ἡμῶν ἡλικίᾳ in III.3.4 as “in our first age,” but this cannot be
equated with the first of the five stages listed in Book II (infans). For, besides resulting
in an absurdity, it would be contradicted by his letter to Florinus, where he indicates
he was a παῖς (likely also the word translated puer in the list above), two stages beyond
infans, when Polycarp was quite active.
An insight into his thought comes from his discussion in the same context (II.22.5),
where, provoked by the views of his Valentinian opponents, he mounts a valiant effort
to prove that Jesus lived beyond the age of forty. Here too the Greek does not survive
and the Latin is difficult. With Luke’s notice in mind (Luke 3:23), that Jesus was begin-
ning to be about thirty years old when he came to be baptized, Irenaeus says, “Now, all
will agree that the age of ‘thirty years’ belongs to the first age of natural youth [aetas
prima indolis est iuvenis], and this extends as far as the fortieth year; moreover, from
the fortieth and fiftieth year it declines into the age of an elder [in aetatem seniorem]
(Hae r. II.22.5).^25
The main transition with which Irenaeus is concerned here seems to be that of iuve-
nis to senior, a transition that starts at age forty, when one begins the decline toward
old age. If, as his opponents allege, Jesus had died only one year after he received bap-
tism, he would have been still in the first age of life. As it is (so he argues), Jesus passed
beyond the age of forty (in fact, was closer to fifty), beyond the “first age of natural