134 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, LegacyThe way in which Irenaeus portrays God’s transcendence is similar to the terms
that he ascribes to the Gnostics. The heart of his difference from them lies not on the
side of the divine transcendence but rather on how God can nevertheless be known.
The Gnostics claim that some people, those who are “spiritual,” may be capable of
such knowledge through their connection with Sophia and through the rescue effort
launched on her behalf from the other Aeons of the Pleroma. In contrast, Irenaeus pro-
poses that knowledge of God is available to all, not because God lacks transcendence
but because of God’s love. The divine transcendence, while it constitutes an unbridge-
able chasm from our side, offers no obstacle to God when God wills to give vision, life,
and union to creatures.
Irenaeus appeals to two axioms, one from philosophy and the other from scripture,
in spelling out what is fitting for God (θεοπρεπές).^6 The first is from the pre-Socratic
philosopher Xenophanes (Diels B24), which Irenaeus has amplified from other Pla-
tonist sources.^7 The key phrase from Xenophanes is “The whole (of God) sees, the
whole thinks, the whole hears”; there is a simplicity and simultaneity about the deity
that can only be so described, if one compares it to the way in which creaturely agency
flows from distinct, complementary faculties. Irenaeus uses the axiom to underline
the transcendence of the Godhead and he expands on it in different contexts.^8 Robert
Grant says, “In Irenaeus’s opinion this statement is a universally valid axiom of theol-
ogy. The second quotation is introduced by the words quemadmodum adest religiosis
ac piis dicere de deo. The third is stated thus: qui dicit eum totum visionem et totum
auditum... non peccat. And the fourth correlates it with biblical doctrine: sicut ex
scripturis dicimus. This is to say that the teaching of Xenophanes is one of the pillars of
the theology of Irenaeus.”^9
The other axiom, the one that he claims as scriptural, is actually from The Shepherd
of Hermas, mand. 1.^10 In Adversus haereses IV.20.2, Irenaeus says, “Well, therefore, did
scripture declare, ‘First of all, believe that God is one, who created and completed all
things and made out of that which was not that all things might be, who contains all
things, and is contained by no one.’” Rowan Greer says “that the formula ‘God contains
all things, but is uncontained’ supplies a simple and concise definition of Irenaeus’s
theological premise. The details of his doctrinal position may all be derived from the
one formula.”^11
As William Schoedel points out in his fascinating study of this second axiom, it is
one that the Valentinians were willing to accept, at least according to the first lines of
haer. I.1.1^12 : their Propator was invisible and no being could contain him.^13 A few lines
later, Irenaeus tells us that Mind (Nous), born of the Propator and Silence, like and equal
to the one who had put him forth, alone could encompass the greatness of the Father
(haer. I.1.1).^14 Mind alone could see him and rejoice in the Father’s immeasurable great-
ness, thinking how he might convey this greatness to the other Aeons, how great the
Father is, without beginning and unable to be contained or comprehended (haer. I.2.1).
That is rather close, even uncomfortably so, to the Great Church’s understanding of the
relation of the Word to the Father as Irenaeus presents it: “all saw the Father in the Son,
for the Father is the invisible of the Son, the Son the visible of the Father” (haer. IV.6.6.).^15
We shall return to those opening descriptions of the Pleroma at the end of this paper.