144 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacyand the Father of Christ are one and the same is fundamental to Irenaeus’s argument
in Hae r., of course. But here in II.6.1, he appears to be suggesting that the knowledge
that God is “Father,” in contrast to the knowledge of others of his titles, is unique to the
revelation of the Son.
The statement in the second passage, in Haer. IV.6.6, is more schematic. It occurs
in the course of Irenaeus’s response to what he perceives to be Marcion’s misinterpre-
tation of Matthew 11:27 (Luke 10:22).^21 In the passage, Irenaeus makes it clear that
the revelation by the Son that God is Father is not something that takes place only
through the incarnation, but that the Son had revealed it earlier through the Law
and the Prophets. According to Irenaeus, Marcion cited the verse in the form, “No
one knew (cognovit) the Father, but the Son,” rather than in the form, “No one knows
(cognoscit) the Father, but the Son,” the latter of which he approves.^22 The Father, then,
in Marcion’s view, was not known until the incarnation,^23 and, as the God of the Old
Testament was known before then, that God could not have been the Father of Christ.
In his riposte, Irenaeus argues that the Word did not make the Father known first
through the incarnation; rather, he had revealed the Father earlier through the Law
and the Prophets.^24 But, and this is the point that is of particular concern for the pres-
ent study, it is a knowledge that comes specifically through the Son, who, Irenaeus
observes, did not come into existence at the time of the incarnation.^25 He maintains
that by the creation, “the Word reveals God the Creator [Conditorem Deum]”; by the
world, “the Lord the Maker of the world [Fabricatorem mundi Dominum]”; by the
handiwork, “the Artificer of the handiwork [eum qui plasmaverit artificem]”; and “by
the Son, the Father who generated the Son [per Filum eum Patrem qui generavit Fil-
ium].” Irenaeus goes to on to make it clear that while all these impress themselves on
human beings in a similar way, not everyone believes in a similar way.^26 Presumably,
he feared lest the distinctions he had made in how God is known lead some to confuse
epistemology with ontology and thus undermine his fundamental point: the fact that
not all have believed that God is Father should not be taken to mean that that one and
the same God is not Father.
Irenaeus again distinguishes between the knowledge that the Gentiles and Jews
have of God and the knowledge of the Christians in Dem. 8. This time the distinction
is based not directly on the uniqueness of Christ as the revealer of that knowledge,
although he does refer to the idea in the preceding section, but rather on what the
three groups know about God. The critical factor is “adoption as sons” (which is true
also in the fourth passage, from Haer. IV.16.5, which will be taken up below). Irenaeus
begins section 8 with an affirmation directed against the Gnostics and Marcion: the
“Father,” the one called by the Spirit “Most High” and “Almighty” and “Lord of Hosts,”
is also the “creator.” This God, Irenaeus observes, is “merciful, compassionate, good,
righteous, the God of all—both of the Jews and of the Gentiles and of the faithful.” But
the three groups do not know God in the same way. For, “to the faithful he is as Father,
since in the last times he opened the testament of the adoption as sons”; while to the
Jews, he is “Lord and Lawgiver,” and through the giving of the Law, they learned that
God is “Maker and Fashioner”; and to the Gentiles, he is “Creator and Almighty.”^27 In
contrast to his discussion in Hae r. IV.6.6, Irenaeus is not concerned this time to ensure