Widdicombe—Irenaeus and the Knowledge of God as Father 145that it be understood that God was also known as Father in the Old Testament. The
attributing of the knowledge of divine fatherhood “in the last times” to adoption may
well have inhibited him from doing so. While this might lead us to conclude that his
desire to link the knowledge of God as Father with the new dispensation brought about
by the incarnation was so great that he was willing to risk the possibility that it might
be concluded that the God of the Old Testament was not the Father of the New Testa-
ment, the explanation might be simpler. It may just reflect the fact that the description
of God as Father is not something about which he thinks systematically.
But we should note that Irenaeus is not wholly consistent in attributing the knowl-
edge that God is Father specifically to the revelation of the Son. In Hae r. III.25.1, he
appears to contradict the claim. There he says that those Gentiles who exercised at
least a measure of moral discipline, who were not given to superstition and the wor-
ship of idols, and who had a sense, however slight, of divine providence, “were led to
call the Maker of this universe the Father, who exercises providence over all things and
arranges the affairs of our world [conuersi sunt ut dicerent Fabricatorem huius uniuer-
sitatis Patrem omnium prouidentem et disponentem secundum nos mundum]”; and no
reference is made in the passage to Christ.^28
But what is it that the term Father tells us about the divine nature in distinction
from the other divine titles? Irenaeus never comments on the question in a sustained
way, but there are a number of passages in which he gives a fleeting indication of his
answer. That answer, which we do not find in Theophilus or Justin, is that the descrip-
tion of God as Father has to do with love.
In the course of his explanation in Haer. V.17.1 that it was to one and the same
Father who was also the God of Adam that humankind was disobedient and the Son
obedient, Irenaeus assigns particular attributes to particular divine titles, “Father”
among them. “This same being,” he remarks, “is the Creator, who according to his love
is Father, but according to his power, he is Lord, and according to his wisdom, our
Maker and Artificer [Demiurgus qui secundum dilectionem quidem Pater est, secun-
dum autem virtutem Dominus, secundum autem sapientiam Factor et Plasmator nos-
ter; ὁ Δημιουργός, ὁ κατὰ μὲν τὴν ἀγάπην Πατήρ, κατὰ δὲ τὴν δύναμιν Κύριος, κατὰ δὲ
τὴν σοφίαν Ποιητὴς καὶ Πλάστης ἡμῶν], by transgressing whose commandments, we
became his enemies.” Through the incarnation, Christ has restored us to “friendship”
(amicitia; φιλία) with the Father.^29 In Dem. 2–3, he again links “power” with “Lord”
and “love” with “Father,” in a statement about the believer’s response to God. Irenaeus
warns that lest we “receive the poison” of the teaching of the “heretics,” we must adhere
strictly to “the rule of faith,” and “perform the commandments of God, believing in
God and fearing him, for he is Lord, and loving him, for he is Father.”
Irenaeus never engages in an explanation of why he links descriptions of God as
Lord with fear and as Father with love, but it may be connected with his understanding
of the relationship between the law of the old covenant and that of the new, ushered
in by Christ, an understanding that reflects the influence of Paul’s discussion in Gal.
4:1—5:1 and Rom. 8:14-15. In Dem. 8, following his statement that the Jews knew
God as “Lord and Lawgiver,” he says that when humankind “forgot, abandoned, and
rebelled against God, he brought them into slavery by means of the Law.” In Haer.