Widdicombe—Irenaeus and the Knowledge of God as Father 143of other “titles” (nuncupationes) that also apply to that same being, the “Father of all,”
together with the “Lord of Powers,” “God Almighty,” the “Most High,” the “creator,” and
the “maker,” being among them.^12
Ireneaus, however, never makes either the indescribability of, or the grounds for
assigning titles to, the divine nature a matter of analysis, nor does he address the ques-
tion of the relationship between them. Unlike Justin before him (and Origen after),^13
Irenaeus appears to have seen no tension between the two. For Justin, for instance, the
occurrence of the word name in the baptismal injunction required explanation in the
light of God’s ineffability,^14 whereas Irenaeus says nothing about the question when he
quotes the injunction.^15
Justin’s understanding of the relation between God, being, and language reflects
Middle Platonist speculation about divine ineffability.^16 Justin explains that the first
God, by definition, can have nothing before him. But inasmuch as naming presupposes
the priority of the one who does the naming, such terms as Father, God, creator, and
Lord cannot refer to God’s essence but can only be derived from God’s activities,^17 a
contention that appears elsewhere among second-century Christian writers and may
reflect the influence of the analogical principle formulated by Alcinous.^18 The principle
states that some things may be predicated of God in as much as he is their source and
cause. Justin does not explain what he thinks gives rise to the predications for any of
the divine names he lists, but Theophilus does, with a rather longer list of thirteen
titles. With reference to the title “Father,” he says that when one speaks of God as
“Father,” one speaks “of him as all things,” and that God is “Father because he is before
all things.”^19
But we see nothing of such discussions in the writings of Irenaeus. When we turn to
the passages in which Irenaeus comments on the knowledge that God is Father, what
we see suggests that he placed the ascription of the word Father for God on another
footing. The knowledge that God is Father comes not through the activities of God but
uniquely through the revelation of the Son and adoption as sons.
Irenaeus’s comments occur in four passages, three in Haer. and one in Dem. What
Irenaeus says has to be treated with caution, however, as his concern in all three pas-
sages is neither with issues of epistemological method nor with the question of what is
signified about the divine nature by the word Father. In the first passage, Haer. II.6.1,
Irenaeus makes a distinction between, on the one hand, what can be known about God
by anyone through the observation of the providential ordering of the world and, on
the other, the knowledge that can come only through the revelation of the Son. The
lordship of God can be known through the former, that God is Father seemingly only
through the latter. To make his case, he quotes Matthew 11:27 (Luke 10:22). After hav-
ing explained that as God’s “invisible essence is mighty, it confers on all a great intel-
ligence and perception of his sovereign and omnipotent supereminence,” he goes on to
observe that “accordingly, although ‘no one knows the Father except the Son, nor the
Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal him’ (Matthew 11:27),
nevertheless, all beings know this invisible reality itself, because reason, implanted
in their minds, moves them and reveals to them that there is one God, Lord of all
things.”^20 That the Son is the unique vehicle for the revelation that the creator God