146 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy
IV.13.4, he links servitude with the Mosaic law and contrasts it with friendship. He
argues that those who were under the old covenant were “slaves,” but under the new
covenant, in which one assents to love God and neighbor, the Word “set those free
who were subject to him.” This Irenaeus thinks evidenced by Christ’s statement to his
disciples in John 15:15, “I no longer call you slaves, for the slave does not know what
his lord does; but I have called you friends, for everything I have heard from the Father,
I have made known to you.”^30
A little later, in Haer. IV.16.5, Irenaeus essays to explain why the Ten Command-
ments were not abrogated by the coming of Christ. Unlike the particular statutes laid
down for the Jews, which created “bondage,” the Decalogue, which teaches love of God
and love of neighbor, are “natural and liberal and common to all.” Christ cancelled the
former “by his covenant of liberty,” while “amplifying” the latter, and “granting to men
generously and without grudging, by means of adoption, to know God the Father [per
adoptionem Patrem scire Deum], and to love [diligere] him with their whole heart and
to follow his Word without deviation.” Christ also granted an increased feeling of ven-
eration for God, for, Irenaeus explains, drawing on common human experience, “sons
should have more veneration than slaves, and greater love for their father [filios enim
plus timere oportet quam servos et majorem dilectionem habere in patrem] .”^31
In Haer. III.19.1, Irenaeus links the idea of the freedom that comes through adop-
tion with incorruption and immortality, using another verse from the Gospel of John,
this time 8:36. Inasmuch as Christ said, “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be
free indeed,” those who have not been “joined to Christ” remain in the “bondage of
the old disobedience,” not having received the “gift of adoption” and are in a “state of
death,” whereas those who have received adoption “have been united to incorruptibil-
ity and immortality.”^32 Again, in these passages with their focus on adoption, Irenaeus
does not go on to point out that God was also known as Father in the Old Testament.
As has been noted already, these statements concerning God as Lord, the law, ser-
vitude, and fear, on the one hand, and God as Father, love, adoption, and friendship,
on the other, are scattered throughout Haer. and Dem. and are never brought together
systematically, although several of the elements are present in Dem. 3–8. He never
acknowledges Paul’s influence on his thinking about the matter, although he may well
have thought that self-evident; and he never cites Paul’s phrase “Abba, Father” from
Gal. 4:6 and Rom. 8:15 in the immediate contexts of these statements, although he does
elsewhere in his writings. Nevertheless, the occurrence of such statements as these,
however inchoate, marks a signal moment in the history of Christian reflection on the
description of God as Father. They do not appear in the writings of Justin, who seems
unaware of the idea of adoption as sons, never quotes either Gal. 4:6 or Rom. 8:15 in
any context, and makes no reference to the Johaninne notion of friendship with God.
Conversely, however, such statements feature prominently in the writings of Ori-
gen, who makes them fundamental to his conception of salvation. Origen draws
deliberately on the adoption imagery of Paul, cites Gal. 4:6 and Rom. 8:15 frequently,
and cites a collage of verses from the Gospel of John, 15:15 prominent among them.
In terms similar to those of Irenaeus, but in a dense and complex way, Origen con-
cludes that as the believer comes to know God as Father and not just as Lord, the