162 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacyand consequently became the cause of death both for herself and for the whole human
race. This is what the tradition has passed on, and Irenaeus therefore passes it on in
his turn. But Irenaeus puts his own spin on it by using Mary as a foil for Eve, as the
apostle Paul had done in the case of Adam and Christ. For as in Adam all die, even so
in Christ shall all be made alive, Paul had argued (1 Cor. 15:22). Irenaeus picks up the
structure and makes a parallel move of his own: as Eve, by her disobedience, became
the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race, so Mary, in obeying,
became for herself and for the whole human race the cause of salvation (et sibi et uni-
verso generi humano causa facta est salutis). Irenaeus’s opponents, on the other hand,
he argues, are wrong both to say that Joseph was the father of Jesus, and to say that he
received nothing from the Virgin.^23 Mary represents the human race in its entirety in
giving humanity to Jesus; all that is human in him comes from her. By the standards
of ancient biology, even more than those of modern biology, this was an extraordinary
claim. In these two regards, Irenaeus sets the groundwork for the highest of Orthodox
and Roman Catholic Marian theology, and the highest possible theological anthropol-
ogy of women.
Finally, let us look at what Irenaeus has to say about the role of women in the
church. Let us return to the female disciples of Marcus the Gnostic teacher in the mid-
dle of their liturgy, first being called on by him to give thanks over the mixed cup and
then to prophesy.^24 Pagels claims, erroneously, that “women were strictly forbidden [to
prophesy] in the orthodox church”; the giving thanks she describes as “Worst of all,
from Irenaeus’s viewpoint.”^25
Irenaeus certainly called the woman who had given thanks “the deceived woman”
(ἡ ἐξεπατημένη), but this is because, in his account, Marcus is in the middle of playing
a magic trick on her: he has brought out a large cup, much bigger than the one she gave
thanks over, empties hers into it, says a prayer, and it is miraculously filled from the
smaller cup. Irenaeus says nothing at all about the desirability or otherwise of women
giving thanks in orthodox settings. This silence is probably deliberate. Women giv-
ing thanks in private in houses which they owned may well have been a widespread
practice in the early church, but as congregations became bigger and more like public
assembles (albeit secret ones), the practice came to seem more anomalous. It is not
unlikely that Irenaeus had seen this change happen in his own lifetime, and knew there
was unhappiness about it. Having no clear scriptural precedent in its favor, he declined
to express an opinion.
The case, however, is quite otherwise with prophecy. Irenaeus believes in the out-
pouring of the Holy Spirit, as prophesied in Joel and recalled by Peter in Acts 2:17-
18: “And it shall come to pass that in the latter days I shall pour out my Spirit on all
flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old shall dream dreams, and
your young shall see visions. Yes, even on male and female slaves I shall pour out my
Spirit” (Joel 3:28-29; cf Hae r. III.11.9, “Donum Spiritus... quod in novissimis tempo-
ribus... effusum est in humanum genus”). But Irenaeus is conscious that others in the
church (alii) do not, and therefore refuse to accept the Gospel of John with its promise
to send the Paraclete, although he does not identify them. His argument is unequivo-
cal: these people reject both the Gospel of John and at the same time the Holy Spirit.