St Irenaeus on Law

Friday’s patristic reading at Vigil’s was taking from the Adversus Haereses of St Irenaeus of Lyons (2^nd century AD), and dealt with the difference between the Law of Moses and the “new covenant of liberty” introduced by Christ. Here are some highlights from a theologically meaty reading:

When…righteousness and love of God had passed into oblivion, and became extinct in Egypt, God did necessarily, because of His great goodwill to men, reveal Himself by a voice, and led the people with power out of Egypt, in order that man might again become the disciple and follower of God…

…He enjoined love of God, and taught just dealing towards our neighbour, that we should neither be unjust nor unworthy of God, who prepares man for His friendship through the medium of the Decalogue, and likewise for agreement with his neighbour…

…Now these things did indeed make man glorious, by supplying what was wanting to him, namely, the friendship of God….For the glory of God was wanting to man, which he could obtain in no other way than by serving God.

And therefore Moses says to them again: “Choose life, that you may live…to love the Lord your God, to hear His voice, to cleave unto Him; for this is your life.

Preparing man for this life, the Lord Himself did speak in His own person to all alike the words of the Decalogue; and therefore, in like manner, do they remain permanently with us, receiving by means of His advent in the flesh, extension and increase, but not abrogation…

…Those things, therefore, which were given for bondage, and for a sign to them, He cancelled by the new covenant of liberty. But He has increased and widened those laws which are natural, and noble, and common to all, granting to men largely and without grudging, by means of adoption, to know God the Father, and to love Him with the whole heart, and to follow His word unswervingly, while they abstain not only from evil deeds, but even from the desire after them.

But He has also increased the feeling of reverence; for sons should have more veneration than slaves, and greater love for their father…that we may know that we shall give account to God not of deeds only, as slaves, but even of words and thoughts, as those who have truly received the power of liberty, in which [condition] a man is more severely tested, whether he will reverence, and fear, and love the Lord.