Commenting
on Irenaeus of Lyon and his theology of “recapitulation” or “analogy,” John
Lawson wrote:
The saving work of Christ by His ‘Championship’
through obedience is further illuminated in detail by a consideration of what
S. Irenaeus calls the ‘analogy’. Here
the root idea of αναχεφαλαιωσις
as ‘going over the ground again’ comes to view. By His obedience the Champion trod
precisely the same path as Adam did in his disobedience, but in the reverse
direction. Thus an analogy between the careers of Christ and Adam may be drawn.
This is worked out to great elaboration in an endeavour to show that every
circumstance in the career of Adam was duplicated in the career of Christ, and
that at every point where the former made a wrong choice the latter made the
counter-balancing right choice. In the first place, both were virgin-born. ‘From
this, then [i.e. the new-formed earth], whilst it was still virgin, God took
dust of the earth and formed man, the beginning of mankind. So then the Lord,
summing up afresh this man, took the same dispensation of entry into flesh,
being born from the Virgin by the Will and the Wisdom of God’ (Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
32) . . . The ‘analogy’ is further traced in Christ’s own obedience. Regarding the
Temptations Irenaeus writes: ‘For as at the beginning it was by means of good
that [the enemy] persuaded man, although not suffering hunger, to transgress
God’s commandments, so in the end he did not succeed in persuading Him that was
an hungered to take the food that proceeded from God . . . The corruption of
man, therefore, which occurred in paradise by both [our first parents] eating,
was done away with by [the Lord’s] want of food in this world’ (Against Heresies V.21.2, ii.111-2). So
at the end, in ‘doing away with that disobedience of man which had taken place
at the beginning by the occasion of a tree, “he became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross”; rectifying that disobedience which had occurred by
reason of a tree, through that disobedience which was [wrought out upon the
tree” (V.16.3, ii.99-100). (John Lawson, The
Biblical Theology of Saint Irenaeus [London: The Epworth Press, 1948; repr., Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2006],
150, 152)
This
provides the hermeneutic for understanding Irenaeus’ linking Mary to Eve, understanding
the latter to be an Old Testament “type” of the former. Indeed, while Irenaeus
did parallel Mary with Eve, contra many Roman Catholic apologists, such is not
support for Mary being sinless, let alone the Immaculate Conception, but another
example of Christ being the source of
this eschatological recapitulation and the use of human instruments (not merely
Mary) to bring about such). As Lawson wrote about Irenaeus’ Mariology:
The obedience of the Blessed Virgin Mary is
in fact a subsidiary recapitulating action, exactly analogous to the obedience
of Christ. She is a subsidiary Champion. ‘Virginal disobedience having been
balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience . . . that the Virgin Mary
might become the patroness [advocata]
of the virgin Eve’ (Against Heresies
V.19.1, ii.107). Mary is thus ‘that pure womb which regenerates men unto God’
(IV.33.11, ii.14). Vernet has recorded the views of Pusey, who limited this to
the circumstance that Mary had given birth to the Redeemer, and of Newman, who
in reply stated that the teaching of S. Irenaeus is that the Virgin is not
merely a physical instrument, but a co-operator in redemption. It is to be
admitted that on the face of it the language used inclines one to the latter
view. It should be noted, however, that the motive of these statements of
Irenaeus is not to elevate the Blessed Virgin to a place of honour, but to
trace out further details in the ‘analogy’. He hereby gives recognition to the
fact that Christ did not save the world automatically, but was dependent to a
certain extent upon the moral goodness of the men and women who lived about
Him. Our Lord lived as part of human society, not as an alien thrust in. There
is thus a distinct value in the place given by Irenaeus to the Virgin in the
scheme of salvation, nor need the honour be limited to her. There is, however,
no evidence in Adversus Haereses to
support Vernet’s claim that it is reasonable to see in Mary as the advocata of Eve the power of the Virgin to
intercede in heaven. (Ibid., 151-52)
On the issue
of the Immaculate Conception, see my article:
