1. The Creator is the one who in respect to love is the Father, in
respect to power the Lord, and in respect to wisdom our Maker and Fashioner. It
was his commandment that we transgressed and became his enemies. For this
reason, in the last times the Lord restored us to friendship through his
incarnation, having been made Mediator
between God and man. On our behalf he appeased the Father against whom we
had sinned; and he came to the aid of disobedience by his obedience, granting
us the gift of living with our Maker and of being subject to him. That is why
he taught us to say in prayer, and
forgive us our transgressions; certainly, because this is our Father, whose
debtors we were because we had transgressed his commandment. But who is this?
Is it some unknowable Father who never gives a commandment to anyone? Or is it
the God who is preached by the Prophets and whose debtors we were because we
transgressed his commandment? The commandment was given to man by the Word. For Adam, Scripture says, heard the Voice of the Lord God.
Correctly, then, does his Word say to man, Your
sins are forgiven. It is the same one against whom we had sinned in the
beginning who grants us remission of sins in the end. Now, if we transgressed
the commandment of someone else than the one who said, Your sins are forgiven, such a one is not good or truthful or just.
Really, how is he good if he does not give of his own things? Or how is he just
if he steals what does not belong to him? And how are the sins truly forgiven
unless the very one against whom we have sinned grants remission through the heart of our God’s mercy, by which he visited us through his Son? b(Irenaeus,
Against Heresies, 5.17.1 in St.
Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies Books 4 & 5 [trans. Dominic
Unger and Scott D. Moringiello; Ancient Christian Writers 72; Mahwah, N.J.: The
Newman Press, 2024], 163)
