• Introduction - To the American Reader
• Preface to the Fifth Edition
• Author's Preface
• CHAPTER 1. Future Punishment Is Eternal.
• CHAPTER 2. Eternal Death
• CHAPTER 3. Testimony Of The Old Testament.
• CHAPTER 4. Testimony Of The New Testament.
• CHAPTER 5. The Greek Of The New Testament.
• CHAPTER 6. The Primary Sense Of Terms Vindicated.
• CHAPTER 7. The Illustrations Of Scripture.
• CHAPTER 8. The Resurrection Of The Wicked.
• CHAPTER 9. The Divine Justice.
• CHAPTER 10. The Extinction Of Evil.
• CHAPTER 11. Examination Of Particular Texts.
• CHAPTER 12. Distinctions In Future Punishment.
• CHAPTER 13. Theories Of Punishment And Christian Missions.
• CHAPTER 14. Some Objections Answered.
• CHAPTER 15. The Apostolic Fathers. Clement Of Rome.
• CHAPTER 16. Justin Martyr.
• CHAPTER 17. Irenaeus, Martyr And Bishop Of Lyons.
• CHAPTER 18. Rise Of The Theory Of Eternal Life In Hell.
• CHAPTER 19. Tertullian.
• CHAPTER 20. Rise Of The Theory Of Universal Restoration Origen.
• CHAPTER 21. Conclusion.

The Duration And Nature Of Future Punishment

Grk/Heb Fonts

PDF

By HENRY CONSTABLE, A.M.
Prebendary of Cork

Fifth Edition - 1875

CHAPTER XVII

Irenaeus, Martyr and Bishop of Lyons

WE will now draw our reader's attention to the opinion of Irenaeus on future punishment. He is, unquestionably, one of the soundest and most able of the early fathers. He was a pupil of Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of St. John. His martyrdom is usually placed A.D. 202. Of his five books against heresies, we unfortunately possess only the first in the original Greek. We possess the other four through a rude Latin translation, made when the Church had all but universally adopted the Augustinian theory. We might probably hence expect to see some expressions having a tendency in that direction, and should not rely too implicitly on the force of a word here or there. In spite of this drawback it is most satisfactory to find the clear emphatic testimony of this justly-valued father in favour of the scriptural theory of punishment.

2. Irenaeus sets out with views of human nature diametrically opposed to those of Augustine and his school. Indeed his views of our nature as it came from God's hands are such as we do not hold ourselves. He seems to have considered that man as he was at first created was mortal as to his entire nature. ¹ The spirit which is in the believer now he apparently considers not to have been bestowed upon Adam at creation: he was a being at the first only of body and of soul, and therefore mortal as to his entire nature. The spirit of the believer he evidently thinks is a part of the Divine Spirit imparted to the believer through Christ, and only given since Gospel times. Without this Spirit, he holds that there can be no such thing as immortality for man. He apparently considers that the union of this Spirit to the soul of the believer in this life renders the believer's soul immortal now, and that its union with the believer's body at the resurrection will render the body thence forward incorruptible and immortal.²

3. We are not here vindicating these views of Irenaeus on what is unquestionably a very deep theme; neither are we here controverting them. We merely present a very brief abstract of them to show how diametrically opposite to Augustine's views of human nature were those of Irenaeus. Augustine makes a part of human nature to have been possessed from the very beginning of an essential and inalienable immortality. Irenaeus represents the entire of that nature, body and soul alike, to have been created mortal, and to have been as yet unjoined by an element which was essential to the possession by either of immortality. In order that unfallen man should obtain immortality, Irenaeus thinks that he must have obtained something which he had not at first. This something—this third part of man—the Divine Spirit, uncreated and eternal, he supposes not to have been given until the time of Christ, and then only to believers. They who were not believers never receive it, according to Irenaeus; and must therefore be mortal, and can by no means enjoy or possess eternal existence. Man in his first estate was but mortal: man in his fallen estate, and refusing to accept Christ as his Saviour, cuts himself off from the gift of that Spirit which would have been essential to the immortality even of unfallen man. Irenaeus' views of human nature, be they true or false, are absolutely irreconcilable with the idea that he could suppose that the wicked should possess an immortal existence. With this summary of his views agrees every particular which he gives us on the question before us.

4. We will first enquire what Irenaeus tells us of life, and of that eternal life which Christ bestows upon His people. With respect to "life," he gives it its literal and proper sense of "existence." While our Augustinian theorists are forcing upon the word as its proper sense "well being," "happiness," and other senses of the kind, Irenaeus tells us over and over that with him it simply means existence. He tells us there may be life where there is no light, no joy, but only fear, perplexity, darkness, and sorrow. He tells us that our "flesh" partakes of life. Life eternal he defines to be never growing old. And he calls Christ the Prince of Life because he exists before all and goes before all.³

5. When he comes in particular to speak of life as bestowed by Christ upon His redeemed, which he sometimes, following Scripture, calls "life," and sometimes "eternal life," he not only never tells us that he supposes it to be in its nature different from that life which means existence: but he over and over tells us that he means by it the very same thing. He expressly defines "the life" which the Father bestows upon those who are saved, to be "continuance for ever and ever," "length of days for ever and ever." "Eternal life" he defines as identical with "immortality." He defines believers "living to God," to mean that they "have not passed out of existence," but are children of that resurrection in which they will obtain the life now pledged to them. While he tells us that Christ has bestowed life now upon his people, he carefully teaches that it is given in faithful promise, not in actual possession, just as Canaan was given to Abraham and his seed when they possessed in it nothing beyond a burial place. The "world of life," he tells us, is a world "which is to come; the elect are they who are enrolled for this eternal life."⁴

6. While he thus explicitly defines eternal life to be "continuance for ever," and "length of days for ever," and the possession of an "existence" that was never to end, and "perpetual duration," he also explicitly tells us that none but the redeemed of Christ will obtain it. It is with him the gift of Christ to His people. Receiving it as a gift from His Father, Christ "confers it upon those who are partakers of Himself." The unbelieving and the blinded "shall not inherit the world of life which is to come." They have forfeited this life, and "defraud themselves of this life" through their perverseness. Their "everlasting perdition" consists in "cutting them off from this life."⁵ Thus, while a later school of theology, following Plato, taught for all men length of days for ever, Irenaeus, following Christ, confined it to the redeemed.

7. We now come to a word, "immortality," (aqanasia athanasia, ) which has, in its application to living beings, the singular advantage of having but one meaning. We need not therefore spend time in ascertaining what Irenaeus meant by it. He meant by it what everyone means by it: "exemption from death and annihilation; unending existence" (Webster's Dictionary). When applied to God, it means an existence of which He cannot be deprived; because He cannot change: when applied to a creature, it means an existence of which he cannot be deprived while he continues in the condition in which he was created.

8. With respect to immortality, then, Irenaeus plainly and repeatedly lays down the broad intelligible principle that it is lost by transgression, and cannot possibly continue to be the possession of the disobedient. For disobedience, he tell us, man was "cast off from immortality." And again he asks: "How can he be immortal, who in his mortal nature did not obey his Maker?"⁶ The immortality thus lost by sin, Irenaeus tells us, we can only regain by struggle. Commenting on Paul's admonition to the Christians at Corinth, "So to run that they may obtain," he says, "This able wrestler, therefore, exhorts us to the struggle for immortality, that we may be crowned, and may deem the crown precious, namely, that which is acquired by our struggle; but which does not encircle us of its own accord."⁷

9. In a great variety of ways, and by every variety of expression, does Irenaeus continue to convey to us this impression of his views. That immortality which our Augustinian and Universalists theorists tell us is man's natural heritage, no matter what be his character, is, according to Irenaeus, a gift conveyed to the believer through the Gospel, which he describes as "breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying man afresh." In no other way than through Christ, and our union with Him, does he allow that immortality can be gained at all. "By no other means," he says, "could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality." "The knowledge of the Son of God is," with him, "immortality." It is "the friendship of God which imparts immortality to those who embrace it." It is an honour not bestowed on all, but given as their high privilege to "those who have obeyed and believed on God."⁸

10. Irenaeus' view of the resurrection, both of the just and of the unjust, further confirms us as to his opinion. We all know how unanimous Augustinian theorists are in their assertion that the bodies of the wicked will be raised immortal. This is essential to their theory; though whence they derive their knowledge of it, save whence the false prophets of Israel derived their dreams, viz., "of the deceit of their own hearts," we cannot say. This was not the opinion of Irenaeus. As he confines immortality in general to the redeemed, so he restricts the immortality which is to be bestowed at the resurrection on the body to the bodies of the just. It is those "mortal bodies which preserved righteousness," which "God will render incorruptible and immortal." ⁹ The bodies of the wicked will be mortal in resurrection as the bodies of all men in this present life. With one observation, we will dismiss our inferences from Irenaeus' view of "immortality." Every one may know how loud and unanimous all the upholders of the Augustinian theory of future punishment are in their assertion of the immortality of the wicked. From its enunciation in the obscure and worthless forgeries of the first ages, through the fathers, and schoolmen, and divines of modern times, we ever hear repeated in every mode of speech the old insinuation and lie of Satan, that sin has not deprived the sinner of his immortality. Are we to suppose that a writer who confines immortality to the redeemed is of one mind with those who extend it to all men? By what strange law of language will Irenaeus be brought to an agreement here with the Clementine forgeries, and the writings of Tertullian, Augustine, Peter Lombard, Jonathan Edwards, Richard Baxter, Messrs. Spurgeon, Angus, Furniss, Grant, etc.?

11. We next come to consider what Irenaeus means by "incorruption," and of whom he affirms it. We will find him using it in the sense in which any one may find it used in our standard dictionaries of every language. The English reader will find it in Johnson and Webster. Irenaeus leaves us in no doubt that he uses it in the sense common to all ages and all languages. Thus, in one place, he tells us that heretics "declare of all that is material that it must of necessity perish, inasmuch as it is incapable of receiving any afflatus of incorruption." On this idea of the essential corruptibility of matter, the heretics against whom Irenaeus directed a great proportion of his reasoning, denied bodily resurrection. "They disallow," he says, "the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption." Incorruption then, according to the common idea of Irenaeus and his opponents, meant incapacity of decay or dissolution. The heretics, in their opposition to the doctrine of the resurrection, denied its applicability to matter: Irenaeus, in his defence of the faith, asserted its applicability to matter.¹⁰

12. That he means by incorruption simply exemption from decay, from a process of dissolution and ceasing to exist, is evident from his language throughout his work. Thus he reasons against the heretics in one place: "That the flesh can really partake of life, is shown from the fact of its being alive; for it lives on so long as it is God's purpose that it should do so. It is manifest, too, that God has the power to confer life upon it, inasmuch as He grants life to us who are in existence. And, therefore, since the Lord has power to infuse life into what He has fashioned, and since the flesh is capable of being quickened, what remains to prevent its participating in incorruption, which is a blissful and never-ending life granted by God?" Here he tells us that flesh in this present age partakes of a temporary life or existence, and that, consequently, there is nothing to prevent God from bestowing on it an eternal existence; and this eternity of existence or life he defines to be incorruption. The same idea he states farther on where he speaks of the new heavens and the new earth of the coming age, "when this fashion passes away, and man has been renewed, and flourishes in an incorruptible state, so as to preclude the possibility of becoming old."¹¹ We can have no doubt, then, what Irenaeus means by incorruption.

13. This incorruption Irenaeus expressly states will belong to the redeemed alone, and will not belong to the wicked. "Christ," he says, "has recalled fallen man to incorruption;" has "bestowed upon him the gift of incorruption." "By no means," he tells us, could "incorruptibility" be attained, save by the union with Christ: "unless man had been joined to God, he could never have been a partaker of incorruptibility." And lest we might think, as many now think, that the efficacy of the work of Christ procured incorruption for all mankind, believers and unbelievers alike, he tells us that Paul in 2 Cor 4:4, speaks "of the unbelievers of this world," because they shall not inherit the future age of incorruption." Incorruption, then, he confines to the redeemed of Christ, and denies to the wicked, i.e. he held that the former would exist for ever and the latter would not.¹²

14. If we wanted anything to explain Irenaeus' view, which we certainly do not, we should find it in the period when he supposes this "incorruption" to commence. Our Augustinian friends are always describing the primary sense of words as "low," "sensual," "materialistic."¹³ Their principles carried out to their legitimate extent would overturn our belief in a bodily resurrection, in the personality of Satan and fallen angels, yea, in the very personality of God Himself. But Irenaeus was a thinker of a different stamp. That "incorruption" which the Augustinian would doubtless explain in a figurative way he explained in a material way. While the Augustinian would refer it to a mental and spiritual process here begun, Irenaeus plainly tells us that it has not commenced in this present life at all, and will not commence until the resurrection. We have, according to Irenaeus, incorruption now in promise: at the resurrection we shall have it in possession. The Holy Spirit now in the believer is, he tells us, "the earnest (or pledge) of incorruption." He considers the indwelling of the Spirit to be God's security given to the believer that He will fulfil His promise and covenant of incorruption. But not until the resurrection of the just;" not until Christ has set up that kingdom which is then to be established; does Irenaeus allow incorruption to have actually begun: "The kingdom," he tells us, which dates from the resurrection, "is the commencement of incorruption."¹⁴ Irenaeus had no idea of that figurative explanation of words which, introduced by Origen, and adopted in this whole controversy of future punishment by the Augustinian school opposed to Origen, finds its fitting end in the dreamland of Swedenborgh and the Spiritualists.

15. Irenaeus' opinion of the resurrection is also in agreement with our theory. He maintained that the wicked would rise in the flesh, to confess in this the power of God, and to suffer for their evil deeds. But between the resurrection of the just and the unjust he put a most marked distinction. We do not here refer to his making that of the just anterior in point of time to that of the unjust; for this difference belongs to another question of theology. We refer to the distinction which he everywhere draws between the condition after resurrection of the bodies of these two classes.

16. The eternal duration of the bodies of the wicked is essential to the Augustinian theory of punishment, which is so far scriptural as that it requires, for the consummation of punishment, the presence of that body in, through, and by which sin was committed. Its eternal duration can only be asserted by such terms as "immortal" and "incorruptible." Augustine and his school accordingly apply these terms to the bodies of the wicked as well as to those of the just at their resurrection. "All shall rise incorruptible," says Augustine, speaking of these two classes. But Irenaeus speaks in quite an opposite way. So far from supposing that incorruption to belong to both, he expressly confines it to those "mortal bodies which preserved righteousness." So far from supposing that the resurrection of Christ was the first fruits, or the pledge, or in any way connected with the resurrection of the unjust, he expressly tells us that it is only a first fruit "of every man who is found in life." They alone, he tells us, have the hope of that resurrection which is "to eternity." Of all the wicked, of all who remain in the bondage of the old disobedience, of all who have not received liberty through the Son, he tells us that "they remain in mortal flesh."¹⁵

17. With all that has been advanced of the opinion of Irenaeus agrees what he tells us more particularly of the punishment of the wicked. We can only advert to a small portion of his teaching, but that we suppose will be sufficient after all that has gone before. Of those whom he describes as mortal: of those whom he denies to be incorruptible or immortal, or to have any hope of an endless existence; we will not deny to the terms descriptive of their punishment, their natural and ordinary sense. When Tertullian or Augustine speak of the perishing or destruction of the wicked, we know that their theory of immortality obliges them to put an unnatural and forced sense upon such terms. But Irenaeus has, we have seen, no philosophical theory which compels him to do so. Even on this fact however, we will not ask our readers wholly to rely. We will show them from Irenaeus' own mouth in what sense he uses his words.

18. To perish is one of the very strongest words in the vocabulary of Irenaeus. It is with him the synonym for non-existence, and apparently even for that philosophical annihilation of matter which, though so often and desperately charged against our view, is held by none of us. Thus, when he describes the grief of one of those imaginary Aeons, whom Gnostic heretics introduced into the ecclesiastical discussions of the first centuries, in fear lest her imperfect generation "should end her own existence," he describes this end of existence as "a perishing by being absorbed in the universal substance:" and of the bodies of the just he says, that "although they go to corruption, yet they do not perish." To perish, he tells us, will be the ultimate fate of all unrighteous souls. ¹⁶

19.His general descriptions of future punishment are quite decisive of his opinion. No one of the fathers recurs more perpetually to it than Irenaeus does. In this he is a faithful disciple of Scripture which never allows us to lose sight of it. Nor is there one of the fathers who gives fuller descriptions of it. He evidently brought it forward in all the terrors he supposed to belong to it as a warning to escape from it. Yet in all his allusions to and descriptions of it, there cannot be found a parallel to numberless passages which we might quote readily from Hippolytus, Tertullian, Augustine, and others of their view. When these men mean to set forth beyond mistake what they considered the nature of that punishment which they rightly supposed eternal, they use a variety of phrases never found thus applied by Irenaeus. They are careful to tell us that the wicked in hell do not die, that death never comes to them, that they are both in soul and body incorruptible, eternal, and immortal. If Irenaeus agreed with them, we cannot but suppose that he would have used similar phrases when intending to place future punishment in all its terrors before the mind. But instead of doing so, he uses terms indicative of an opposite belief.

20. No doubt he describes it over and over as everlasting and eternal. The disciples of Origen can find no countenance in the pages of Irenaeus. The theory that future punishment is for a single soul of a purgative nature, and that after a certain period, more or less protracted, any sentenced in the judgment to hell will come forth and join the ranks of the redeemed, finds not one word in its support throughout the books of this scriptural father. The judgment is eternal: the punishment which it awards is eternal: the condition to which it dooms is an unending one. But if Origen's hope finds no support in Irenaeus, the hideous cruelty of Augustine finds just as little sanction. Irenaeus agrees with us in our view both of the duration and nature of future punishment. Its duration is eternal: its nature is death, destruction, perdition, annihilation.

21. The period of future punishment he describes as "a day of fire," in which God will be to sinners "a consuming fire." In this fire, in which the Augustinian tells us the wicked will remain for ever alive and unconsumed, Irenaeus, tells they "shall be burned up as were Nadab and Abihu" by the fire from the Lord. In it he tells us, that unrighteous souls will perish, that they will be "punished with everlasting death," that they will "pass away," and "will not endure forever." "Everlasting perdition" he explains to mean "cutting off the wicked from the life" which Christ will bestow upon His people. Their fate will be to be "deprived of continuance for ever and ever," "not to receive from God length of days for ever." Perdition signifies with him "non-existence;" and the death and eternal separation from God which sin entails means with him "the loss of all the benefits which God has in store" for His people.¹⁷

22. It is well to notice how Irenaeus makes his view of future punishment to consist in its being eternal. It is, with him, eternal because it is the loss of blessing which is eternal. It does not consist in eternally inflicting new misery, but in the eternal loss of what might have been eternally enjoyed. He first tells us that "separation from God is death," i.e. involves death as its penalty, or, to use his own words, "consists in the loss of all the benefits which God has in store." He then adds: "Now good things are eternal and without end with God, and therefore the loss of them is also eternal and never ending."¹⁸ Here is Irenaeus "everlasting punishment." It is an everlasting loss of blessing thrown away. Here is Irenaeus "everlasting death." It is not, as Augustinian theorists describe it, a death which is always coming but never comes: it is a death which covers over its victim with a pall of everlasting darkness. An eternal loss is with Irenaeus an eternal punishment. All past punishments inflicted in this life upon sinners are for this reason infinitely less than the future punishment. The death which God inflicted upon sinners such as Dathan was a "temporal" and a "typical" death. It cut them from a life of a few years' duration: it cut them off from a life which was itself due to death. But the second death cuts off from an eternal life, and is therefore an eternal death.¹⁹

23. In forming our judgment of the real views of Irenaeus, we have gone upon the surest ground, not deriving it from one or two passages selected as most favourable, but from his own meaning put by himself upon his language, as seen by a careful perusal of his entire work. We will now in conclusion present our readers with one considerable extract from him, and ask them whether it does not entirely agree with our previous reasoning, and whether any second opinion as to its meaning can be fairly entertained.

24. Irenaeus is arguing with persons who held that there could be no immortality or endless existence for any created souls. His argument has nothing to do with the ill or well-being of souls, but simply with their continued existence. Those with whom he contended held that either souls must have been uncreated if they are to abide for ever; or that, if created, they must come to nothing and perish like all other created things.²⁰ The knowledge of the theory which Irenaeus reasons against will be our guide to the meaning of his reply, if, indeed, his words required any explanation.

25. In answer then to the above persons who held that "souls which only began a little while ago to exist cannot endure for any length of time," Irenaeus says: "As the heaven which is above us, the firmament, the sun, the moon, the rest of the stars, and all their grandeur, although they had no previous existence, were called into being and continue through a long course of time according to the will of God, so also any one who thinks thus respecting souls and spirits, and, in fact, respecting all created things, will not by any means go far astray, inasmuch as all things that have been made had a beginning when they were formed, but endure as long as God wills that they have an existence and continuance. The prophetic Spirit bears testimony to these opinions, when He declares, 'For He spake, and they were made; He commanded and they were created: He hath established them for ever; yea, for ever and ever.' And again, He thus speaks respecting the salvation of man: 'He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest him length of days for ever and ever,' indicating that it is the Father of all who imparts continuance for ever and ever on those who are saved. For life does not arise from us, nor from our own nature; but it is bestowed according to the grace of God. And therefore, he who shall preserve the life bestowed upon him, and give thanks to Him who imparted it, shall receive also length of days for ever and ever. But he who shall reject it, and prove himself ungrateful to his Maker, inasmuch as he has been created, and has not recognized Him who bestowed the gift upon him, deprives himself of continuance for ever and ever. And, for this reason, the Lord declared to those who showed themselves ungrateful towards Him: 'If ye have not been faithful in that which is little, who will give you that which is great?' indicating that those who, in this brief temporal life, have showed themselves ungrateful to Him who bestowed it, shall justly not receive from Him length of days for ever."²¹

26. For our part, we do not know how any man of honest mind and common understanding can put a second meaning upon this long extract from Irenaeus. There are, however, men who stand deservedly high in estimation who do put a second meaning upon these words. Dr. Roberts, the translator of Irenaeus, gives the following annotation upon them: "As Massuet observes, this statement is to be understood in harmony with the repeated assertion of Irenaeus that the wicked will exist in misery for ever. It refers not to annihilation, but to deprivation of happiness."

27. We will merely say that we have read Irenaeus and have never met with any assertion of his that "the wicked shall exist in misery for ever." We will add that if such an assertion of his could be adduced it would only prove that Irenaeus contradicted himself as many men have done. We will lay down our indignant protest against a principle of interpretation which would make words of no use whatsoever to convey meaning. To tell us that "existence," and "continuance," spoken in the very same connection of the "enduring" of sun and moon and soul and spirit, mean "happiness " whether learned editors tell us this to save their author's consistency, or to prop up any favourite theory of their own— is just to tell us that we may cease the use of words altogether, because they may have any meaning that any one may choose to put upon them. To say that "sweet" means "bitter," or that "light" means "darkness," is just as allowable a use of words as to say that the "enduring" and "continuing" of one of God's works, such as the sun in the sky or the human soul, means, "the happiness" of these works. We dismiss such interpretation as an insult to our common understanding. Irenaeus, notwithstanding his Benedictine editor and his Presbyterian translator, tells us that the wicked will not continue to exist for ever, because God does not will them to exist. God did will his "happiness" and his "well being," but he marred them. God does not will his continued existence, and therefore he will cease to exist. Such is the testimony of the learned, holy, and martyred Bishop of Lyons, in the second century of Christ. Such was the testimony of the primitive church, in agreement with apostolic teaching. Such is the doctrine which we uphold, and which, long obscured by philosophical dogma, human tradition, maedieval subtleties, and modern prejudice, is again shining out before the minds of God's people in the churches of Christendom.