The glory of God is a living person; and the life of a person consists in beholding God. (Ad. Ha. Bk.4, 20.7)
Irenaeus lived during the 2nd century. He belonged to Asia Minor and had been influenced by the preaching of St. Polycarp (a disciple of St. John the Evangelist). He migrated to Lyons in Gaul and through his missionary endeavors, converted virtually the entire citys to Christianity. He would go on to become the bishop of Lyons and probably suffered martyrdom around the year 200 CE. Irenaeus wrote Adversus Haereses in response to the challenge of Valentinian Gnosticism. Gnostics believed that spirit was good and matter was bad. All matter including the creation of the human body was a tragic mistake. The human person had the spark of the divine, but it was trapped in the body. The goal of life was to be free from matter and be united with God. This took place through a secret knowledge which was reserved for a select few.
Irenaeus stressed that matter is good and has been created by God. It had not been created by some inferior ‘creator god’ who was subservient to a superior Pleroma. God created the human person so that through the exercise of freedom, the human person could enter into communion with God. The body is the link between the material and spiritual realms and the grace of the Spirit helps one to be united to God. He forcefully countered the Gnostic position regarding a secretive knowledge by explaining how the only true knowledge had been proclaimed by Christ. This had been faithfully transmitted by the apostles to all people for the salvation of the entire world. Such knowledge was not limited to the intellectual realm, but was more a matter of the heart. It consisted in the preeminence of charity, transformed the heart of a person and led to right relationship with one’s neighbor.
Irenaeus agreed that the destiny of the human person was spiritual but emphasized that union with God took place in persons who are spiritual and at the same time fully human. God’s glory is manifest in a human person who is fully alive and becoming ‘fully alive’ is a gradual process wherein God educates us, just as children are educated. God’s two hands, the Word and the Spirit, continually shape our frail humanity. The Gnostics could never accept that the Word could become human. For Irenaeus, however, this was the key, because fallen humanity had been recapitulated through the humanity of Christ. Christ, through his obedience, reconciled all that is human and Divine. By being united to Christ we become persons fully alive – i.e., persons who live a life of love and freedom and thus glorify God.
The contemporary human person desires an existence which is characterized by dignity and self-respect. Such an existence reveals the human person in the true image and likeness of God. The dignity of the human person in terms of one’s physical and spiritual dimension has taken on a more universal character during the last century with various religions and international bodies upholding the human person’s right to live a life of dignity. While we are painfully aware of dehumanizing situations, we are also conscious of various efforts that help a person manifest God’s glory through their lives. A person who is fully ‘alive’ is capacitated to love and serve others irrespective of their existential circumstances. Such a person bears authentic witness to Christ, who paradoxically, through a cruel death on the Cross, manifested life in its fullness. In the love of the Crucified we behold the glory of God as well as the authentic meaning of human existence.
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