Vigils Reading – St Ireneaus

PERFECT KNOWLEDGE CANNOT BE ATTAINED IN THE PRESENT LIFE

From the writing of St Irenaeus of Lyons4 ◊◊◊

Just as the Apostle said, when all other things have been destroyed, these will continue, namely: faith, hope, and love. For faith in our teacher continues firm, assuring us that there is only one who is truly God and that we should really love God always, since he alone is Father; and that consequently we should hope to receive something more and to learn from God that he is good and possesses unlimited riches, an eternal kingdom, and infinite knowledge. Thus, through the many voices of the <Scriptures> there will be heard among us one harmonious melody that hymns praises to God who made all things. If, for example, anyone should ask us what God did before he created the world, we reply that the answer to this is in God’s keeping. The Scriptures do teach us that this world was made complete by God when it began in time; but no Scripture reveals what God did before this. So the answer to this is in God’s keeping…

Since, however, God is all Mind and all Word, what he thinks he speaks, and what he speaks he thinks… For his thought is his Word, and his Word is his Mind; and the Mind that contains all things is the Father himself… The Lord, God’s very Son, admitted that the Father alone knows the very day of judgment and the hour. He said clearly: But about that day and hour no one knows… nor the Son, but only the Father. So if the Son was not ashamed to refer the knowledge of that day to the Father, but told the truth, neither should we be ashamed to leave to God the more important questions we encounter. Really, no one is above the teacher.

If, then, anyone asks the reason why the Father, who has all things in common with the Son, was manifested by the Lord as the only one who knew the hour and the day, he will find no more fitting, proper, or safe answer in the present life than this, namely, that we might learn through the Lord, who alone is the truthful teacher, that the Father is above all things. Truly, he said: The Father is greater than I. Thus, Our Lord proclaimed that the Father excels in regard to knowledge, so that we too, as long as we live in the form of this world, might leave perfect knowledge and such questions to God; and that we should not, while investigating the depths of the Father, fall into so great a danger as to question whether there is another god above the God