The first of these passages affirms that “as Eve, having Adam for her husband, but being still a virgin ... being disobedient, became both to herself and to the whole human race the cause of death; so also Mary, having her destined husband and yet [pg 258] a virgin, being obedient, became both to herself and to the whole human race the cause of salvation[532].” There seems no difficulty in granting all this, and yet the conclusion by no means follows that the Blessed Virgin is to be regarded as a mediatrix and intercessor with God, next after her Son[533]. Eve was certainly the cause of death to the whole human race, because through her transgression Adam was made to transgress; and in him all mankind are made sinners. But it does not appear that original sin came to all mankind directly from Eve, or that she was any otherwise the cause of death to our race, except by bringing Adam into the transgression: otherwise we must suppose that our Lord, being born of a woman, must have inherited a sinful nature; for even Massuet does not make the Virgin sinless. As the transgression of Eve therefore, although [pg 259] no doubt her own act, was only instrumentally and indirectly the cause of our condemnation, so the obedience of the Virgin Mary, although her own act, was only instrumentally and indirectly the cause of our salvation, that is, by leading to the incarnation and birth of our Lord[534]. And if so, there is no foundation whatever for making her a mediatrix and intercessor with God.
But still stronger reliance appears to be placed upon the next passage, in which the Virgin Mary is called “the advocate of the Virgin Eve[535].” And yet that very passage supplies a proof that this term cannot be taken otherwise than in a figurative and [pg 260] improper sense: for Irenæus therein asserts that “as the human race was condemned to death through a virgin, so it is saved through a virgin;” i. e. as he himself explains it, through her submission to the angelic announcement of the will of God, that his Son should be born of her. Now it would be clear blasphemy to ascribe our salvation to the Virgin otherwise than in a figurative sense, as being an instrument in the divine hand for its accomplishment by becoming the mother of the real Saviour; and so, in the same figurative sense she was the advocate of Eve, by becoming the mother of him who was really her advocate. The figure is, no doubt, rather bold, but still it is evidently but a figure.
This interpretation indeed is so obvious, that to us, who have no such prejudices as the members of the Roman Church, it would have been unnecessary to insist upon it, were it not for the violent perversion of the passage by their writers. It is, perhaps, worthy of more distinct indication, that Irenæus, by declaring that the Blessed Virgin was the cause of salvation to herself, as well as to others[536], directly contradicts the idea held by some in the Roman Church, (and I believe in the Greek likewise,) that she was entirely sinless. On the other [pg 261] hand, he undoubtedly countenances (although he does not use) the appellation given to her by many, of the mother of God[537].
Chapter XXI. Account of the Gnostic Teachers and Their Tenets.
Section I. Simon Magus, Nicolas, and the Ebionites.
Several writers have speculated upon the sources of the Gnostic errors; but, I believe that the assertion of Irenæus remains uncontradicted, that Simon Magus was the first to give them a definite form[538]. We learn from Theodoret[539], Elias Cretensis[540], and Nicetas[541], that he imagined an ogdoad of superior [pg 263] beings, all the rest of whom emanated from the first. He imagined one First Cause, the source of all existence, with whom he joined his Thought (Ἔννοια). Irenæus mentions no more than these[542]. Simon taught that this Thought, issuing forth from the Supreme Father, and knowing his intentions, descended from above, and produced the Angels and Powers by whom the world was made, and who were ignorant of the Father: that they, not wishing to acknowledge any author of their existence, detained her, and subjected her to every kind of contumely, to prevent her return to the Father, and caused her to exist in this world in perpetual transmigration from one female form to another.
He taught that he himself was this Supreme Father[543], and a prostitute, named Helena, whom he had purchased at Tyre, and with whom he cohabited, was his Thought, who had been formerly the Trojan Helen: that she was the lost sheep[544], and that he was come down upon earth to rescue her from the bondage in which she was held; and to rescue man by the knowledge of himself from the tyranny they were under to the angels who created the world. This tyranny was obedience to the moral law, which was imposed upon man by the agency of the inspired persons of the old dispensation solely to keep him in [pg 264] subjection: and the deliverance he accomplished for his followers was to bring them to believe that all actions were indifferent in their own nature, and that the will of the Creative Powers was the only thing which made one action more just than another. To do away with this tyranny, he declared that he had transformed himself first into a resemblance to the angels, then into that of man; in which latter form he had appeared in Judæa as the Son, and there apparently suffered; but only apparently[545]; that he had afterwards manifested himself to the Samaritans as the Father, and to the rest of the world as the Holy Ghost[546].