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Irenaeus

3rd century · AD 202 · Early Fathers (before Nicaea) · 789 passages

Student of Polycarp. His Against Heresies defends the goodness of creation and traces salvation as God's single plan from Adam to Christ.

Background on Irenaeus

In his own words on Lamentations

  • Lamentations 4:20

    And in another place Jeremiah says: The Spirit of our face, the Lord Christ; and how He was taken in their snares, of whom, we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles. That, being (the) Spirit of God, Christ was to become a suffering man the Scripture declares; and is, as it were, amazed and astonished at His sufferings, that in such manner He was to endure sufferings, under whose shadow we said that we should live. And by shadow he means His body. For just as a shadow is made by a body, so also Christ's body was made by His Spirit. But, further, the humiliation and contemptibility of His body he indicates by the shadow. For, as the shadow of bodies standing upright is upon the ground and is trodden upon, so also the body of Christ fell upon the ground by His sufferings and was trodden on indeed. And he named Christ's body a shadow, because the Spirit overshadowed it, as it were, with glory and covered it. Moreover oftentimes when the Lord passed by, they laid those who were held by divers diseases in the way, and on whomsoever His shadow fell, they were healed.

    The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

Quoted verbatim from public-domain English translations of the fathers — Aquinas's Catena Aurea, the Ante-Nicene and Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, and related editions. Each quotation links to its source.