Over the past month or so, on my commute to work, I have been listening to an audiobook version of St. Irenaeus of Lyons' famous work Against Heresies, and I recently finished it. This work is very important for anyone interested in the fathers, as he is one of the earliest fathers in general and had a strong theological pedigree--taught by a student of an apostle, besides the fact that he touches on numerous theological topics throughout the work. As I went through it, I would type quick notes of anything significant that I heard with the approximate location in the text, so that I could find it later and give the actual citation. I have found lots of things, like confessions of the clarity of the scriptures and (possibly) the Lutheran view of predestination, a connection to the Eucharist and the wedding at Cana, and a condemnation of a Gnostic Proto-Nestorianism. However, something that really stood out to me was the confession of Substitutionary Atonement, both in his confession as well as his exegesis.
This notion is especially significant, as the general summary of Irenaeus' thought regarding salvation is that he was a champion for Recapitulation, the view that Christ took upon Himself everything that we are so that He could sanctify our nature. This is very clearly correct, recapitulation is indeed a huge theme in his thought and is an obviously biblical view, but like the holy scriptures, Irenaeus' view of salvation is multifaceted. For this, let's look at a fairly clear text on the subject of Christ's vicarious satisfaction:
"Therefore, by remitting sins, He did indeed heal man, while He also manifested Himself who He was. For if no one can forgive sins but God alone, while the Lord remitted them and healed men, it is plain that He was Himself the Word of God made the Son of man, receiving from the Father the power of remission of sins; since He was man, and since He was God, in order that since as man He suffered for us, so as God He might have compassion on us, and forgive us our debts, in which we were made debtors to God our Creator. And therefore David said beforehand, 'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin;' pointing out thus that remission of sins which follows upon His advent, by which He has destroyed the handwriting of our debt, and fastened it to the cross; so that as by means of a tree we were made debtors to God, [so also] by means of a tree we may obtain the remission of our debt" Against Heresies 5.17.3
The first half of the quotation shows a very complex atonement, unlike the flat atonement theories in modernity. He opens with Christ's incarnation as a healing of man's nature while manifesting the Son's person, a very Athanasian notion, but from there he immediately pivots to the vicarious nature of the atonement, a move which Athanasius also does make, but that's outside the purview of this post. In any case, he very clearly puts forth a seed form of the modern Western position--both natures were necessary for this to occur. As a man, He could not only suffer but also suffer for us, and this involves Him destroying the debt that we owed to God through His suffering. As God, He actually had the capability to forgive sins, which Anselm will later characterize as requiring God's infinite merit to give the atonement infinite value. From there, he goes on to quote Colossians 2, describing Christ actually destroying our debts by nailing them to the cross. In other words, the suffering Christ experienced on the cross was itself the destruction of sin by His blood. Here we see some of the major components of substitutionary atonement: debt to God, the suffering and death of Christ, and the latter's destruction of the former.
From here, I will change gears a bit and look at Irenaeus' view of the binding of Isaac narrative, which I promise will be relevant:
"And teaching this very thing, He said to the Jews: 'Your father Abraham rejoiced that he should see my day; and he saw it, and was glad.' What is intended? 'Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness'...Righteously also the apostles, being of the race of Abraham, left the ship and their father, and followed the Word. Righteously also do we, possessing the same faith as Abraham, and taking up the cross as Isaac did the wood, follow Him. For in Abraham man had learned beforehand, and had been accustomed to follow the Word of God. For Abraham, according to his faith, followed the command of the Word of God, and with a ready mind delivered up, as a sacrifice to God, his only-begotten and beloved son, in order that God also might be pleased to offer up for all his seed His own beloved and only-begotten Son, as a sacrifice for our redemption. Since, therefore, Abraham was a prophet and saw in the Spirit the day of the Lord's coming, and the dispensation of His suffering, through whom both he himself and all who, following the example of his faith, trust in God, should be saved, he rejoiced exceedingly." Against Heresies 4.3-5
This is an absolutely FASCINATING text and probably the oldest example of this interpretation that I have ever seen. First thing to note, this all stems from Christ's proclamation that Abraham saw His day and was glad. Oftentimes folks take this to mean that Abraham experienced the beatific vision after death, as is certainly the case. However, Irenaeus takes this with a more narrow meaning, which is that Abraham, while alive, foreknew Christ's day. How can this be? Well, like most Old Testament preaching of Christ, it happens typologically. Irenaeus confesses that just as Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac, so too did God sacrifice His own Son for the sake of our redemption. What's more, not only did he see the sacrifice but he even saw the suffering of Christ, in which Abraham believed and had righteousness imputed to Him. This is very important because it shows one of the important notions that is rejected by modernists: the Lord was an actor in the suffering of Christ. This is the final piece missing from the previous quotation, but here we see a well-rounded doctrine of the atonement, though without the later systematization, which only serves to build my confidence that the Lord has indeed preserved in the Church the faith once delivered to the saints. May He continue to do so for Christ's sake.
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