Children in Paradise: Adam and Eve as "Infants" in Irenaeus

of Lyons

M. C. Steenberg

Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 12, Number 1, Spring 2004, pp.
1-22 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2004.0016

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/53135

[ Access provided at 19 Apr 2020 06:02 GMT with no institutional affiliation ]

 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 1

Children in Paradise:
Adam and Eve as “Infants”
in Irenaeus of Lyons

M. C. STEENBERG

This paper examines the notion of Adam and Eve as “children” in the thought
of Irenaeus, through an investigation of the language and contextualization of
this theme throughout his works. First, the language is probed for its insights
into Irenaeus’ actual conception of the primal humans, with emphasis on
determining the extent to which such language can be taken literally. Second,
Irenaeus’ conception is examined in light of his views on creation, materiality,
and time, extracting thence the means of further clarifying his language of
Edenic “childhood.” Finally, the problems and strengths of this concept are set
out from within the context of Irenaeus’ larger anthropology.

It was necessary for man to be first created; and having been created,
to grow; and having grown, to become mature; and having become
mature, to multiply; and having multiplied, to grow strong; and
having grown strong, to be glorified; and having been glorified, to see
his Lord.1

Scholars have long understood the anthropogonic discussion of Irenaeus

of Lyons to be central to his whole conception of both the divine-human
economy and the ultimate salvation of humankind. For Irenaeus, in a way
peculiar to his own witness in the early Church, the details of humanity’s
coming into being are intimately tied together with the manner in which
that same humanity will eventually be perfected; the “whence” and the
“whither” of human history are, as Gustaf Wingren once noted, “the

1. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses (hereafter AH) 4.38.3 (SC 100:952–56).

Journal of Early Christian Studies 12:1, 1–22 © 2004 The Johns Hopkins University Press
2 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

same reality seen from two different aspects.”2 Irenaeus’ considerations

of the creation of human beings are therefore of pronounced importance
to the overall scope of his thought, and on this topic he presents a view
which, from the perspective of the larger patristic witness, has not been
widely shared. For the second-century bishop, Adam and Eve were cre-
ated not as the perfect man and woman that both earlier and later tradi-
tion asserted them to be, but as nÆpioi. Whether this term, as it is em-
ployed by Irenaeus, is best translated as “child” or “infant” shall be
discussed below, but it is clear from first reading that Irenaeus regards the
primal humans as some manner of “youths.” Irenaean scholarship of the
past century has evidenced some level of appreciation for his use of such
language (though scholars disagree as to just how the reader is to inter-
pret the same); but his conception of the first humans as nÆpioi has never
been adequately studied in its own right.3 This article will address this
want through an examination of the language and imagery of the Adver-
sus haereses and Epideixis, setting the unique theme of the youthfulness
of Adam and Eve into the larger framework of Irenaean anthropology
and soteriology.
For all the importance Irenaeus gives to this idea of childhood in Eden
(it figures prominently in both his works, as we shall see below), a de-
tailed discussion of his view is difficult; for while Irenaeus employs the
imagery and language of childhood in a manner essential to his reading of
sin and subsequently of salvation, never does he make explicit the details
of his usage nor offer a precise definition of his understanding of the term
nÆpiow. The reader of Irenaeus is therefore required to explore his vision
of “children in Paradise” through the clues of context and the use of
language taken up in the corpus, acknowledging from the outset that
conclusions drawn from such considerations will, and must, retain a

2. Gustaf Wingren, Man and the Incarnation: A Study in the Biblical Theology of
Irenaeus (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1959), 7.
3. See the place of this concept in the two most recent monographs to make
mention of it. Iain M. MacKenzie, Irenaeus’s Demonstration of the Apostolic
Preaching: A Theological Commentary and Translation (Aldershot, England: Ashgate,
2002), 116–17, describes the creation of Adam and Eve as children as “one of the
idiosyncrasies of Irenaeus” but never examines the issue further. More extensive
treatment of the concept is given in John Behr, Asceticism and Anthropology in
Irenaeus and Clement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 43, 110, and later at
135–36 when he compares the theme in Clement and Irenaeus; but it is mentioned
rather than explained, since in neither instance is it the focus of Behr’s work. His
quotations from Clement do show, however, that the notion of childhood was not
limited solely to Irenaeus; we shall have more to say below on its presence in the
thought of Theophilus and Clement.
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 3

certain element of speculation. But this limitation notwithstanding, Irenaeus

does leave substantial clues to his understanding of the “childhood” of
Adam and Eve, important enough to warrant the risks of speculation to a
certain degree. Accepting this as the framework in which our investiga-
tion must be carried out, a series of questions shall set the context for this
study. First, and most basic, is the matter (far from simple in Irenaeus) of
basic meaning: what did Irenaeus mean in calling Adam and Eve nÆpioi?
Did he believe them to be physically infantile—“babies”—in Eden? Or, as
is most often assumed, is his talk of childhood metaphorical for a spiri-
tual or psychological state of unrealized developmental potential, with-
out necessarily carrying any physiological or ontological meaning? Sec-
ondly, and more broadly, is the question of “why”: why did Irenaeus
consider the conception of childhood to be integral to a Christian under-
standing of human creation and continued existence, and how did this
view influence his larger conceptions of anthropology and soteriology?

THE LANGUAGE AND CONTEXT OF

CHILDHOOD IN IRENAEUS

(A) Vocabulary and Language

The logical starting place for an investigation into Irenaeus’ conception of
infant creation is the language and vocabulary employed throughout his
two extant works that give rise to such discussion. Not much will need to
be said in this regard, however, as the linguistic particularities themselves
are slight. For all the scholarly comment that has been made on Irenaeus’
use of childhood imagery with respect to Adam and Eve, it is somewhat
surprising to note that direct mention of this idea occurs only five times in
the whole of the present Irenaean corpus: in two chapters of the Epideixis
and three of the Adversus haereses.4 The most direct of these is located in
the twelfth chapter of the Epid. in the context of a larger discussion on the
character of the relationship among Adam, the angels, and the rest of
creation in Paradise:
Therefore, having made the man lord [kÊriow] of the earth and of
everything that is in it, [God] secretly appointed him as lord over those
[angels] who were servants [doËloi] in it. They, however, were in their full

4. AH 3.22.4, 3.23.5 (SC 211:438–44, 456–60), 4.38.1–2 (SC 100:942–50);

Epideixis (hereafter Epid.) 12, 14 (SC 406:100, 102; PO 12:668, 669–70). Of these,
the latter three are of principal importance and comprise what J. Lawson considered
the three “proof-texts for the doctrine of the childhood of Adam”: John Lawson, The
Biblical Theology of Saint Irenaeus (London: The Epworth Press, 1948), 211.
4 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

development, while the lord, that is, the man, was very little, for he was an
infant, and it was necessary for him to reach full development by growing.5

“Infant” here is a literal translation of the Latin infans, itself a translation

of the Greek nÆpiow.6 Both are adjectives commonly used as substantives,
interesting only in Irenaeus’ preference for them over the other options
available to him. nhpi°h (childlike), nhpiÒthw (childhood, childishness) or
in translation the Latin infantulus (a little child), not to mention paid¤on,
t°knon, and others, all common terms, are nonetheless not taken up by
Irenaeus.7 Yet the terminology itself is not as significant as its substantive
usage: Irenaeus regularly utilizes the nominal form rather than the adjec-
tival. Adam and Eve were infants, not infantile; children, not childlike.
Such terminology informs a lengthy passage that must be translated here
in full, as it will be of utmost importance to the present study:
If, then, anyone say, “What then? Was not God able to have made man
perfect from the beginning?” let him know that, as far as God is concerned,
inasmuch as He is always the same and ingenerate, all things are possible to
Him. But those things made by Him, because they have a later beginning of
creation, must for this reason be inferior to Him who created them. For it
was not possible for things recently created to be uncreated; and since they
are not uncreated, on this account do they fall short of the perfect. And
since these things are of a more recent origin, so are they infantile; and
since they are infantile, so are they unaccustomed to and unexercised in
perfect discipline. For certainly it is in the power of a mother to give strong

5. Epid. 12 (SC 406:100; PO 12:668). Throughout this study, references to the

Epid. will be firstly to A. Rousseau’s retrograde Latin edition found in Sources
Chrétiennes 406 and secondly to the Armenian text as found in the 1919 edition of
Patrologia Orientalis 12, ed. K. Ter-Mekerttschian and S. G. Wilson. As fewer
students of Irenaeus and early patristics are proficient in Armenian, I refer most often
to the Latin critical edition when discussing the language, though in each instance I
have compared Rousseau’s edition with the Armenian. On the methodology of the
Latin retrograde and its accuracy vis-à-vis terminological parity with the Armenian,
see Rousseau’s own introduction (SC 406:42–45).
6. The most frequent Greek source for the Latin. The Greek fragments also make
use of br°fow and paid¤on, the latter being the preferred term of the LXX and NT, but
these are less frequent. The Latin of the AH translates most often with infans/
infantilis (infantilia for the substantive paid¤on), less frequently with parvulus and still
less with pusillus. See Bruno Reynders, Lexique comparé du texte grec et des versions
latine, arménienne et syriaque de l’Adversus Haereses de saint Irénée (Louvain: L.
Durbecq, 1954), 81, 158.
7. nhpi≈dhw, which will become current in later patristic writing, is uncommon in
the early Christian tradition and absent in the Classical corpus. Its earliest patristic
usage seems to be Origen, Expositio in Proverbia 9.8 (PG 17:186D), after which it
was taken up in somewhat more regular usage. Multiple examples in G. W. H.
Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961, 1968), 908–9.
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 5

food to her infant, yet [she does not do so, since] the child is not yet able to
receive stronger nourishment. So too, it was in the power of God Himself to
grant perfection to man from the beginning; but the man, on the contrary,
was unable to receive it, since he was still an infant. And for this reason our
Lord, recapitulating all things in Himself, came unto us in these last times,
not in such a manner as He Himself was able to come, but in such a
manner as we were able to behold Him. He could have come to us in His
ineffable glory, but we were not able to receive the greatness of that glory.
Therefore, as if to infants [quasi infantibus], He who was the perfect bread
of the Father offered Himself to us as milk, since His coming was in
keeping with a man. This He did so that we, being nourished, as it were,
from the breast of His flesh, and from such a course of nourishment
becoming accustomed to eat and drink the Word of God, might be able to
contain in ourselves Him who is the bread of immortality: the Spirit of the
Father.8

Here the adjective (infantilia, nÆpia) and the nominal substantive (infans,
nÆpiow) both are present, each with a specific meaning. Adam was “as yet
an infant,” and as an infant was “infantile.” Such a distinction is reveal-
ing. To call a fully grown man “childlike” is linguistically odd neither in
English nor in Greek, but to call an adult a “child” is more qualified in
Greek than in English. nÆpiow is genuinely a word for children, far less
often for a social or psychological state applied to adults.9 In those in-
stances where it is thus applied metaphorically, located mostly in mytho-
logical accounts and dramatic narrative, it tends to take on a distinctly
negative tone. To call an adult nÆpiow amounts to calling him a fool or
imbecile.10 Irenaeus, however, seems not at all to intend a diminutive

8. AH 4.38.1 (SC 100:942–48).

9. Cf. the various NT references to “children” (paid¤a, nÆpioi, and most often
t°kna, Íio¤) which, when they are not meant literally, focus generally on the state of
the faithful as those adopted into the inheritance of God (e.g., Rom 8.17, 21, 9.8; Gal
3.7; Phil 2.15) or who have become adopted sons and daughters of the Father (e.g.,
1 John 2.12, 13, 18), in both cases “children” in the familial sense. But cf. Rom 2.20;
1 Cor 3.1, 14.20; and Eph 4.14 for examples of a more metaphorical usage.
10. This is not, however, a hard and fast rule, and there are notable exceptions. For
the diminutive usage, see Homer, Iliad 17.32; Herodotus, Histories 1.85.2; and
Hesiod, Works and Days ln. 150. The standard meaning of “infant, child” is
evidenced, e.g., in Josephus, Antiquitatis Judaicae 6.138; Pausanius, Description of
Greece 8.7.7; and later in the New Testament at Gal 4.1. We do, however, discover
the patristic usage of nÆpiow as descriptive of those who enter into a “childlike state”
via their belief in Christ—a positive metaphorical employment of the term. Such use
is concentrated in the Paedagogus of Clement of Alexandria (esp. i 5–6), where he
parses the term etymologically as neØ ≥piow, or “newly gentle, newly simple” (Paed. i
5.19.1–2 [SC 70:144]). But despite Clement’s assertions that Christians “are nÆpioi,”
he is nonetheless speaking comparatively: Christians are become children in the sense
6 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

meaning. Rather, his references to Adam and Eve as nÆpioi appear di-
rectly descriptive, and any possibility of the term being derogatory is
counteracted by his basic desire to show that such a lot is the natural, and
therefore good, result of the act of creation. The possible negative impli-
cations of nÆpiow seem inappropriate to the context of such discussion.

(B) Context of the Childhood References

Too much emphasis, however, must not be laid upon the intricacies of the
vocabulary, which in any case is often conjectural due to the complex
manuscript and translation history of the corpus.11 But giving due
acknowledgement to the problems posed by this history, the importance
of context in any case greatly outweighs that of terminology. While Epid.
12, 14 and AH 4.38.1–2 effectively negate the possibility of a disparaging
intention behind Irenaeus’ terminology and therefore support a more
basic, literal meaning of nÆpiow, the vocabulary itself cannot be taken to
evidence concretely either a figurative or literal conception of Adam and
Eve as “children.”12 It is significant only in its lack of diminution to the
idea that the first humans were thus created; a fact which, in light of much
of the Gnostic anthropogony against which Irenaeus wrote, is of marked
importance. Irenaeus’ mention of the inferiority of created things to the

that they are made newly simple in their faith, just as children are simple and mentally
pliable in their youth (Paed. i 5.19.3–5.20.4 [SC 70:144–6]; cf. Matt 18.3, Luke
20.36). Clement is speaking of imitation rather than actual equation, a markedly
different use than that encountered in Irenaeus.
11. In the case of the Epid. in particular, the course of transmission is complex and
the original difficult to ascertain. On this, see note 5 above. Detailed examinations of
the transmission history of the AH and Epid. are located in the introductions to the
SC volumes.
12. I am acutely aware of the problems involved with the very terms “literal,”
“figurative,” “allegorical,” and “metaphorical,” the use of which the discourse of this
paper requires. Without wishing to minimize the importance of a critical examination
of the concepts behind these and other such terms, the taking up of such an
examination here would expand unduly the length of the present text. Here and in all
that follows, I shall use “literal,” with respect to the understanding of Adam and Eve
as children, as implying a face-value reading of such a claim, carrying with it a
meaning of physical, mental, and emotional childhood precisely concordant with that
experienced in the everyday world. “Metaphorical/figural” shall indicate a reading of
“childhood” that wishes, through the use of mutual idioms, to apply aspects of the
mental and emotional finitude of a human child to a person of any age. For a detailed
treatment of these concepts and their challenges to biblical exegesis, see the recent
monograph of Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian
Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), esp. 186–213.
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 7

uncreated and their unaccustomed and unexercised discipline is not a

disparaging criticism: it is his precise point that such lack of perfection is
entirely expected and natural in human beings, for it is the only possible
state into which might arrive a newborn humanity.13 Irenaeus’ language
of “child” and “infant” throughout his corpus is essentially offered as an
observation of what he sees as a natural state, a commentary on the
necessary and ordinary condition of a newly created being rather than a
judgment on its moral or social character.
The implication of the above, then, is that if Irenaeus does not intend
the pejorative, metaphorical implications of nÆpiow, his observatory use of
the term leaves open the possibility that he understood it according to its
more basic, physiological meaning. Such is the interpretation of some
scholars, though they stand as a minority.14 C. R. Smith, as an important
example, writes in a recent article on chiliasm in Irenaeus:

In accounting for the fall, Irenaeus insists that Eve was not merely a virgin
in the garden of Eden; she has not even reached puberty. She and Adam,
“having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the
procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to
adult age, and then multiply from that time onward” (3.22.4).15 As we have
already noted, for Irenaeus, Eve in the garden was actually prepubescent
(3.22.4).16

Such literal assertions of the infancy of Adam and Eve, while they may
stand at odds with the interpretation of the larger body of patristic
tradition, do find support in the language Irenaeus employs. Based on the
textual evidence examined in its own right, there is nothing to suggest
that he intends his references to Adam and Eve as nÆpioi not to be taken
at face value, and in fact the larger contexts of Epid. 12 and AH 3.38.1–
2 are best served when interpreted in this way. This face value, lacking

13. As such, humanity’s limitations are an expected part of its newly created state.
See Victor K. Downing, “The Doctrine of Regeneration in the Second Century,”
Evangelical Review of Theology 14 (1990): 110; Denis Minns, Irenaeus (London:
Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), 62; and Lawson, Biblical Theology, 217–18. Cf. Hans
Boersma, “Redemptive Hospitality in Irenaeus: A Model for Ecumenicity in a Violent
World,” Pro Ecclesia 11 (2002): 211, 6; and Bernard Sesboüé, Tout récapituler dans
le Christ: Christologie et sotériologie d’Irénée de Lyon (Paris: Desclée, 2000), 104.
14. See, e.g., Lawson, Biblical Theology, 199–221; and Christopher R. Smith,
“Chiliasm and Recapitulation in the Theology of Ireneus [sic],” VC 48 (1994): 313–
31.
15. Smith, “Chiliasm and Recapitulation,” 318.
16. Ibid., 322.
8 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

any sense of inherent negativity, speaks simply and forthrightly of chil-

dren.17 It is the same sense found in the three remaining texts which
directly relate the infancy theme to Adam and Eve (AH 3.22.4, 3.23.5
and Epid. 14), especially in the two parallel passages that refer to the lack
of sexual relationship and procreation in Paradise:
For she [Eve], having a husband, Adam, nevertheless was still a virgin—for
“they were both naked” in Paradise, “and were not ashamed,” since they
had been created only a short time before and possessed no under-standing
of the procreation of children. For it was necessary for them first to grow,
and only thereafter to multiply.18

Adam and Eve . . . “were naked and were not ashamed,” for there was in
them an innocent and infantile mind, and they thought or understood
nothing whatsoever of those things that are wickedly born in the soul
through lust and shameful desires. For at that time they preserved their
nature intact, since that which was breathed into the handiwork was the
breath of life; and while the breath remains in its order and strength, it is
without comprehension or understanding of what is evil. Thus “they were
not ashamed,” kissing and embracing each other in holiness in the manner
of children.19

In both instances, but especially in the first, Irenaeus’ point is best made if
one takes literally the references to Adam and Eve as physical children,
children who had not yet reached the age for sexual activity, or perhaps
even for the knowledge of sexual activity, and who were thus required to
adolescere before they could obey the command to multiplicari.20 While it
is possible to interpret such a concept allegorically without diminishing
its credibility, such an interpretation presses upon Irenaeus’ language a

17. In this context, the distinction between the English “infant” (i.e., a baby) and
“child” (a youth of somewhat older age) becomes interesting and important.
Characteristically, Irenaeus defers from any speculation on the actual age or physical
constitution of Adam and Eve; but while his descriptions of their activities most often
seem to imply that they were youths of an age adequate for mental reflection and
physical activity (thus “children” and not “infants”), there is room in his discussion
for a reading (esp. in Epid. 11–12 [SC 406:98–100; PO 12:667–68]) of the primal
humans as physical infants, cared for in their helpless infancy by the Word and His
created ministers. It is simply not possible to make a definitive statement on his
intended reading. In this study, I will continue deliberately to use “infant” and “child”
interchangeably, in recognition of the possibility of either meaning.
18. AH 3.22.4 (SC 211:440); cf. Gen 2.25.
19. Epid. 14 (SC 406:102; PO 12:669–70).
20. Behr, Asceticism, 111–12, treats of the “sequential manner” in which Irenaeus
understood the divine command of Gen 1.28, as well as the nature of sexuality in
Adam and Eve. For a more general examination, see H. Koch, “Zur Lehre vom
Urstand und von der Erlösung bei Irenaus,” TSK 96–97 (1925): 183–214.
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 9

metaphorical sense that is uncharacteristic of his overall style. His is a

presentation of “the way things are, rather than the way they might have
been,”21 taking situations and events as literally as possible in light of the
Gnostic tendency to allegorize and mythologize to the extreme.22 In a
discussion in which Irenaeus is developing the substance of his argument
based on an adolescence in Adam and Eve, and where this adolescence
serves as a primary justification for the order or taxis in which the human/
divine economy is to be wrought, it is highly unlikely that Irenaeus would
suddenly turn and employ the very mythologizing for which he so strongly
berates his opponents. If faith is to be built upon “things truly real” and
belief centered in “what really is, as it is,”23 there can be little room for
invention. The intention of Irenaeus’ entire polemic is patently literalistic,
and this literalism must not be forgotten in the examination of his par-
ticular doctrines.

(C) Iconic and Symbolic Value Through Factual History

Yet Irenaeus’ literalism need not and does not abolish altogether a more
symbolic scope to his discussion. While he examines the creation account
of Genesis with an air of specific historicity and textual literality, Irenaeus
does so largely to establish the events and persons therein as iconic images
for present-day humanity as well as eschatological images for the future.24
It is clear throughout the Epideixis in particular that the use of Adam as
symbolic of all humankind can and should be interpreted reciprocally in
such a way that all humanity is seen to live out the story historically
personified in him.25 Adam and Eve, as the first-created humans, repre-
sent the created state of all human persons: all the anthropological truths
that can be gleaned from their historical existence are to be applied to
each member of the human race, as well as to that race as a whole.26 But
this symbolic or iconic value, far from encouraging Irenaeus to view
Adam and Eve and their lives as substantially legend or myth, causes him
to endeavor with all the greater urgency to establish the full “facts” of

21. Minns, Irenaeus, 86.

22. A constant charge against the Gnostics; see, e.g., AH 1.3.6, 1.15.4, 1.28.1,
1.30.15 (SC 264: 60–62, 244–46, 354–56, 384), 2.28.8 (SC 294:288–90), 4.2.2 (SC
100:398–400).
23. Epid. 3 (SC 406:86; PO 12:661–62).
24. See Behr, Asceticism, 49 n. 51.
25. See Epid. 31, 33 (SC 406:126–28; PO 12:683–84, 684–85); cf. AH 4.20.4 (SC
100:634–36), 5.36.3 (SC 153:460–66). Christ, too, is seen to participate in this same
story: 3.18.6 (SC 211:360–64), 5.21.2 (SC 153:264–72).
26. See AH 4.22.1, 4.24.1 (SC 100:684–88, 698–702).
10 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

their existence, for therein can be learned the true anthropological reality
of present-day humanity. The symbolic value of the creation account is,
for Irenaeus, bound up in its very historicity—a notion evidenced in
Irenaeus’ tireless charges of Gnostic modification or alteration of that
very history. Such is at the heart of his censure of the various Gnostic sects
which he sees as at fault for twisting and distorting what is set forth
“clearly and unambiguously, in express terms, in the sacred Scriptures.”27
When Irenaeus comes to conclude the AH with his extended commentary
on the book of the Apocalypse, he reads the events described in Revela-
tion as bound to take place literally, exactly as they are described, “and
not allegorically, as I have shown repeatedly.”28 His discussion of the
authority of the Septuagint translation of the scriptures similarly rein-
forces his belief in the historical accuracy of the Old Testament narra-
tives.29 There is symbolism to be had in the histories, but the symbolism is
lost if the history did not in actuality take place as history.

(D) Mental or Physical Childhood?

Of the two texts on the lack of sexual relationship in Paradise cited above,
the latter, drawn from Epid. 14, poses a certain difficulty. Here again is a
direct reference to Adam and Eve “as children,”30 but the tone of the
passage is not of the same direct literality found in AH 3.22.4. Irenaeus
now attributes to a predominantly mental cause the lack of shame felt by
the first humans with regard to their mutual nakedness. Adam and Eve
are unashamed because they possess “an innocent and infantile mind,”
because they are ignorant of “those things that are wickedly born in the
soul through lust and shameful desires,” and thus their interactions are
as, or “in the manner of,” those of children. In contrast to his discussion
of the same theme in AH 3, here Irenaeus is moralizing, giving theological
justification to a situation which might otherwise seem to his readers
inappropriate and indecent and expanding on the iconic value of the
Edenic life. There is far less a sense here than in AH 3.22.4 that Irenaeus
is actually speaking of any physiological childhood: the childlike, infan-
tile attitude discussed is a state of mind rather than a state of physical
being. This is the same tone found later in AH 3.23.5, the fifth and final

27. AH 2.27.1 (SC 294:264–66); cf. 1.9.1–4 (SC 264:136–50), 2.28.2 (SC
294:270–72), 5.21.2, 5.35.2 (SC 153:264–72, 442–52).
28. AH 5.35.2 (SC 153:442–52).
29. See AH 3.21.2–3 (SC 211:400–408).
30. As translated by John Behr, On the Apostolic Preaching (New York: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 48. “In the manner of children” is also possible
from both the Armenian and the retrograde Latin.
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 11

passage of infancy language specific to Adam and Eve, where Irenaeus

attributes Adam’s overzealous repentant act in the making of a fig-leaf
garment to having lost his “childlike mind” (sensum puerilem):
[Adam] showed his repentance through his conduct, by means of his
garment, covering himself with fig leaves, though there existed many other
leaves which would have irritated his body to a lesser degree. He, however,
adopted a dress conformable to his disobedience, being overcome by the
fear of God. Thus, resisting the erring propensity of the flesh—since he had
lost his natural disposition and childlike mind and had come to the
knowledge of evil things—he girded himself and his wife with a bridle of
continence.31

Once again it is the mind that is related to childhood, not the whole of the
human person. Is it possible, then, that Irenaeus means that Adam and
Eve are infants only in reference to their mental or social state?
From such presentations of the infancy theme it is clear that, while
Irenaeus’ language tends to follow the classical pattern and employ nÆpiow
terminology in a non-pejorative and intentionally more literal manner,
the context of his arguments leaves room in certain instances for a less
physiologically-orientated interpretation. Such passages as Epid. 14 and
AH 3.23.5 can, indeed, be taken metaphorically for a “childlikeness” in
the mental state of an Adam and Eve of any physical age. Yet it is
important to take into account that both of these passages occur after,
and in close proximity to, passages for which a literal interpretation of
infancy is warranted both by language and by context: Epid. 14 must be
read in concert with Epid. 12, and AH 3.23.5 cannot be isolated from the
preceding discussion in 3.22.4. In light of the very straightforward pre-
sentation of Adam and Eve as children in the prior passages, it is unlikely
that Irenaeus should immediately do an about-face and assign a wholly
metaphorical character to the latter. Assumptions that any references to
the first humans as children must necessarily be wholly symbolical, as for
example Coxe was wont to make for such occurrences in Theophilus of
Antioch,32 cannot so easily be made for Irenaeus. If one is to allow the
author’s words to speak for themselves without forcing them through the
rules of a more traditional interpretation,33 one must remain open to the
possibility that Irenaeus may in fact have believed the primal parents to

31. AH 3.23.5 (SC 211:458).

32. ANF 2, p. 104 n. 4.
33. On the traditional patristic interpretation of Adam and Eve as perfect adults,
cf. e.g. Augustine De Genesi ad litteram 1–10; Ps-Clementine Homilies 3.7, 8; and
Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 2–5, 16.
12 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

be genuine children at their creation, as all humans are children at birth.

To this end, it is noteworthy that in his discussion of Christ’s recapitulative
activity, which he terms more than once the recapitulation of Adam,34
Irenaeus speaks specifically of Christ passing through the phase of in-
fancy.35 There is little doubt that Irenaeus understood Jesus’ infancy in a
most literal and genuinely physiological sense, and it is essential to recall
that Irenaeus is paralleling Christ’s life in a systematic and direct way to
that of His antetype. The imbalance forced into this parallel by disallow-
ing a genuine infancy in the first man is a problem that seems generally to
go unaddressed, despite Irenaeus’ insistence upon the exact parallelism
between Adam and Christ. If Adam was never an infant, was never a
child, the parallelism behind Christ’s recapitulative activity is substan-
tially hindered.36

COUNTERBALANCING PASSAGES

There remain, however, significant passages in the Irenaean corpus which

tend to suggest that Adam and Eve could not have been children in any
literal, physical sense. First among these is Irenaeus’ presentation of the
preincarnate Word walking and talking with Adam in the garden of
Paradise as a prefiguring of the future incarnation.37 The phrasing of the
passage does not require that a genuine period of infancy could not have
preceded this arrangement of association between Adam and the Word
and that their interaction was one of a child to an elder, but the imme-
diacy of the reference to the creation account is puzzling. Adam has only
been created from the dust in chapter 11, yet by chapter 12 he is able to
“walk and talk,” and in chapter 13 he is already naming the animals and
able to perform works of ample demand to necessitate for him a “helper.”38
And it is after these references that Irenaeus turns to the association of
Adam and Eve and makes his previously discussed comment on their
adolescent interactions.39 The order of events seems to make impossible

34. See AH 3.21.10 (SC 211:426–30); Epid. 31–33 (SC 406:126–30; PO 12:683–
85).
35. As in AH 2.22.4 (SC 294:220–22).
36. See Wingren, Man and the Incarnation, 124. Cf. AH 3.21.10 and 3.12.9 (SC
211:426–30, 216–24) for Irenaeus’ insistence on the genuine and exact parallelism of
Christ and Adam.
37. See Epid. 12 (SC 406:100; PO 12:668).
38. Thus the creation of Eve. See M. C. Steenberg, “The Role of Mary as Co-
recapitulator in St Irenaeus of Lyons,” forthcoming in VC 58 (2004).
39. Cf. Epid. 14 (SC 406:102; PO 12:669–70).
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 13

an interpretation that the infant Adam had “grown up” in the time
between his creation in chapter 12 and dialogues with the Word in 13,
especially given the reassertion of his infancy in 14. Is Adam, then, an
infant who is somehow able to speak, walk, talk, and work?40 A similar
question may be asked of the situation encountered in AH 5.1.3, Irenaeus’
refutation of the Ebionite rejection of Christ’s virginal birth. Irenaeus
relates the union of the divine and the human in Christ to the union of
physical matter and the divine breath of God which animated Adam,
accusing the Ebionites of remaining “in that Adam who had been con-
quered and was expelled from Paradise, not considering that as at the
beginning of our formation in Adam, that breath of life which came from
God, having been united to [His] handiwork, animated the man and
manifested him as a being endowed with reason.”41
It is the phrase “endowed with reason” (rationabile) that is of special
interest here, for it is precisely the rational faculty, which seems so fully
developed in Adam and Eve according to Irenaeus’ presentation of the
events of Gen 1–3, that seems to stand at odds with his language of
infancy. Can Irenaeus have meant to portray Adam and Eve as true
children at their creation if he also speaks with such emphasis of their
rational and otherwise “adult” capacities?
It is at precisely this point that one runs up against the limits of the
textual evidence, for Irenaeus presents us with little that might be consid-
ered a conclusive answer to the question. Nowhere does he offer a defini-
tive clarification on how his infancy language is to be understood. How-
ever, the attribution of a wholly metaphorical or symbolical meaning to
these passages does not stand as the required solution. Irenaeus treats the
Genesis account as having occurred in the chronological order described
by the narrative itself; but he, like the scriptural chronicle, lays out no
details on the specific expanses of time within this chronology.42 The
wide-ranging series of events in Epid. 11 to 14 is given with no reference
to the length of time spanned by each of its particulars. One cannot know,
for example, that a significant amount of time did not pass between
Adam’s creation and his walking with the Word in the garden: the fact
that the two situations appear side by side in the text no more conclu-
sively answers the question of their chronological proximity than does the

40. Cf. n. 17 above on the distinction between “infant” and “child.”

41. AH 5.1.3 (SC 153:26).
42. A different methodology than that employed by his near contemporary and
probable source of influence, Theophilus of Antioch: cf. Ad. Autol. 3.24–28
(Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycum, ed. Robert M. Grant [Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1970], 134–45).
14 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

immediacy of Gen 1.2 to 1.1 prevent the possibility of a substantial

amount of time having passed between the creation events contained
therein. The rational faculty imbued in Adam is likewise ultimately inef-
fective as an argument against the possibility of literal childhood, for
creation as a “rational creature” does not necessarily imply the realiza-
tion of that rationality at the moment of genesis. Infants may be called
rational beings inasmuch as they are members of the human race which is
rational, though they may yet be too young to have actualized such
rationality in their own persons.43 Irenaeus in fact makes extensive use of
this possessed-but-not-realized concept in his references to Adam as pos-
sessing the image and likeness of God,44 for he makes clear elsewhere that
he does not believe the fullness of the likeness to be attainable before the
incarnation of Christ, nor fully manifest until His second coming.45 The
possession may be said, however, to exist in its potential. Adam “possessed”
likeness to God, but with respect to the fullness of this likeness he pos-
sessed it potentially. This is indeed the spirit of AH 4.38.1–2, which
presupposes in its discussion of Adam as “child” that one day he shall be
an adult and shall, after a due course of growth, possess in full the adult
capabilities and characteristics which as a child he possesses only potentially.46

USE AND MEANING OF CHILDHOOD

It seems clear that Irenaeus’ imprecision of definition with respect to his

comments on Adam and Eve as “children” opens the door for multiple
interpretations of this concept, and this has been borne out in the history
of Irenaean commentary. But it seems equally clear that the tendency of
modern scholarship automatically to assume that such language must not
be taken in other than a metaphorical sense is not necessarily warranted

43. For the classic presentation of this argument, see Wingren, Man and the
Incarnation, 20, 7.
44. E.g., AH 3.18.1, 3.23.1–2 (SC 211:342–44, 444–50), 4.38.3–4 (SC 100:952–
60); Epid. 97 (SC 406:212–14; PO 12:728–29).
45. See AH 4.22.2 (SC 100:688–90), 5.36.3 (SC 153:460–66), and esp. 4.37.7 (SC
100:938–42). For similar NT allusions of attainment to the imago Dei as a pending
or future event, see Rom 8.29, 1 Cor 15.49, and 2 Cor 3.18.
46. A point addressed by Lawson, Biblical Theology, 207–14, in his attempt to
clarify how the concepts of “loss/return” and “growth” could mutually co-inhere in
Irenaeus’ anthropology. It should be specified that this possession-in-potential applies
to the fullness or perfection of Adam’s attributes. Irenaeus does not want to suggest
that Adam had no rational capabilities during his period of childhood, only that these
capabilities were not fully developed; cf. Epid. 12, 14 (SC 406:100, 102; PO 12:668,
669–70).
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 15

by the evidence of the corpus. What remains unclear, however, is the

degree to which the consideration of a physiological childhood was in
fact important to Irenaeus’ own thought. Several elements of Irenaean
doctrine, especially as found in those passages which relate the infancy
theme to humanity as a whole rather than specifically to Adam and Eve,
bring a level of clarity to this question and help the reader to overcome
the imprecision of Irenaeus’ nÆpiow terminology taken on its own. A
rereading of portions of AH 4.38, certainly the single most important
passage on our theme in the whole of the Irenaean corpus, is important
here.
If, then, anyone say, “What then? Was not God able to have made man
perfect from the beginning?” let him know that, as far as God is concerned
. . . all things are possible to Him. But those things made by Him, because
they have a later beginning of creation, must for this reason be inferior to
Him who created them. For it was not possible for things recently created
to be uncreated; and since they are not uncreated, on this account do they
fall short of the perfect. And since these things are of a more recent origin,
so are they infantile; and since they are infantile, so are they unaccustomed
to and unexercised in perfect discipline. For certainly it is in the power of a
mother to give strong food to her infant, yet [she does not do so, since] the
child is not yet able to receive stronger nourishment. So too, it was in the
power of God Himself to grant perfection to man from the beginning; but
the man, on the contrary, was unable to receive it, since he was still an
infant. . . . we were not able to receive the greatness of that glory.
Therefore, as if to infants, He who was the perfect bread of the Father
offered Himself to us as milk, since His coming was in keeping with a
man.47

The state of infancy of which Irenaeus is speaking seems, above all else, to
be a state of want: the first man is a child because he “falls short of the
perfect,” because he cannot receive perfection, because he cannot endure
God’s greatness.48 There is a great distinction between Adam and his
creator which is real and ontological, not simply a state of mind or logical
distance.49 This monumental gulf between Adam and God, a gulf founded
here in Adam’s own being as newly created man, is not one of physical
distance nor deprivation of grace, but the natural difference of being that
exists between Creator and created. One is infinite, the other finite; the

47. This passage is quoted in full above. The emphasis noted here by italics is my
own.
48. Similar to Theophilus’ thought in Ad Autol. 2.25 (Grant, Theophilus, 66–69),
the celebrated evidence of a childhood theme prior to Irenaeus.
49. See MacKenzie, Irenaeus’s Demonstration, 91.
16 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

distinction between the two is of the highest order. It is this concept which
grounds the notion of radical incompleteness that stands as a driving
theme behind Irenaeus’ larger conception of humankind.50 There is al-
most no section of his corpus that does not resound with the idea that
humanity, commencing in Adam, stands at the base of an ascent into the
perfection for which it is destined, perilously far from its goal yet offered
full guidance and support for the duration of the journey.51 When AH
4.38 and other infancy passages are read with this larger theme in mind,
the connection of nÆpiow to the state of “created imperfection,” of sub-
stantial distance from the human telos and a real separation from the
fully realized human “self,” begins to emerge.52 This full humanity, the
whole and complete man, is for Irenaeus unequivocally the person of
Jesus Christ. It is He who is the true image of God into which humanity
was created and in whom all other human persons may come to their own
full maturity.53 Irenaeus’ references to Adam as “child” are established in
connection and contrast to Adam as “adult” (perfectus homo), that is,
Adam as perfected in Christ; and this is key to his entire notion of human
development. Such was the observation of Ysabel de Andia: “Le thème de

50. See AH 3.8.3, 3.18.2 (SC 211:94–96, 344–46), 4.16.4 (SC 100:568–70), 5.1.1
(SC 153:16–20); Epid. 18, 31 (SC 406:106–8, 126–28; PO 12:672, 683–84). On this
theme it has been said, “In the anthropology of Irenaeus, man was created in the
image of God with no essential difference from God except for the infinite distance
between the two” (Downing, “Doctrine of Regeneration,” 111). Cf. Wingren, Man
and the Incarnation, 20, 148, who speaks of the “absolute distance between God and
man”; and Eric Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001), 61.
51. See AH 2.28.1 (SC 294:268–70), 4.9.2–3, 4.11.1–2 (SC 100:480–90, 496–
502); cf. 2 Sam 22.33, Ps 18.32. For Luneau, Adam stood at “son but,” his point of
commencement, from which Irenaeus declared that he would pass through “quatre
étapes d’une pédagogie qui conduit l’homme de l’enfence à l’état adulte dans le
Christ”: Auguste Luneau, L’histoire du salut chez les Pères de l’Eglise - la doctrine des
ages du monde (Paris: Beauchesne, 1964), 96. T. Finger characterizes the development
of humanity as consisting of the interrelated ethical and spiritual progress of its
nature: Thomas Finger, “Christus Victor and the Creeds: Some Historical Consider-
ations,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 72 (1998): 46.
52. See the important study of Robert F. Brown, “On the Necessary Imperfection
of Creation: Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses IV, 38,” Scottish Journal of Theology 28.1
(1975): 17–25. Sesboüé, Tout récapituler, 95, refers to man as “radicalement
imparfait,” grounding this imperfection in the loss of the divine likeness through sin.
AH 4.38 (SC 100:942ff.), however, suggests that man’s sin was not the cause of this
imperfection, though it added to it once realized. Cf. Wingren, Man and the
Incarnation, 28–29, 185, 200.
53. See AH 5.6.1 (SC 153:72–80). Cf. Wingren, Man and the Incarnation, 127, 36,
77, 201; and Osborn, Irenaeus, 93, 105, 7–8.
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 17

l’enfance d’Adam introduit une distance entre le modelage (plãsiw—

plasis) de l’homme et sa perfection (tele¤vsiw—perfectio) qui sera achevée
dans la vision du Père.”54
Infancy is here equated with the distance from ultimate perfection that
has been described above, though one notes that it is so without any
special requirement that this infancy be more than a metaphorical adoles-
cence. However, she continues her explanation with the following, more
problematic interpretation of infancy/imperfection as ontological reality:
“Dieu crée l’homme imparfait précisément parce qu’il lui confie sa propre
perfection. La vocation de l’homme est d’être parfait comme son Père
céleste. . . .”55
In the assertion that “the vocation of man is to be perfect as his
heavenly Father [is perfect],” this remark is not inaccurate, reflecting as it
does the words of Christ Himself (cf. Matt 5.48).56 It is in the presentation
of the source of man’s imperfection, of that which sets him imperfectly
before God and thus motivates his “vocation,” that problems arise. The
postulation that “God created man as imperfect” must be carefully quali-
fied, for on its own it may be construed to imply an arbitrary act or choice
of God in His creative work—the notion that God simply “decided” to
make Adam imperfect for a later coming to perfection in much the same
manner as, for a rather facile example, He chose to make grass green.
While it is reasonable to say that God chose to make grass green simply as
an act of His free will and desire, Irenaeus does not present the same as
being true for the creation of humanity. AH 4.38 suggests, in fact, that
God created an imperfect Adam not solely because it was His desire at a
later time to confer upon him a proper perfection, but because Adam
could not have been created into any other state than the imperfect,
specifically as a consequence of his status as created being. There is some
degree of ontological requirement for Adam’s imperfection, and here
Irenaeus’ conception of nÆpiow discovers a substantial clarification: the
imperfection and “infancy” of Adam are seen not as pure synonyms, but

54. Ysabel de Andia, Homo vivens: Incorruptibilité et divinisation de l’homme

selon Irénée de Lyon (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1986), 127. The fourth chapter of
Andia’s work (127–45) stands as the most detailed treatment to date of the infancy
theme in Irenaeus.
55. Ibid., 130, emphasis mine.
56. J. Fantino defines Irenaeus’ whole conception of the economy as that which “a
pour but la perfection de l’être humain et de toute la création” and which is the
“passage de l’imperfection à la perfection”: Jacques Fantino, “Le passage du premier
Adam au second Adam comme expression du salut chez Irénée de Lyon,” VC 52
(1998): 418.
18 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

rather his “infancy” is in fact logically antecedent to his imperfection.

Adam is imperfect because he is nÆpiow, because a child qua child cannot
be perfect as an adult may be perfect.57 The separation of these concepts is
essential in apprehending properly the character of Adam’s being as child,
from which such traits as mental finitude, coercibility, and so on arise.
nÆpiow is not simply a title given in description of such attributes but
rather is the root and cause of their presence in Adam’s person.58
As Andia has shown,59 for Irenaeus time is logically posterior to (though
actually simultaneous with) matter and dependent upon it: it is material
existence that connects a given being to the progression of time, while
spiritual beings (e.g. the angels) have no such physical composition and
thus no time-bound existence. Accordingly, and this is of the utmost
importance, it is Adam’s physicality, his material being, and not simply
his creation into the eternity of God that is the root of his lack of full
development and his relative “distance” from the Creator. His temporal
newness is of dramatic importance in his relationship to God and to the
course of his further development; but at the very base of Irenaeus’
developmental anthropology is the root event of creation “from the dust.”
It is the dust, the matter from which and into which Adam is formed, that
makes him nÆpiow, for matter binds its subject to time, and time necessi-
tates developmental experience. At his root, Adam is a “child” because he
is physical.
This point represents a development upon, and clarification of, the
work of Andia, whose study of Irenaean “infancy” is, as I have already
suggested, the most cogent and useful to date. Yet her discussion of the
infancy theme does not scrutinize closely enough the scholar’s own con-
clusions: Andia’s suppositions have more to say on Irenaeus’ conception
of Adam as nÆpiow than she herself draws out. Principally, it is the precise

57. Thus does Irenaeus describe the good creation of man as wanting in several
important regards: intimate “friendship with God” was absent in newly-created man
(see AH 4.16.4 [SC 100:568–70]) and a “greater grace” is continually conferred upon
humanity throughout the course of its history (AH 4.9.3 [SC 100:486–90]), leaving
the reader to draw the obvious conclusion that Adam was therefore created in
reception of a “lesser” grace. See also AH 4.11.1–2 (SC 100:496–98), 5.1.1 (SC
153:16–20).
58. It is worth making explicit here what lies implicit in Irenaeus’ discussions on
Adam as created in a state of lesser glory than he will possess at the eschaton, namely
that such an “imperfection” in the newly formed man does not equate to a “flaw,”
error, or deficiency on the part of God’s creative workmanship but to that state of
lesser glory than humankind will later possess. The Greek ét°leiow is in this sense
much more precise than the often ethically-weighted English “imperfect.”
59. See Andia, Homo vivens, 93ff.
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 19

interrelationship of physicality and time that remains somewhat vague in

her work. Andia correctly asserts that it is not a “sens spirituel” that
dominates the conception of infancy for Irenaeus, but her subsequent
assertion that such a place is taken up by a “sens temporel” is not wholly
accurate either. There is some degree of confusion, or at least lack of
clarity, between the roles played by Adam’s materiality and his relation-
ship to time in the definition of his character as “infant.” Here I believe
that Andia has failed to make an important distinction between the actual
root of Adam’s being as nÆpiow and the consequent results of that infant
being, between his being “child” and his resulting participation in “child-
hood.” These are terms which might casually be used without substantial
distinction but which in fact represent different aspects of humanity’s
developmental existence and which, when understood independently, of-
fer considerable clarification to the concept of infant creation in Irenaean
thought.
Let one take as a parallel example the life of a child aged two years,
whose physical and psychological development is in all ways average for
that age. This child will accurately be called a participant in the usual
affairs and demands of two-year-old life: the need for external (i.e. paren-
tal) care in the provision of food, shelter, clothing, etc.; the ability to
understand certain mental dilemmas (e.g. the identification of human
figures as familiar or foreign); the inability to engage in more complex
cognitive processes; and so forth. All these are aspects of the infancy
through which the child is progressing, but the child’s participation in this
infancy is in fact warranted by her existence as an infant. The infant’s
being as two-year-old human is the predicate for her need for human aid,
her limited cognitive development, and other such characteristics; and
while one may reasonably admit the logical impossibility of separating
infant from infancy in the usual course of human existence, the two
entities remain nonetheless distinct and separate.60 So it is with Irenaeus’
picture of Adam and Eve as nÆpioi. As infants they are created into a
progression of time (Andia’s “sens temporel”), the beginning of which
may be called their “infancy”; but this infancy is not to be confused with
the actual root of their existence as infants. This root is, as indicated
above, their essence as beings having been created in and of matter, and

60. See Edmund N. Santurri, “Who Is My Neighbor? Love, Equality, and

Profoundly Retarded Humans,” in E. N. Santurri and W. Werpehowski, The Love
Commandments: Essays in Christian Ethics and Moral Philosophy (Washington,
D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1992), 104–37, for an interesting examination of
the reality of such separation as approached from a Christian ethical context.
20 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

thus having been bound to the progressive history of the material uni-
verse. Adam and Eve are infants due to their materiality; they must pass
through infancy due to their temporal novelty.61 It is significant that
Irenaeus presents Adam’s lack of deliberation (boulÆ) as stemming from
his infancy and not the other way round, for it makes clear the logical
priority and causative value of Adam’s nature as infant.62 There is an
ontological, even a physical, component to his being that promulgates his
lack of understanding just as there is such a physiological limitation in
any human infant upon its capabilities for rational thought; but this want
in Adam cannot be conversely equated with his actual nature as nÆpiow
any more than a two-year-old infant’s lack of adult, cognitive capabilities
can be understood as the source of her being a child. The truth is, in
actuality, the converse. AH 4.38 reinforces such an assertion with its own
stress upon the fact of newly formed humanity’s inability to receive full
knowledge of or appropriation to God. Man’s materiality is, in this sense,
a preventative limitation: it is materiality that binds him to time and time
that restricts the capabilities of his knowledge and receptivity of his
body.63 Growth, maturation, and accustomization are requirements not
only of man’s “newness” as a creature (see again the angels, newly created
yet fully “mature”) but also of his materiality. It is the very fact of his
material creation that makes man a child.

CONCLUSION

For all this, Irenaeus’ use of nÆpiow language remains elusive. For a
concept of such central importance to his larger scheme of thought, and
one that was unusual even in his own day,64 it is remarkable that Irenaeus

61. A distinction implied in the division of events in Epid. 12: “the man was very
little, since he was an infant, and it was necessary for him to grow and in this way
reach perfection” (SC 406:100; PO 12:668). Adam’s being “very little” (i.e., an
infant) establishes his requirement to “grow and in this way reach perfection” (i.e.,
participate in the usual course of infancy and growth).
62. Ibid.
63. See Andia, Homo vivens, 128. This must not be read to constitute a negative
perception of matter itself, for Irenaeus understands matter as transformable and its
inherent limitations as transcendable through the working of the Spirit. See AH
1.22.1 (SC 264:308–10), 2.19.6 (SC 294:192–94), 5.3.1 (SC 153:40–44). Cf.
Boersma, “Redemptive Hospitality,” 211; and François Altermath, Du corps psychique
au corps spirituel: interprétation de 1 Cor. 15, 35–49 par les auteurs chrétiens des
quatre premiers siècles (Tübingen: Mohr, 1977), 86.
64. Though Irenaeus may have found a forebear in Theophilus (vid. Ad Autol.
2.25; see above), there is little else to support a widespread adherence to the doctrine
of Adam and Eve as children, whether by Christians or non-Christians. Jewish
 STEENBERG/CHILDREN IN PARADISE 21

employs this imagery so casually and with so little apologia or precise

clarification. It remains impossible, even after a full examination of his
usage, to say with any certainty whether the “children” that Irenaeus
considered Adam and Eve to be were physically equivalent to infants,
prepubescent youths, or humans of some other physiological formation.
One can be certain that Irenaeus did not mean “children” to imply adults
with a simple lack of experience (our discussion of ontological necessity
and material imperfection will warrant this); but this is as far as one can
go with any attempt at a “physical” description of the first humans. The
above argument will have made clear, however, that this lack of absolute
clarity should, if anything, make scholarship more open than tradition-
ally it has been to the full range of interpretive possibilities inherent in the
texts themselves.
Irenaeus’ conception of Adam and Eve as children is not without its
weaknesses, intimated above. It never duly accounts for the necessitarian-
ism it implies in God as creator, even though Irenaeus attempts to sidestep
the issue by reassigning the necessity to human beings. E. P. Meijering,
though perhaps overstating his case, does make clear Irenaeus’ shortcom-
ing in this regard.65 And it may be suggested fairly that Irenaeus’ procla-
mation of what Brown would call “the necessary imperfection of cre-
ation” does challenge the notion of God’s sovereignty as Creator in a
manner that even that scholar’s explanation cannot wholly justify. Yet
Irenaeus maintains both the absolute sovereignty of God and emphati-
cally denies any and every charge of necessitarianism.66 His discussion on
the creation of man as “child” does not bear nearly as much on the
character of God as it does on the character of the human creation. In
this, the doctrine of the creation of man as “child” assists Irenaeus greatly
and has much to offer a Christian anthropology and soteriology. It pro-
vides the means, readily employed by Irenaeus, to address the question—
which has plagued subsequent centuries of Christian thought—why God
would wait so long to become incarnate in Christ;67 for the necessity of
human growth mandates that a period of history pass before the arrival
of such an event. The doctrine likewise offers a cogent explanation for

expositions of Genesis generally assumed an adult Adam, as did the majority of the
Gnostic creation mythologies with which Irenaeus was conversant.
65. Eginhard Peter Meijering, “God, Cosmos, History: Christian and Neo-Platonic
Views on Divine Revelation,” VC 28 (1974): 267.
66. See AH 2.5.3–4 (SC 294:56–60).
67. See, e.g., AH 3.20.2 (SC 211:388–92), 4.9.3 (SC 100:486–90), 5.12.6 (SC
153:160–62).
22 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

why sin would ever have entered into Paradise, for why Adam and Eve
would have followed the deceitful leadings of the serpent68—an issue that
is always of some tension in conceptions of a fully perfect creation in the
Garden. And perhaps most poignantly, the doctrine of an infant creation
establishes a dynamism to the human person in its relationship to God
that forms the very heart of a developmental anthropology of salvation.
Irenaeus’ whole soteriology begins here: it is for the growth of the child,
Adam, that the Son of God becomes incarnate and shows forth the adult,
the full image, that the child is to become. Even after the incarnation the
child continues to grow; he is not suddenly perfected by the great
recapitulative event but thereby becomes, in a more immediate way,
wholly perfectible. In Christ, Adam has grown from boy to man, and as
Adam is the type of every human person, so does this growth become
cosmic in its scope. The perfection of this real child is, for Irenaeus, the
surety of such perfection offered to every human person.

M. C. Steenberg is a Researcher in Patristics and Early Church History

at the University of Oxford

68. See AH 3.23.3 (SC 211:450–54).