Irenaeus Didn't Say that...

Posted by M.T. Mitchell

From time to time, I’ve heard used in Catholic preaching and in online Catholic forums, a certain quote from St. Irenaeus. Actually, I’ve even seen it on vacation bible school t-shirts! Unfortunately, it’s a misquote.

The quote attributed to St. Irenaeus is often rendered as follows:

“The glory of God is man fully alive.”

Or as a recent homilist put it:

“As St. Irenaeus said, God is happy when we are living life to the full!”

But that’s not what St. Irenaeus said.

The original Latin phrase is: Gloria enim Dei vivens homo.

It is certainly not an easy phrase to translate, but nowhere does it say, “fully alive”, which is at best an interpretive gloss.

A literal translation could be: “For the glory of God is the living man.”

The Latin quote comes from St. Irenaeus’ original Greek book Against Heresies (Book IV, 20, 7).

In context, Irenaeus is speaking about Christ. The “living man” he is speaking about is not humanity in general, but Jesus Christ. It is not our being “fully alive” that reveals God’s glory, but Christ who reveals God’s glory.

The way some homilists and Catholic bloggers use the phrase is to suggest that Irenaeus is saying that God is glorified when we live life to the full. For some, that involves traveling the world, having a great time, going on an adventure and living your best life… sort of the opposite of the Beatitudes! Perhaps getting back to the beatitudes will certainly help the Church to produce more and more saints!

The full text is here:

“And because the Word became the dispenser of the Father’s grace for the benefit of the men for whom he made such great “economies”, he showed God to man and man to God, preserving the invisibility of the Father so that man would not become a despiser of God but would always have a goal toward which to advance, and at the same time making God visible to men through his many “economies” so that man might not be totally deprived of God and perish. For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God. If the revelation of God by the creation already gives life to all the beings living on earth, how much more does the manifestation of the Father by the Word give life to those who see God!” (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 4.20.7)

 

About the Author

M.T. Mitchell is the managing editor at Spirit of Wisdom Press.  He is a Catholic author and speaker who holds humanistic, philosophical, and theological degrees, specializing in Spiritual Theology.

He has written Generations of Grace, Sanctity Simplified, By Mercy’s Light, and Volumes I & II of the All Things New commentary on the Catholic lectionary.  

An avid oil painter and writer, he lives with his wife and son in North Carolina.