Irenaeus over de Maagd Maria

In een vorige posting, die ik inmiddels heb verwijderd, heb ik wat Irenaeus (stierf in 202 na Chr) over Maria zegt, niet correct weergegeven. Ik zei dat Irenaeus een paar keer zei dat Jezus 'door Maria passeerde zoals water door een pijp'. Het omgekeerde was waar! Deze kerkvader uit de twee helft van de tweede eeuw, bisschop van Lyon, en iemand die Polycarpus, bisschop van Smyrna nog had gekend, zei dat Jezus niet via Maria op aarde kwam zoals water door een buis. Dat was de mening van sommige sectariers die Ireneaeus juist bestreed. Slordig van me dus.

In zijn boek Adverses Haereses, boek 3, XXI.10, schrijft Irenaeus:

10. For as by one man’s disobedience sin entered, and death obtained [a place] through sin; so also by the obedience of one man, righteousness having been introduced, shall cause life to fructify in those persons who in times past were dead. And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil (“for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground”), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for “all things were made by Him,” and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word,recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin. If, then, the first Adam had a man for his father, and was born of human seed, it were reasonable to say that the second Adam was begotten of Joseph. But if the former was taken from the dust, and God was his Maker, it was incumbent that the latter also, making a recapitulation in Himself, should be formed as man by God, to have an analogy with the former as respects His origin. Why, then, did not God again take dust, but wrought so that the formation should be made of Mary? It was that there might not be another formation called into being, nor any other which should [require to] be saved, but that the very same formation should be summed up [in Christ as had existed in Adam], the analogy having been preserved.

Hier de engelse vertaling van wat Ireneaus schreef in Adversus Haereses, Boek 3, XXII.1-2,4. Dit boekje moeten we dateren tussen 180-200 na Chr:

1 Those, therefore, who allege that He took nothing from the Virgin do greatly err. […] For if He did not receive the substance of flesh from a human being, He neither was made man nor the Son of man; and if He was not made what we were, He did no great thing in what He suffered and endured. […] The Apostle Paul, moreover, in the Epistle to the Galatians, declares plainly, God sent His Son, made of a woman. And again, in that to the Romans, he says, Concerning His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh […]

2 Superfluous, too, in that case is His descent into Mary; for why did He come down into her if He were to take nothing of her? Still further, if He had taken nothing of Mary, He would never have availed Himself of those kinds of food which are derived from the earth, by which that body which has been taken from the earth is nourished; nor would He have hungered, fasting those forty days […]

4 In accordance with this design, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word’.
But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise they were both naked, and were not ashamed, inasmuch as they, 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), having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race.
So also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race.
And on this account does the law term a woman betrothed to a man, the wife of him who had betrothed her, although she was as yet a virgin; thus indicating the back-reference from Mary to Eve, because what is joined together could not otherwise be put asunder than by inversion of the process by which these bonds of union had arisen; so that the former ties be cancelled by the latter, that the latter may set the former again at liberty.
And it has, in fact, happened that the first compact looses from the second tie, but that the second tie takes the position of the first which has been cancelled. For this reason did the Lord declare that the first should in truth be last, and the last first. And the prophet, too, indicates the same, saying, instead of fathers, children have been born unto you.
For the Lord, having been born the First-begotten of the dead, and receiving into His bosom the ancient fathers, has regenerated them into the life of God, He having been made Himself the beginning of those that live, as Adam became the beginning of those who die.
Wherefore also Luke, commencing the genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to Adam, indicating that it was He who regenerated them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. And thus also it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.

Irenaeus onderstreept dat Jezus zijn menselijkheid aan Maria ontleende. Dankzij Maria was hij een echt mens. Zo echt dat ze niet volmaakt was: Irenaeus noemt de vraag van Maria om een wonder bij Kana 'untimely haste', dus: verkeerd getimede haast.(Adverses Haereses 3, XVI)

Irenaeus gaat verder. Hij beschrijft Jezus en Maria als het tegendeel van Adam en Eva. Waar Eva ongehoorzaam was, was Maria gehoorzaam en 'door gehoorzaam te zijn, werd ze de oorzaak van verlossing, zowel voor zichzelf als voor het gehele menselijke ras'. Als ik me niet vergis is dit de eerste verwijzing in de patristische literatuur naar het belang van de gehoorzaamheid van Maria. Haar gehoorzaamheid was 'de oorzaak van verlossing'.

Irenaeus gaat op dit thema door in Adversus Haereses, Boek 5, XIX, Para 1:

1 That the Lord then was manifestly coming to His own things, and was sustaining them by means of that creation which is supported by Himself, and was making a recapitulation of that disobedience which had occurred in connection with a tree, through the obedience which was [exhibited by Himself when He hung] upon a tree, [the effects] also of that deception being done away with, by which that virgin Eve, who was already espoused to a man, was unhappily misled—was happily announced, through means of the truth [spoken] by the angel to the Virgin Mary, who was [also espoused] to a man.
For just as the former was led astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she had transgressed His word; so did the latter, by an angelic communication, receive the glad tidings that she should sustain (portaret) God, being obedient to His word. And if the former did disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become the patroness (advocata) of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience. For in the same way the sin of the first created man (protoplasti) receives amendment by the correction of the First-begotten, and the coming of the serpent is conquered by the harmlessness of the dove, those bonds being unloosed by which we had been fast bound to death.

Interessante taal gebruikt Irenaeus hier. Ik wijs erop dat hij de term 'portaret Deum' gebruikte. Ze 'droeg God'. Dat is de nauwkeurige Latijnse term voor theotokos, een term die later tot grote opwinding in de kerk leidde.

We lezen ook dat volgens Irenaeus, Maria gehoorzaam was aan God 'opdat [ze] de advocata van Eva zou worden. De engelse vertalig die ik gebruik heeft dit advocata vertaald als patroness. Is die vertaling wel terecht? Moeten we hier niet eerder aan voorspraak denken? In 1 Joh 2:1 noemt de apostel Jezus de 'advocatus' in de Latijnse vulgaat-vertaling die ongeveer in de tijd van Irenaeus ontstond. Onze bijbel vertaald dat met 'voorspraak'. Ik denk dat de engelse Irenaeus-vertaling als 'patroness' beslist tendentieus is. Irenaeus noemde Maria een voorspraak van Eva, niet een 'patroness'.

Zoals de mensheid gebonden werd aan de dood door de maagd Eva, wordt ze 'gered door een maagd [Maria]. De maagdelijke ongehoorzaamheid werd in balans gebracht door de maagdelijke gehoorzaamheid.'

Me dunkt dat ik er niet aan ontkom te denken dat Irenaeus de eerste getuige in de kerk is van een speciale positie voor de maagd Maria.

Tenslotte een ander citaat van Irenaeus, uit zijn boekje 'Bewijs van de Apostolische Prediking], gevonden in een Armeens versie in 1907. In hoofdstuk 33 lezen we:

And just as through a disobedient virgin man was stricken down and fell into death, so through the Virgin who was obedient to the Word of God man was reanimated and received life. For the Lord came to seek again the sheep that was lost; and man it was that was lost: and for this cause there was not made some other formation, but in that same which had its descent from Adam He preserved the likeness of the (first) formation. For it was necessary that Adam should be summed up in Christ, that mortality might be swallowed up and overwhelmed by immortality; and Eve summed up in Mary, that a virgin should be a virgin's intercessor, and by a virgin's obedience undo and put away the disobedience of a virgin.

Is dit document inderdaad van Irenaeus? De theologische taal lijkt er op te wijzen. Zouden de vertalers nauwkeurig te werk zijn gegaan? Als we daarvan uitgaan, dan moeten we constateren dat Irenaeus de verlossing van (de kinderen van) Adam en Eva lijkt te danken aan Jezus en Maria. Waarbij ik er zonder meer van uitga dat Irenaeus de bijdrage die Maria leverde zocht in haar geloofsgehoorzaamheid waardoor Christus in de wereld kon komen. Het idee dat Maria verlossende bekwaamheid had, moeten we niet in de woorden van Irenaeus leggen, denk ik.