The Covenant
From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop (125-202)
The covenant of the Lord
In the book of Deuteronomy Moses says to the people: The Lord your God made a covenant on Horeb; he made this covenant, not with your fathers but with you. Why did God make this covenant with their fathers? Because the law is not aimed at the righteous. Their fathers were righteous: they had the power of the Decalogue implanted in their hearts and in their souls. That is, they loved the God who made them and did nothing unjust against their neighbor. For this reason they did not need to be admonished by written rebukes: they had the righteousness of the law in their hearts.
When this righteousness and love for God had passed into oblivion and been extinguished in Egypt, God had necessarily to reveal himself through his own voice, out of his great love for men. He led the people out of Egypt in power, so that man might once again become God’s disciple and follower. He made them afraid as they listened, to warn them not to hold their Creator in contempt.
He fed them with manna, that they might receive spiritual food. In the book of Deuteronomy Moses says: He fed you with manna, which your fathers did not know, that you might understand that man will not live by bread alone but will live by every word of God coming from the mouth of God.
He commanded them to love himself and trained them to practice righteousness toward their neighbor, so that man might not be unrighteous or unworthy of God. Through the Decalogue he prepared man for friendship with himself and for harmony with his neighbor. This was to man’s advantage, though God needed nothing from man.
This raised man to glory, for it gave him what he did not have, friendship with God. But it brought no advantage to God, for God did not need man’s love. Man did not possess the glory of God, nor could he attain it by any other means than through obedience to God. This is why Moses said to the people: Choose life, that you may live and your descendants too; love the Lord your God, hear his voice and hold fast to him, for this is life for you and length of days.
This was the life that the Lord was preparing man to receive when he spoke in person and give the words of the Decalogue for all alike to hear. These words remain with us as well; they were extended and amplified through his coming in the flesh, but not annulled.
God gave to the people separately through Moses the commandments that enslave: these were precepts suited to their instruction or their condemnation. As Moses said: The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you precepts of righteousness and of judgment. The precepts that were given them to enslave and to serve as a warning have been cancelled by the new covenant of freedom. The precepts that belong to man’s nature and to freedom and to all alike have been enlarged and broadened. Through the adoption of sons God had enabled man so generously and bountifully to know him as Father, to love him with his whole heart, and to follow his Word unfailingly.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
St. Irenaeus (125-202) was born is Asia Minor, probably at Smyrna. He was well educated and probably knew and was influenced by men who knew the Apostles, especially St. Polycarp, who had been a pupil of St. John the evangelist. According to Gregory of Tours, Polycarp sent Irenaeus as a missionary to Gaul, where he was a priest under St. Pothinus at Lyons. Irenaeus was sent to Rome in 177 with a letter from his fellow Christians to Pope St. Eleutherius pleading for leniency to the Montanists in Phrygia. In Irenaeus’ absence a violent persecution of Christians broke out at Lyons, claiming Pothinus as one of its martyrs. Irenaeus was named Bishop of Lyons on his return in 178. He was the first great Catholic theologian. Irenaeus wrote in Greek and two of his profound works survived in tact. His five-book treatise against the heresy of Gnosticism constitutes an invaluable source of information on Church Christ established from its beginnings to the end of the second century. His work also conveys the apostolic tradition in it and is a powerful testimony to the primacy of the Pope.