Irenaeus, Jesus & the Hour - Answers For Christ

Orginally by Sam Shamoun

Some anti-Trinitarians and/or subordinationists like to use St. Irenaeus’ statements in his refutation to the Gnostics where he states that not even the Son knew the hour to prove that this holy bishop did not affirm the Trinity. They argue that his words show that he was at the very least a subordinationist who did not hold to the full divinity of the Son, or his essential coequality with the Father.

However, when we read what Irenaeus wrote in context a whole different picture emerges:

4. For consider, all you who invent such opinions, since the Father Himself is alone called God, who has a real existence, but whom you style the Demiurge; since, moreover, the Scriptures acknowledge Him alone as God; and yet again, since the Lord confesses Him alone as His own Father, and knows no other, as I shall show from His very words, — when you style this very Being the fruit of defect, and the offspring of ignorance, and describe Him as being ignorant of those things which are above Him, with the various other allegations which you make regarding Him — consider the terrible blasphemy [you are thus guilty of] against Him who truly is God. You seem to affirm gravely and honestly enough that you believe in God; but then, as you are utterly unable to reveal any other God, you declare this very Being in whom you profess to believe, the fruit of defect and the offspring of ignorance. Now this blindness and foolish talking flow to you from the fact that you reserve nothing for God, but you wish to proclaim the nativity and production both of God Himself, of His Ennœa, of His Logos, and Life, and Christ; and you form the idea of these from no other than a mere human experience; not understanding, as I said before, that it is possible, in the case of man, who is a compound being, to speak in this way of the mind of man and the thought of man; and to say that thought (ennœa) springs from mind (sensus), intention (enthymesis) again from thought, and word (logos) from intention (but which logos? for there is among the Greeks one logos which is the principle that thinks, and another which is the instrument by means of which thought is expressed); and [to say] that a man sometimes is at rest and silent, while at other times he speaks and is active. But since God is all mind, all reason, all active spirit, all light, and always exists one and the same, as it is both beneficial for us to think of God, and as we learn regarding Him from the Scriptures, such feelings and divisions [of operation] cannot fittingly be ascribed to Him. For our tongue, as being carnal, is not sufficient to minister to the rapidity of the human mind, inasmuch as that is of a spiritual nature, for which reason our word is restrained within us, and is not at once expressed as it has been conceived by the mind, but is uttered by successive efforts, just as the tongue is able to serve it.

5. But God being all Mind, and all Logos, both speaks exactly what He thinks, and thinks exactly what He speaks. For His thought is Logos, and Logos is Mind, and Mind comprehending all things is the Father Himself. He, therefore, who speaks of the mind of God, and ascribes to it a special origin of its own, declares Him a compound Being, as if God were one thing, and the original Mind another. So, again, with respect to Logos, when one attributes to him the third place of production from the Father; on which supposition he is ignorant of His greatness; and thus Logos has been far separated from God. As for the prophet, he declares respecting Him, Who shall describe His generation? Isaiah 53:8 But you pretend to set forth His generation from the Father, and you transfer the production of the word of men which takes place by means of a tongue to the Word of God, and thus are righteously exposed by your own selves as knowing neither things human nor divine.

6. But, beyond reason inflated [with your own wisdom], you presumptuously maintain that you are acquainted with the unspeakable mysteries of God; while even the Lord, the very Son of God, allowed that the Father alone knows the very day and hour of judgment, when He plainly declares, But of that day and that hour knows no man, neither the Son, but the Father only. If, then, the Son was not ashamed to ascribe the knowledge of that day to the Father only, but declared what was true regarding the matter, neither let us be ashamed to reserve for God those greater questions which may occur to us. For no man is superior to his master. Matthew 10:24; Luke 11:40 If any one, therefore, says to us, How then was the Son produced by the Father? we reply to him, that no man understands that production, or generation, or calling, or revelation, or by whatever name one may describe His generation, which is in fact altogether indescribable. Neither Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor Saturninus, nor Basilides, nor angels, nor archangels, nor principalities, nor powers [possess this knowledge], but the Father only who begot, and the Son who was begotten. Since therefore His generation is unspeakable, those who strive to set forth generations and productions cannot be in their right mind, inasmuch as they undertake to describe things which are indescribable. For that a word is uttered at the bidding of thought and mind, all men indeed well understand. Those, therefore, who have excogitated [the theory of] emissions have not discovered anything great, or revealed any abstruse mystery, when they have simply transferred what all understand to the only-begotten Word of God; and while they style Him unspeakable and unnameable, they nevertheless set forth the production and formation of His first generation, as if they themselves had assisted at His birth, thus assimilating Him to the word of mankind formed by emissions.

7. But we shall not be wrong if we affirm the same thing also concerning the substance of matter, that God produced it. For we have learned from the Scriptures that God holds the supremacy over all things. But whence or in what way He produced it, neither has Scripture anywhere declared; nor does it become us to conjecture, so as, in accordance with our own opinions, to form endless conjectures concerning God, but we should leave such knowledge in the hands of God Himself. In like manner, also, we must leave the cause why, while all things were made by God, certain of His creatures sinned and revolted from a state of submission to God, and others, indeed the great majority, persevered, and do still persevere, in [willing] subjection to Him who formed them, and also of what nature those are who sinned, and of what nature those who persevere — [we must, I say, leave the cause of these things] to God and His Word, to whom alone He said, Sit at my right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool. But as for us, we still dwell upon the earth, and have not yet sat down upon His throne. For although the Spirit of the Saviour that is in Him searches all things, even the deep things of God, 1 Corinthians 2:10 yet as to us there are diversities of gifts, differences of administrations, and diversities of operations; and we, while upon the earth, as Paul also declares, know in part, and prophesy in part. 1 Corinthians 13:9 Since, therefore, we know but in part, we ought to leave all sorts of [difficult] questions in the hands of Him who in some measure, [and that only,] bestows grace on us. That eternal fire, [for instance,] is prepared for sinners, both the Lord has plainly declared, and the rest of the Scriptures demonstrate. And that God foreknew that this would happen, the Scriptures do in like manner demonstrate, since He prepared eternal fire from the beginning for those who were [afterwards] to transgress [His commandments]; but the cause itself of the nature of such transgressors neither has any Scripture informed us, nor has an apostle told us, nor has the Lord taught us. It becomes us, therefore, to leave the knowledge of this matter to God, even as the Lord does of the day and hour [of judgment], and not to rush to such an extreme of danger, that we will leave nothing in the hands of God, even though we have received only a measure of grace [from Him in this world]. But when we investigate points which are above us, and with respect to which we cannot reach satisfaction, [it is absurd ] that we should display such an extreme of presumption as to lay open God, and things which are not yet discovered, as if already we had found out, by the vain talk about emissions, God Himself, the Creator of all things, and to assert that He derived His substance from apostasy and ignorance, so as to frame an impious hypothesis in opposition to God.

8. Moreover, they possess no proof of their system, which has but recently been invented by them, sometimes resting upon certain numbers, sometimes on syllables, and sometimes, again, on names; and there are occasions, too, when, by means of those letters which are contained in letters, by parables not properly interpreted, or by certain [baseless] conjectures, they strive to establish that fabulous account which they have devised. For if any one should inquire the reason why the Father, who has fellowship with the Son in all things, has been declared by the Lord alone to know the hour and the day [of judgment], he will find at present no more suitable, or becoming, or safe reason than this (since, indeed, the Lord is the only true Master), that we may learn through Him that the Father is above all things. For the Father, says He, is greater than I. John 14:28 The Father, therefore, has been declared by our Lord to excel with respect to knowledge; for this reason, that we, too, as long as we are connected with the scheme of things in this world, should leave perfect knowledge, and such questions [as have been mentioned], to God, and should not by any chance, while we seek to investigate the sublime nature of the Father, fall into the danger of starting the question whether there is another God above God. (Against Heresies, Book II, Chapter 28 Perfect knowledge cannot be attained in the present life: many questions must be submissively left in the hands of God)

In context, Irenaeus is using Jesus’ statements to expose the Gnostic heretics for thinking that they have some sort of supernatural knowledge to comprehend the unspeakable mysteries of God, when even the Son himself did not reveal things such as the day or hour to his followers.

The point that the saint is making is that if the Son humbled himself not to know the hour but deferred it to his Father, by virtue of the Father being greater than he was during his time on earth, then all the more so should believers leave such matters to God and not inquire into them.

That the blessed Irenaeus wasn’t addressing or even denying that the Son was still omniscient by virtue of being the Divine Logos is made clear by what he himself writes in this very same context.

Irenaeus expressly states that Jesus has fellowship with the Father in all, not some, things, which includes knowledge of God. He even says as much when he states that the Logos is God’s mind which comprehends all things, and then identifies Jesus as that Logos.

If we follow the logic (pun intended) of his statement then it is pretty clear that the holy martyr believed that the Lord Jesus comprehends everything, and is therefore omniscient:

God’s thought is his Logos (Word).
- Against Heresies II.28.5: “His thought is Logos…”
God’s Logos is God’s Mind, which comprehends all things.
- Against Heresies II.28.5: “Logos is Mind, and Mind comprehending all things is the Father Himself.”
Therefore, God’s Logos comprehends all things.
- Logical consequence of II.28.5 (Logos = Mind; Mind comprehends all things).
Jesus is that very Logos who became a human being.
- Implied in II.28; explicit in I.9.2; III.18.1; III.19.3; IV.20.3 (“the Word of God made flesh”).
Therefore, Jesus as the Divine Logos comprehends all things such as the day and hour of his return.
- Based on II.28.5 + II.28.6–8, where Irenaeus explains the Son’s “ignorance” statement economically, not ontologically.

The interpretation offered here is confirmed by what this beloved saint wrote elsewhere in respect to Matthew 11:27/Luke 10:22:

1. For the Lord, revealing Himself to His disciples, that He Himself is the Word, who imparts knowledge of the Father, and reproving the Jews, who imagined that they, had [the knowledge of] God, while they nevertheless rejected His Word, through whom God is made known, declared, No man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him]. Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22 Thus has Matthew set it down, and Luke in like manner, and Mark the very same; for John omits this passage. They, however, who would be wiser than the apostles, write [the verse] in the following manner: No man knew the Father, but the Son; nor the Son, but the Father, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him]; and they explain it as if the true God were known to none prior to our Lord’s advent; and that God who was announced by the prophets, they allege not to be the Father of Christ.

2. But if Christ did then [only] begin to have existence when He came [into the world] as man, and [if] the Father did remember [only] in the times of Tiberius Cæsar to provide for [the wants of] men, and His Word was shown to have not always coexisted with His creatures; [it may be remarked that] neither then was it necessary that another God should be proclaimed, but [rather] that the reasons for so great carelessness and neglect on His part should be made the subject of investigation. For it is fitting that no such question should arise, and gather such strength, that it would indeed both change God, and destroy our faith in that Creator who supports us by means of His creation. For as we do direct our faith towards the Son, so also should we possess a firm and immoveable love towards the Father. In his book against Marcion, Justin does well say: I would not have believed the Lord Himself, if He had announced any other than He who is our framer, maker, and nourisher. But because the only-begotten Son came to us from the one God, who both made this world and formed us, and contains and administers all things, summing up His own handiwork in Himself, my faith towards Him is steadfast, and my love to the Father immoveable, God bestowing both upon us.

3. For no one can know the Father, unless through the Word of God, that is, unless by the Son revealing [Him]; neither can he have knowledge of the Son, unless through the good pleasure of the Father. But the Son performs the good pleasure of the Father; for the Father sends, and the Son is sent, and comes. And His Word knows that His Father is, as far as regards us, invisible and infinite; and since He cannot be declared [by any one else], He does Himself declare Him to us; and, on the other hand, it is the Father ALONE who knows His own Word. And both these truths has our Lord declared. Wherefore the Son reveals the knowledge of the Father through His own manifestation. For the manifestation of the Son IS THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FATHER; for ALL THINGS are manifested through the Word. In order, therefore, that we might know that the Son who came is He who imparts to those believing on Him a knowledge of the Father, He said to His disciples: No man knows the Son but the Father, nor the Father but the Son, and those to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him; thus setting Himself forth and the Father as He [really] is, that we may not receive any other Father, except Him who is revealed by the Son.

4. But this [Father] is the Maker of heaven and earth, as is shown from His words; and not he, the false father, who has been invented by Marcion, or by Valentinus, or by Basilides, or by Carpocrates, or by Simon, or by the rest of the Gnostics, falsely so called. For none of these was the Son of God; but Christ Jesus our Lord [was], against whom they set their teaching in opposition, and have the daring to preach an unknown God. But they ought to hear [this] against themselves: How is it that He is unknown, who is known by them? For, whatever is known even by a few, is not unknown. But the Lord did not say that both the Father and the Son could not be known at all (in totum), for in that case His advent would have been superfluous. For why did He come hither? Was it that He should say to us, Never mind seeking after God; for He is unknown, and you shall not find Him; as also the disciples of Valentinus falsely declare that Christ said to their Æons? But this is indeed vain. For the Lord taught us that no man is capable of knowing God, UNLESS HE BE TAUGHT BY GOD; that is, THAT GOD CANNOT BE KNOWN WITHOUT GOD: but that this is the express will of the Father, that God should be known. For they shall know Him to whomsoever the Son has revealed Him.

5. And for this purpose did the Father reveal the Son, that through His instrumentality He might be manifested to all, and might receive those righteous ones who believe in Him into incorruption and everlasting enjoyment (now, to believe in Him is to do His will); but He shall righteously shut out into the darkness which they have chosen for themselves, those who do not believe, and who do consequently avoid His light. The Father therefore has revealed Himself to all, by making His Word visible to all; and, conversely, the Word has declared to all the Father and the Son, since He has become visible to all. And therefore the righteous judgment of God [shall fall] upon all who, like others, have seen, but have not, like others, believed.

6. For by means of the creation itself, the Word reveals God the Creator; and by means of the world [does He declare] the Lord the Maker of the world; and by means of the formation [of man] the Artificer who formed him; and by the Son that Father who begot the Son: and these things do indeed address all men in the same manner, but all do not in the same way believe them. But by the law and the prophets did the Word preach both Himself and the Father alike [to all]; and all the people heard Him alike, but all did not alike believe. And through the Word Himself who had been made visible and palpable, was the Father shown forth, although all did not equally believe in Him; but all saw the Father in the Son: for the Father is the invisible of the Son, but the Son the visible of the Father. And for this reason ALL SPOKE WITH CHRIST when He was present [upon earth], AND THEY NAMED HIM GOD. Yea, even the demons exclaimed, on beholding the Son: We know You who You are, the Holy One of God. Mark 1:24 And the devil looking at Him, and tempting Him, said: If You are the Son of God; Matthew 4:3; Luke 4:3 — all thus indeed seeing and speaking of the Son and the Father, but all not believing [in them].

7. For it was fitting that the truth should receive testimony from all, and should become [a means of] judgment for the salvation indeed of those who believe, but for the condemnation of those who believe not; that all should be fairly judged, and that the faith in the Father and Son should be approved by all, that is, that it should be established by all [as the one means of salvation], receiving testimony from all, both from those belonging to it, since they are its friends, and by those having no connection with it, though they are its enemies. For that evidence is true, and cannot be gainsaid, which elicits even from its adversaries striking testimonies in its behalf; they being convinced with respect to the matter in hand by their own plain contemplation of it, and bearing testimony to it, as well as declaring it. But after a while they break forth into enmity, and become accusers [of what they had approved], and are desirous that their own testimony should not be [regarded as] true. He, therefore, who was known, was not a different being from Him who declared No man knows the Father, but one and the same, the Father making all things subject to Him; while He received testimony from all that He was very man, and that He was very God, from the Father, from the Spirit, from angels, from the creation itself, from men, from apostate spirits and demons, from the enemy, and last of all, from death itself. But the Son, administering all things for the Father, works from the beginning even to the end, and without Him no man can attain the knowledge of God. For the Son is the knowledge of the Father; but the knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and has been revealed through the Son; and this was the reason why the Lord declared: No man knows the Son, but the Father; nor the Father, save the Son, and those to whomsoever the Son shall reveal [Him]. For shall reveal was said not with reference to the future alone, as if then [only] the Word had begun to manifest the Father when He was born of Mary, but it applies indifferently throughout all time. For the Son, being present with His own handiwork from the beginning, reveals the Father to all; to whom He wills, and when He wills, and as the Father wills. Wherefore, then, in all things, and through all things, there is one God, the Father, and one Word, and one Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation to all who believe in Him. (Ibid., Book IV, Chapter 6 Explanation of the words of Christ, “No man knows the Father, but the Son,” etc.; which words the heretics misinterpret. proof that, by the Father revealing the Son, and by the Son being revealed, the Father was never unknown.)

Irenaeus uses Matthew 11:27/Luke 10:22 to argue that the Son must have been the One who has been revealing God to mankind from the beginning of creation. The reason this must be the case is that the Son alone comprehends the Father in the same way that the Father alone comprehends the Son, which is why the Father has been sending the Son to manifest God’s knowledge to human beings.

Irenaeus intends to prove from this that it was the Word who spoke to/through the patriarchs and prophets of the Hebrew Bible, since they would not have known God apart from the revelation of the Son.

This is not the only place where the blessed saint says that it was Christ whom the OT saints saw appearing as YHWH their God, since they would not be able to intimately know God without him:

1. For in no other way could we have learned the things of God, unless our Master, existing as the Word, had become man. For no other being had the power of revealing to us the things of the Father, except His own proper Word. For what other person knew the mind of the Lord, or who else has become His counsellor? Romans 11:34 Again, we could have learned in no other way than by seeing our Teacher, and hearing His voice with our own ears, that, having become imitators of His works as well as doers of His words, we may have communion with Him, receiving increase from the perfect One, and from Him who IS PRIOR TO ALL CREATION. We — who were but lately created by the only best and good Being, by Him also who has the gift of immortality, having been formed after His likeness (predestinated, according to the prescience of the Father, that we, who had as yet no existence, might come into being), and made the first-fruits of creation — have received, in the times known beforehand, [the blessings of salvation] according to the ministration of the Word, who is perfect in all things, as the mighty Word, and very man, who, redeeming us by His own blood in a manner consonant to reason, gave Himself as a redemption for those who had been led into captivity. And since the apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly, and, though we were by nature the property of the omnipotent God, alienated us contrary to nature, rendering us its own disciples, the Word of God, powerful in all things, and not defective with regard to His own justice, did righteously turn against that apostasy, and redeem from it His own property, not by violent means, as the [apostasy] had obtained dominion over us at the beginning, when it insatiably snatched away what was not its own, but by means of persuasion, as became a God of counsel, who does not use violent means to obtain what He desires; so that neither should justice be infringed upon, nor the ancient handiwork of God go to destruction. Since the Lord thus has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh, and has also poured out the Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man, imparting indeed God to men by means of the Spirit, and, on the other hand, attaching man to God by His own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at His coming immortality durably and truly, by means of communion with God — all the doctrines of the heretics fall to ruin. (Ibid., Book V, Chapter 1 Christ alone is able to teach Divine things, and to redeem us: He, the same, took flesh of the Virgin Mary, not merely in appearance, but actually, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, in order to renovate us. strictures on the conceits of Valentinus and Ebion.)

And:

1. Therefore neither would the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named as God, definitely and absolutely, him who was not God, unless he were truly God; nor would they have named any one in his own person Lord, except God the Father ruling over all, and His Son who has received dominion from His Father over all creation, as this passage has it: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool. Here the [Scripture] represents to us the Father addressing the Son; He who gave Him the inheritance of the heathen, and subjected to Him all His enemies. Since, therefore, the Father is truly Lord, and the Son truly Lord, the Holy Spirit has fitly designated them by the title of Lord. And again, referring to the destruction of the Sodomites, the Scripture says, Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrha fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven. Genesis 19:24 For it here points out that the Son, who had also been talking with Abraham, had received power to judge the Sodomites for their wickedness. And this [text following] does declare the same truth: Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Your kingdom is a right sceptre. You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, Your God, has anointed You. For the Spirit designates both [of them] by the name, of God — both Him who is anointed as Son, and Him who does anoint, that is, the Father. And again: God stood in the congregation of the gods, He judges among the gods. He [here] refers to the Father and the Son, and those who have received the adoption; but these are the Church. For she is the synagogue of God, which God— that is, the Son Himself — has gathered by Himself. Of whom He again speaks: The God of gods, the Lord has spoken, and has called the earth. Who is meant by God? He of whom He has said, God shall come openly, our God, and shall not keep silence; that is, the Son, who came manifested to men who said, I have openly appeared to those who seek Me not. Isaiah 65:1 But of what gods [does he speak]? [Of those] to whom He says, I have said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High. To those, no doubt, who have received the grace of the adoption, by which we cry, Abba Father. Romans 8:15

2. Wherefore, as I have already stated, no other is named as God, or is called Lord, except Him who is God and Lord of all, who also said to Moses, I am that I am. And thus shall you say to the children of Israel: He who is, has sent me unto you; Exodus 3:14 and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes those that believe in His name the sons of God. And again, when the Son speaks to Moses, He says, I have come down to deliver this people. Exodus 3:8 For it is He who descended and ascended for the salvation of men. Therefore God has been declared through the Son, who is in the Father, and has the Father in Himself — He who is, the Father bearing witness to the Son, and the Son announcing the Father.— As also Esaias says, I too am witness, he declares, says the Lord God, and the Son whom I have chosen, that you may know, and believe, and understand that I am. Isaiah 43:10…

4. Wherefore I do also call upon you, Lord God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob and Israel, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who, through the abundance of Your mercy, has had a favour towards us, that we should know You, who has made heaven and earth, who rule over all, who is the only and the true God, above whom there is none other God; grant, by our Lord Jesus Christ, the governing power of the Holy Spirit; give to every reader of this book to know You, that You are God alone, to be strengthened in You, and to avoid every heretical, and godless, and impious doctrine. (Ibid., Book III, Chapter 6 The Holy Ghost, throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, made mention of no other God or Lord, save him who is the true God; emphasis mine)

Irenaeus’ repeated emphasis of this fact was meant to refute the Gnostic heretics who were misusing Jesus’ statements in Matthew 11:27/Luke 10:22 to prove that the God of the Old Testament cannot be the same God revealed in Christ.

The aforementioned statements from this holy martyr indicate that Irenaeus was aware that the Son must be omniscient since this reciprocity of intimate knowledge between the Father and the Son demands it. After all, our Lord’s words that no one is able to know him except the Father, and none are capable of knowing the Father except he himself, imply that both the Father and he are incomprehensible and omniscient.

The point Christ is making is that only an omniscient and incomprehensible mind can comprehend the incomprehensible and omniscient God:

The Father and the Son cannot be known by creatures.
This is because both the Father and the Son are incomprehensible and immeasurable.
The Father and the Son are known only to and by each other.
This shows that the Son, like the Father, is omniscient and incomprehensible.
This is because only an infinite, immeasurable Being can know and only be known by another incomprehensible Being.
Yet there is only one such infinite, immeasurable, incomprehensible Being.
Therefore, both the Father and the Son must be this same divine Being, even though they are not the same identical Self or Person.
This demonstrates that both the Father and the Son possess the exact same omniscience and are, therefore, able of comprehending all things, even each other.
This explains the reason for the Father sending his omniscient and incomprehensible Son to reveal God’s nature to his creatures, since the Son alone is qualified to do so.
Moreover, a part of the Father’s knowledge is his awareness of the day and hour.
Since the Son comprehends all that the Father knows, in the same way that the Father comprehends him, this means that the Son must have knowledge of the day and hour.

This is precisely why Irenaeus plainly expressed that only God can reveal and teach about God to others. Note his words again:

“For the Lord taught us that no man is capable of knowing God, unless he be taught of God; that is, that God cannot be known without God: but that this is the express will of the Father, that God should be known. For they shall know Him to whomsoever the Son has revealed Him.”

And the fact that Irenaeus appeals to a verse where our Lord affirms that even on earth he possessed full comprehension of the Father to the same extent that the Father comprehends him, simply reinforces my case that the beloved bishop would have understand that Christ was still perfectly omniscient during his earthly sojourn.

As if this weren’t explicit enough to establish my case, notice what the blessed saint wrote elsewhere:

2. Since, then, the law originated with Moses, it terminated with John as a necessary consequence. Christ had come to fulfil it: wherefore the law and the prophets were with them until John. Luke 16:16 And therefore Jerusalem, taking its commencement from David, and fulfilling its own times, must have an end of legislation when the new covenant was revealed. For God does all things by measure and in order; nothing is unmeasured with Him, because nothing is out of order. Well spoke he, who said that the unmeasurable Father was Himself subjected to measure in the Son; for the Son is the measure of the Father, since He also comprehends Him. But that the administration of them (the Jews) was temporary, Esaias says: And the daughter of Zion shall be left as a cottage in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. Isaiah 1:8 And when shall these things be left behind? Is it not when the fruit shall be taken away, and the leaves alone shall be left, which now have no power of producing fruit? (Ibid., Chapter 4 Answer to another objection, showing that the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the city of the great king, diminished nothing from the supreme majesty and power of God, for that this destruction was put in execution by the most wise counsel of the same God.)

Once again, the Son could only be the measure of the immeasurable Father and comprehend the incomprehensible God is if he himself is immeasurable and incomprehensible.

My analysis of St. Irenaeus’s words in the context in which he wrote provides no solace for those wishing to twist his statements in order to diminish the Deity of Christ.

This blessed saint and martyr of the Triune God did in fact believe, love and worship the Trinity. He was not an arian, semi-arian, unitarian, modalist heretic, etc., but was in fact a holy servant of the Triune God who lives. This is why he could write boldly that Jesus Christ is not God in a mere representational and/or function sense. Rather, the Son is truly Lord and God in his own right by virtue of being the uncreated Word of the Father who was begotten before the ages:

2. That John knew the one and the same Word of God, and that He was the only begotten, and that He became incarnate for our salvation, Jesus Christ our Lord, I have sufficiently proved from the word of John himself. And Matthew, too, recognising one and the same Jesus Christ, exhibiting his generation as a man from the Virgin, even as God did promise David that He would raise up from the fruit of his body an eternal King, having made the same promise to Abraham a long time previously, says: The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew 1:1 Then, that he might free our mind from suspicion regarding Joseph, he says: But the birth of Christ was on this wise. When His mother was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then, when Joseph had it in contemplation to put Mary away, since she proved with child, [Matthew tells us of] the angel of God standing by him, and saying: Fear not to take unto you Mary your wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins. Now this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which is, God with us; clearly signifying that both the promise made to the fathers had been accomplished, that the Son of God was born of a virgin, and that He Himself was Christ the Saviour whom the prophets had foretold; not, as these men assert, that Jesus was He who was born of Mary, but that Christ was He who descended from above. Matthew might certainly have said, Now the birth of Jesus was on this wise; but the Holy Ghost, foreseeing the corrupters [of the truth], and guarding by anticipation against their deceit, says by Matthew, But the birth of Christ was on this wise; and that He is Emmanuel, lest perchance we might consider Him as a mere man: for not by the will of the flesh nor by the will of man, but by the will of God was the Word made flesh; and that we should not imagine that Jesus was one, and Christ another, but should know them to be one and the same.

3. Paul, when writing to the Romans, has explained this very point: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, predestinated unto the Gospel of God, which He had promised by His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was made to Him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated the Son of God with power through the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 1:1-4 And again, writing to the Romans about Israel, he says: Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever. Romans 9:5 And again, in his Epistle to the Galatians, he says: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption; Galatians 4:4-5 plainly indicating one God, who did by the prophets make promise of the Son, and one Jesus Christ our Lord, who was of the seed of David according to His birth from Mary; and that Jesus Christ was appointed the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, as being the first begotten in all the creation; Colossians 1:14-15 the Son of God being made the Son of man, that through Him we may receive the adoption, — humanity sustaining, and receiving, and embracing the Son of God. Wherefore Mark also says: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets. Mark 1:1 Knowing one and the same Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was announced by the prophets, who from the fruit of David’s body was Emmanuel, the messenger of great counsel of the Father; through whom God caused the day-spring and the Just One to arise to the house of David, and raised up for him an horn of salvation, and established a testimony in Jacob; Luke 1:69 as David says when discoursing on the causes of His birth: And He appointed a law in Israel, that another generation might know [Him,] the children which should he born from these, and they arising shall themselves declare to their children, so that they might set their hope in God, and seek after His commandments. And again, the angel said, when bringing good tidings to Mary: He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David; Luke 1:32 acknowledging that He who is the Son of the Highest, the same is Himself also the Son of David. And David, knowing by the Spirit the dispensation of the advent of this Person, by which He is supreme over all the living and dead, confessed Him as Lord, sitting on the right hand of the Most High Father. (Ibid., Book III, Chapter 16 Proofs from the apostolic writings, that Jesus Christ was one and the same, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man)

2. For this reason [it is, said], Who shall declare His generation? Isaiah 53:8 since He is a man, and who shall recognise Him? Jeremiah 17:9 But he to whom the Father which is in heaven has revealed Him, Matthew 16:16 knows Him, so that he understands that He who was not born either by the will of the flesh, or by the will of man, John 1:13 is the Son of man, this is Christ, the Son of the living God. For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. But that He had, beyond all others, in Himself that pre-eminent birth which is from the Most High Father, and also experienced that pre-eminent generation which is from the Virgin, Isaiah 7:14 the divine Scriptures do in both respects testify of Him: also, that He was a man without comeliness, and liable to suffering; Isaiah 53:2 that He sat upon the foal of an ass; Zechariah 9:9 that He received for drink, vinegar and gall; that He was despised among the people, and humbled Himself even to death and that He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, Isaiah 9:6 coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men; Daniel 7:13 — all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him. (Ibid., Book III, Chapter 19 Jesus Christ was not a mere man, begotten from Joseph in the ordinary course of nature, but was true God, begotten of the Father Most High, and true man, born of the Virgin)