Translation
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Against Heresies
5.
They, however, that they may establish their false opinion regarding that which is written, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," maintain that He preached for one year only, and then suffered in the twelfth month. [In speaking thus,] they are forgetful to their own disadvantage, destroying His whole work, and robbing Him of that age which is both more necessary and more honourable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a teacher He excelled all others. For how could He have had disciples, if He did not teach?
And how could He have taught, unless He had reached the age of a Master? For when He came to be baptized, He had not yet completed His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed it: "Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old," 1 when He came to receive baptism); and, [according to these men,] He preached only one year reckoning from His baptism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, 2 and that this extends onwards to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord, [affirming] that John conveyed to them that information. 3 And he remained among them up to the times of Trajan. 4 Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also, and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the [validity of] the statement. Whom then should we rather believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles, and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle?
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Luke iii. 23. ↩
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The Latin text of this clause is, "Quia autem triginta annorum aetas prima indolis est juvenis" --words which it seems almost impossible to translate. Grabe regarded "indolis" as being in the nominative, while Massuet contends it is in the genitive case; and so regarding it, we might translate, "Now that the age of thirty is the first age of the mind of youth," etc. But Harvey re-translates the clause into Greek as follows: Hoti de he ton triakonta eton helikia he prote tes diatheseos esti neas-- words which we have endeavoured to render as above. The meaning clearly is, that the age of thirty marked the transition point from youth to maturity. ↩
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With respect to this extraordinary assertion of Irenaeus, Harvey remarks: "The reader may here perceive the unsatisfactory character of tradition, where a mere fact is concerned. From reasonings founded upon the evangelical history, as well as from a preponderance of external testimony, it is most certain that our Lord's ministry extended but little over three years; yet here Irenaeus states that it included more than ten years, and appeals to a tradition derived, as he says, from those who had conversed with an apostle" ↩
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Trajan's reign commenced a.d. 98, and St. John is said to have lived to the age of a hundred years. ↩
Translation
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Gegen die Häresien (BKV)
5.
Um aber ihre Phantasterei in betreff des „Gnadenjahres des Herrn“ zu bestätigen, sagen sie, er habe nur ein Jahr gepredigt und im zwölften Monat gelitten. So vergessen sie ihre eigne Lehre, der Mensch müsse alles durchmachen und streichen aus seinem Leben das notwendigste und ehrenvollste Alter, jenes nämlich, in dem er als Lehrer allen voranleuchtete. Wie soll er denn Schüler haben, wenn er nicht gelehrt hat? Denn als er zur Taufe kam, hatte er die Dreißig noch nicht vollendet, so nämlich gibt Lukas seine Jahre an, indem er schreibt: „Jesus aber war ungefähr ins dreißigste Jahr gehend“1 . Nach der Taufe hat er nur noch ein Jahr gepredigt und gelitten, nachdem er das dreißigste Jahr vollendet hatte? Damals war er erst ein S. 163Jüngling, der das Alter der Reife noch nicht erreicht hatte. Allgemein aber gilt das dreißigste Jahr erst als der Anfang der Reife, die sich bis in das vierzigste Jahr erstreckt. Vom vierzigsten bis zum fünfzigsten Jahr reicht das Alter der Vollendung, welches unser Herr hatte, als er lehrte. Das bezeugen das Evangelium und die Priester in Kleinasien, die es so von Johannes, dem Schüler des Herrn, empfangen haben. Dieser aber blieb mit ihnen zusammen bis zu den Zeiten Trajans. Manche aber von ihnen haben nicht nur Johannes, sondern auch andere Apostel gesehen und dieses ebenso von ihnen empfangen und sind dafür Zeugen. Wem soll man nun mehr glauben? Ihnen oder dem Ptolemäus, der die Apostel niemals gesehen hat, ja nicht im Traume einmal zu den Füßen eines Apostels gesessen hat?
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Lk. 3,23 ↩