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Works Irenaeus of Lyon (130-202) Contra Haereses Against Heresies
Against Heresies: Book II
Chapter VI.--The angels and the Creator of the world could not have been ignorant of the Supreme God.

1.

How, again, could either the angels, or the Creator of the world, have been ignorant of the Supreme God, seeing they were His property, and His creatures, and were contained by Him? He might indeed have been invisible to them on account of His superiority, but He could by no means have been unknown to them on account of His providence. For though it is true, as they declare, that they were very far separated from Him through their inferiority [of nature], yet, as His dominion extended over all of them, it behoved them to know their Ruler, and to be aware of this in particular, that He who created them is Lord of all. For since His invisible essence is mighty, it confers on all a profound mental intuition and perception of His most powerful, yea, omnipotent greatness. Wherefore, although "no one knows the Father, except the Son, nor the Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal Him," 1 yet all [beings] do know this one fact at least, because reason, implanted in their minds, moves them, and reveals to them [the truth] that there is one God, the Lord of all.


  1. Matt. xi. 27.  ↩

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Against Heresies
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Introductory Note to Irenaeus Against Heresies

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Faculty of Theology, Patristics and History of the Early Church
Miséricorde, Av. Europe 20, CH 1700 Fribourg

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