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Works Irenaeus of Lyon (130-202) Contra Haereses Against Heresies
Against Heresies: Book IV
Chapter XXXVII.--Men are possessed of free will, and endowed with the faculty of making a choice. It is not true, therefore, that some are by nature good, and others bad.

3.

For this reason the Lord also said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." 1 And, "Take heed to yourselves, lest perchance your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and worldly cares." 2 And, "Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning, and ye like unto men that wait for their Lord, when He returns from the wedding, that when He cometh and knocketh, they may open to Him. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing." 3 And again, "The servant who knows his Lord's will, and does it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." 4 And, "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" 5 And again, "But if the servant say in his heart, The Lord delayeth, and begin to beat his fellow-servants, and to eat, and drink, and to be drunken, his Lord will come in a day on which he does not expect Him, and shall cut him in sunder, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites." 6 All such passages demonstrate the independent will 7 of man, and at the same time the counsel which God conveys to him, by which He exhorts us to submit ourselves to Him, and seeks to turn us away from [the sin of] unbelief against Him, without, however, in any way coercing us.


  1. Matt. v. 16.  ↩

  2. Luke xxi. 34.  ↩

  3. Luke xii. 35, 36.  ↩

  4. Luke xii. 47.  ↩

  5. Luke vi. 46.  ↩

  6. Luke xii. 45, 46; Matt. xxiv. 48-51.  ↩

  7. to autexousion.  ↩

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Against Heresies
Gegen die Häresien (BKV) Compare
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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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