Folia Theologica et Canonica 11. 33/25 (2022)
Sacra theologia
DIVES IN OMNIBUS DEUS: UNE INTERPRETATION PLURIELLE... 41 élus avec le Christ. De plus amples recherches pourront nous aider á mieux cemer la spécificité théologique de la Parousie du Christ. « Viens, Seigneur Jésus ! » Abstract Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, proclaimed Doctor of the Church on January 21th 2022, is a rich author. Without a doubt, he participates in this richness of God that he likes to praise in a recurrent way in his work: «God is rich in all things». Irenaeus uses this expression at the end of his masterpiece, Against the Heresies, when he exposes another view than his own on the thousand-year reign. He thinks that Isaiah ’s prophecies about the taming of the beasts at the end of salvation history can be understood both allegorically and literally. In other words, it means that God can have several possible points of view, one of which does not preclude the other. God is large. He goes infinitely beyond our sometimes too narrow theological conceptions. God ’s theology is broader than the theology by men. The Irenean doctrine of the Antichrist is not exempt from this broad view. The works of Irenaeus of Lyons were lost for at least a thousand years. The great Medieval theological syntheses were done without him. The main difficulty with the reception of Irenaeus so far has been his particular eschatology. He believed in a «reign of the righteous» that was still earthly at the time of Christ ’s parousia. The whole end of the Adversus haereses is permeated by this doctrine. We have discovered echoes between this short passage in Book III and the eschatological end of Book V, which invite us to consider the unity of the Irenean work as well demonstrated. It seems that neither the theology of the Antichrist, nor that of the reign of the righteous, is a later addition to a totality that could do without them. There are too many possible connections between III 23:7 and V25-36 to discredit the doctrines of the Antichrist and the millennium in the Adversus haereses. Both have a real place in the theology of the Doctor of Unity. Cyril Pasquier cyrilpasquier29@gmail. com
