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The aim of this article is to show how Irenaeus incorporates patience into the economy of salvation, both in his understanding of the mission of the incarnate Son and in the life of the church. Haste, I argue, is at the root of sin for Irenaeus, while waiting is, in a certain sense, sin's countermeasure. In addition, I show that waiting never truly comes to an end for Irenaeus. It is the proper disposition of the human being with regard to God from the moment of creation to his or her full incorporation into the divine life.
According to Irenaeus, the fall is a mistake about means more than ends. Though God has always intended to give human beings a share in the divine nature, it is necessary for them to become accustomed to bearing it over time. Instead, they forfeit this opportunity by trying to become gods too quickly. They try to take what can only be given, to grasp what can only be graciously bestowed on them. In so doing, they commit a "solecism against the grammar of being," to use a phrase of C. S. Lewis.1 In other words, in their effort to take the divine life early, human beings render themselves unfit for participattion in it, because the disine life is essentially only receivable. It proves elusive to all clutching, clinging, and clasping.
This graspingness is the fundamental problem in the way human beings comport themselves in relation to God. Though they have an original capacity to be incorporated into the divine life, they lose it through their impatience, what I call the "haste of sin." Not wanting to be raised into it gradually, they try to achieve finality on their own, to engraft themselves into it forcibly. This desire to arrive at the end quickly leaves them ill-disposed to partake of the glory of God. They want to close down when their proper activity is to be opened up; they want to be done with watching and waiting when participation in divine life involves holding out for an ever greater enrichment of one's being. In short, through their bid for divinity, human beings lose the very disposition that would enable them to receive the growth God intends to...