the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged
also, and becoming an example to them likewise. Then, at last, He came on to death itself,
that He might be “the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-
eminence,”488 the Prince of life,489 existing before all, and going before all.490
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,”491 when He
came to receive baptism); and, [according to these men,] He preached only one year reck-
oning from His baptism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a
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young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage
of early life embraces thirty years,492 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.493 And he remained
488 Col. i. 18.
489 Acts iii. 15.
490 [That our Lord was prematurely old may be inferred from the text which Irenæus regards as proof that
he literally lived to be old. St. John viii. 56, 57; comp. Isa. liii. 2.]
491 Luke iii. 23.
492 The Latin text of this clause is, “Quia autem triginta annorum ætas prima indolis est juvenis” —words
which it seems almost impossible to translate. Grabe regarded “indolis” as being in the nominative, while Mas-
suet 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: Ὃτι δὲ ἡ τῶν
τριάκοντα ἐτῶν ἡλικία ἡ πρώτη τῆς διαθέσεώς ἐστι νέας— 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.
493 With respect to this extraordinary assertion of Irenæus, 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 Irenæus 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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Chapter XXII.—The thirty Æons are not typified by the fact that Christ was…