Scott Moringiello: “The Pneumatikos as Scriptural Authority: Irenaeus’s reading of 1 Cor. 2:15”

Toward the end of book four of the Adversus Haereses, Irenaeus offers a sustained exegesis of 1 Cor. 2:15 where Paul says that the spiritual man – the pneumatikos – judges all and is himself judged by no one. In AH IV.33 we find, I shall argue, two things. First the chapter is a précis of Ireaneus’s argument of the AH as a whole. Second, Irenaeus’s exegesis of 1 Cor. 2:15 points to a central argument of the AH, namely that the true disciple of Christ is the one who interprets scripture correctly. In fact, we could go so far as to say that the true disciple becomes an alter Christus who is like Christ because he can judge. My argument will proceed in three stages. First, I will flag those parts of 1 Cor. 2 particularly important to Irenaeus’s argument. Second, I will point to the Tripartite Tractate, a Valentinian text that represents the kind of exegesis of f 1 Cor. 2:15 that Irenaeus finds objectionable. After these two discussions, I will turn to the AH IV.33, where Irenaeus offers his own exegesis of 1 Cor. 2:15.