ACC ~ John 8 v57

WAS CHRIST FIFTY YEARS OLD?

IRENAEUS: They answered him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Now, such language is fittingly applied to one who has already passed the age of forty without having as yet reached his fiftieth year, although not far from it. But to one who is only thirty years old it would unquestionably be said, “You are not yet forty years old.” For those who wanted to convict him of lying would certainly not extend the number of his years far beyond the age that they saw he had attained. Rather, they would mention a period closer to his real age—whether they had truly ascertained this out of the entry in the public register or simply made a conjecture from what they observed, that is, that he was above forty years old and that he certainly was not only thirty years of age. For it is altogether unreasonable to suppose that they were mistaken by twenty years when they wanted to prove that he was too young to exist at the time of Abraham. For what they saw they also expressed. And the person they saw was not a mere phantasm but an actual being [1] of flesh and blood. He did not then look much less than fifty years old, and because of this they said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” [2] AGAINST HERESIES 2.22.6. [3]

[1] Sed veritas—literally,“but the truth.”

[2] Irenaeus is alone in this interpretation, although Chrysostom reflects a narrow textual tradition that Christ was nearly forty when these words were spoken (see Homily 55.2; NPNF 1 14:198-99). Irenaeus’s argument is largely shaped by his opposition to the Gnostic idea that there were thirty aeons corresponding to the thirty years of Christ’s life.

[3] ANF 1:392.

Jn