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Psalms

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Psalm 82

1 A psalm of Asaph. God stands in the assembly of El; in the midst of the gods he renders judgment.⁠ 2 He says, “How long will you make unjust legal decisions and show favoritism to the wicked?⁠ (Selah)⁠ 3 Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless. Vindicate the oppressed and suffering.⁠ 4 Rescue the poor and needy. Deliver them from the power of the wicked.⁠ 5 They neither know nor understand. They stumble around in the dark, while all the foundations of the earth crumble. 6 I thought, ‘You are gods; all of you are sons of the Most High.’⁠ 7 Yet you will die like mortals; you will fall like all the other rulers.” 8 Rise up, O God, and execute judgment on the earth! For you own all the nations.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 82:6 and Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.38.4

Hebrew Bible · Early Christian

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Summary

Psalm 82 calls the members of the divine council gods and sons of the Highest, saying they will die like mortals. Irenaeus quotes this to argue that humans were made first and gods later, with mortality highlighting how far they still had to grow.

Passages

Psalm 82:6

Hebrew Bible
3 Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless. Vindicate the oppressed and suffering. 4 Rescue the poor and needy. Deliver them from the power of the wicked. 5 They neither know nor understand. They stumble around in the dark, while all the foundations of the earth crumble. 6 I thought, ‘You are gods; all of you are sons of the Most High.’ 7 Yet you will die like mortals; you will fall like all the other rulers.”
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.38.4

Early Christian
4 Irrational, therefore, in every respect, are they who await not the time of increase, but ascribe to God the infirmity of their nature. Such persons know neither God nor themselves, being insatiable and ungrateful, unwilling to be at the outset what they have also been created — men subject to passions; but go beyond the law of the human race, and before that they become men, they wish to be even now like God their Creator, and they who are more destitute of reason than dumb animals [insist] that there is no distinction between the uncreated God and man, a creature of today. For these, [the dumb animals], bring no charge against God for not having made them men; but each one, just as he has been created, gives thanks that he has been created. For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness. He declares, I have said, You are gods; and you are all sons of the Highest. But since we could not sustain the power of divinity, He adds, But you shall die like men, setting forth both truths — the kindness of His free gift, and our weakness, and also that we were possessed of power over ourselves. For after His great kindness He graciously conferred good [upon us], and made men like to Himself, [that is] in their own power; while at the same time by His prescience He knew the infirmity of human beings, and the consequences which would flow from it; but through [His] love and [His] power, He shall overcome the substance of created nature. For it was necessary, at first, that nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of God, having received the knowledge of good and evil.
175–190 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book 4

References

"... The earliest Fathers develop the Jewish exegesis independently of John’s Gospel. Justin Martyr quotes Psalm 81:6 in the 160s in his Dialogue with Trypho to prove that it is the Christians, not the Jews, who are the gods and sons of the Most High addressed in the psalm because it is they who keep God’s commandments and have therefore inherited the divine promises. Writing a decade or so later, Irenaeus of Lyons goes one step further and connects the gods and sons of the psalm with the baptized. The gods are those who have received the grace of adoption by which we cry ‘Abba, Father!’ (Romans 8:6). It is baptism that enables us to participate in incorruption and immortality, which are properly divine attributes. Irenaeus also connects the gods with the attainment of the divine likeness through moral progress. Building on this insight, Clement of Alexandria expands the reference of the word ‘gods’ in a number of ways that go well beyond its baptismal associations. ..."
Norman Russell, “The ‘Gods’ of Psalm 81 (82) in the Hesychast Debates,” in Meditations of the Heart: The Psalms in Early Christian Thought and Practice: Essays in Honour of Andrew Louth, ed. Andreas Andreopoulos, Augustine Casiday, and Carol Harrison (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 244.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Psalm 82:6 and Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.38.4

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