ABSTRACT
This chapter reveals that section 18 of Demonstration eighteen is on sin and death, entering through Adam's transgression, now show their collective face in the expansion of wickedness engorging the whole human race until only a remnant possessed 'a very small seed of righteousness'. It revolves round the history of those whom God has respectively blessed and cursed, but particularly deals with the blessing of Shem and Japheth, the sons of Noah. Irenaeus interprets Shem's triumph over Ham as doing so in their relation to the blessing of Japheth, the two blessings intermingling in the one purpose of God in bringing into being the one true Israel which will be vindicated over against all who oppose that purpose and that end as the children of Ham. Abraham therefore, in Irenaeus's biblical theology, stands as a pivotal patriarch who both sums up and dispenses the blessing of Shem.
