By St. Irenaeus of Lyon
1. Those who reproach the fact that before their exodus, at the command of God, the people took from the Egyptians vessels of all kinds and clothing and so set off (with these things), from which the tabernacle was made in the wilderness, then they blame themselves ignorant of God’s justifications and His orders, as the presbyter also says. For if God had not deigned to do this in the representative exodus, then no one could now be saved in our true exodus, i.e. in the faith in which we stand and through which we were separated from among the pagans. For we all belong to either a small or a large property, which we acquired “from mammon of unrighteousness.” For where do we get the houses in which we live, the clothes with which we cover ourselves, the vessels with which we use, and everything else necessary for our daily life, if not from what, being pagans, we acquired out of our own greed or received from our pagan parents? , relatives or friends, having acquired it through untruth? – I do not say that we gain it now that we have become believers. For who sells and does not want to make a profit from the buyer? And who buys and does not want. to profitably purchase something from a seller? What industrialist is engaged in his trade not in order to eat through it? And do not the believers who are at the royal court use supplies from Caesar’s property, and do not each of them, according to his ability, provide for the poor? The Egyptians were indebted to the people (Jewish), according to the former goodness of Patriarch Joseph, not only with their property, but also with their lives; and what do the pagans owe us for, from whom we receive both profits and benefits? What they acquire with difficulty, we believers use without difficulty.
2. Until that time, the people of the Egyptians were in the most grievous slavery, as the Scripture says: “The Egyptians did great violence to the children of Israel, and made life hateful for them with hard work, clay and mud-making, and all the work in the fields and all kinds of work, with which they greatly oppressed their”; They built fortified cities for them, worked hard and increased their wealth over many years and all kinds of slavery, although they were not only not grateful to them, but also wanted to destroy them all. What injustice was done if they took a little from a lot? and when could we have had great wealth, if we had not been in slavery, and come out rich, received very little reward for our great slavery, and come out poor? As if someone free, forcibly taken away by another, served him for many years and increased his wealth, and then received some allowance and, apparently, had something from his wealth, but in fact, from his many labors and from his great acquisition, he took little and left, and someone would have blamed him for it, as if he had acted unfairly; then the judge himself will rather seem unfair to the one who was forcibly taken into slavery. Such are also those who accuse the people who have taken little from much, and do not blame those themselves who did not give any gratitude due for the merits of their parents, and even brought them into the gravest slavery, and received the greatest benefit from them. These (accusers) say that (the Israelites) acted unfairly, taking for their labors, as I said, unminted gold and silver in a few vessels, and about themselves they say that they – we must tell the truth, although this may seem funny to some – they act justly when, for the labors of others, they carry in their purses minted gold, silver and copper with the inscription and image of Caesar.
3. If we make a comparison between us and them, then who will receive more justly – the people (Israel) from the Egyptians, who were their debtors in everything, or we from the Romans and other nations who owe nothing to us? And the world enjoys peace through them (the Romans), and we walk the roads without fear and sail wherever we want. Against such people, the words of the Lord will be very helpful: “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see (how) to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” For if the one who accuses you of this and boasts of his knowledge, separated himself from the society of the pagans and did not have anything alien, but was literally naked and with bare feet and lived homeless in the mountains, like some animal that eats herbs , then deserves leniency because he does not know the needs of our community. If he uses what people call foreign, and (at the same time) condemns the prototype of this, then he shows himself to be very unfair and turns such an accusation against himself. For he will find himself carrying with him something that is not his own and desiring what is not his; and that is why the Lord said: “Judge not, lest ye be judged, for with the judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.” Not that we do not punish those who sin or approve of evil deeds, but that we do not unjustly condemn the orders of God, since He is justly concerned (^with everything that will serve for good. For, since He knew that we would make good use of our property that we have to receive from another, he says: “Whoever has two clothes, give to the poor, and whoever has food, do the same. And: “I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was naked, and you clothed Me.” And: “When you do alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” And we turn out to be right when we do any kind of good, as if redeeming ours from someone else’s hands: I say “from someone else’s hands” not in in the sense that the world would be alien to God, but because we receive gifts of this kind from others, like those (Israelites) from the Egyptians who did not know God – and through this very thing we build the abode of God in ourselves, for with God dwells in those who do good, as the Lord says: “Make for yourself friends with unrighteous wealth, so that when you flee, they will receive you into eternal abodes.” For what we acquired through unrighteousness while we were pagans, having become believers, we turn to benefit the Lord and are justified.
4. So, this was necessary first in mind during that transformative action, and from those things the tabernacle of God is built, because those (Israelites) received justly, as I showed, and in them we were foreshadowed, who were then supposed to serve God through the things of others “For the whole procession of the people from Egypt, according to the dispensation of God, was the type and image of the origin of the Church, which had to be from the pagans, and therefore He at the end (of time) brings her out from here into her inheritance, which not Moses the servant of God, but Jesus the Son of God gives as an inheritance. And if anyone takes a closer look at the words of the prophets about the end and what John the Lord’s disciple saw in revelation, he will find that the nations will accept the same plagues in general that then struck Egypt piecemeal.
Source: St. Irenaeus of Lyon. 5 Books Against Heresies. Book 4. Ch. 30.
