In his listing out of the tasks of Christian theology and instruction in Haer. 1.10.3, the Gallic bishop Irenaeus ranks the redemption of the flesh as one of the central, universally agreed upon contents of the proclamation of the church. In the fifth book of his large-scale work Adversus haereses, he himself also presents a detailed examination of this topic (5.1–14) and embeds it in his conception of the economy of salvation, which makes an arc from God’s action at the creation of the world to its complete restitution and salvation at the end of time and seeks to provide a bullwork in the conflict with competing early Christian-gnostic systems. Thus, for Irenaeus, the redemption of human flesh belongs to a more comprehensive argumentation for the value of the created, material world. Consequently, Irenaeus understands his remarks on the role of the Eucharist in the salvation of the flesh in Haer. 5.2.32 – a central text in what follows – as one of several argumentative building blocks that he uses to contest such teachings, which, in his view, denigrate creation and exclude human σάρξ from the end-time salvation. … Download PDF to read more.