Irenæus makes none but very general allusions to the agency of the fallen spirits from the fall of man till the coming of Christ. He declares that, up to that time(267), they had not ventured upon blaspheming God; but that then, becoming aware that everlasting fire was the appointed recompense of those who continued in rebellion without repentance, they felt themselves already condemned, and waxing desperate, charged all the sin of their rebellion on their Maker, by inspiring the Gnostics with their impious tenets(268). It seems to be implied that sentence is not yet pronounced upon the fallen angels(269). CHAPTER VII. THE DIVINE DISPENSATIONS. After the introduction of evil into creation, and the agency by which it is propagated in the world, we have next to notice the Divine plans for its counteraction and removal; and as Irenæus was opposing the Gnostic notion that the whole government of the world, prior to the Gospel, was in the hands of beings adverse to the Supreme Being, he was naturally led to show that, on the contrary, the whole history of mankind has been a series of dispensations emanating from one and the same Supreme and only God. We have already(270) seen him stating that the whole of these dispensations were planned from the beginning; and he states them to have been carried into execution by God the Son exhibiting himself to mankind under four different aspects, figured by the four faces of the cherubim; first to the Patriarchs, in a kingly and divine character; secondly, under the law, in a priestly and sacrificial aspect; thirdly, at his nativity, as a man; fourthly, after his ascension, by his Spirit(271). Again, he represents God as having made four covenants with mankind; one with Noah, of which the rainbow was the sanction; a second with Abraham, by circumcision; a third of the law, by Moses; a fourth of the Gospel, by Christ(272). At least this is the enumeration made in the _Questions and Answers_ of Anastasius, and in the _Theoria Rerum Ecclesiasticarum_ of Germanus, where the Greek of Irenæus is transcribed, and from which it was first published by Grabe. But the old Latin version makes a different enumeration, reckoning the first covenant before the deluge with Adam, and the second after that event with Noah(273).