Section CXVIII

Therefore the whole economy concerning our first parents, whether that by which God permitted their transgression, or that by which he expelled them from paradise and pronounced sentence upon them in such a way as to spare them from a curse, presents a most splendid argument by which the immense mercy of the supreme Deity toward the human race is commended and the chosen order of restoration and reparation is made known. In order that God might put this order into execution, according to the prescription of wisdom, goodness, and justice, he decreed that the eternal Word, on account of absolutely all men whom he had created, should assume flesh, come into this world, undergo death for all, recapitulate all in himself, draw all back to himself and reconcile them with God, bestow life and incorruption upon all, render all free and friends of God, embrace in himself, as in Jacob, the blessing of all, recover in himself whatever had previously been lost in Adam, sanctify every age, become man for this reason, that man might become accustomed to receive God and be joined to God, and finally fulfill the part of the gracious Samaritan and tend to the wounds of man. Irenaeus both teaches and inculcates all these things in such explicit and repeated statements that every doubt concerning his mind and faith appears altogether cut off. From the innumerable things which he has, I shall bring forward some, and these selected by way of specimen.

Accordingly, speaking of the counsel by which humanity was assumed by the Word¹, he says:

In the last times, when the fullness of the time of liberty came—

—the Word himself by himself washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, washing the feet of the disciples with his own hands. For this is the end of the human race which inherits God: that just as in the beginning through the first ones we were all reduced to servitude under the debt of death, so in the end through the last one all who from the beginning are disciples, cleansed and washed from the things of death, may come into the life of God².

And immediately³:

For Christ did not come on account of those alone who believed in him in the times of Tiberius Caesar; nor did the Father exercise providence on account of those men alone who now exist; but on account of absolutely all men who from the beginning, according to their capacity in their own generation, both feared and loved God, conducted themselves justly and piously toward their neighbors, and desired to see Christ and to hear his voice⁴.

But he who came of himself for all and was sent for the salvation of all poured forth his blood and underwent death that he might redeem all and call all back to immortal felicity. Irenaeus establishes this excellently when, showing by various antitheses⁵ that the Passion of the Lord has nothing in common and nothing akin with the fictitious passion of the Aeon, he writes:

But neither is the Passion of Christ similar to the passion of the Aeon, nor was it wrought among similar things. For the Aeon suffered a passion of dissolution and destruction, so that the one himself who suffered was in danger; but our Lord Christ suffered a strong passion, one which did not yield: not only was he himself in no danger of being corrupted, but he also strengthened corrupted man by his own strength and called him back into incorruption. And the Aeon indeed suffered a passion while himself seeking the Father and not prevailing to find him; but the Lord suffered that he might lead those who had wandered from the Father to acknowledgment and close to him. And—

—for the former, the inquiry into the magnitude of the Father became a passion of destruction; but for us the Lord, suffering and conferring acknowledgment of the Father, bestowed salvation. And the passion of the former, as they say, bore a feminine fruit, invalid and weak and formless and ineffective; but his Passion bore strength and power. And the Lord through his Passion destroyed death, loosed error, exterminated corruption, destroyed ignorance, manifested life, showed the truth, and bestowed incorruption; but when their Aeon had suffered, he established ignorance⁶ and begot a formless substance from which, according to them, all material works were brought forth: death, corruption, error, and things similar to these.

Whence, narrating in summary God’s providence toward men through his Word⁷, he says:

The Word of God conversed, according to divinity and glory, with the patriarchs who were before Moses; but to those who were under the Law he presented a sacerdotal and ministerial action⁸; and afterward, having been made man for us, he sent the gift of the heavenly Spirit into the whole earth, protecting us under his wings… And for this reason four covenants were given to the human race: one before the deluge under Adam; the second after the deluge under Noah; the third, the legislation under Moses; but the fourth, which renews man and recapitulates all things in itself, is that through the Gospel, elevating men and giving them wings unto the heavenly kingdom.

But since the clemency of God toward men has always been so great, by the very best right Irenaeus convicts the Valentinians⁹,

because they contemned the formation of God¹⁰, contradicting—

—their own salvation, existing as their own most bitter accusers and false witnesses.

Especially since Christ recapitulated the whole human race in himself. For, attacking those who denied that true flesh had been taken by the Word from the Virgin, Irenaeus says¹¹:

On this account Luke shows that the genealogy which is from the generation of our Lord even unto Adam contains seventy-two generations¹², joining the end to the beginning and signifying that he is the one who recapitulated in himself all the nations dispersed from Adam, all languages¹³, and the generation of men together with Adam himself¹⁴. Whence Adam himself was also called by Paul a type of the one to come¹⁵, because the Word, the maker of all things, had prefigured in himself the future disposition of the human race concerning the Son of God, God first prefiguring the animal man, namely, that he might be saved by the spiritual. For since the Savior preexisted, it was fitting that what would be saved should also be made, that the Savior might not be empty.

And he proceeds in continuous discourse¹⁶:

Consequently, the Virgin Mary is also found obedient—

—saying¹⁷: “Behold thy handmaid, O Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word.” But Eve was disobedient, for she did not obey while she was still a virgin. Just as she, indeed having Adam as her husband but still existing as a virgin, became disobedient and was made the cause of death both to herself and to the whole human race, so Mary, having a predestined husband and yet a virgin, became obedient and was made the cause of salvation both to herself and to the whole human race¹⁸.

Then, after some intervening remarks, he adds¹⁹:

For the Lord, born the firstborn of the dead²⁰ and receiving the ancient fathers into his bosom, regenerated them unto the life of God, himself having been made the beginning of the living, because Adam was made the beginning of the dying. On this account Luke also, beginning the commencement of the genealogy from the Lord, carried it back to Adam, signifying that they did not regenerate him, but he regenerated them unto the Gospel of life. Thus also the knot of Eve’s disobedience received its loosing through the obedience of Mary²¹. For what the virgin Eve bound through unbelief, this the Virgin Mary loosed through faith.