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| Chapter XXII.—Christ assumed actual flesh, conceived and born of the Virgin.
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Chapter XXII.—Christ assumed actual
flesh, conceived and born of the Virgin.
1. Virgin" title="454" id="ix.iv.xxiii-p1.3"/>Those,
therefore, who allege that He took nothing from the Virgin do greatly
err, [since,] in order that they may cast away the inheritance of the
flesh, they also reject the analogy [between Him and Adam]. For if the
one [who sprang] from the earth had indeed formation and substance from
both the hand and workmanship of God, but the other not from the hand and
workmanship of God, then He who was made after the image and likeness of
the former did not, in that case, preserve the analogy of man, and He
must seem an inconsistent piece of work, not having wherewith He may show
His wisdom. But this is to say, that He also appeared putatively as man
when He was not man, and that He was made man while taking nothing from
man. For if He did not receive the substance of flesh from a human being,
He neither was made man nor the Son of man; and if He was not made what
we were, He did no great thing in what He suffered and endured. But every
one will allow that we are [composed of] a body taken from the earth, and
a soul receiving spirit from God. This, therefore, the Word of God was
made, recapitulating in Himself His own handiwork; and on this account
does He confess Himself the Son of man, and blesses “the meek,
because they shall inherit the earth.”3739
The Apostle Paul, moreover, in the Epistle to the Galatians,
declares plainly, “God sent His Son, made of a woman.”3740
And again, in that to the Romans, he says,
“Concerning His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to
the flesh, who was predestinated as the Son of God with power, according
to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus
Christ our Lord.”3741
2.3742
| 3742 In
addition to the Greek text preserved by Theodoret in this place, we have
for some way a Syriac translation, differing slightly from both
Greek and Latin. It seems, however, to run smoother than either, and has
therefore been followed by us. | Superfluous, too, in that case
is His descent into Mary; for why did He come down into her if He were to
take nothing of her? Still further, if He had taken nothing of Mary, He
would never have availed Himself of those kinds of food which are derived
from the earth, by which that body which has been taken from the earth is
nourished; nor would He have hungered, fasting those forty days, like
Moses and Elias, unless His body was craving after its own proper
nourishment; nor, again, would John His disciple have said, when writing
of Him, “But Jesus, being wearied with the journey, was sitting [to
rest];”3743
nor would David have
proclaimed of Him beforehand, “They have added to the grief of my
wounds;”3744
nor would He have wept
over Lazarus, nor have sweated great drops of blood; nor have declared,
“My soul is exceeding sorrowful;”3745
nor, when His side was pierced, would there
have
come forth blood and water. For all these are tokens of the flesh which
had been derived from the earth, which He had recapitulated in Himself,
bearing salvation to His own handiwork.
3. Wherefore Luke points out that the pedigree which
traces the generation of our Lord back to Adam contains seventy-two
generations, connecting the end with the beginning, and implying that it
is He who has summed up in Himself all nations dispersed from Adam
downwards, and all languages and generations of men, together with Adam
himself. Hence also was Adam himself termed by Paul “the figure of
Him that was to come,”3746
because the
Word, the Maker of all things, had formed beforehand for Himself the
future dispensation of the human race, connected with the Son of God; God
having predestined that the first man should be of an animal nature, with
this view, that he might be saved by the spiritual One. For inasmuch as
He had a pre-existence as a saving Being, it was necessary that what
might be saved should also be called into existence, in order that the
Being who saves should not exist in vain.
4. In accordance with this design, Mary the
Virgin is found obedient, saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord;
be it unto me according to thy word.”3747
But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was
a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being
nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise “they were both
naked, and were not ashamed,”3748
inasmuch
as they, having been created a short time previously, had no
understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that
they should first come to adult age,3749
| 3749 This seems quite a peculiar opinion of Irenæus, that
our first parents, when created, were not of the age of maturity.
| and then multiply from that time onward), having become
disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the
entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and
being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of
salvation, both to herself and the whole human race. And on this account
does the law term a woman betrothed to a man, the wife of him who had
betrothed her, although she was as yet a virgin; thus indicating the
back-reference from Mary to Eve, because what is joined together could
not otherwise be put asunder than by inversion of the process by which
these bonds of union had arisen;3750
| 3750 Literally, “unless these bonds of union be turned
backwards.” | so that the former ties be cancelled by the
latter, that the latter may set the former again at liberty. And it has,
in fact, happened that the first compact looses from the second tie, but
that the second tie takes the position of the first which has been
cancelled.3751
| 3751 It is very
difficult to follow the reasoning of Irenæus in this passage. Massuet
has a long note upon it, in which he sets forth the various points of
comparison and contrast here indicated between Eve and Mary; but he ends
with the remark, “hæc certe et quæ sequuntur, paulo
subtiliora.” | For this reason did the Lord declare that
the first should in truth be last, and the last first.3752
And the prophet, too,
indicates the same, saying, “instead of fathers, children have been
born unto thee.”3753
For the Lord, having been
born “the First-begotten of the dead,”3754
and receiving into His bosom the ancient fathers, has regenerated
them into the life of God, He having been made Himself the beginning of
those that live, as Adam became the beginning of those who die.3755
Wherefore also Luke, commencing the
genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to Adam, indicating that it was
He who regenerated them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. And
thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by
the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through
unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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