Ch. 1
The fact of the incarnation is presented as
necessary for our redemption. By “summing up in Himself the ancient
formation of Adam,” we, who are of that substance, are renovated.
as, at the beginning of our formation in Adam, that breath of life which proceeded from God, having been united to what had been fashioned, animated the man, and manifested him as a being endowed with reason; so also, in [the times of] the end, the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God, having become united with the ancient substance of Adam's formation, rendered man living and perfect, receptive of the perfect Father, in order that as in the natural [Adam] we all were dead, so in the spiritual we may all be made alive. 1.3
Ch. 2
By feeding us with his actual body and blood, he,
an actual man, brings salvation to the whole man.
When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can [the gnostics] affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?— even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. Ephesians 5:30 He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh; Luke 24:39 but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones — that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body. 2.3
Ch. 6
The whole man, body, soul, and spirit, is made in the image of God. St. Irenaeus offers an anthropology, the first line of which is profound beyond words.
Now God shall be glorified in His handiwork, fitting it so as to be conformable to, and modelled after, His own Son...
For by the hands of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not [merely] a part of man, was made in the likeness of God. Now the soul and the spirit are certainly a part of the man, but certainly not the man; for the perfect man consists in the commingling and the union of the soul receiving the spirit of the Father, and the admixture of that fleshly nature which was moulded after the image of God…
Man has three parts. Also, the spirit of man is here identified with the Spirit of God…
For if any one take away the substance of flesh, that is, of the handiwork [of God], and understand that which is purely spiritual, such then would not be a spiritual man but would be the spirit of a man, or the Spirit of God. But when the spirit here blended with the soul is united to [God's] handiwork, the man is rendered spiritual and perfect because of the outpouring of the Spirit, and this is he who was made in the image and likeness of God…
The perfect man, that which is made in the image of
God, is one made like God through the Spirit… One who does not receive the similitude
through the spirit is imperfect, Irenaeus goes as far as to say that such a one
is not a man (or is an incomplete man).
But if the Spirit be wanting to the soul, he who is such is indeed of an animal nature, and being left carnal, shall be an imperfect being, possessing indeed the image [of God] in his formation, but not receiving the similitude through the Spirit; and thus is this being imperfect. Thus also, if any one take away the image and set aside the handiwork, he cannot then understand this as being a man, but as either some part of a man, as I have already said, or as something else than a man. For that flesh which has been moulded is not a perfect man in itself, but the body of a man, and part of a man. Neither is the soul itself, considered apart by itself, the man; but it is the soul of a man, and part of a man. Neither is the spirit a man, for it is called the spirit, and not a man; but the commingling and union of all these constitutes the perfect man. 6.1
Ch. 10
We are “grafted” into Christ
(the perfect man) and receive the Spirit of God, which we can refuse. Receiving
the Spirit in faith results in our perfection. We are grafted on to the
perfect tree.
As, therefore, when the wild olive has been engrafted, if it remain in its former condition, viz., a wild olive, it is cut off, and cast into the fire; but if it takes kindly to the graft, and is changed into the good olive-tree, it becomes a fruit-bearing olive, planted, as it were, in a king's park: so likewise men, if they do truly progress by faith towards better things, and receive the Spirit of God, and bring forth the fruit thereof, shall be spiritual, as being planted in the paradise of God. But if they cast out the Spirit, and remain in their former condition… That flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 10.1
… man, if he does not receive through faith the engrafting of the Spirit, remains in his old condition, and being [mere] flesh and blood, he cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 10.2
Ch. 21
He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as you can perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed… For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent… But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman. For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. 21.1
Ch. 23
Adam died on the 6th Day. Christ
recapitulated this in himself, granting man a second creation.
Now in this same day that they ate, in that also did they die. But according to the cycle and progress of the days, after which one is termed first, another second, and another third, if anybody seeks diligently to learn upon what day out of the seven it was that Adam died, he will find it by examining the dispensation of the Lord. For by summing up in Himself the whole human race from the beginning to the end, He has also summed up its death. From this it is clear that the Lord suffered death, in obedience to His Father, upon that day on which Adam died while he disobeyed God. Now he died on the same day in which he ate. For God said, In that day on which you shall eat of it, you shall die by death. The Lord, therefore, recapitulating in Himself this day, underwent His sufferings upon the day preceding the Sabbath, that is, the sixth day of the creation, on which day man was created; thus granting him a second creation by means of His passion, which is that [creation] out of death. 23.2
DSMW
