Chapter 23

§ 1.

It was therefore necessary that the Lord, coming after the lost sheep and gathering in one so vast an Economy,¹ and seeking the work of His own Hands, should save that very man, who had been made in His image and likeness, i.e., Adam, fulfilling the times of his condemnation, passed on him for disobedience, which times the Father hath put in His own power;² (inasmuch as the whole Economy of Salvation regarding man took place according to the good pleasure of the Father;) that God might not be overcome, nor His plan made void. For if the man who had been made by God that he might live, should lose his life, hurt by the Serpent who had corrupted him, and no more return to life, but be quite abandoned unto death: God would have been overcome, and the wickedness of the Serpent would have prevailed against His will. But God being unconquered and long-suffering, shewed Himself in the first place long-suffering to reprove men and to put all on their trial, as we have said before;³ for the other, He bound by the second Man him that was strong,⁴ and spoiled his goods, and abolished death, quickening the man who had received a deadly hurt. For Adam was the chief of the goods in his possession; him he actually held within his power; I mean that he was unjustly filling him with transgression, and on pretence of immortality working that which bringeth death in him. For so, by the promise that they should be as Gods, (a thing altogether impossible to him), he wrought death in them. And justly therefore did God make him in his turn a captive, who had led man captive; and loose from the chains of Condemnation, Man, who had been so led away.

§ 2.

And this, if one must speak the truth, is Adam:—that first-formed Man, of whom Scripture tells us that the Lord said,⁵ Let us make Man after our image and likeness; and we all are of him; and because we are of him, therefore also we have inherited his proper name.

Now upon the salvation of man it follows that the first-formed man should be saved. It being too absurd to say, that he who was grievously hurt by the enemy, and first suffered captivity, is not rescued by the Conqueror of that enemy, while his sons are rescued whom he begat in that captivity. Neither again will the foe seem conquered, the very same old spoils abiding with him. As if enemies had taken certain in war, bound them, and led them away captive, and kept them a long time in slavery, so as to have families while in their possession, and another, vexed on behalf of the enslaved, should overcome the said enemies: yet will he not act fairly, if while he deliver the children of those who were led away captive from the power of those who had reduced their fathers to slavery, he leave the persons themselves who bore that captivity, and of whose cause too he undertook the pleading, subject to their enemies. Thus, while the children have obtained their liberty on the ground of their father’s redress, the fathers themselves are not abandoned, upon whom the captivity itself came. For God is not impotent, nor unjust; Who hath holpen man, and recovered him to his proper freedom.

§ 3.

For which cause also in the beginning of Adam’s transgression,⁶ as Scripture relates, He cursed not Adam himself, but the ground in his works: as one of the Ancients saith, “God for His part transferred the curse unto the earth, that it might not continue in the man.” And for the sentence on his transgression man received wearisomeness and labour in the earth, and to eat bread in the sweat of his face, and to be turned into the earth from which he was taken: and the woman in like manner the wearisomeness, and labours, and groanings, and sorrows of child-birth, and servitude, i.e., to be a slave to her husband: that neither might they perish utterly, accursed of God; nor abide without correction, and contemn God. But the whole curse discharged itself on the Serpent who had beguiled them.⁷ And the Lord, we are told, said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above all the beasts of the earth. Now the very same the Lord also saith in the Gospel, to those who are found on the left hand:⁸ Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which My Father hath prepared for the Devil and his Angels: implying that not for man in the first place was prepared the eternal fire, but for him who beguiled man and caused him to offend; him I say, who is chief of the Apostacy, chief of the separation⁹, and for his Angels who became Apostates with him: However these too will justly receive it, who, like them, persevere in works of wickedness without repentance and without return.

§ 4.

Cain, for example, having received counsel from God,¹⁰ to be satisfied with not having rightly apportioned the friendly offices due to his brother;¹¹ yet was he, enviously and maliciously imagining that he might rule over him, so far from being satisfied therewith, that he rather added sin unto sin, shewing his mind by his works. For what he thought, that also he brought to pass; he tyrannized and slew him, God subjecting the just to the unjust, so that the one might be proved righteous by his sufferings, the other by his doings convicted of unrighteousness. Yet not even so was he soothed, nor did he rest from his evil deed;¹² but when asked where his brother was, I know not, saith he; am I my brother’s keeper? extending and multiplying the evil by his way of replying. For bad as it is to slay a brother, it is much worse to reply so boldly and irreverently to the all-knowing God, as though he could evade Him. And for this very cause he bore the curse in his own person, because he moved the sin off from himself, not revering God, nor ashamed in the murder of his brother.

§ 5.

But in Adam’s case no such thing happened,¹³ but all contrariwise. For being beguiled by another under pretext of immortality, he is presently seized with fear, and hides himself; not as though he might escape from God, but for shame, because after transgressing His commandment,¹⁴ he is unworthy to come to the sight and speech of God. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding; and the understanding of his sin caused penitence; and to the penitent, God grants His loving-kindness. Yea, for by his girdle he professed his penitence in deed, covering himself with fig-leaves,¹⁵ although there were many leaves besides, such as might less annoy his body. However, he made him a garb suited to his disobedience, being smitten¹⁶ with the fear of God, and beating down the wanton eagerness of the flesh;—inasmuch as he had lost the mind and thoughts of little children, and had come to have worse things in his imagination;—he guarded himself and his wife with the curb of continence, fearing God, and looking for His coming, and implying somewhat like what follows; I mean, saith he, that the robe of holiness, which I had from the Spirit, I have lost by disobedience, and now I know¹⁷ that I am worthy of this kind of covering, which gives no delight, but pricks and goads the body. And apparently he would always have had this for his apparel, humbling himself, except the Lord,¹⁸ Who is merciful, had clothed them with coats of skins instead of the fig-leaves. Yea, and therefore also He questions them, that the charge might pass to the woman; and her again He questions, that she may transfer the cause to the serpent. For she said what had been done:¹⁹ The Serpent, saith she, beguiled me, and I did eat. But the Serpent He questioned not; for He knew that he had been the chief in the transgression: but the curse He launched at him in the first place, the second reproof being to come upon the man. For him God hated, who beguiled the man: but on him who was beguiled, by slow degrees He took pity.

§ 6.

Wherefore also He cast him out of Paradise,²⁰ and moved him to a distance from the Tree of Life: not grudging him the Tree of Life, as some dare to say, but in pity to him, that he might not last for ever as a sinner; and that the sin which was in him might not be immortal, and an infinite and incurable evil.²¹ But He forbade him to transgress, bringing in death as a check, and causing sin to cease, in that He put an end to it by the dissolution of the flesh which should take place on earth: that man, ceasing some day to live unto sin, and dying thereunto, might begin to live unto God.

§ 7.

For which cause He put enmity between the serpent,²² and the woman with her seed, the two watching one another suspiciously: so that on the one part, He whose foot is bitten, hath power even to trample on the head of the enemy: and that the other should bite, and slay, and impede the man’s approaches, until the coming of the seed predestined to trample on his head: which seed was the offspring of Mary; concerning Whom the Prophet saith,²³ Thou shalt walk upon the asp and cockatrice, and thou shalt tread on the lion and the dragon; meaning that that which was raising and enlarging itself against Man, viz. sin;—that which made him cold,—should be abolished, together with Death who now reigneth: and that He should in the last times tread down the Lion who should leap upon the race of Man,²⁴ i.e., Antichrist: both binding the Dragon,²⁵ that old Serpent, and putting him under the power of man, who had been conquered, so as to trample on all his might.

Now Adam was overcome,²⁶ when all life was taken away from him: wherefore, when the enemy in his turn was overcome, Adam recovered life. Death however, which had first gotten hold of man,²⁷ is the last enemy to be abolished. And so,²⁸ man being delivered, that shall be brought to pass which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory: O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting? But this it will be impossible to say justly, if he shall not prove to be delivered, over whom death first tyrannized. For his salvation is the abolishing of death. When therefore the Lord gave life to man, i.e., to Adam, Death also was abolished.

§ 8.

It follows, that all they are liars who deny his salvation; excluding themselves for ever from life, in that they believe not that the sheep is found which was lost. Whereas, if this is not found, the whole race of man is still holden of perdition.

He then is a deceiver, who first brought in this view, or rather, this ignorance and blindness, I mean Tatian; who having come to be a combination of all heretics, as we have shewn, did however of himself invent this: in order that introducing somewhat new, apart from the rest, he might according to the emptiness of his speech provide for himself hearers empty of faith; affecting to be counted a teacher²⁹; endeavouring also from time to time to avail himself of this sort of expression, so frequent in³⁰ Paul,³¹ That “in Adam we all die;” and not knowing, that where sin abounded,³² grace did much more abound.

So much then being clearly proved,³³ let all blush who are on his side, and who dispute about Adam, as though his not being saved were some great gain to them: since they do but fail the more entirely: even as the Serpent gained nothing by mispersuading man, save that he proved him³⁴ a transgressor, having man as the spring and subject-matter of his own revolt: But God he overcame not. Even so these who deny Adam’s Salvation, gain nothing but this, that they make themselves heretics and apostates from the truth, and shew themselves pleaders on the Serpent’s and on Death’s side.