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A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

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§ 33. The Asia Minor Conception of Christianity 155our Master with our eyes and hearing His voice with our ears;that so as imitators of His acts and doers of His words we mighthave fellowship with Him and receive of the fulness of Him whois perfect and who was be<strong>for</strong>e all creation. All this we havebeen made in these latter days by Him who only is supremelygood and who has the gift of incorruptibility; inasmuch as weare con<strong>for</strong>med to His likeness and predestinated to become whatwe never were be<strong>for</strong>e, according to the <strong>for</strong>eknowledge of theFather, made a first-fruit of His workmanship, we have, there<strong>for</strong>e,received all this at the <strong>for</strong>eordained season, according tothe dispensation of the Word, who is perfect in all things. ForHe, who is the mighty Word and very man, redeeming us byHis blood in a reasonable manner, gave Himself as a ransom [137]<strong>for</strong> those who had been led into captivity. And since apostasytyrannized over us unjustly, <strong>for</strong> though by nature we were God'spossession, it yet alienated us contrary to nature, making usits own disciples, the Word of God, powerful in all things andconstant in His justice, dealt justly even with apostasy itself,redeeming from it what was His own property. Not by <strong>for</strong>ce, theway in which the apostasy had originally gained its mastery overus, greedily grasping at that which was not its own; but by moral<strong>for</strong>ce [secundum suadelam] as became God, by persuasion andnot by <strong>for</strong>ce, regaining what He wished; so that justice mightnot be violated and God's ancient handiwork might not perish.There<strong>for</strong>e, since by His own blood the Lord redeemed us andgave His soul <strong>for</strong> our soul, and His flesh <strong>for</strong> our flesh, and shed onus His Father's spirit to unite and join us in communion God andman, bringing God down to men by the descent of the Spirit, andraising up man to God by His incarnation, and by a firm and truepromise giving us at His advent incorruptibility by communionwith Him, and thus all the errors of the heretics are destroyed.(b) Irenæus. Adv. Hær., III. 18:1, 7. (MSG, 6:932, 937.)

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