Monday, February 19, 2024

Johannes Quasten on Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.22.4 (on the Mary/Eve parallel)

  

According to Irenaeus, therefore, the procedure of redemption follows exactly the course of events of the fall of man. For every faulty step which man took, having seduced by Satan, God exacts from him a compensation in order to make his victory exacts the seducer complete. Mankind receives a new progenitor in place of the first Adam. But since the first woman was also implicated in the fall of her disobedience, the healing process starts also by the obedience of a woman. Giving life to the New Adam, she becomes the true Eve, the true mother of the living, and the causa salutis. In this way Mary becomes the advocate Evae [AH 5.19.1; 4.33.11] (Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. [Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, Inc., 1992], 1:298)