Do not wonder that the whole world was redeemed, for it was no mere
man, but the Only-begotten Son of God who died for it. The sin of one man,
Adam, availed to bring death to the world; if by one man’s offense death
reigned for the world, why should not life reign all the more “from the justice
of the one”? If Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise because of the tree from
which they ate, should not believers more easily enter into paradise because of
the Tree of Jesus? If the first man, fashioned out of the earth, brought
universal death, shall not He who fashioned him, being the Life, bring
everlasting life? If Phinees by his zeal in slaying the evildoer appeased the
wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew no other, but “gave himself a ransom
for all,” take away God’s wrath against man? (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical
Lectures 13.2 in The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, 2 vols. [trans.
Leo P. McCauley and Anthony A. Stephenson; The Fathers of the Church 64;
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1970], 2:4-5)
