Tag Archives: St. Irenaeus of Lyons

Second Adam

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Mosaics in the Palatine Chapel, palace of the Norman kings of Sicily, built by Roger II, Palermo, Sicily, Italy (built in the AD 1100s). We see Adam & Eve with the serpent in the top row; below them the angels escort Lot and his family away from Sodom and Gomorrah. (Lot’s wife is the white statue of salt.) Read about artistic depictions of Eve and the serpent here.



It is written, “The first Adam was made into a living creature;” the last Adam is made into a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual Adam that is first, but the natural; the second Adam is the spiritual. The first Adam is made of the dust of the earth; the second Adam is from heaven. (1 Cor. 15:45-46)

St. Paul refers to Genesis 2:7 (“Adam became a living creature”) to make his point that Christ, who is the Second Adam–the Ultimate Adam–is the model for human existence. The first Adam received life; the second Adam gives life. The first Adam (in Genesis) is made from the dust of the earth; the second Adam comes down to earth from heaven in order to raise the first Adam to heaven.

The first man was made from the slime of the earth. The second man came from heaven. By using the word MAN, he taught the birth of this person from the Virgin …. [was both human and] from the Holy Spirit who came upon the Virgin. Thus, precisely while he was human he was also from heaven.

St. Hilary of Poitiers, On the Holy Trinity, chapter 10.

Just as Christ was “the Second Adam,” his Mother is frequently referred to as “the Second Eve.” Justin Martyr wrote in AD 150

He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her: wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.” And by her has He been born, to whom we have proved so many scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those who repent of their wickedness and believe upon Him.

St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 100

It was also St. Irenaeus of Lyons who wrote in AD 182

In accordance with this design, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) But Eve was disobedient, for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. … having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race.

And on this account does the law term a woman betrothed to a man, the wife of him who had betrothed her, although she was as yet a virgin; thus indicating the back-reference from Mary to Eve … For the Lord, having been born “the First-begotten of the dead,” (Revelation 1:5) and receiving into His bosom the ancient fathers, has regenerated them into the life of God, He having been made Himself the beginning of those that live, as Adam became the beginning of those who die. (1 Cor. 15:20-22)

Wherefore also Luke, commencing the genealogy with the Lord, carried it back to Adam, indicating that it was He who regenerated them into the Gospel of life, and not they Him. So it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book 3, chapter 22

Just as Adam and Eve were both necessary for the creation of the world, so Christ and his Most Pure Mother were both necessary for the salvation of the world. Just as we share in the dust of the first Adam, we now share the spirit and resurrection of the Second–Ultimate!–Adam who was able to be born because the Second–Ultimate!–Virgin made the right choice when given the opportunity to love or reject God.

Demonstrative Proof

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Adam and Eve, a mosaic in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, Italy, was created between 1200 and 1250. On the left, the Word of God (the Last Adam) prepares to fashion Eve from the first Adam’s rib; on the right, Adam knows his wife Eve.

And I came to you, brothers and sisters, not with the advantage of rhetoric and wisdom …. not with persuasive words of wisdom but in the demonstrative proof of the Spirit and power. (1 Corinthians 2:1, 4)

St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that he did not preach to them and among them with fancy words and Greek philosophy but simply, relying on the Spirit of God to demonstrate the power and truth of his words. His sermons wouldn’t win an oratory prize, he says. But his sermons did win their hearts.

A third-generation Christian bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons, wrote a Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching to accomplish the same thing that St. Paul was aiming for: teaching or reminding new converts the basic Christian understanding of the world and how to relate to it from a Christian perspective. His other famous work, Against Heresies, refutes the teachings of several different heretical sects that claimed to be Christian; in both works, St. Irenaeus establishes fundamental principles of theology and biblical interpretation that still guide Christian readers and thinkers.

Irenaeus was born in Smyrna. He was taught the Faith by St. Polycarp, who had been taught by the Apostle John. In the Demonstration, St. Irenaeus reviews salvation history in the Old Testament and then cites several Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, explaining how Christ fulfilled them. St. Irenaeus writes

This, beloved, is the preaching of the truth, and this is the manner of our redemption, and this is the way of life, which the prophets proclaimed, and Christ established, and the apostles delivered, and the Church in all the world hands on to her children. This must we keep with all certainty, with a sound will and pleasing to God, with good works and right-willed disposition.

One of St. Irenaeus’ most interesting ideas is that of “recapitulation,” in which he teaches that Christ and his mother summarize and set right everything that went wrong with Adam and Eve; he points out that Christ is the Second (Last) Adam and Mary is the Second Eve:

For in what other way could we have partaken in the adoption of sons, unless we had received from him [God the Father] fellowship with himself through the Son? Unless his Word, having been made flesh, had entered into fellowship with us?

For this reason, he also passed through every stage of life, restoring fellowship with God to all [stages of life]….

The human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience. For in the same way the sin of the first created man received amendment by the correction of the First-begotten, and the coming of the serpent is conquered by the harmlessness of the dove, those bonds being unloosed by which we had been fast bound to death.

St. Paul and St. Irenaeus both want to demonstrate how God has acted in the past to save his people and how God continues to act in the lives of his chosen. Those who have experienced God’s acts of deliverance are called to demonstrate this by responding appropriately. Most of the rest of the first letter to the Corinthians is about what this demonstrative response to God appropriately looks like.

“Go, Tell My Brethren”

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“The myrrhbearing women, at the break of dawn, drew near to the tomb of the Life-giver. There they found an angel sitting upon the stone. He greeted them with these words: ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? Why do you mourn the incorrupt amid corruption? Go, proclaim the GOSPEL to his disciples.” (Paschal Matins) (Detail from a larger 18th cent. Resurrection icon; photo by S. Morris)

“How filled with bliss were these women who, taught by the angel’s account, were found worthy to announce the triumph of the resurrection to the world and to proclaim that the sovereignty of death, to which Eve became subject when she was seduced by the serpent’s speech, had been utterly destroyed! How much more blissful will be the souls of both men and women equally, when, aided by heavenly grace, they have merited to triumph over death and enter into the joy of a blessed resurrection, while the condemned have been struck with trepidation and well-deserved punishment on the day of judgment!” (excerpt from Homily II.7, St. Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, vol. 2, translated by Martin and Hurst)

The knowledge of the gospel, the “good news,” depends on the preaching of the women who came to the tomb and discovered that Christ had risen. The angel at the tomb sent them back to preach the good news to the male apostles who were still hiding after the Crucifixion, frightened and alone. If the women had said nothing, no one would have ever heard that Christ had destroyed Death. Their participation in the divine plan of salvation was critical. All subsequent Christian experience depends on them having gone to the tomb and then telling everyone what had happened there.

We see a contrast between Eve and the Virgin Mary, the second Eve–just as Christ is the Second Adam–insofar that Eve was confronted by a (fallen) angel and chose to defy God, bringing Death into the world while the Virgin Mary was confronted by an angel (Gabriel) and chose to cooperate with God to bring true Life into the world. (Read more about this in St. Irenaeus of Lyons.) We can also see a contrast between the Myrrhbearing Women and Eve insofar that Eve hid from God in a garden and was given an apron of fig leaves to hide her nakedness while the Myrrhbearing Women stepped forward to meet the Risen Christ in a garden and were able to “put on Christ” (Galations 3:27) to remove their sinfulness.

St. Bede says something similar in another homily, where he contrasts the several Myrrhbearing Women to the one woman (Eve): “You see that several [women], instructed by the angels, proclaim that the death which one woman, seduced by the devil, had brought upon the world was now destroyed. One woman, coming [out of the garden] opened a path [that led away] from heavenly joys; many, coming back from their present exile, gave the information that the gate had now been unbarred for regaining the heavenly fatherland.” (Homily II/10, p. 94)

The stars of Orion’s belt in the night sky are sometimes called “the Three Marys” or “the Myrrhbearing Women;” these same stars are sometimes called “the Magi,” and identified with the Wise Men who came to visit the Christ Child. This association demonstrates the similar roles of the Myrrhbearing Women and the Magi in the Easter/Christmas stories as they were Outsiders (women and pagan philosophers) who were responsible for proclaiming the good news, the gospel, of Christ to the world.