The Word of God the Father became Flesh, not by a change or alteration of his own nature … but because having made the flesh taken from the body of the Virgin his own, one and the same subject is called Son, before the Incarnation as Word still incorporeal, and after the Incarnation as the same Word now embodied. That is why we say that the same subject is simultaneously both God and Man, not dividing him conceptually into a human being with a separate identity and God the Word also with a separate identity, that we may exclude any idea of two Sons, but acknowledging that one and the same subject is Christ and Son and Lord.
St Cyril of Alexandria
Here is Irenaeus from what period in History??
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.” But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise “they were both naked, and were not ashamed,” inasmuch as they, having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult age, and then multiply from that time onward), 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, because what is joined together could not otherwise be put asunder than by inversion of the process by which these bonds of union had arisen; so that the former ties be cancelled by the latter, that the latter may set the former again at liberty. And it has, in fact, happened that the first compact looses from the second tie, but that the second tie takes the position of the first which has been cancelled. For this reason did the Lord declare that the first should in truth be last, and the last first. And the prophet, too, indicates the same, saying, “instead of fathers, children have been born unto you.” For the Lord, having been born “the First-begotten of the dead,” 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. 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. And thus also 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.
Is he talking Eve/Mary/Genesis or is it my imagination?
in book 5 chapter 19 we find St. Irenaeus writing :
A comparison is instituted between the disobedient and
sinning Eve and the Virgin Mary, her patroness. Various
and discordant heresies are mentioned.
- That the Lord then was manifestly coming to His own
things, and was sustaining them by means of that
creation which is supported by Himself, and was making
a recapitulation of that disobedience which had
occurred in connection with a tree, through the
obedience which was [exhibited by Himself when He
hung] upon a tree, [the effects] also of that deception
being done away with, by which that virgin Eve, who
was already espoused to a man, was unhappily misled
– was happily announced, through means of the truth
[spoken] by the angel to the Virgin Mary, who was [also
espoused] to a man. For just as the former was led
astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from
God when she had transgressed His word; so did the
latter, by an angelic communication, receive the glad
tidings that she should sustain (portaret) God, being
obedient to His word. And if the former disobeyed God,
the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order
that the Virgin Mary might become the patroness
(advocata) of the virgin Eve. And thus, as 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 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.
Is it not odd that Catholics are criticized for inventing doctrines about Mary when the evidence shows that the Catholic teachings on Mary are indeed Biblical and the teachings are found very early on(Second Century) in the Church. You can’t blame Constantine for this one folks. The Church has always held that Mary had a special role in the salvation of mankind. She undid what Eve had done through obedience. She truly is the “Second Eve”.
From Discover the Faith web sight!
SECOND CENTURY:thumbsup:
