ctions were never eliminated from
the Church doctrinal system of succeeding centuries and did not admit of
being removed; hence his attitude on these points is typical.[557] The
apologetic and moralistic train of thought is alone developed with
systematic clearness. Everything created is imperfect, just from the
very fact of its having had a beginning; therefore man also. The Deity
is indeed capable of bestowing perfection on man from the beginning, but
the latter was incapable of grasping or retaining it from the first.
Hence perfection, i.e., incorruptibility, which consists in the
contemplation of God and is conditional on voluntary obedience, could
only be the _destination_ of man, and he must accordingly have been made
_capable_ of it.[558] That destination is realised through the guidance
of God and the free decision of man, for goodness not arising from free
choice has no value. The capacity in question is on the one hand
involved in man's possession of the divine image, which, however, is
only realised in the body and is therefore at bottom a matter of
indifference; and, on the other, in his likeness to God, which consists
in the union of the soul with God's Spirit, but only comes about when
man is obedient to him. Along with this Irenaeus has also the idea that
man's likeness consists in freedom. Now, as man became disobedient
immediately after the creation, this likeness to God did not become
perfect.[559] Through the fall he lost the fellowship with God to which
he was destined, i.e., he is forfeit to death. This death was
transmitted to Adam's whole posterity.[560] Here Irenaeus followed
sayings of Paul, but adopted the words rather than the sense; for, in
the first place, like the Apologists, he very strongly emphasises the
elements that palliate man's fall[561] and, secondly, he contemplates
the fall as having a teleological significance. It is the fall itself
and not, as in Paul's case, the consequences of the fall, that he thus
views; for he says that disobedience was conducive to man's development.
Man had to learn by experience that disobedience entails death, in order
that he might acquire wisdom and choose freely to fulfil the
commandments of God. Further, man was obliged to learn through the fall
that goodness and life do not belong to him by nature as they do to
God.[562] Here life and death are always the ultimate question to
Irenaeus. It is only when he quotes sayings of Paul that he remembers sin