in connection with redemption; and ethical consequences of the fall are
not mentioned in this connection. "The original destination of man was
not abrogated by the fall, the truth rather being that the fall was
intended as a means of leading men to attain this perfection to which
they were destined."[563] Moreover, the goodness of God immediately
showed itself both in the removal of the tree of life and in the
sentence of temporal death.[564] What significance belongs to Jesus
Christ within this conception is clear: he is the man who first realised
in his person the destination of humanity; the Spirit of God became
united with his soul and accustomed itself to dwell in men. But he is
also the teacher who reforms mankind by his preaching, calls upon them
to direct their still existing freedom to obedience to the divine
commandments, thereby restoring, i.e., strengthening, freedom, so that
humanity is thus rendered capable of receiving incorruptibility.[565]
One can plainly see that this is the idea of Tatian and Theophilus, with
which Irenaeus has incorporated utterances of Paul. Tertullian and
Hippolytus taught essentially the same doctrine;[566] only Tertullian
beheld the image and likeness of God expressly and exclusively in the
fact that man's will and capacity are free, and based on this freedom an
argument in justification of God's ways.[567]

But, in addition to this, Irenaeus developed a second train of thought.
This was the outcome of his Gnostic and realistic doctrine of
recapitulation, and evinces clear traces of the influence of Pauline
theology. It is, however, inconsistent with the moralistic teachings
unfolded above, and could only be united with them at a few points. To
the Apologists the proposition: "it is impossible to learn to know God
without the help of God" ("impossibile est sine deo discere deum") was a
conviction which, with the exception of Justin, they subordinated to
their moralism and to which they did not give a specifically
Christological signification. Irenaeus understood this proposition in a
Christological sense,[568] and at the same time conceived the blessing
of salvation imparted by Christ not only as the incorruptibility
consisting in the beholding of God bestowed on obedience IV. 20. 5-7:
IV. 38, but also as the divine sonship which has been won for us by
Christ and which is realised in constant fellowship with God and
dependence on him.[569] No doubt he also viewed this divine sons