Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Methodius/Banquet of the Ten Virgins/Thaleia/Part 4

by Methodius

Chapter IV.—Some Things Here Hard and Too Slightly Treated, and Apparently Not Sufficiently Brought Out According to the Rule of Theology.

Such, then, I consider to be the objections urged by many who, despising, as it seems, the wisdom of Paul, dislike the comparing of the first man to Christ. For come, let us consider how rightly Paul compared Adam to Christ, not only considering him to be the type and image, but also that Christ Himself became the very same thing,^[1] because the Eternal Word fell upon Him. For it was fitting that the first-born of God, the first shoot, the only-begotten, even the wisdom of God, should be joined to the first-formed man, and first and first-born of mankind, and should become incarnate. And this was Christ, a man filled with the pure and perfect Godhead, and God received into man. For it was most suitable that the oldest of the Æons and the first of the Archangels, when about to hold communion with men, should dwell in the oldest and the first of men, even Adam. And thus, when renovating those things which were from the beginning, and forming them again of the Virgin by the Spirit, He frames the same^[2] just as at the beginning. When the earth was still virgin and untilled, God, taking mould, formed the reasonable creature from it without seed.^[3]

Footnotes

1. Namely, the second Adam.
2. Second Adam.
3. The obscurity of this chapter is indicated in the heading placed over it by the old Latin translator. The general meaning, however, will be clear enough to the theological reader.—Tr.