not set free. For his salvation is death's destruction. When therefore the Lord vivifies man, that is, Adam, death is at the same time destroyed.
8. All therefore speak falsely who disallow his (Adam's) salvation, shutting themselves out from life for ever, in that they do not believe that the sheep which had perished has been found.[1] For if it has not been found, the whole human race is still held in a state of perdition. False, therefore, is that man who first started this idea, or rather, this ignorance and blindness—Tatian.[2] As I have already indicated, this man entangled himself with all the heretics.[3] This dogma, however, has been invented by himself, in order that, by introducing something new, independently of the rest, and by speaking vanity, he might acquire for himself hearers void of faith, affecting to be esteemed a teacher, and endeavouring from time to time to employ sayings of this kind often [made use of] by Paul: "In Adam we all die;"[4] ignorant, however, that "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."[5] Since this, then, has been clearly shown, let all his disciples be put to shame, and let them wrangle[6] about Adam, as if some great gain were to accrue to them if he be not saved; when they profit nothing more [by that], even as the serpent also did not profit when persuading man [to sin], except to this effect, that he proved him a transgressor, obtaining man as the first-fruits of his own apostasy.[7] But he did not know God's power.[8] Thus also do those who disallow Adam's salvation gain nothing, except this, that they
- ↑ Luke xv. 4.
- ↑ For an account of Tatian, see the notice prefixed to his only extant work in vol. iii.
- ↑ His heresy being just a mixture of the opinions of the various Gnostic sects.
- ↑ 1 Cor. xv. 22.
- ↑ Rom. v. 20.
- ↑ Though unnoticed by the editors, there seems a difficulty in the different moods of the two verbs, erubescant and concertant.
- ↑ "Initium et materiam apostasiæ suæ habens hominem:" the meaning is very obscure, and the editors throw no light upon it.
- ↑ Literally, "but he did not see God." The translator is supposed to have read οἶδεν knew, for εἶδεν, saw.
