Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
What was the reason that man was not made perfect from the beginning. Those who say the contrary to this represent the Lord as powerless — as though he had not been able to bring about what he willed — or again as ignorant of nature, as they themselves say, and of those who are not able to receive his incorruptibility. But, they say, he ought not to have made angels of such a kind that they could transgress, nor men who would immediately turn out ungrateful toward him, since they were made rational, capable of examination and judgment, and not like irrational or inanimate beings, which can do nothing by their own will, but are drawn to the good by necessity and force, having but one disposition and one character, inflexible and without judgment, and able to be nothing other than what they were made. In that case, goodness would give them no pleasure at all, nor would communion with God hold any value, nor would virtue seem worth pursuing, since it would have reached them apart from any motion, concern, or exertion of their own, but would have been implanted in them idly and without cost — so that they would have been of no account for goodness, being such by nature rather than by will, and possessing the good spontaneously but not by choice; and for this very reason they would not even understand that the good is beautiful, nor enjoy it. For what enjoyment of the good is there among those who do not know it? What glory belongs to those who have not striven for it? What crown belongs to those who have not obtained it, as victors do in a contest? And for this reason the Lord said the kingdom of heaven is taken by violence, and 'those who use force,' he says, 'seize it' — that is, those who by force and struggle, watching earnestly, lay hold of it. For this reason too the Apostle Paul says to the Corinthians: 'but one receives the prize. So run that you may obtain it. Now everyone who competes is temperate in all things: they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. So I run, not without a clear goal; thus I box, not merely striking at empty air; rather I bruise my body and master it fully, for fear that, having proclaimed the message to others, I myself might end up disqualified.' The good contender, then, exhorts us to the contest for incorruption, that we may be crowned and may esteem the crown precious — namely, the one acquired for us through the contest, not one grown up in us of itself. And the more it comes to us through struggle, the more precious it is; and the more precious it is, the more we should always love it. Nor indeed are things loved in the same way when they come to us spontaneously as when they are found with much anxious effort. Since, then, it was for our benefit to love God the more by finding this out for ourselves through this struggle, both the Lord taught it and the Apostle handed it down. And besides, our good would surely have been unreasoning had it been unexercised. But not even sight would be so desirable to us, had we not known how great an evil it is not to see; and the experience of sickness makes health the more honorable; and light is made honorable by comparison with darkness, and life by comparison with death. So too the heavenly kingdom is the more honorable to those who have known the earthly. And the more honorable it is, the more it draws our love; and the more we love it, the greater the glory awaiting us before God.
For our sake, then, the Lord endured all these things, so that, being instructed through all things, we might in future be cautious in all things, and might persevere in the full love of him, having been reasonably taught to love God — God indeed displaying magnanimity in the face of man's apostasy, and man being instructed through it, just as the prophet also says: 'Your own falling away shall correct you' (Jer. 2) — God having foreordained all things for the perfecting of man, and for his edification, and for the manifestation of the divine dispositions, so that his goodness might be shown and his justice accomplished, and the Church might be conformed to the image of his Son, and man might at last become mature, ripening through so many things toward the seeing and comprehending of God. In what respect all things that have been made stand in need of one who is perfect, and whence that need arises.