Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
'I have given you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it' — that is, you had learned the coming of the Lord according to the flesh, but the Spirit of the Father did not yet rest upon you, because of your weakness. 'For where there is envy and strife and dissensions among you,' he says, 'are you not carnal, and do you not walk according to man?' That is to say, the Father's Spirit had not yet come to dwell among them, on account of their incompleteness and the frailty of how they were living. Just as, then, the Apostles were able to give solid food — for whoever the Apostles laid their hands upon received the Holy Spirit, which is the food of life — yet those others could not receive it, since they still had a sense toward God that was weak and unexercised through right living; so also at the beginning God was indeed able to give perfection to man, but man, being then but newly made, could not receive it, or, receiving it, could not contain it, or, containing it, could not keep it. And for this reason the Word of God, though he was perfect, became an infant along with man, not for his own sake, but for the sake of man's infancy, thus made accessible in the measure that man was able to receive him. It is not, then, that there is anything impossible or wanting on God's part, but rather on the part of man, who has but newly been made — since he was not uncreated. But as regards God, power and wisdom and goodness are all shown together: power and goodness, in that he willingly established and made those things which as yet were not; wisdom, in that he made things fitting and harmonious with what exists. And certain things, receiving increase through his immense benignity, and persevering through a long space of time, come to share in the glory of the uncreated, God bestowing without envy what is good. For inasmuch as they were made, they are not uncreated; but inasmuch as they persevere through long ages, they will assume the excellence of the uncreated, God freely granting them everlasting perseverance.
And thus God alone will have the primacy in all things, being alone uncreated, prior to all, and the cause that all things exist; while all the rest remain in subjection to God. Now subjection to God is the perseverance of incorruption, and incorruption is the splendor belonging to the Uncreated One; through this ordering, then, and this sort of fitting arrangement, and through this guidance, man, having been made and formed, is fashioned after the pattern and semblance of that uncreated God — the Father approving and commanding, the Son ministering and forming, the Spirit nourishing and increasing, and man himself gradually advancing and arriving at perfection, that is, coming near to the Uncreated. For the Uncreated is perfect; and this is God. Man, however, had first to come into being, and having come into being, to grow, and having grown, to be strengthened, and having been strengthened, to be multiplied, and having been multiplied, to grow vigorous, and having grown vigorous, to be glorified, and having been glorified, to behold his Lord; for it is God who is to be seen, and beholding God brings about incorruption, and incorruption makes one near to God.
Utterly unreasonable, then, are those who do not wait for the time of growth, and who ascribe the weakness of their own nature to God. For, knowing neither God nor themselves, insatiable and ungrateful, they are unwilling first to be what they were indeed made to be, men capable of feeling; but, overstepping the law of the human race, and before they even become men, they already wish to be like God their maker, and claim there is no difference between the uncreated God and man who has only now been made — men who are thereby more unreasonable than dumb animals. For animals do not blame God for what they are, since he did not make them men; rather, each of them, for what it was made to be, gives thanks. We, however, blame him because we were not made gods from the beginning, but first men, and only afterward gods — even though God did this according to the simplicity of his own goodness, so that no one might suppose him to be jealous or grudging. 'I have said,' he declares, 'you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High'; but since we could not bear the weight of divinity, he adds, 'but you shall die like men,' referring to both things: the kindness of his gift, and our weakness, and the fact that we possessed our own power of choice. For according to his kindness he freely gave what is good, and made men like himself, possessed of their own power; but according to his foreknowledge he knew the weakness of men, and what would come of it; and according to his love and power he will master and subdue the very substance of what is created; for it was needful that created nature should first come to light, and only afterward that what is mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and what is corruptible by incorruptibility, so that man might be brought into conformity with God's image and pattern, taking on for himself the knowledge of good and evil.