Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Christ is the head of all the things spoken of above: it was necessary that he, sent forth as man by the Father who fashioned all things, should himself undergo Satan's temptation, so that he might fulfill the promises and carry off a glorious and complete victory.
Recapitulating all things, then, he also recapitulated the war he had provoked against our enemy, and crushed him who at the beginning had led us captive in Adam, treading upon his head, just as you find God saying to the serpent in Genesis: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall watch for your head, and you shall watch for his heel." For from that seed which was to be born of the Virgin, according to the likeness of Adam, from the woman, it stood foretold that he would lie in wait for the serpent's head; and it is this offspring of whom the Apostle speaks in writing to the Galatians, that a law of deeds was laid on us as a guardian, right up to the coming of the offspring to whom the promise belonged. And he sets this out with yet greater clarity in that same letter, stating: once the appointed time had run its full course, God dispatched his Son, born from a woman. For the enemy would not have been justly conquered, unless it was a man born of a woman who conquered him. For through a woman he had gained dominion over man from the beginning, setting himself up as man's adversary. For this reason the Lord too confesses himself to be the Son of Man, recapitulating in himself that original man from whom the formation of the woman was made, so that just as through a man who was conquered our race descended into death, so again through a man who is victorious we might ascend into life; and just as death carried off the palm of victory over us through a man, so again through a man we might receive the palm of victory over death.
Now the Lord could not have taken up again within himself that old, original hostility toward the serpent, so bringing to pass the Demiurge's promise and fulfilling his ordinance, had he sprung from some separate, alien father. But since he who from the beginning formed us is one and the same as he who at the end sent his Son, the Lord fulfilled his commandment, being made of a woman, and destroying our adversary, and bringing man to completion after God's own image and resemblance. And it was for this cause that he brought him to ruin by nothing else than the very sayings contained in the Law, using the Father's own commandment as his ally for the destruction and refutation of the apostate angel. First, indeed, fasting for forty days, just as Moses and Elijah had done, afterward he hungered, so that we might understand him to be a true and steadfast man; for it is proper to man not to doubt, lest he transgress. For since in the beginning the serpent seduced man, who was not hungry, to transgress the commandment of God by means of food, so at the end he could not persuade the hungry Christ to partake of the food that belonged to God. For as he tempted him, he spoke thus: "If you are God's Son, command these stones to become loaves," the Lord drove him back with a precept drawn from the Law, declaring: it stands written that man does not live on bread by itself alone. To that saying, "you are the Son of God," he said nothing, but blinded him by his confession as a man, and by his Father's word he foiled the devil's first assault. For that repletion which man had experienced in Paradise through the double taste was undone by the hunger which he now endured in this world. But the devil, beaten back by the Law, made a second attempt to draw near lawfully, this time through a precept. Bringing him up to the topmost point of the temple, he said: "If you are God's Son, throw yourself down. For it is written, that God has given his angels charge concerning you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone" — concealing a lie beneath Scripture, as all heretics do. That saying, "he has given his angels charge concerning him," was indeed written; but "cast yourself down" was said by no Scripture at all — that suggestion the devil brought forward on his own. The Lord therefore lawfully confuted him, saying, "Again it is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God" — by that word which is in the Law showing what pertains to man, namely that man must not put God to the test — and, applying it to his own case, that as the man now visible before him, he too would refrain from testing his God and Lord. Thus the pride of mind that had been in the serpent was undone by the humility that was now in the man; and the devil had already twice been defeated by Scripture, being convicted of urging things contrary to God's precept, and shown by his own judgment to be an enemy of God. He, however, though thoroughly refuted, and as if gathering himself together, directing all the power he had into a lie, showed him a third time all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, saying, as Luke records: "All these will I give you, since they have been delivered to me, and I give them to whomever I wish, if you will fall down and worship me." The Lord, therefore, exposing him for what he was, said: "Go, Satan; for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve" — stripping him bare by this very title, and showing what he really was. For "Satan" is a Hebrew word meaning "apostate." And thus, having conquered him a third time, he drove him from him for good, as one lawfully defeated; and so the breach of God's ordinance that had taken place in Adam was set right through the Law's own ordinance, which the Son of Man kept faithfully, refusing to overstep what God had commanded.
Who, then, is this Lord and God, to whom Christ testifies — the one no man may put to trial, whom all owe worship, and him only must be served? Without question he is that same God who gave forth the Law as well. For these matters stood already foretold within the Law, and it was by the Law's own wording that the Lord made plain how the Law proclaims the Word of the Lord as issuing from the Father, while that same voice brings the apostate angel to ruin, exposing him for what he was and overcoming him through the Son of Man's obedience to God's ordinance. For since at the outset he talked man into overstepping his Maker's ordinance, he thereby gained mastery over him; his mastery lies in nothing but revolt and disobedience, and it was by these that he held man fast in chains. It was fitting, therefore, that man himself, through man, should again be delivered from the very things by which he had been bound, that is, from transgression. For the binding of that one became the loosing of man, since no one can enter into the house of a strong man and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man himself. The Lord, therefore, exposing him who had spoken contrary to God who made all things, and subjecting him by a commandment — the commandment of God being the Law — showed him to be a fugitive from man and the Law, a transgressor and an apostate from God, and thereupon plundered his goods, that is, the men whom he had held in his power, whom he used unjustly. And he who had unjustly led man captive was himself justly led captive; while the man who had earlier been dragged off captive was freed from the grip of his captor, through God the Father's own compassion, who took pity on the creature that was his own and granted him deliverance, restoring him through the Word, that is, through Christ, so that man might learn by experience that he receives incorruptibility not from himself, but as a gift of God.