You may wonder why, when we set out to speak about the Incarnation of the Word, we are now discussing the origin of humanity. But this subject also properly belongs to the purpose of our account.
For when speaking about the Savior’s appearance among us, we must also speak about the origin of humanity, so that you may know that He came down because of us, and that our transgression called forth the Word’s love for humanity, so that the Lord came to us and appeared among human beings.
We were the reason for His taking a body, and for our salvation He showed His love for humanity by being born and appearing in a human body.
Thus God made the human being and willed that he should remain in incorruption. But human beings grew careless and turned their attention away from God, and they conceived and devised evil for themselves, as was said in the preceding work. They therefore received the condemnation of death that had been threatened. From then on they no longer remained as they had been made, but were corrupted according to what they had devised, and death ruled over them as king. Their transgression of the commandment was turning them back toward what they were by nature. Just as they had come into being from non-existence, so in time they would naturally undergo corruption back into non-existence.
For if by nature they had once been non-existent and were called into being through the Word’s presence and love for humanity, then it followed that when human beings lost the knowledge of God and turned toward things that have no being—for evil things have no being, while good things do have being because they come from God who is—they would also lose their continued existence. In other words, they would be dissolved and remain in death and corruption.
Human beings are mortal by nature, since they came into being from nothing. Yet because of their likeness to Him who is, if they had preserved that likeness by keeping their attention on Him, they would have weakened the corruption natural to them and remained incorrupt. As Wisdom says, “Heeding the laws is the assurance of incorruption.” And being incorrupt, they would then have lived like God, as Holy Scripture says, “I said, you are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High; but you die like men and fall like one of the rulers.”