Irenaeus: Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

33. And just as through a disobedient virgin man was stricken down and fell into death, so through the Virgin who was obedient to the Word of God man was reanimated and received life. ^[1] For the Lord came to seek again the sheep that was lost; ^[2] and man it was that was lost: and for this cause there was not made some other formation, ^[3] but in that same which had its descent from Adam He preserved the likeness of the (first) formation. ^[4] For it was necessary that Adam should be summed up in Christ, that mortality might be swallowed up and overwhelmed by immortality; and Eve summed up in Mary, that a virgin should be a virgin’s intercessor, ^[5] and by a virgin’s obedience undo and put away the disobedience of a virgin.