Therefore Irenaeus describes man's creation as follows:

``So that the man should not have thoughts of grandeur, and become lifted up, as if he had no lord, because of the dominion that had been given to him, and the freedom, fall into sin against God his Creator, overstepping his bounds, and take up an attitude of self-conceited arrogance towards God, a law was given him by God, that he might know that he had for lord the lord of all. And He laid down for him certain conditions: so that, if he kept the command of God, then he would always remain as he was, that is, immortal; but if he did not, he would become mortal, melting into earth, whence his frame had been taken.'' These conditions man did not keep, and thus he became mortal; yet he did not stop being human as a result. There is no justification for systematizing the random statements of Irenaeus about the image of God beyond this, nor for reading into his imprecise usage the later theological distinction between the image of God (humanity) and the similitude of God (immortality).

Man was created with the capacity for immortality, but the devil's promise of immortality in exchange for disobedience cost Adam his immortality. He was, in the words of Irenaeus, ``beguiled by another under the pretext of immortality.'' The true way to immortality lay through obedience, but man did not believe this.

``Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin, having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race.'' Because he interprets the primitive state of man as one of mere potentiality or capacity and believes that Adam and Eve were created as children, Irenaeus often seems inclined to extenuate their disobedience as being ``due, no doubt, to carelessness, but still wicked.'' His interpretation of the beginning on the basis of the end prompts him to draw these parallels between the Virgin Eve and the Virgin Mary. That parallelism affects his picture of man's disobedience too; for as it was Christ, the Word of God, who came to rescue man, so it was disobedience to the word of God in the beginning that brought death into the world, and all our woe.