Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
In the same fashion, regarding Jerusalem and the Lord, they presume to assert that, had she truly belonged to the great King as his city, she would never have been forsaken. Yet this resembles claiming that straw, were it God's own creation, would never be separated out from the grain, or that a vine's branches, if fashioned by God, would never be pruned away once stripped of their clusters. But just as these things were made not chiefly for what they themselves are, but rather on account of the fruit ripening within them — which, once mature and harvested, leaves them behind to be cast off and cleared away, no longer serving any purpose in fruit-bearing — so also Jerusalem, which had borne upon herself the yoke of servitude by which mankind was disciplined (mankind who previously was not subject to God, while death still reigned), and having undergone that discipline was made ready for freedom, once the fruit of that freedom had appeared, and had ripened and been harvested and stored in the barn, with its yield carried forth from her to those capable of bearing fruit, and dispersed across every land. As Isaiah says: 'The root of Jacob shall sprout, and Israel shall blossom, and every nation on earth shall be filled with what he yields.' For once that fruit had been scattered across every land, she was justly forsaken and set aside — she who had indeed once yielded good fruit, since from her, according to the flesh, Christ himself sprang forth as fruit, together with the apostles; but she now serves no further purpose in fruit-bearing. For whatever has a temporal beginning must also, of necessity, have a temporal end.