Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
That the devil is accustomed to lies, by which Adam, seduced, sinned on the sixth day of creation, and was at length restored through Christ.
For he was already practiced in lying against God for the deception of men. For from the beginning, though God had given man abundant food, and had commanded that he should not eat from one tree only — as Scripture says God said to Adam, "You shall eat food from every tree that is in paradise, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; for on the day you eat from it, you shall die the death" — that liar, speaking against the Lord, tempted the man; as Scripture says the serpent said to the woman, "Why then did God say, You shall not eat from every tree of paradise?" And once she had passed along the falsehood, and had plainly reported the command, saying, "From every tree of paradise we may eat, but as for the produce of the tree standing at paradise's center, God said we are not to eat of it, nor even touch it, or we will die" — having thus drawn the command of God out of the woman, he turned crafty and deceived her a second time with a fresh lie, saying, "You will not die the death." For God knew that on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil. At first, then, he was disputing about God in God's own paradise, as though God were absent; for he did not know the greatness of God. Then, having learned from the woman herself that the Lord had said they would die if they tasted of the aforesaid tree, he spoke a third lie, saying, "You shall not die the death." But since God is truthful and the serpent a liar, this was shown by the outcome, death following upon those who had eaten. For together with the food they took on death as well, since they ate in disobedience; and disobedience to God brings death. For this reason they were delivered over to death, having become debtors to it.
In the very day, then, on which they ate, they died, and became debtors to death, since the day of creation is one. For it is said, "And evening came, and morning came, one day." On this very day they ate, and on this very day also they died. But according to the cycle and course of the days, according to which one is called first, another second, and another third, if anyone wishes carefully to learn on which of the seven days Adam died, he will find it from the Lord's own arrangement. For recapitulating in himself the whole of man from the beginning to the end, he recapitulated also his death. It is manifest, then, that on that day the Lord underwent death, obedient to the Father, on which Adam died, disobedient to God. And on the day on which he died, on that same day he had also eaten. For God said, "On the day on which you eat from it, you shall die the death." Recapitulating this day, then, in himself, the Lord came to his passion on the day before the sabbath, which is the sixth day of creation, the day on which man was formed — granting him, by his own passion, a second formation, that which is from death. But there are yet others who place Adam's death within the span of the first thousand years, holding, as Scripture attests, that a single day belonging to the Lord equals a thousand years — and he did not pass beyond that first millennium, but died while still within it, so fulfilling the sentence pronounced on his transgression. Whichever way, then, one chooses to count it — whether by the disobedience, which is itself death; or by the fact that from that moment they were handed over and made debtors to death; or by the single identical day on which they both ate and died, the day of creation being one; or by this weekly cycle, in that they died on the same day they had eaten, namely the Preparation, called "pure supper," the sixth weekday, which the Lord likewise marked out by suffering upon it; or by the fact that he did not outlast the first thousand years but died inside them — by every one of these reckonings, God is proven truthful, since those who tasted of the tree did indeed die; whereas the serpent stands exposed as a deceiver and killer, just as the Lord says of him: he was murderous from his origin and never took his place within the truth.