Irenaeus (130-202 AD) was an early Christian leader and student of Polycarp (a generation separated from the Apostles). Working from the ideas of Justin Martyr (Justin the Philosopher), Irenaeus developed the theory of Recapitulation.
The focus of Recapitulation is the desire of God for the reconciliation of mankind in the person of Jesus Christ with a focus on Jesus as the Last Adam.
Recapitulation falls under the general idea of "Christus Victor" in that there is an overlying theme of Adam selling mankind into the bondage of sin and death which is under the dominion of Satan. Christ suffers and died under Satan's power to free man from his grasp. This is accomplished through Jesus' active obedience in all points where Adam failed.
"He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as you can perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for your head, and you on the watch for His heel.” For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, “that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle, where he thus speaks: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman.” For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man’s opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned, in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death.". (Irenaeus, Against Heresies).
The focus of Recapitulation is the desire of God for the reconciliation of mankind in the person of Jesus Christ with a focus on Jesus as the Last Adam.
Recapitulation falls under the general idea of "Christus Victor" in that there is an overlying theme of Adam selling mankind into the bondage of sin and death which is under the dominion of Satan. Christ suffers and died under Satan's power to free man from his grasp. This is accomplished through Jesus' active obedience in all points where Adam failed.
"He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as you can perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for your head, and you on the watch for His heel.” For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, “that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle, where he thus speaks: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman.” For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man’s opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned, in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death.". (Irenaeus, Against Heresies).
