"Could not God make people perfect right at the beginning?" someone may ask. Take the example of a very small child. The mother can give her baby grown-up food, but the baby is still unable to take adult nourishment. Similarly, God could have given humanity perfection right at the beginning, but humanity could not have received it because it was only a child. For that reason our Lord, who sums up all things in himself, when he came on earth in these last days, came not in full glorly which he could have done, but in the form we could see. Certainly, he could have come in his imperishable glory, but we should not have been able to bear the greatness of his majesty.
Therefore, like giving milk to infants, the perfect Bread of the Father revealed himself to us on earth in human form, so that we might be nourished by his Word like babes at the breast and so by degrees become strong enough to digest the whole Word of God.
Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
-Saint Irenaeus (early third century) was a pastor, missionary, and a heroic writer in defense of the Church.
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