Human beings had thus become irrational, while demonic deception overshadowed everything everywhere and hid the knowledge of the true God. What, then, was God to do? Was He to remain silent before so great an evil and allow people to be deceived by demons and kept from knowing God?
And what purpose was there in making the human being according to God’s image from the beginning? It would have been better for him simply to have been made irrational than, after being made rational, to live the life of irrational creatures.
And what purpose was there in giving him a conception of God at the beginning? If he is not worthy to receive it even now, it should not have been given to him at the beginning.
Similarly, what benefit or glory would there be for God Himself, who made them, if they did not worship Him but regarded others as their makers? This would mean that God had made them for others and not for Himself.
Even a human king does not allow the lands he has established to fall into the service of others or go over to other rulers. He reminds their inhabitants by letters, often sends messages through friends, and, if necessary, comes in person and puts them to shame by his presence—all simply so that they will not serve others and his work will not become useless.
How much more, then, will God spare His own creatures, so that they are not led astray from Him and do not serve things that do not exist? This is especially so because such error leads to their destruction and disappearance, and it was not fitting for those who had once shared in the Image of God to perish.
What, then, was God to do? What else was to be done but renew humanity according to the Image, so that through this human beings might once again know Him? And how could this happen except by the coming of the very Image of God, our Savior Jesus Christ? Human beings could not do it, since they themselves were made according to the Image; nor could angels, for they are not images of God. Therefore the Word of God came Himself, so that, as the Image of the Father, He might recreate the human being made according to the Image.
But again, this could not have happened unless death and corruption had been destroyed.
Therefore He fittingly took a mortal body, so that death might be destroyed in it and human beings made according to the Image might be renewed. No one else was sufficient for this need except the Image of the Father.