Cartwright—The Image of God in Irenaeus, Marcellus, and Eustathius 181
human autonomy that Irenaeus lost. Marcellan humanity is self-sufficient; its integrity
may even be more valuable than that of Irenaean humanity for precisely this reason.
Eustathius’s Christology suggests a greater chasm between God and humanity than
Marcellus’s does. Despite this chasm, Eustathius maintains a greater sense of saved
humanity’s reliance on God than Marcellus does. Whether, in this respect, he has the
advantages of both Irenaeus and Marcellus, or the disadvantages of both, is a matter
of perspective. Eustathius articulates Christ’s humanity more coherently than either
Irenaeus or Marcellus, which adds to his conception of New Adam, but at the expense
of his incarnational theology.
These three thinkers share an important and distinctive nexus of ideas, key to which
are a belief that Christ renews Adam and a belief that God’s image is corporeal. Dis-
parate metaphysical frameworks offered them different possibilities for understanding
the human person. I hope that the comparison between them highlights some of the
strengths and weaknesses of their distinctive and historically contingent worldviews
for constructing a theological anthropology.