Embodying the race

Drawing out the Adam-Christ parallel, Irenaeus notes that Luke’s genealogy highlights not only Jesus’ connection with Adam but His embodiment of the nations: “for this cause Luke points out that the genealogy which extends from our Lord’s birth until Adam, has 72 generations, conjoining the end to the beginning, and implying, that it is he who in himself gathered up all nations, dispersed as they were since Adam, and the race of men together with Adam himself.”