CCC 518

Christ's whole life is a mystery of recapitulation. All Jesus did, said and suffered had for its aim restoring fallen man to his original vocation: When Christ became incarnate and was made man, he recapitulated in himself the long history of mankind and procured for us a "short cut" to salvation, so that what we had lost in Adam, that is, being in the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus.¹⁸⁵ St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 18, 1: PG 7PG — Patrologia Graeca (Migne)/1, 932. For this reason Christ experienced all the stages of life, thereby giving communion with God to all men.¹⁸⁶ St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 18, 7: PG 7PG — Patrologia Graeca (Migne)/1, 937; cf. 2, 22, 4.