Irenaeus of Lyon (~130–202 AD) develops the most theologically comprehensive atonement theory of the patristic period: Christ recapitulates (literally ‘re-heads’ or ‘sums up’) all of human history, reversing Adam’s disobedience at every point. Where Adam disobeyed in a garden, Christ obeyed in Gethsemane. Where Adam took fruit from a tree, Christ hung on a tree. Where Eve’s disobedience brought death, Mary’s obedience brings life. Christ lives through every stage of human life — childhood, youth, maturity — sanctifying each stage and restoring what Adam lost. The goal of atonement is theosis: humanity is gradually deified through union with Christ. ‘God became what we are so that we might become what He is.’ Recapitulation is not primarily about satisfying a legal penalty but about cosmic restoration — the undoing of the Fall through a second Adam who succeeds where the first failed. This theory is deeply connected to Irenaeus’s polemic against Gnosticism: against the Gnostic devaluation of matter and human history, Irenaeus insists on the goodness of creation and the full humanity of Christ.