"Knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you"
The whole work contained in the holy books announces by word, reveals by deeds and sets forth by examples, the coming of Jesus Christ our Lord who, sent by the Father, became man by being born of a virgin through the action of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, throughout the whole course of creation, it is he who, by means of true and manifest prefigurations, begets, washes, sanctifies, chooses, sets apart or redeems the Church in the patriarchs: through Adam’s sleep, Noah’s flood, Abraham’s justification, Isaac’s birth, Jacob’s servitude. In a word, through the whole unfolding of time, all the prophecies, those demonstrations of God’s secret plan, were given to us in his kindness so that we might know his coming incarnation…
In every person, every period, every deed, the prophecies in their entirety display as though in a mirror the image of his coming, his preaching, his Passion, his resurrection and our gathering together in one Church… Starting from Adam, the point of departure for our knowledge of humankind, from the beginning of the world we find announced in numerous prefigurations everything that has received its complete fulfilment in the Lord.
-- Saint Irenaeus of Lyons