Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

I've looked up the passage in 'Christianity in the Second Century the case of Tatian' by Emily Hunt.

Apparently the original Greek is ambiguous and the online translation somewhat of a paraphrase. A literal rendering might be (There are other possible renderings differing from both the above and problems with the original text don't help.)

It is possible that the 'first created' are not the first created humans but some group of angels, however from the general context of our yearning to return, IMO the interpretation of 'first created' as 'first created humans' is correct.

If so then on a literal translation it would appear that the original fallen humans may have been expelled from a spiritual realm into our world.

If so this would agree closely with Valentinian ideas found in Irenaeus and in Clement of Alexandria's 'Excerpts from Theodotus'.

These Valentinian ideas are to some extent docetic in that they deny that Christ's body was fully human, however Christ is unambiguously born and dies in this world not in some spiritual realm.

Andrew Criddle