The Cathodox claim that it is permissible to worship images of Jesus because Jesus Himself is the “image of God,” and thus every person is already supposedly an “image-worshiper” if they worship Jesus. They extend this argument to worshiping pictures of the saints, since they are made in the image of God, so worshiping an image of a saint is essentially “worshiping an image of the image of God.” But the Scriptures and fathers completely contradict this notion that lifeless paintings are the image of God.
The word “Image” (in Greek eikon) simply means “copy” or “duplicate.” It’s the opposite of the word “original” or “prototype.” The Son of God is the image of God because He is duplicate of the Father, identical to Him in every way except one: that he is the copy and not the original, begotten from the Father’s essence. Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” The Father has no visible form, so when Paul says the Son is the “image” of the Father, he does not mean Jesus looks similar to the Father. After all, the Father is invisible! If you copy something invisible, you get another invisible thing. Jesus was the image of God before He ever assumed a visible human form. Therefore, God’s image is not visible.
Human beings, on the other hand, are not the image of God. They are MADE in the image of God, meaning they were CREATED to resemble God, not begotten from God’s own essence. But if a man begets a son, that son is the image of the father, because the Father multiplied and brought forth a being from his own essence. In order for something to qualify as the image of God, it must share the same ESSENCE as God. This is an important distinction to make because the church fathers ALWAYS criticize the pagans for worshiping images of man, but they NEVER criticize anyone for reverencing the TRUE image of God, the Son of God, and our fellow man, who is formed in the image of God. Thus, the flesh of man is not the image of God. Cathodox images do not bear the image of God.
Didymus the Blind (313– 398 AD):
16.41 And concerning a natural image, Moses also teaches thus: “Adam begot Seth according to his own likeness.” Seth was not by necessity of a different essence from Adam, and yet he called likeness the image and resemblance of essence. 16.42 But it is also written concerning man, that he is “the image and glory of God.” 16.43 But nowhere, O sirs, is it written that man or any other creature is “the radiance of the glory of God and the express image of his person.” 16.44 It is one thing for man to be an image of God, that is, the created of the creator, as a seat is of the carpenter (for Solomon says: “The maker is beheld in proportion to his works”), and it is another to be, in accordance with conformity, consubstantiality, and co-eternity, the radiance of glory and the express image of person, subsisting and most true. 16.45 For he says: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” But he who has seen a man has not seen God, just as one who has seen a seat has not seen the carpenter. 16.46 And necessarily the image of the only invisible God is itself invisible, and not the visible man made in the image. 16.47 Therefore the Son is not like to another: for it is written, “Who shall be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?” Nor is he unlike to his own Father: “For I and the Father are one.” 16.48 But those who apply the idea of a created image to him are like Nebuchadnezzar, who commanded a lifeless image made by hands to be worshipped.“ – Didymus the Blind, On the Trinity, Book 1, chapter 16:41-16-48
Basil of Caesarea (330-379 AD):
We do not fritter away the theology in a divided plurality, because one Form, so to say, united in the invariableness of the Godhead, is beheld in God the Father, and in God the Only begotten. For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the latter, such is the former, and such as is the former, such is the latter; and herein is the Unity. So that according to the distinction of Persons, both are one and one, and according to the community of Nature, one. How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of a king, and of the king’s image, and not of two kings. The majesty is not cloven in two, nor the glory divided. The sovereignty and authority over us is one, and so the doxology ascribed by us is not plural but one; because the honour paid to the image passes on to the prototype. Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent on the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the Godhead. – Basil, on the Holy Spirit, Chapter 18
Hence, through this one blasphemy he rejects all the terms handed down by the Holy Spirit for the glorification of the Only-Begotten, even though the gospel teaches that the Father, God, has set his seal upon him [Jn 6.27], and the Apostle [says] that he is the image of the invisible God [Col 1.15]. He is not a lifeless image, nor handmade, nor a product of art or conceptualization, but a living image, or rather self-existent life which always preserves the indistinguishability, not by likeness of shape, but in his very substance. – Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, Book 1, Chapter 18
How then does Scripture say that we have come into being according to the image of God? Let us learn the things concerning God and understand those concerning ourselves, that we do not have that which is according to the image in our bodily shape. For the shape of a body is corruptible. The incorruptible is not depicted in the corruptible, nor is the corruptible an image of the incorruptible. The human body is different in youth and in old age, different in health than in sickness, different in fear than in happiness, different in abundance than in need, different in peace than in war. It has a different color when awake and when asleep; in one case more red blossoms, as heat goes to the outside, in the other case the heat cools to the depth. Therefore also the bodies of those sleeping are yellowish. – Basil of Caesarea, On The Origin of Humanity, Discourse 1, chapter 6
Gregory of Nyssa (335-394):
For that which is “made in the image” of the Deity necessarily possesses a likeness to its prototype in every respect; it resembles it in being intellectual, immaterial, unconnected with any notion of weight, and in eluding any measurement of its dimensions; yet as regards its own peculiar nature it is something different from that other. Indeed, it would be no longer an “image,” if it were altogether identical with that other; but where we have A in that uncreated prototype we have a in the image. – Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection
This logical and thinking animal, man, came into being as the work and imitation of the divine and unmixed nature. For thus it is written of him in the story of creation, that: “He made him in the image of God.” This creature, man, therefore, did not have the elements of passion and mortality essentially and naturally in himself from the beginning. For it would not have been possible for the meaning of the word “image” to be preserved if the copied beauty were different from the archetype. It was only later with the first fall that sin came upon man, and thus it crept in…. Like man, this “great and honored being,” as he was called by Scripture, falling from his own worthiness like those who slip and fall into the mud and, having smeared themselves with mire, become unrecognizable even to their companions, so the one who falls into the mire of sin no longer is the image of the incorruptible God, and he is covered through sin with a corruptible and slimy form which reason advises him to reject. However, if, purged by the water, so to speak, of his way of life, the earthly covering can be stripped off, the beauty of the soul may reappear again. – Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, chapter 12
When, therefore, Moses grew in knowledge, he declared that he had seen God in the darkness, that is, that he had then come to know that what is divine is beyond all knowledge and comprehension, for the text says, Moses approached the dark cloud where God was. What God? He who made darkness his hiding place, as David says, who also was initiated into the mysteries in the same inner sanctuary. 165. When Moses arrived there, he was taught by word what he had formerly learned from darkness, so that, I think, the doctrine on this matter might be made firmer for us for being testified to by the divine voice. The divine word at the beginning forbids that the Divine be likened to any of the things known by men, since every concept which comes from some comprehensible image by an approximate understanding and by guessing at the divine nature constitutes an idol of God and does not proclaim God. 166. Religious virtue is divided into two parts, into that which pertains to the Divine and that which pertains to right conduct (for purity of life is a part of religion). Moses learns at first the things which must be known about God (namely, that none of those things known by human comprehension is to be ascribed to him). Then he is taught the other side of virtue, learning by what pursuits the virtuous life is perfected. — Gregory of Nyssa, On the Life of Moses, Book 2.164-166
John Chrysostom (347-407 AD):
Paul, discoursing as we showed of the dignity of the Son, says these words: “Who is the Image of the invisible God.” Whose image then will you have Him be? God’s? Then he is exactly like the one to whom you assign Him. For if [He is] as a man’s image, say so, and I will have done with you as a madman. But if as God and God’s Son, God’s image, he shows the exact likeness. Then why has no angel anywhere been called either image or son, but man both? Why, because in the former case indeed the exaltedness of their nature might presently have thrust the many into this impiety; but in the other case the mean and low nature is a pledge of security against this, and will not allow any, even should they desire it, to suspect anything of the kind, nor to bring down the Word so low. For this cause, where the meanness is great, the Scripture boldly asserts the honor, but where the nature is higher, it forbears. The Image of the Invisible is itself also invisible, and invisible in like manner, for otherwise it would not be an image. For an image, so far as it is an image, even among us, ought to be exactly similar, as, for example, in respect of the features and the likeness. But here indeed among us, this is by no means possible; for human art fails in many respects, or rather fails in all, if you examine with accuracy. But where God is, there is no error, no failure. But if a creature: how is He the Image of the Creator? For neither is a horse the image of a man. If the Image mean not exact likeness to the Invisible, what hinders the Angels also from being His Image? For they too are invisible; but not to one another: but the soul is invisible: but because it is invisible, it is simply on that account an image, and not in such sort as he and angels are images. – John Chrysostom, Homily 3 on Colossians
Scriptures:
Genesis 1:26 – Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image (εἰκὼν), according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
1 Corinthians 11:7 – For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, because he is the image (εἰκὼν) and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man.
Colossians 3:9-10 – Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image (εἰκὼν) of Him who created him.
Romans 8:29 – For those who He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image (εἰκὼν) of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.
1 Corinthians 15:42-49 – So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image (εἰκὼν) of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
2 Corinthians 3:18 – But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image (εἰκὼν) from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Wisdom of Solomon 2:23 – Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image (εἰκὼν) of his own everlastingness.
Wisdom of Solomon 7:26 – For she [Wisdom] is a reflection of everlasting light, an unspotted mirror of the working of God, and an image (εἰκὼν) of his goodness.
Church Fathers:
Barnabas:
Since, therefore, having renewed us by the remission of our sins, He has made us after another pattern, [it is His purpose] that we should possess the soul of children, inasmuch as He has created us anew by His Spirit. For the Scripture says concerning us, while He speaks to the Son, “Let Us make man after Our image, and after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the beasts of the earth, and the fowls of heaven, and the fishes of the sea” (Genesis 1:26). And the Lord said, on beholding the fair creature man, “Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28). These things [were spoken] to the Son. Again, I will show you how, in respect to us, He has accomplished a second fashioning in these last days. The Lord says, “Behold, I will make the last like the first.” – Letter of Barnabas, chapter 6
Irenaeus:
“For He made man the image of God; and the image of God is the Son, after whose image man was made: and for this cause He appeared in the end of the times that He might show the image (to be) like unto Himself. According to this covenant the race of man multiplied, springing up from the seed of the three. And upon the earth was one lip, that is to say one language”–[The Demonstration of The Apostolic Preaching Chapter 22]
“But who else is superior to, and more eminent than, that man who was formed after the likeness of God, except the Son of God, after whose image man was created? And for this reason He did in these last days exhibit the similitude; [for] the Son of God was made man, assuming the ancient production [of His hands] into His own nature, as I have shown in the immediately preceding book.”–Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 4 chapter 33
Clement of Alexandria:
For the image of God is His Word, the genuine Son of Mind, the Divine Word, the archetypal light of light; and the image of the Word is the true man, the mind which is in man, who is therefore said to have been made in the image and likeness of God, Genesis 1:26 assimilated to the Divine Word in the affections of the soul, and therefore rational; but effigies sculptured in human form, the earthly image of that part of man which is visible and earth-born, are but a perishable impress of humanity, manifestly wide of the truth. – Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, Chapter 10
Tertullian:
If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in plural phrase, saying, Let us make man in our own image, and after our own likeness; Genesis 1:26 whereas He ought to have said, Let me make man in my own image, and after my own likeness, as being a unique and singular Being? … Genesis 1:27 Why say image of God? Why not His own image merely, if He was only one who was the Maker, and if there was not also One in whose image He made man? But there was One in whose image God was making man, that is to say, Christ’s image, who, being one day about to become Man (more surely and more truly so), had already caused the man to be called His image, who was then going to be formed of clay — the image and similitude of the true and perfect Man. -Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 12
“Now God shall be glorified in His handiwork, fitting it so as to be conformable to, and modelled after, His own Son. For by the hands of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not [merely] a part of man, was made in the likeness of God.”–Irenaeus Against Heresies Book 5 chapter 6
John says, “My little children, keep yourselves from idols,”—not now from idolatry, as if from the service of it, but from idols—that is, from any resemblance to them: for it is an unworthy thing that you, the image of the living God, should become the likeness of an idol and a dead man. – Tertullian (197 AD) The Chaplet Chapter 10
Origen:
We do not understand, however, this man indeed whom Scripture says was made “according to the image of God” to be corporeal. For the form of the body does not contain the image of God, nor is the corporeal man said to be “made,” but “formed,” as is written in the words which follow. For the text says: “And God formed man,” that is fashioned, “from the slime of the earth.” But it is our inner man, invisible, incorporeal, incorruptible, and immortal which is made “according to the image of God.” For it is in such qualities as these that the image of God is more correctly understood. But if anyone suppose that this man who is made “according to the image and likeness of God” is made of flesh, he will appear to represent God himself as made of flesh and in human form. It is most clearly impious to think this about God. – Homily 1 on Genesis, chapter 13
Obviously the passage in which the Apostle says, “they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of man,” must not be left behind. This text must be understood as exposing not merely those who worship idols, but also as refuting the Anthropomorphites who are in the Church, who claim that the image of God is the bodily form of man. They are unaware that it is written in the book of Genesis that man was made in the image of God. Now of which man this text ought to be understood, the Apostle himself explains when he says, “having laid aside the old man with his deeds,” and, “having put on the new who has been created according to God.” You hear that he says that the new man is created according to God. But in another passage he calls this same new man “the inner man.” In fact he identifies the corruptible man, whose image he rejects, as the outer man when he says, “Even though our outer man is being corrupted, our inner man is being renewed.” And in order that those who are in error concerning the image of God might know his meaning still more clearly, let them hear which one the Apostle says is the man who has been created in the image of God. He writes in Colossians, “Do not lie, seeing that you have stripped off your old man with his deeds and have put on the new, who is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him.” From these words he plainly shows that it is the inner man, which is being renewed through knowledge, who has been created in the image of God. But those who say that the outer man, that is, the bodily and corruptible man, is in the image of God are, by the Apostle, in company with those who have exchanged the glory of God for the likeness of the image of corruptible man. It was indeed necessary that not even these things be omitted from the explanation of the Apostle’s discourse so that even in this section of the Apostle’s writing as well as in many other passages, the Anthropomorphites, that is to say, those who say that the bodily form of man is the image of God, may recognize themselves as having been exposed and refuted. – Commentary on Romans 1.19.8
At the creation of man, then, there was first created the man that is “after the image,” in whom there was nothing material. He who is in the image is not made out of matter. “And God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let them have dominion” and so on. And when God made man he did not take dust of the earth, as he did the second time, but he made him in the image of God. That that which is in the image of God is understood as immaterial and superior to all corporeal existence not only by Moses but also by the apostle is shown by his words, as follows: “Putting off the old man with his deeds and putting on the new which is renewed in the knowledge of him who created him.” – Dialogue With Heraclides (Origen)
6. Let us now see how we are to understand the expression invisible image, that we may in this way perceive how God is rightly called the Father of His Son; and let us, in the first place, draw our conclusions from what are customarily called images among men. That is sometimes called an image which is painted or sculptured on some material substance, such as wood or stone; and sometimes a child is called the image of his parent, when the features of the child in no respect belie their resemblance to the father. I think, therefore, that that man who was formed after the image and likeness of God may be fittingly compared to the first illustration. Respecting him, however, we shall see more precisely, God willing, when we come to expound the passage in Genesis. But the image of the Son of God, of whom we are now speaking, may be compared to the second of the above examples, even in respect of this, that He is the invisible image of the invisible God, in the same manner as we say, according to the sacred history, that the image of Adam is his son Seth. The words are, And Adam begot Seth in his own likeness, and after his own image. Now this image contains the unity of nature and substance belonging to Father and Son. For if the Son do, in like manner, all those things which the Father does, then, in virtue of the Son doing all things like the Father, is the image of the Father formed in the Son, who is born of Him, like an act of His will proceeding from the mind. And I am therefore of opinion that the will of the Father ought alone to be sufficient for the existence of that which He wishes to exist. For in the exercise of His will He employs no other way than that which is made known by the counsel of His will. And thus also the existence of the Son is generated by Him. For this point must above all others be maintained by those who allow nothing to be unbegotten, i.e., unborn, save God the Father only. And we must be careful not to fall into the absurdities of those who picture to themselves certain emanations, so as to divide the divine nature into parts, and who divide God the Father as far as they can, since even to entertain the remotest suspicion of such a thing regarding an incorporeal being is not only the height of impiety, but a mark of the greatest folly, it being most remote from any intelligent conception that there should be any physical division of any incorporeal nature. Rather, therefore, as an act of the will proceeds from the understanding, and neither cuts off any part nor is separated or divided from it, so after some such fashion is the Father to be supposed as having begotten the Son, His own image; namely, so that, as He is Himself invisible by nature, He also begot an image that was invisible. For the Son is the Word, and therefore we are not to understand that anything in Him is cognisable by the senses. He is wisdom, and in wisdom there can be no suspicion of anything corporeal. He is the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world; but He has nothing in common with the light of this sun. Our Saviour, therefore, is the image of the invisible God, inasmuch as compared with the Father Himself He is the truth: and as compared with us, to whom He reveals the Father, He is the image by which we come to the knowledge of the Father, whom no one knows save the Son, and he to whom the Son is pleased to reveal Him. And the method of revealing Him is through the understanding. For He by whom the Son Himself is understood, understands, as a consequence, the Father also, according to His own words: He that has seen Me, has seen the Father also. – Origen, On First Principles, book 1, chapter 2, paragraph 6
Obviously the passage in which the Apostle says, “they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of man,” must not be left behind.326 This text must be understood as exposing not merely those who worship idols, but also as refuting the Anthropomorphites who are in the Church, who claim that the image of God is the bodily form of man. They are unaware that it is written in the book of Genesis that man was made in the image of God. Now of which man this text ought to be understood, the Apostle himself explains when he says, “having laid aside the old man with his deeds,” and, “having put on the new who has been created according to God.” You hear that he says that the new man is created according to God. But in another passage he calls this same new man “the inner man.” In fact he identifies the corruptible man, whose image he rejects, as the outer man when he says, “Even though our outer man is being corrupted, our inner man is being renewed.” And in order that those who are in error concerning the image of God might know his meaning still more clearly, let them hear which one the Apostle says is the man who has been created in the image of God. He writes in Colossians, “Do not lie, seeing that you have stripped off your old man with his deeds and have put on the new, who is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him.” From these words he plainly shows that it is the inner man, which is being renewed through knowledge, who has been created in the image of God. But those who say that the outer man, that is, the bodily and corruptible man, is in the image of God are, by the Apostle, in company with those who have exchanged the glory of God for the likeness of the image of corruptible man. It was indeed necessary that not even these things be omitted from the explanation of the Apostle’s discourse so that even in this section of the Apostle’s writing as well as in many other passages, the Anthropomorphites, that is to say, those who say that the bodily form of man is the image of God, may recognize themselves as having been exposed and refuted. -Origen, Commentary on Romans 1.19.8
Methodius:
As, then, Jonah spent three days and as many nights in the whale’s belly, and was delivered up sound again, so shall we all, who have passed through the three stages of our present life on earth—I mean the beginning, the middle, and the end, of which all this present time consists—rise again. For there are altogether three intervals of time, the past, the future, and the present. And for this reason the Lord spent so many days in the earth symbolically, thereby teaching clearly that when the forementioned intervals of time have been fulfilled, then shall come our resurrection, which is the beginning of the future age, and the end of this. For in that age there is neither past nor future, but only the present. Moreover, Jonah having spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, was not destroyed by his flesh being dissolved, as is the case with that natural decomposition which takes place in the belly, in the case of those meats which enter into it, on account of the greater heat in the liquids, that it might be shown that these bodies of ours may remain undestroyed. For consider that God had images of Himself made as of gold, that is of a purer spiritual substance, as the angels; and others of clay or brass, as ourselves. He united the soul which was made in the image of God to that which was earthy. As, then, we must here honour all the images of a king, on account of the form which is in them, so also it is incredible that we who are the images of God should be altogether destroyed as being without honour. Whence also the Word descended into our world, and was incarnate of our body, in order that, having fashioned it to a more divine image, He might raise it incorrupt, although it had been dissolved by time. And, indeed, when we trace out the dispensation which was figuratively set forth by the prophet, we shall find the whole discourse visibly extending to this. – Methodius, Fragments on the History of Jonah, chapter 2
Athanasius:
For the soul is made after the image and likeness of God, as divine Scripture also shows, when it says in the person of God (Genesis 1:26): “Let us make man after our Image and likeness.” Whence also when it gets rid of all the filth of sin which covers it and retains only the likeness of the Image in its purity, then surely this latter being thoroughly brightened, the soul beholds as in a mirror the Image of the Father, even the Word, and by His means reaches the idea of the Father, Whose Image the Saviour is. – Athanasius, Against the Heathen, chapter 34
Eusebius of Caesarea:
Thus also would the image of God be a kind of living image of the living God, in a mode once more that is beyond our words and reasoning, and existing in Itself immaterially and unembodied, and unmixed with anything opposite to Itself, but not such an image as we connote by the term, which differs in its essential substance and its species, but one which itself contains the whole of its species, and is like in its own essence to the Father, and so is seen to be the liveliest fragrance of the Father, in a mode once again beyond our words and reasoning. For everything that is true about Him could not be spoken in human words, and could not be reasoned with the reasoning of men according to strict logic. – Proof of the Gospel, book 5, chapter 1
Ambrose of Milan:
The flesh, therefore, cannot be made to the image of God. This is true, however, of our souls, which are free to wander far and wide in acts of reflection and of counsel. Our souls are able to envisage and reflect on all things. – Ambrose, Six Days of Creation, Day Six, chapter 45
48. The Apostle saith that Christ is the image of the Father—for he calls Him the image of the invisible God, the first-begotten of all creation. First-begotten, mark you, not first-created, in order that He may be believed to be both begotten, in virtue of His nature, and first in virtue of His eternity. In another place also the Apostle has declared that God made the Son “heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds, Who is the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His substance.”1The Apostle calls Christ the image of the Father, and Arius says that He is unlike the Father. Why, then, is He called an image, if He hath no likeness? Men will not have their portraits unlike them, and Arius contends that the Father is unlike the Son, and would have it that the Father has begotten one unlike Himself, as though unable to generate His like.
49. The prophets say: “In Thy light we shall see light;” and again: “Wisdom is the brightness of everlasting light, and the spotless mirror of God’s majesty, the image of His goodness.” See what great names are declared! “Brightness,” because in the Son the Father’s glory shines clearly: “spotless mirror,” because the Father is seen in the Son: “image of goodness,” because it is not one body seen reflected in another, but the whole power [of the Godhead] in the Son. The word “image” teaches us that there is no difference; “expression,” that He is the counterpart of the Father’s form; and “brightness” declares His eternity. The “image” in truth is not that of a bodily countenance, not one made up of colours, nor modelled in wax, but simply derived from God, coming out from the Father, drawn from the fountainhead.
50. By means of this image the Lord showed Philip the Father, saying, “Philip, he that sees Me, sees the Father also. How then dost thou say, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?” Yes, he who looks upon the Son sees, in portrait, the Father. Mark what manner of portrait is spoken of. It is Truth, Righteousness, the Power of God: not dumb, for it is the Word; not insensible, for it is Wisdom; not vain and foolish, for it is Power; not soulless, for it is the Life; not dead, for it is the Resurrection. You see, then, that whilst an image is spoken of, the meaning is that it is the Father, Whose image the Son is, seeing that no one can be his own image. 51. More might I set down from the Son’s testimony; howbeit, lest He perchance appear to have asserted Himself overmuch, let us enquire of the Father. For the Father said, “Let us make man in Our image and likeness.” The Father saith to the Son “in Our image and likeness,” and thou sayest that the Son of God is unlike the Father. – Ambrose, Exposition of the Faith, chapters 48-51
Therefore let us flee these evils and elevate our soul to the image and likeness of God. The flight from evils is the likeness of God, and the image of God is gained through the virtues. And so, like a painter, He has painted us with the colors of the virtues. “See, I have painted your walls, Jerusalem.” Let us not wipe away with the brush of neglect the props of the painted walls of our soul. And so “I have painted the walls,” with which we can turn away the enemy. The soul has its walls; from them it stands forth and concerning them it says: “I am a strong city, a city besieged.” By these walls it is guarded, and by them it is protected under siege. – Seven Egegetical Works, Death as a Good, 5.17
10. They add also the cause of their departure, that Laban had lost the true glory and those stores of good treasure in which we are born. Vigour of mind has been given us, and the good coinage of God’s image and likeness, which is a spiritual coinage. He lost these because he preferred the splendour of this world to things true and profitable for his true life; for the beauty of these things escapes one who is ignorant of the good things of God, while in his judgment of what is beautiful he deludes and deceives himself. – Ambrose, Letter VII, chapter 10
The cause of envy was the happiness of man placed in paradise, because the devil could not brook the favors received by man. His envy was aroused because man, though formed in slime, was chosen to be an inhabitant of paradise. The devil began to reflect that man was an inferior creature yet had hopes of an eternal life, whereas he, a creature of superior nature, had fallen and had become part of this mundane existence. Paradise 12
Hilary of Poitiers:
It was not the carnal body, which He had received by birth from the Virgin, that could manifest to them the image and likeness of God. The human aspect which He wore could be no aid towards the mental vision of the incorporeal God. But God was recognised in Christ, by such as recognised Christ as the Son on the evidence of the powers of His Divine nature; and a recognition of God the Son produces a recognition of God the Father. For the Son is in such a sense the Image, as to be One in kind with the Father, and yet to indicate that the Father is His Origin. Other images, made of metals or colours or other materials by various arts, reproduce the appearance of the objects which they represent. Yet can lifeless copies be put on a level with their living originals? Painted or carved or molten effigies with the nature which they imitate? The Son is not the Image of the Father after such a fashion as this; He is the living Image of the Living. – On the Trinity, book 7, chapter 37
Didymus the Blind:
Basil:
The Only-Begotten is the image of the invisible God, and image not of the bodily figure, but of the very Godhead and of the mighty qualities attributed to the essence of God, image of power, image of wisdom, as Christ is called “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” – Basil of Caesarea, Letter 236, To the same Amphilochius, chapter 1
The mind is a wonderful thing, and therein we possess that which is after the image of the Creator. – Basil of Caesarea, Letter 233, chapter 1
It were better for him that a mill-stone had been hanged about his neck, and that he had been cast into the sea, than that he should have offended the virgin of the Lord.2137 What slave ever reached such a pitch of mad audacity as to fling himself upon his master’s bed? What robber ever attained such a height of folly as to lay hands upon the very offerings 151 of God, not dead vessels, but bodies living and enshrining a soul made after the image of God? – Letter to a Virgin, chapter 4
Listen to the continuation. “In our image.” What have you to reply? Is there one image of God and the angels? Father and Son have by absolute necessity the same form, but the form is here understood as becomes the divine, not in bodily shape, but in the proper qualities of Godhead. – Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron (Homily 9), paragraph 6
Macarius of Egypt:
And just as a king sees his own image and draws near to it and diligently attends to it, since it is his own image, so also the Lord sent his image through the law, but afterward the substance itself followed. For it was written in the law, that wherever old leaven is found, it will be destroyed. Thus therefore the Lord, having come in the last days, cleansed and destroyed all the old leaven that had destroyed the mind and soul of Adam and he put a new leaven into the earth of Adam and again leavened Adam with a heavenly leaven. 4.30.8 If then the words are good, yet they are a shadow of the true things. For there is need of a living image, so that the heavenly image of Christ, having come, might be mixed with the soul, and then it is able to live in God, so that it may receive wings from there of the spirit and hands and feet and eyes to walk in the divine air and to see the heavenly light and to do a divine work. And the craftsmen themselves who made the idols through wood and bronzes and gold and silvers made images of men and animals and beasts. Go there, seek; you do not find a soul, you do not hear a voice, that it might answer you for they have eyes and do not see, they have feet and will not walk. 4.30.9 Therefore the Lord stood in the midst of the element of the earth, and behold, through his power he gathered the whole world to himself. For his cargo is full of all kinds of good things. And he established his festival filled with all kinds of precious royal goods. Therefore you find all things there, he exhorts all and gathers all of Adam, saying: “I am a merchant and my festival is full. I am a physician and I have many kinds of medicines. Let the lame man receive a medicine that heals his weakness and the maimed man will receive a medicine that heals his affliction, let the blind man receive an eye-salve that opens his impairment, let the dead man receive a soul that moves him and he will be made alive from his deadness.” – Macarius of Egypt, Sermon 4.30.2-4.30.9
18.7.1 Question. What is “in the image and likeness” of God? Answer. Just as God is incomprehensible and indescribable, so also the mind is borne everywhere and is present where it has not been, and if it should wish, it goes away to the outer and to the lower and upper parts of the earth, and the more one progresses in the knowledge of the spirit, so much the more does one know one’s own substance. And in the way that sculptors and all bronze-workers first make a wax mold of the figure they wish to fashion, and after this they make it in the likeness of this through bronze, pouring in the molten bronze, so God, taking “dust from the earth,” made the image of the outer man and according to the likeness of this He made the inner man, who is called soul and mind, a precious vessel, known and understood only by God and by the perfect and spirit-bearing. But the soul of man is more precious than all created things. But the outer man is born just like the other animals, eats from the earth, grows old, dies. But the inner man (that is, the soul) has come into being “according to the image and likeness” of God and is compared to this, for she is the bride of a king, and in the way that a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, so the Lord rejoices over a soul. And she has been called to adoption. “For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God,” and brothers and friends of the bridegroom. And just as the Lord, having gone up to the mountain, “was transfigured” into His divine glory, so souls from now on are enlightened and glorified together, and on the last day their bodies also, being glorified together, will shine forth. For the scripture says: “Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Therefore, from this they have the adoption and the indissoluble joy, in which the Christians rejoice; for grief does not succeed them again. And tribulation, overtaking the joy of the world, destroys it, but the grace of the Lord causes one to reign with Him for the endless ages. And the kingdom of this world and the power of the earth is lowly and despised, but that of the Lord is unceasing. – Macarius of Egypt, Sermon 18.7.1-18.7.3
Gregory of Nazianzus:
And [He is] Truth, as being in nature One and not many (for truth is one and falsehood is manifold), and as the pure Seal of the Father and His most unerring Impress. And the Image as of one substance with Him, and because He is of the Father, and not the Father of Him. For this is of the Nature of an Image, to be the reproduction of its Archetype, and of that whose name it bears; only that there is more here. For in ordinary language an image is a motionless representation of that which has motion; but in this case it is the living reproduction of the Living One, and is more exactly like than was Seth to Adam, or any son to his father. For such is the nature of simple Existences, that it is not correct to say of them that they are Like in one particular and Unlike in another; but they are a complete resemblance, and should rather be called Identical than Like. Moreover he is called Light as being the Brightness of souls cleansed by word and life. For if ignorance and sin be darkness, knowledge and a godly life will be Light. – Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 30, chapter 20
Gregory of Nyssa:
But since, by the wiles of him that sowed in us the tares of disobedience, our nature no longer preserved in itself the impress of the Father’s image, but was transformed into the foul likeness of sin, for this cause it was engrafted by virtue of similarity of will into the evil family of the father of sin: so that the good and true God and Father was no longer the God and Father of him who had been thus outlawed by his own depravity, but instead of Him Who was by Nature God, those were honoured who, as the Apostle says, by nature were no Gods Galatians 4:8, and in the place of the Father, he was deemed father who is falsely so called, as the prophet Jeremiah says in his dark saying, The partridge called, she gathered together what she hatched not. Since, then, this was the sum of our calamity, that humanity was exiled from the good Father, and was banished from the Divine oversight and care, for this cause He Who is the Shepherd of the whole rational creation, left in the heights of heaven His unsinning and supramundane flock, and, moved by love, went after the sheep which had gone astray, even our human nature. – Against Eunomius, book 12, chapter 1
This logical and thinking animal, man, came into being as the work and imitation of the divine and unmixed nature. For thus it is written of him in the story of creation, that: “He made him in the image of God.” This creature, man, therefore, did not have the elements of passion and mortality essentially and naturally in himself from the beginning. For it would not have been possible for the meaning of the word “image” to be preserved if the copied beauty were different from the archetype. It was only later with the first fall that sin came upon man, and thus it crept in…. Like man, this “great and honored being,” as he was called by Scripture, falling from his own worthiness like those who slip and fall into the mud and, having smeared themselves with mire, become unrecognizable even to their companions, so the one who falls into the mire of sin no longer is the image of the incorruptible God, and he is covered through sin with a corruptible and slimy form which reason advises him to reject. However, if, purged by the water, so to speak, of his way of life, the earthly covering can be stripped off, the beauty of the soul may reappear again. – Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, chapter 12
The first man was constituted as an imitation of the likeness of God. So Moses, in philosophizing about man, where he says that God made man, states that: “He created him in the image of God,” and the word “Christianity,” therefore, brings man back to his original good fortune. – Gregory of Nyssa, On What It Means to Call Oneself a Christian, chapter 1
Accordingly, this Person who is beyond knowledge and comprehension, the ineffable and the “unspeakable” and the “inexpressible,” in order that He might again make Himself an “image of God,” because of His love for man, became Himself an “image of the invisible God” so that he took on the form which He assumed among you, and again, through Himself, He fashioned a beauty in accord with the character of the Archetype. Therefore, if we also are to become an ‘image of the invisible God,’ it is fitting that the form of our life be struck according to the “example” of the life set before us. But what is that? It is living in the flesh, but not “according to the flesh.” The Prototype, “the image of the invisible God,” living in His virginity, underwent all temptations because of the similarity of His nature to ours, but He did not share the experience of a single sin: “Who did no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth.” Therefore, just as when we are learning the art of painting, the teacher puts before us on a panel a beautifully executed model, and it is necessary for each student to imitate in every way the beauty of that model on his own panel, so that the panels of all will be adorned in accordance with the example of the beauty set before them; in the same way, since every person is the painter of his own life, and choice is the craftsman of the work, and the virtues are the paints for executing the image, there is no small danger that the imitation may change the Prototype into a hateful and ugly person instead of reproducing the master form if we sketch in the character of evil with muddy colors. But, since it is possible, one must prepare the pure colors of the virtues, mixing them with each other according to some artistic formula for the imitation of beauty, so that we become an image of the image, having achieved the beauty of the Prototype through activity as a kind of imitation, as did Paul, who became an “imitator of Christ,” through his life of virtue. If it is necessary to distinguish the individual colors through which the imitation comes about, one color is meekness, for he says: “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” Another color is patience which appears quantitatively in “the image of the invisible God.” – On Perfection, chapter 1
For that which is “made in the image” of the Deity necessarily possesses a likeness to its prototype in every respect; it resembles it in being intellectual, immaterial, unconnected with any notion of weight, and in eluding any measurement of its dimensions…. where we have A in that uncreated prototype we have a in the image. – Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection
For it would not have been possible for the meaning of the word ‘image’ to be preserved if the copied beauty were different from the archetype. It was only later with the first fall that sin came upon man, and thus it crept in. Man was the image and likeness, as it has been said, of the sovereign power over all beings, and, for this reason, even in the exercise of choice, man is like the One who has power over all things, being enslaved by necessity to none of the things outside of himself, and he acts according to his own judgment of what seems best to him. The misfortune in which man is now involved he caused of his own will, having been swept away by deceit. He himself became the inventor of evil, he did not simply discover it after it had been invented by God. Nor did God create death; man, in a way, is the founder and creator of evil. – Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, chapter 12
“Let us add that [man’s] creation in the image of the nature that governs all demonstrates precisely that he has from the beginning a royal nature. Following common usage, painters of portraits of princes, as well as representing their features, express their royal dignity by garments of purple, and before this image one is accustomed to say “the king”. Thus human nature, created to rule the world because of his resemblance to the universal King, has been made like a living image that participates in the archetype by dignity and by name. He is not clothed in purple, scepter and diadem, for these do not signify his dignity (the archetype himself does not possess them). But in place of purple, he is clothed with virtue, the most royal of garments. Instead of a scepter, he is endowed with blessed immortality. Instead of a royal diadem, he bears the crown of justice, in such a way that everything about him manifests royal dignity, by his exact likeness to the beauty of the archetype.” – Gregory of Nyssa (On the Creation of Man 4)
Jerome:
Let us pass on to the second point. Here, as though there were nothing for his consideration, he vapours, and vents himself unconcernedly, pretending to be asleep, so that he may lull his readers also into slumber. But we were speaking of the other matters pertaining to the faith, that is to say, that all things visible and invisible, the heavenly powers and terrestrial creatures have one and the same creator, even God, that is, the Holy Trinity, as the blessed David says, ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth’; and the creation of man is a simple proof of the same; for it was God Himself who took slime from the earth, and through the grace of His own inspiration bestowed on it a reasonable soul, and one endowed with free will; not a part of His own nature (as some impiously teach), but His own workmanship. And concerning the holy angels, the belief of Christians similarly follows Holy Scripture, which says of God, Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire. – Jerome, To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem, paragraph 15
I now beg you, whose eloquence is so exuberant, and who expound the truth concerning all topics in the course of one sermon, to give an answer to your interrogators in concise and clear terms. When God formed man out of slime, and through the grace of His own inspiration gave him a soul, had that soul previously existed and subsisted which was afterwards bestowed by the inspiration of God, and where was it? Or did it gain its capacity both to exist and to live from the power of God, on the sixth day, when the body was formed out of the slime? – Jerome, To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem, paragraph 18
Rufinus of Aquileia:
Again, on the opinion that there is first a creation of the soul and afterwards a fashioning of the body he [Jerome] says (at the same passage, a long way down): “And observe carefully that he does not say, ‘We are his forming and fashioning, but ‘We are his making.’ For ‘fashioning’ implies the fact of man’s origin from the slime of the earth: but ‘making’ from his origin according to the image and similitude of God. And this distinction is confirmed by the words of the 118th Psalm Your hands have made me and fashioned me. ‘Making’ has the first place, ‘fashioning’ comes after.'” – Rufinus, Apology Against Jerome, book 1, paragraph 38
John Chrysostom:
And what follows shows us further the equality in being; it says, you see, “‘Let us make a human being in our image and likeness.'” Here again, however, other heretics arise assailing the dogmas of the Church; they say, Look: he said, “‘In our image”‘ – and from these words they want to speak of the divine in human terms, which is the ultimate example of error, namely, to cast in human form him who is without shape, without appearance, without change, and to attribute limbs and forms to the one who has no body. What could match this madness, people not simply refusing to derive any profit from the teaching of the inspired Scriptures, but even incurring severe harm from them? – John Chrysostom, Homily 8 on Genesis, chapter 8
You see, in saying, ”’Let us make a human being in our image and likeness,'” he did not stop there, but through the following verse made clear to us what was the reason for choosing the word “image.” What in fact does the text go on to say? “‘Let them have control of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, and all the reptiles creeping on the earth.'” So “image” refers to the matter of control, not anything else. In other words, God created the human being as having control of everything on earth, and nothing on earth is greater than the human being, under whose authority everything falls. (10) Yet if, despite such great precision in terms, there are still those spoiling for a fight who would want to say “image” is used in terms of form, we will say to them: that means he is not only man but also woman, for both have the same form. But this would make no sense. I mean, listen to Paul’s words: “It is not proper for a man to cover his head, being image and glory of God, whereas the woman is man’s glory.” One is in command, the other is subordinate, just as God had also said to woman from the beginning, “your yearning will be for your husband, and he will be your master.” You see, since it is on the basis of command that the image was received and not on the basis of form, man commands everything whereas woman is subservient – hence Paul’s words about man, that he is constituted God’s image and glory, whereas woman is man’s glory. If, however, he had been speaking about form, he would not have distinguished between them, man and woman being identical in type, after all. Do you see the full truth of it, how he left us no grounds for defense on the part of those bent on being brazen? All the same, even if this is the situation, let us not desist from our patience in dealing with these people, “in the hope that God will grant them a change of heart leading to knowledge of truth.” So let us not slacken in our efforts to show great kindness, in the expectation of being able to wrest them from the devil’s deceit; and let us, if we think fit, propose to them blessed Paul’s words addressed to the citizens of Athens: “We ought not think the deity is like gold, silver, or stone, or carving from man’s skill or imagination.” (Acts 17:29). Do you notice the wise teacher, with how much precision he disposes of every error of theirs? I mean, he says not only that the deity is to be distinguished from bodily figure but that human imagining could not shape anything of the kind. – John Chrysostom, Homily 8 on Genesis, chapter 9-11
Paul, discoursing as we showed of the dignity of the Son, says these words: “Who is the Image of the invisible God.” Whose image then will you have Him be? God’s? Then he is exactly like the one to whom you assign Him. For if [He is] as a man’s image, say so, and I will have done with you as a madman. But if as God and God’s Son, God’s image, he shows the exact likeness. Then why has no angel anywhere been called either image or son, but man both? Why, because in the former case indeed the exaltedness of their nature might presently have thrust the many into this impiety; but in the other case the mean and low nature is a pledge of security against this, and will not allow any, even should they desire it, to suspect anything of the kind, nor to bring down the Word so low. For this cause, where the meanness is great, the Scripture boldly asserts the honor, but where the nature is higher, it forbears. The Image of the Invisible is itself also invisible, and invisible in like manner, for otherwise it would not be an image. For an image, so far as it is an image, even among us, ought to be exactly similar, as, for example, in respect of the features and the likeness. But here indeed among us, this is by no means possible; for human art fails in many respects, or rather fails in all, if you examine with accuracy. But where God is, there is no error, no failure. But if a creature: how is He the Image of the Creator? For neither is a horse the image of a man. If the Image mean not exact likeness to the Invisible, what hinders the Angels also from being His Image? For they too are invisible; but not to one another: but the soul is invisible: but because it is invisible, it is simply on that account an image, and not in such sort as he and angels are images. – John Chrysostom, Homily 3 on Colossians
For He said, Let us make man after our image, and after our likeness (Genesis 1:26). What is the sense of this, after our image, and after our likeness? The image of government is that which is meant; and as there is no one in heaven superior to God, so let there be none upon earth superior to man. – John Chrysostom, Homily 7 on the Statues chapter 3
Epiphanius of Salamis:
For it is the mark of the faithful to confess the Scripture, and of the unfaithful to reject grace. Therefore, that which is in the image is in the human, but God himself knows how it is. For if you say, “He made man in his image,” and you suppose that the body is [that image]—but God is invisible, incomprehensible, and inconceivable—how can the visible, comprehensible, and tangible thing be an image of the invisible and incomprehensible one? – Epiphanius, Ancoratus, 55.6-55.7
For when you took the image of the Great King and cast it into a state of lifelessness, godlessness, lack of counsel, lack of power, lack of glory, and lack of essence, you ought to have had your unholy tongue cut out for uttering such a word against the Lord and for bringing ruin upon a soul that has acted so impiously. For by circumscribing the image of God with lifelessness, you claim that this image possesses neither lordship, nor deity, nor essence, nor counsel, nor power, nor glory. You want it to be an immobile image of these things, as if it were soulless and lifeless, making it out to be something cast outside, and just as soulless as if it were constructed by human art alone. But you refuse to allow that the image of the living God is itself living, or that the image of Essence is itself essence, or that the image of counsel, power, and glory is invariably counsel, power, and glory. To say ‘invariably’ (ἀπαραλλάκτως) does not mean ‘unbegottenly’ (ἀγεννήτως), but rather that it possesses both deity and every divine operation, distinctly impressed and accurately conformed to the Father. – Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion, Heresy 72 (Against the Marcellians)
[The heretic Marcellus says]: “Therefore, if He is the image of an essence, He can no longer be self-essence. And if He is the image of a counsel, He can no longer be self-counsel. And if of power, no longer power. And if of glory, no longer glory. For the image is not an image of itself, but of someone else.” But these arguments of yours, Marcellus, are stale and false. For Asterius wishes Him to be all those things that he previously mentioned, saying, “King from King, Lord from Lord, God from God,” and he dissolves your concept of a soulless image—the one which, according to you, is constructed by human art alone. For he calls Him a living image of all these things, the living imprint of the Begetter. He calls Him the self-essence image of the essence, the self-counsel of the counsel, the self-power of the power, and the self-glory of the glory—and not an image of Himself, but of another. But you, because you do not confess the Son to be God from God, nor Light from Light, nor Power from Power, do not want the Son to be either God, or Light, or Power, or essence, or counsel, or glory. Instead, you impiously annihilate these things in the body at the consummation [of the age] along with them. And you deny the statement, “The Word was God,” while you call Him “Son of God” either in name alone or merely as a man, so that God would be begetting something of a different kind—begetting the Son by adoption (θέσει), according to the passages: “I have begotten and brought up children,” and “You have received the spirit of adoption,” and “Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of God.” Therefore, when Asterius says that the Son is the invariable image of the Father’s essence, power, counsel, and glory, he is absolutely saying that the Father’s own characteristics reside in the Son, and that the attributes conceived of the Father have been impressed upon or given to the Son, being nothing other than what the Father Himself is. Thus, he wishes Him to be all the things he mentioned before. For he does not conceive of an image made of colors, nor does he introduce some third party as a painter, who—because the Son differs from the Father—paints His qualities elsewhere through colors and calls this a “Son.” – Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion, Heresy 72 (Against the Marcellians)
Augustine:
Human beings were created in honor, made in the image of God. Raised to such dignity, uplifted from the dust, ennobled from the earth, they received a rational soul. By reason of their vigorous rationality they were given pre-eminence over all wild beasts, cattle, birds, and fishes. Which of these is endowed with rational intelligence? None; because none of them was made in the image of God. – Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 101, verse 11
Theodore of Mopsuestia
1:15a “He is the image of the invisible God,” He rightly added invisible, not because there is also a visible God but to demonstrate his greatness, if indeed we see that invisible nature in that one [the Man] as in an image, because he has been joined to God the Word and will judge the entire inhabited round world, appearing himself in his own nature, as is right, when in the future age he comes from heaven with great glory. He retains the rank of image for us, [262] since clearly in him as in some kind of image all of us form our conclusions about the divine nature to which the greatness of those deeds that took place is referred, bearing in mind that the authority of judgment does not belong to the visible nature. But I am astonished at those people who have taken this verse as a reference to the divine nature. First of all, they have not seen that blessed Moses is speaking of a human being when he says (see Gen 1 :27): God made him in the image. Also blessed Paul says (1 Cor I 1 :7): indeed, a man ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God. This would never have been said of human beings if it were peculiarly appropriate to the divine nature. Next, neither have they taken the trouble to look at the fact that every image, while it is itself seen, shows what is not seen. Therefore, it is impossible that such a thing as is not seen should become an image, since it is obvious that images are customarily made for this purpose among those who make them for the sake of honor or thanks, so that there may be a recollection of those not seen by the images that can nevertheless be seen. – Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on Romans 1:15
John Cassian:
And indeed to put aside for a little Scripture proofs, and to discuss, as far as our ability permits us, a little about the nature of the soul itself, is it not beyond the bounds of I will not say the folly, but the madness of all stupidity, even to have the slightest suspicion that the nobler part of man, in which as the blessed Apostle shows, the image and likeness of God consists, will, when the burden of the body with which it is oppressed in this world is laid aside, become insensible, when, as it contains in itself all the power of reason, it makes the dumb and senseless material flesh sensible, by participation with it: especially when it follows, and the order of reason itself demands that when the mind has put off the grossness of the flesh with which it is now weighed down, it will restore its intellectual powers better than ever, and receive them in a purer and finer condition than it lost them. But so far did the blessed Apostle recognize that what we say is true, that he actually wished to depart from this flesh; that by separation from it, he might be able to be joined more earnestly to the Lord; saying: “I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, which is far better, for while we are in the body we are absent from the Lord:” and therefore “we are bold and have our desire always to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. Wherefore also we strive, whether absent or present, to be pleasing to Him;”11261126 Phil. i. 23; 2 Cor. v. 6. and he declares indeed that the continuance of the soul which is in the flesh is distance from the Lord, and absence from Christ, and trusts with entire faith that its separation and departure from this flesh involves presence with Christ. – Of the continuance of the soul, Chapter XIV
Asterius:
“But if they take my advice let them sell those clothes and honor the living image of God. Do not picture Christ on your garments. It is enough that he once suffered the humiliation of dwelling in a human body which of his own accord he assumed for our sakes. So, not upon your robes but upon your soul carry about his image.” – Sermon 1
Theodoret of Cyrus (393-457 AD):
Man is the image of God, neither according to the body, nor according to the soul, but according to the faculty of leadership alone. Therefore, as he has been entrusted with authority over all things on earth, he is called the image of God. But the woman, as she is under the authority of the man, is the glory of the man, and is, as it were, the image of an image. For she too rules over other things, but she was ordained to be subject to her husband. Then, also from another passage: “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.” Therefore, men also hold the first rank according to the logic of the creation. – Theodoret of Cyrus, Patrologia Graeca 82:214
Cyril of Alexandria:
Accordingly, it is true, and indeed admittedly, that man was made “according to the image” of God, but the likeness is not bodily. God is incorporeal. The Savior himself will teach us this, saying, “God is spirit.” Therefore he is not corporeal, if he is a spirit, nor is he in a form of a body. That which is without a body, would be also without the outward appearance of a body. – Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 83, chapter 2
The fact that man was made according to the image of God has other meanings and significations. Man, alone among all the living creatures on the earth, is rational, compassionate, has a tendency toward every virtue, and has assigned to him rule over all things upon the earth, in “the image and likeness” of God. Accordingly, as man is a rational, living being, and insofar as he loves virtue, and has power over the things on earth, it is stated that he has been made in the image of God. – Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 83, chapter 4
Severian of Gabala:
From these things it is apparent that man is the image of God neither according to the soul, nor according to the body. For if it were according to one of these, the woman would certainly also have been called the image of God, since she herself has the form of the body and has a soul such as the man also has. But if the woman, having the same soul and flesh as the man, is not called an image, it is clear that man is the image of God according to the principle of rule. For when the discussion is about irrational creatures, the woman is also the image of God; but when the examination is of man in relation to women, only the man is the image, because the male and female in humankind rule over all things on the earth, in the sea, in the air, but the man rules the woman, and no one on earth rules the man. Therefore, just as no one rules God among all beings, so also no one rules man among earthly things. But we understand nature to be the truth of the things themselves. Man is the image of God, not according to body or soul, but according to the principle of rule; for he has, among other things, the woman in subjection, and just as no one rules God among all beings, so also no one rules man among earthly things. – Commentary on 1 Corinthians 11
Seeking to present more clearly that the Word was begotten of the essence of the Father, he makes mention of the “radiance.” For the radiance is from the essence of that of which it is an efflux of light, and it is continuously conceived both from it and never apart from that of which it is the radiance. But since “radiance” implies a lesser nature than that of which it is the radiance and existence not in the same nature, he uses a different word and states that Christ is “the exact image of his nature.” The first phrase (“radiance of his glory”) demonstrates that Christ cannot be separated from the essence as God; the second phrase (“exact image of his nature”) proves that he is not without God’s nature. For just as John, calling Christ “the Word,” adds, “he was with God and was God,” so also Paul, having said “radiance,” added, “and the exact image of his nature.” – Severian of Gabala, FRAGMENTS ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 1.3
Caesarius of Arles:
This alone I know, brethren, that a man will never be able to judge the cause of another justly if he is unwilling to observe justice between his own soul and his body. For we have been made according to the image of God in both soul and mind, but we have been formed from the slime of the earth in body. Therefore, if a man loves his body more than his soul, he wants to bring down the image of God and to lift up the earth. If he is so unjust in himself, doubtless, he will not observe justice when he hears the case of another. — Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 166
Now, since we have all been created interiorly in our soul according to God’s image, as often as we say or do something shameful we defile God’s image. Consider, then, whether this is becoming or proper for you. I say truly, brethren, that God does not deserve this of us, that His image in us should suffer insult through evil concupiscence. Since no man wants to come to church with his tunic covered with dirt, I do not know with what kind of a conscience he dares to approach the altar with his soul defiled by dissipation…. – Sermon 44, chapter 6
Let us think more about food of the heart than of bodily nourishment, because within, in the inner man, we were made to the image of God, while in our body we were formed from the slime of the earth. Now see, brethren, whether it is right for the body which was made from the earth sometimes to take food twice a day, and for the soul in which there is an image of God scarcely to receive the word of God after several days. Yet, we ought to honor the image of God within us more than our body. For men who think only about the body are like wild animals or sheep, and those who do this have already crushed God’s image within them. Therefore the flesh should be managed like a maidservant, and the soul should be preferred as the lawful mistress. If we do otherwise, not recognizing that we have been made to the image of God and thinking more about our body than about our soul, I am afraid that the Holy Spirit may be rebuking us when He says through the prophet: “Thus man, for all his splendor, does not abide; he resembles the beasts that perish.” Sermon 198, chapter 4
How is it, my brethren, that some Christians and, what is worse, even clerics, at times, when they are about to make a journey, order bread, wine, oil, and different items to be provided for themselves, but, while such great preparations are being made for his earthly journey so that his body may live, a man does not bother to read a single book to refresh his soul both here and forever? While he possesses two men within him, an interior one made to the image of God and an exterior one formed from the slime of the earth, man seems to show so much solicitude for the body which will be devoured by worms in the grave. However, the inner man which was made to the image of God is known to be tortured like a worthless slave by hunger and thirst, without the nourishment of God’s word. He neglects God to such an extent that he scorns and despises His image within himself. – Sermon 7, chapter 4
Now, since we have all been created interiorly in our soul according to God’s image, as often as we say or do something shameful we defile God’s image. – Sermon 44, chapter 6
With loud weeping and groaning let him hasten to be reconciled to God. He should not be ashamed to do penance, for he was not ashamed to perform deeds that demand repentance. Let him hasten to restore God’s image in his soul by good works, so that he may deserve to be recognized among His sons by the Father, and may not be excluded from eternal bliss or thrown out of the wedding banquet, and with bound hands and feet cast into the exterior darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. – Sermon 65, chapter 4
Gregory the Great:
What else is our honor but that you have been created in the image and likeness of our creator, though we are made in bodies of slime? – Gregory the great, on pastoral care, book 3, chapter 12
Cathodox Twisting The Image of God:
Patristix (2:00): Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth. Man had been made in the image of God, and now God had taken on that image and had come to bring that image back to Himself. He had come to redeem mankind. Man had seen God in the flesh. Jesus Christ was a real person that could be seen, He could be heard, He could even be hugged. God was on Earth and mankind had seen Him. This was a moment that would forever change our perception of imagery, of beauty, and of depicting God.
Patristics (9:58): Icons build our relationship with Christ. They beautify our lives, and they remind us to maintain a connection with Jesus and His Holy Church. And last of all, remember the one icon that you will find absolutely everywhere you go. You. You are made in the image of God. Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, came as a human being and He came, for you. Remember that next time you look in the mirror and may you remember that every single time you see a holy icon.
[Heresy! He claims Jesus “took on” God’s image when He became a man! But the image of God is invisible, and Christ was already the perfect image of God before He took on flesh.]
Fr. Moses (4:07): The argument against icons was that in the Old Testament it says, “Thou shalt make no image of God,” and do the Church Father say, specifically St John Damascene? He says Christ violated this by, himself being God, becoming a man, so that he could be depicted, so that when people saw Christ, what did he say? “If you have seen me you have you have seen the father.” He doesn’t say, “If you read the Bible about me you have seen the father,” right, he says, “if you have seen me you have seen the Father.”
[Heresy! He claims Jesus BECAME the image of God! He denies that Jesus was always the incorporeal image of God! And since when does a living, breathing person break the second commandment by being himself the image of God? Does a man break the second commandment by begetting a son in his own image, who is himself made in the image of God? But they can only image “image” in reference to pictures.]
Jonathan Pageau (3:14): And so what happens in the Incarnation is that the image of God, which has been tarnished from the beginning of time in the creation of Adam, was now restored and given back to us at a level of fullness that was even more than what Adam was. And so the image of God becomes a mode of manifestation of God for us. If we don’t recognize that we are denying an aspect of the Incarnation. We’re saying, “Well, you couldn’t really see God.” You couldn’t really say, you know, “Where’s God? Oh, there he is in Galilee in the first century'” — we believe that yes, we COULD say that in his Incarnation, God made himself visible. And so the image becomes a mode of manifestation, and if it is a mode of manifestation, then not only should we not hesitate, but we should rejoice to venerate the means by which God reveals himself to us, and that now for us has become the image.
[This man really thinks “the image of God” is the human form, and that it was the human form which was tarnished in the fall, not the soul. Is he so stupid that he doesn’t realize the shape of man remained the same? But now he claims that a lifeless image of Jesus’ flesh is superior to the living image of God within Adam! He thinks Jesus came to provide a physical picture of himself as a way of restoring mankind’s image.]
Jonathan Pageau (5:34): The question is then: what’s the second commandment about? What is it for? What’s the purpose? My contention is that the reason for the second commandment is Jesus. Not only that Jesus changes it, but that the very purpose of the second commandment is that God knew that he would give us an image of himself, and in that image we would heal the rift from the breaking or the tarnishing of the image in Adam in Genesis.
[Once again, they think the image of God is visual. At least he recognizes that God didn’t want anyone to make a visual depiction of Him!]
Fr. Timothy Pavlatos (16:05): When we have these beautiful images in the church, and we look upon them, they pull us back to who we are, created in God’s image. This is why it’s so important, this is why it’s so purposeful. This is why we have icons in the church.