Ad imaginem dei et ad similitudinem

Of the Same Gregory of Nyssa: On What It Is to Be in the Image of God and According to the Likeness. Those who wish to contemplate without error the God-created beauty of their own face cannot otherwise mirror their own image and the character of their countenance except through some very pure mirror, in which, approaching their own visual image, they see clearly within it and through it a certain counter-character in image and likeness of themselves. Therefore, let us also, as if in some mirror, gaze intently upon the divine ray of the intelligible sun, and from there clearly learn the shadow, the form, and the image of what is in image and likeness of our own nature. For there is, there is, as it seems to me, a certain fearful and ineffable construction of the human being, and many hidden mysteries of God are depicted in it. And just as the nature of the eye easily perceives things outside itself but cannot perceive what it itself is like, so for every eye of human understanding the account of our creation has become difficult to behold and difficult to comprehend. For the Creator, having completed the simple and most intelligible world of invisible powers, and after that this material and visible world composed of four elements, then said, "Let us make man in our image and according to our likeness," and makes a living being, as if a kind of mixed world akin to both worlds, composed of an incorporeal, immortal, and imperishable soul and of a material, visible, four-element body.

After this happened, Scripture again says, "And God made man; He made him according to the image of God." And by "God" it means the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Many and various opinions about this have been expressed by the exegetes. For some said that the ruling and authoritative element of man is according to the image and likeness of God, while others said it is the intellectual and invisible aspect of the soul. Others said it is the incorruptibility and sinlessness that Adam had when he came into being; still others said that this is a prophecy concerning baptism. Finally, as if to a miscarriage, it seemed to me also to say something about this. And first of all, it is worth investigating this: why did God not rather name the intellectual, immaterial, heavenly, and near-divine angels as being according to His image and likeness? For they also possess the ruling and authoritative element over the whole earth and over man himself, indeed more than man. Similarly, incorruptibility, immateriality, invisibility, purity, and all other praises you might mention concerning Adam exist in surpassing measure among the intellectual and heavenly choirs of the bodiless ones. Therefore, something deeper than what has been set before us is intimated by the phrase "according to the image" of man. For man does not possess one single image and likeness of God, but also a second and a third, depicting as if in some mirror and typological shadow-painting, not a natural one, the mystery of the tri-hypostatic Godhead. And not only this, but he also clearly prefigures the incarnation of the one God Logos of the Holy Trinity.

And perhaps the soul alone, stripped of the Godhead, is according to the image, while the composite of our soul and body is according to the likeness of the incarnation of the Word. But rather let us go back to the very beginning of the discourse, as from some deepest spring, first seeking why it is that God did not make our first and chief progenitors—I mean Adam and Eve, and the son who came forth from them—according to the likeness of the other rational beings, that is, the angels, or again according to the equality of the animate animals, with similar modes of origin. But He constituted Adam without cause and ungenerated, and his second man, the son, generated; and Eve neither generated nor again without cause, but taken, that is, as a procession, coming forth from the substance of the uncaused Adam in an ineffable way of substantialization. And are these three heads of the firstborn of all humanity, consubstantial hypostases, perhaps, as Methodius thinks, typologically formed according to some image of the holy and consubstantial Trinity? With the uncaused and ungenerated Adam having the type and image of the uncaused and cause of all, the all-ruling God and Father; and his generated son prefiguring the image of the generated Son and Word of God; and the processional Eve signifying the processional hypostasis of the Holy Spirit?

Therefore God did not breathe the breath of life into her, because she is a type of the breath and life of the Holy Spirit, and because she was to receive through the Holy Spirit God, who is truly the breath and life of all. Hence one may see and marvel that the unbegotten Adam had no other unbegotten or uncaused one like him among men, just as the processional Eve had none, since they exist as true types of the unbegotten Father and the Holy Spirit; but the begotten son had all men, who are begotten sons, as similar brothers, as he exists according to the image and typical likeness of Christ the begotten Son, who became man as the firstborn without seed among many brothers. But if it is not so, nor according to this principle of the image, why then were there not four, or two, or more hypostases of the forefathers, having their hypostatic properties varied—I mean the unbegotten, the begotten, and the processional—but only three? Therefore you have according to the image and typical likeness a triad in a monad in three hypostases; it remains for you to learn also a monad in a triad. And how you may rightly discern this, listen to one of the wise advising you, saying: If you wish to know God, first know yourself; from your own composition, from your own construction, he says, from what is within yourself. Enter into yourself, descend, look as in a mirror into your own soul, discern its construction, and you will see yourself as being according to the image and likeness of God.

Your intellectual and immortal essence of the soul, anonymous and unknown, stands as a typical image of the anonymous, unknowable, and immortal God. For no human being who has ever existed from eternity has known the essence either of God or of the rational soul. The soul is life-giving, constitutive, and providential for the four-element nature of the body, in the image of God, who is provident over the whole four-cornered and upper creation. Therefore we have not known the place of God where he dwells, but only believe that he is everywhere; nor do we know the place of the soul where it resides in the body, but only know that it is and acts in the whole body. Your soul also has something else in the image of God, namely that it is of a different essence from all created nature. But the most paradoxical of all the things in us that are according to the image is this: that human intellect cannot comprehend the reasons for God's existence, nor the essence of our soul, nor how it naturally comes into existence and arrives. Hence those who have dogmatized badly in trying to comprehend it have stumbled thus: some claim that souls are sent down from heaven into bodies; others say that they come into existence together with the body, being created by God; others say that man, being in the image of the Creator, is generative of the soul along with the seed; others say that the soul is produced from both parts, male and female, as when a stone and iron strike together, and

those who generate fire by means of fire. And some say that at the very instant of the body’s conception the soul also subsists; others, bringing forward what they consider a legal basis for this, say on the fortieth day after conception. And some have imagined it to be consubstantial with the angels, others below, others in the air, others as a divine substance pervading the whole. Therefore, even when united with the body and as being according to the image of God, and giving life to it, it remains impassible to the bodily passions and corruptions of the body, neither seen, nor interpreted, nor comprehended by nature, nor by form, nor by shape, nor by figure, nor by quality, nor by quantity, nor by existence, nor by composition, nor by beauty. Hence Methodius in the Symposium says that the soul has an ineffable and indescribable beauty, and for this reason it is, as it were, envied and loved by the opposing spirits, as possessing a form superior to their own intelligible ones. And all the incomprehensibility, obscurity, and indefiniteness concerning it signifies nothing other than that it is truly and properly an image of the incomprehensible God. Hence, knowing nothing about it in itself, we affirm its existence only from its activities in the body, just as we affirm the existence of God from his activities in the visible creation. But let us now come to the most crucial point concerning the image and likeness, so that, according to our promises, we may show the unity of the Godhead in Trinity. What is this?

It is evident that our soul again, and its rational word, and the mind, which the Apostle called spirit when he commands us to be holy in soul and body and spirit. For the soul is again unbegotten and uncaused, after the pattern of the unbegotten and uncaused God and Father; but its rational word is not unbegotten, but is generated from it ineffably, invisibly, inexplicably, and impassibly. The mind, however, is neither uncaused nor unbegotten, but is processional, running through all things and examining all things, and invisibly touching, according to the image and likeness of the all-holy and processional Spirit, concerning which it is said that the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. The soul is not processional as long as it is in the body, for if it were processional, we would die every hour. Our word is not unbegotten, for then we would be irrational and bestial. But the most paradoxical of these paradoxes is this: that we have a certain simple soul, and likewise a unitary and incomposite mind; but we have a double word, while the same word preserves its generation as one and undivided. For the word is generated in the heart by some incomprehensible and incorporeal generation, and remains within unrecognized, and is generated a second time by a bodily generation through the lips, and then becomes known to all; yet it is not separated from the soul that generated it, so that through our word we may clearly learn the two generations of the Word of God according to image and likeness. For he was born invisibly, inexplicably, and incomprehensibly from the Father before the ages.

And he was unknown as if in some soul to the Father, until, as from some heart of the holy Virgin, incorruptibly and without seed, he was born in the flesh and manifested to the world, not being separated from the hidden paternal essence of the begetting God. Thus it is shown in the unitary nature of our immortal and intellectual psychic essence, in image, three hypostatic properties: the unbegottenness of the soul, the generation of the word, and the procession of the spirit, that is, the mind. And I take courage and dare to say that according to this invisible triadic contemplation of the soul, the divine Apostle said that man is in the image of the invisible God. If these things are not so, why did God not make man bipartite or quadripartite, but our soul alone has a certain and unconfused tripartite division, according to the image of the holy, consubstantial, and life-giving Trinity, so that, if it is permissible to say, even in man, and especially in the righteous man, the whole fullness of the divinity dwells typologically, but not physically, dimly sketching in some way the God in Trinity? Hence also the external philosophers defined our soul as tripartite in another manner, claiming it has the appetitive, the rational, and the spirited parts, so that through the appetitive it is joined to the love of God, through the rational it receives knowledge and wisdom from him, and through the spirited it arrays itself against the spirits of wickedness, and in these three again it delineates the image of God.

For in three ways the God in Trinity governs and administers three realms: the heavenly, I say, the earthly, and the subterranean, by his creative power, his providential power, and his judicial power. For everything that God does, he accomplishes according to one of these three modes: either creating, or providing, or disciplining. And of the creative aspect of God, the desiring part of the soul is the image; for desire leads to action. Of his providential aspect, again, the rational part of the soul is the symbol. Of the disciplinary aspect, the spirited part stands as the sign. And perhaps desire is proper to the soul; for before any speech, living infants immediately reach for the breast and for sleep. The rational part is clearly proper to the rational being. The spirited part naturally subsists around the mind, which is disturbed when one is unnaturally angered. If, therefore, anyone wishes to learn how man is according to the image and likeness of God, let him touch upon these things, let him enter into these and similar sanctuaries of thoughts, and let him examine his own constitution of nature, that of the intellectual soul. Let him learn in detail and precisely all its parts, the parts of the parts, the principles, the modes and progressions, the unities, the distinctions, its uniform nature, its tripartite nature, its unitary nature, its dual nature, its triadic nature, how it is both one and is contemplated in three, being known typologically as a monad in a triad and a triad in a monad, according to the image and likeness of God.

For that it is one in substance, and not one in the contemplation of its own parts, was clearly shown by the one who said, "I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind; I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind." But more clearly do some men teach us this triad in us according to the typical image of God, who from some cause often have a soul but do not have a mind or reason; others again, while possessing soul and reason, are entirely lacking in mind; others again, having mind and soul, are deprived of reason. Whence also the nature of infants, as being born from darkness into light and coming forth, immediately manifests that it has the soul as a type of God and Father, being potentially noetic, and having in itself both reason and mind; but as the body progresses and grows, it secondly manifests reason, and this not all at once nor suddenly, but by babbling beforehand, and as it were sketching and preannouncing the generation of the Logos through flesh, and the presence of the mind is revealed when the infant advances to a perfect man. But what, he says, do these things contribute to the present subject concerning man?

And indeed, O man, through these things we learn the manner of God's manifestation and revelation in the world, as if in some body, and how our nature gradually came to know the mystery of the Trinity. For man was seized by the seed of evil as if in some womb of error, sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death; then, coming forth into the light of the knowledge of God like an infant at the beginning, he was shown to be animate through the guidance of the law, recognizing the Father and God as having within himself, just as the soul does, the Word and the Spirit as substantial. But man, due to great weakness and infancy of mind, could not contain the revelation of the Word and the Spirit, lest he slip into polytheism through piety; then, as time advanced, he was further instructed, just as a growing infant, our nature of the world, as if taught by some soul, by God and Father, to dimly recognize, as if through some unclear stammerings, the experience, utterance, and manifestation of the substantial and hidden Word of the Father from the prophetic teachings.

After these lispings—I mean the Mosaic and prophetic enigmas of the word—when the word advanced clearly and articulately, as if from some lips of the virginal womb of the perfect God Word, the human nature of the world then comes to know, together with these and through this, its own complete and triadic fullness, as if receiving the Holy Spirit as some mind, not entering into it from without in a transitive manner, but manifested to it from within itself—that is, from the soul and the word, that is, the Father and the Son—not in a created way, nor as an addition, nor as something alien, but substantially from its own innate and connatural hypostatic existence: the soul giving birth to its own essential word, and projecting the spirit of the mind which is of the same nature as itself, and, as if a body, the incorporeal having its own consubstantial members connatural to it, through which, as through types, that which is beyond form and shape is characterized, formed, and constituted, having the spirit of the mind as some bodily breath, and bearing the word as life co-living with it; deprived of which, the soul that is rational and intellectual, made in the image and likeness of God, can neither exist nor be known; so that through these things in it we may learn and be taught that neither the Father nor the Son pre-existed the all-holy Spirit; but just as in the case of the soul—at once a rational soul, at once the word in it together with it, and at once, and simultaneously, the life-giving, constitutive, and completive spirit in it—so at once the Father, at once the God Word with the Father, at once the Son with the Father, simultaneously the Spirit with the Son and the Father.

If you separate and deprive the word from the soul, your soul is henceforth irrational; so that through this likeness to the image of God you may learn that if you deny the God Word, saying that he is not with God and Father, you proclaim God as irrational and bestial; and if you separate the Spirit from God, you then say God is something dead and not living. If you wish to philosophize concerning the image and likeness of God, philosophize thus: not from external things, but from within yourself recognize the hidden God from the triad in you; know the Trinity through hypostatic realities. For this is more certain and trustworthy than every other legal and scriptural testimony. For it is for this reason alone that God constructed such a living being, because the mystery of the holy Trinity was to be proclaimed in the world, as both difficult to interpret and incomprehensible; so that you, who are according to the image and likeness of God, might have in yourself the image and likeness and the types and patterns of the holy Trinity; so that looking at the image of the psychic constitution you may no longer doubt the Trinitarian mystery; no longer say and inquire: If God is Trinity, how is he a monad? But if he is one, as is said, how is he Trinity? And if the Word is Son, how can a product be coeternal with the begetter? And if the Spirit is from the Father, how is it not begotten but proceeding? Or which did the Father produce first, the Son or the Spirit? And if both together, is there then brother-divinity and twin-birth in the Trinity?

How then shall we discern the difference between generation and procession in the case of the bodiless, the motionless, and the immutable? And how is it possible for the offspring to be of the same opinion as the begetter? Did the Father then beget willingly or unwillingly? And who is the witness that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are of one substance? And if God and Father is a complete hypostasis, and the Word of God is a complete hypostasis, and again the Spirit of God is a complete hypostasis, who does not say that the mind of God is not another divine hypostasis of God, and the arm another God, and the finger another hypostasis of God? And similarly the right hand and all the rest of the so-called members of God in divine Scripture? In order, then, that you may not say and reason about these things, into which the heretics, stumbling and reasoning, fell, God made you according to the image and likeness of his own triadic existence, a certain typical triad, a consubstantial monad made known, in which, looking well as in a certain mirror and type, you will find all things piously proclaimed concerning God: I mean the triadic nature of the hypostases, the monadic nature of the nature, the contemporaneity, the indivisibility, the incomprehensibility, the formlessness, the invisibility, the unbegottenness, the begottenness, the procession, the creative power, the providential power, the judicial power, the intangibility, the bodilessness, the incorruptibility, the indestructibility, the immortality, the eternity, the ineffability, the supreme beauty, and, to speak concisely, you will find the types and images and shadows of all things piously said about the Godhead sketched in your soul.

And for this reason it was said by God, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness." But the heretics and the present unbelievers did not understand these things, nor did they consider them. For if they had properly examined the "according to image and likeness" of man, they would not have doubted the Trinitarian mystery, nor would they have subjected that which is beyond nature to natural proofs. They would not have been darkened, saying that it is impossible for God to be a three-hypostasis Trinity. If Arius had learned the "according to image" of himself, he would not have taught that the Logos is of a different essence from the Father. If Macedonius had piously considered the "according to image," he would not have asserted that the Holy Spirit is a creature. But being blinded, they have suffered the same as those who have the pearl within their own bosom but are ignorant of it, and wander in the abyss seeking it. Observe, then, that not only in things typically does our soul possess the "according to image" of God—typically, I say, not consubstantially. How is this? I will immediately make what is said clear. We believe that God the Father is uncircumscribed, and likewise the Son and the Holy Spirit; therefore, as unlimited, they are mutually referential and interconnected, and have their own appellations. For when one names "Father," it is evident that he has indicated the manifestation of some Son of his. For how could he be called Father if a Son is not known? Likewise, when one says "Spirit," he has revealed God; for God is Spirit, as Scripture says. Then come from this holy Trinity to its image—I mean the triad existing within us—and you will see that its three appellations also exist as mutually referential and united.

For when you say "rational and intellectual soul," it is clear that you have signified both reason and intellect; and when you name "reason," you have certainly indicated also the rational soul that generates it. Likewise, when you say "intellect," you have in every way indicated both the soul and reason. For whose intellect will it be, if not that of soul and reason? For this reason, just as they have a reciprocal and interlinked appellation, so also they have a common and undivided essential energy. For the energy of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one and the same: one power, one might, one will, one intention. For whatever the Father does, the Son is inseparable and a co-actor; and whatever the Son or the all-holy Spirit accomplishes, the Father certainly cooperates indivisibly. For the Son does nothing by himself apart from the Father, nor does the Father in any way without the Son and the Spirit, nor again does the Spirit work without the Son and Father. Come then again from the archetypes to the type according to the image of God and according to the likeness of our soul, and you will see one and the same energy in us. For neither does the soul accomplish anything without reason,

Neither is reason without soul, nor again does intellect by itself accomplish anything apart from soul and reason, because of their kindred, connatural, and interwoven common power and activity, which is according to the image and likeness of God. But if you say to me that the soul does nothing by itself apart from the body, we have already stated this before, that even in this, being according to the image and likeness, it displays its invisible powers through visible matter; except that when separated from the body, the naturally pure soul and substance, being then most perspicacious, simple, undisturbed, and more luminous, can more truly be called and be according to the image and likeness of God. But if, as is likely, the opponent mocks what has been said, on the ground that we have not shown three properly completed hypostases in the soul equal to the all-holy Trinity, let the foolish one learn that the soul is according to the image in a typifying manner, and not according to equality with the holy Trinity; except that also in the case of the Divinity, if it is not fearful to say so, the Father has a local division and an inscribed separation from the Son, and the Holy Spirit from him—do not overlook this in your likeness according to the image to God, I mean that through the bodily generation of reason from the lips, the virtue, wisdom, prudence, power, depth, and knowledge of your soul and intellect are made known and published to all; this example also indicating to you that you exist according to the image and likeness of God.

For through the fleshly birth of God the Word, virtue and power and knowledge and wisdom and all the remaining goods of the Father and of the Holy Spirit were manifested in the world. For see how many and what great achievements of reason, in the type of God the Word, exist in the world, and how through reason all things are created and consist: by reason angels were established; by reason they honor the Creator; by reason visible things came to be; by reason creation is illuminated; by reason beings were known; by reason alone they were revealed; by reason the limits were shown; by reason we honor the Creator; by reason the knowledge of God has been proclaimed; through reason we have come to know God; through reason all things consist. And just as a speechless infant is unintelligible to humans until the birth of reason through the lips, so through the fleshly birth of God the Word all irrationality of our nature passed away, God the Word having clearly manifested to creation the Father and the Holy Spirit. Hence our soul, as divinely hewn, is not sent out for service after the departure from the body, as the angels are sent. For those are liturgical spirits; but the souls of the saints, especially, are, according to the image of God, lordly spirits. For even if man was diminished a little after the transgression compared to angels, yet through the hypostatic union of God the Word in him, something greater has come to be: for he who was once according to the image of God has now become together with God; and he who was before a participant in the image of God has become a communicator of his own image. Glory to him for ever and ever. Amen.