De Essentia Divinitatis [Incertus]

On the Essence of the Divinity, One Book. I. Almighty God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one and threefold: one indeed in nature, threefold in persons. He alone is invisible, alone immeasurable and incomprehensible, alone uncircumscribed, alone immutable, incorporeal and immortal, everywhere present but hidden, everywhere whole but immeasurable. He is invisible because He cannot be seen in His essence, as the Apostle testifies, who says, “Whom none of men has seen, nor can see” (1 Timothy 6:46). And in the Gospel: “No one has ever seen God” (John 1:18). He is incorporeal because He exists not composed or compacted of any bodily lineaments, as the Truth says in the Gospel: “God is spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). He is immeasurable because His quantity or quality can be measured by none of His creatures; to whom Solomon in his prayer suppliantly says: “If heaven and the heavens of heavens do not contain You, how much less this house which I have built?” (1 Kings 8:27). He is uncircumscribed because He cannot be circumscribed. He is illocal because He never passes from place to place, nor is He confined in any place whatsoever, as He Himself bears witness concerning Himself through the prophet Isaiah, saying: “Heaven is my seat, and earth the footstool of my feet” (Isaiah 66:1). And through Jeremiah: “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord (Jeremiah 23:24).

Whose immensity the prophet, confessing in the Psalm, says to God Himself: "If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; and if I descend into hell, Thou art present" (Ps. 138:8). Concerning whose immensity it is further written in the book of blessed Job: "Higher than heaven is He, and what wilt Thou do? Deeper than hell, and whence wilt Thou know?" (Job 11:8). Longer than the earth is His measure, and broader than the sea. For He who fills heaven and earth, without doubt no place is absent from His presence. Above every creature indeed He presides, ruling and commanding; beneath all things He is, sustaining and bearing, not by the weight of labor, but by indefatigable power: since no creature created by Him is able to subsist by itself, unless it is sustained by Him who created it. He is outside all things, but not excluded; He is within all things, but not enclosed. He is immutable, because He cannot be changed at all from what He is, He Himself saying through the prophet Malachi: "I am the Lord, and I do not change" (Mal. 3:6). For this reason God is called immutable, because in His nature, anger, fury, repentance, forgetfulness, remembrance, and other things similar to these, in no way occur. For He is a simple nature, and immutable, and undisturbed; nor is He one thing, and what He has another; but He Himself is what He has and what He is. He is immortal, because He can in no way die, the Apostle testifying and saying: "Who alone has immortality, dwelling in inaccessible light.

whom no man has seen, nor can see (1 Tim. 6:16). But wherever Sacred Scripture, scattered throughout the divine books, describes in God movements of the soul or human members—that is, head, hair, eyes, eyelids, ears, nostrils, mouth, lips, tongue, heart, image, womb, hands, right hand, left hand, fingers or finger, arm, wings, shoulders, back, feet; likewise movements of the soul: anger, fury, forgetfulness, remembrance, repentance, and other things similar to these—these are not to be understood carnally according to the letter by those who rightly understand, as they are by the Jews and by most heretics who think carnally and who suppose God to be corporeal and local; but all things concerning Him are to be understood and confessed spiritually. But if anyone believes that human members or movements of the soul in a human manner exist in God, without doubt he fabricates idols in his heart. Therefore, as has been said, when we figuratively speak of the head in God, we ought to understand the very essence of His divinity, which precedes all things and to which all things are subject. But the hairs of His head ought to be taken typically as the holy angels or all the elect. Concerning which mystery it is written in the book of the prophet Daniel: "I looked until thrones were set, and the Ancient of Days sat; His garment was like white snow, and the hairs of His head like clean wool" (Dan. 7:9).

This is signified by his white garment, which is also signified by the hair of his head, namely the holy Angels and the multitude of the saints who have been whitened. Or certainly the hairs of his head are compared to clean wool, so that by this he is believed to be the Ancient of Days. God is said to have eyes because he sees all things, and nothing is hidden from him, in whose sight, as the Apostle says, no creature is invisible. For all things are naked and open to his eyes (Heb. 4:13). But in another way, the eyes of the Lord are understood as the regards of his grace, as in that verse in the Psalm, The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous (Ps. 33:16). Likewise, in another way, the eyes of the Lord are mystically taken as his precepts, through which the light of knowledge is supplied to us, as in that verse in the Psalm, The precept of the Lord is clear, illuminating the eyes (Ps. 18:9). The eyelids of the Lord signify his hidden and incomprehensible judgments, or his spiritual speech in the divine books is intimated; concerning these hidden and incomprehensible mysteries and judgments it is written in the Psalm, His eyelids interrogate the sons of men (Ps. 10:5), that is, they test them. God is said to have ears because he hears all things, and nothing lies hidden from him in silence; concerning which it is written in the book of Wisdom, The ear of zeal hears all things, and the tumult of murmurings will not be hidden (Wis. 1:10). The nostrils of God signify his inspiration into the hearts of the faithful, as in that verse in the book of Kings, Smoke ascended from his nostrils (2 Kings

XII, 9), that is, the tearful compunction of penance through the inspiration of that one. The face of God is the knowledge of his divinity to men: concerning which knowledge it is written in the Psalm, "Show us, Lord, your face, and we shall be saved" (Ps. LXXIX, 4); that is, give us your knowledge: which knowledge through the Son became known to men, as he himself says in the Gospel, "No one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him" (Matt. xi, 27). Otherwise, however, the face of God signifies the invisible essence of the divinity of the Son of God: concerning which the Lord himself, responding to Moses through the Angel, said, "You will see my back; but you will not be able to see my face" (Exod. XXXIII, 23); as if he were saying, You will see my Incarnation in the last days, but you will not be able to see my divinity. The mouth of God is the Son of God the Father, that is, Christ the Lord: concerning whom the prophet Isaiah, speaking from the person of the Jews, said, "Because we have provoked his mouth to wrath" (Lam. I, 18). Otherwise, however, the mouth of the Lord is understood as his speech or command: concerning which speech of the Lord the aforementioned prophet said, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken" (Isa. LVIII, 14); that is, the Word of God the Father's Son, through which all things were made: concerning which in the Psalm, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established" (Ps. XXXII, 6). And elsewhere, "He sent his Word, and healed them" (Ps. CVI, 20). And in the Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John I, 1).

The tongue of God mystically signifies the Holy Spirit, through whom God the Father has revealed his secret to men: whence in the Psalm, "My tongue is the reed of a scribe writing swiftly" (Ps. 44:2). The lips of the Lord are understood as the harmony of both Testaments: concerning which two Testaments it is written in Proverbs, "Divination is on his lips, in judgment his mouth did not err" (Prov. 16:10). The arms of God the Father are understood as his Son and the Holy Spirit: as is that in the prophet Isaiah, "And my arms will judge the peoples" (Isa. 51:5). The arm of God the Father in the singular is taken as his Son: concerning which the prophet Jeremiah says to him, "And now, Lord God, who led your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm" (Jer. 32:21). For this reason, however, the Son of God the Father is called his arm, because every elect creature is contained by him. The right hand of God the Father is taken as the same only-begotten Son: concerning which in the Psalm from the person of the assumed man, "The right hand," he says, "of the Lord made strength, the right hand of the Lord exalted me" (Ps. 117:16). In another way, however, the right hand of the Lord signifies the glory of the Father, that is, eternal blessedness: concerning which in the Psalm from the person of the Father to the Son, "Sit at my right hand" (Ps. 109:1). Moreover, every elect creature in heaven and on earth is also called the right hand of God, just as by his left hand the reprobate creature is understood.

that is, demons and all the impious who, placed on the left, will endure eternal punishments. The hand of God the Father is understood as the Son of God, because through him all things were made: as it is in the prophet Isaiah, "All these my hand has made" (Isa. 66:2), and all things were made. Otherwise, the hand of God is understood as his power: concerning which power it is written in the book of Jeremiah, "As clay in the hand of the potter, so you are in my hand, O house of Israel" (Jer. 18:6). Likewise, the hand of God is taken as a scourge: concerning whose striking it is written in the prophet Zephaniah, "I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will destroy from this place the remnants of Baal," etc. (Zeph. 1:4). For which striking of the Lord, blessed Job says of himself, "The hand of the Lord has touched me" (Job 19:21). The finger of God is taken singularly as the Holy Spirit, by which Holy Spirit the Law is said to have been written on two stone tablets on Mount Sinai. For he wrote who dictated what was to be written, that is, the Holy Spirit, concerning which Holy Spirit the Lord says in the Gospel, "If I," he says, "cast out demons by the finger of God" (Luke 11:20). Which another evangelist clearly declares, saying, "If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God" (Matt. 12:28). For just as the finger with the hand or arm, and the hand or arm with the body, are one in nature, so the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are indeed three persons, but one substance of divinity.

The fingers of God, in the plural, are understood as the holy Prophets, through whom the Holy Spirit described the books of the Law and the Prophets by his inspiration: concerning which it is written in the Psalm, "I will see your heavens, the works of your fingers" (Ps. 8:4). For by "heavens" he mystically signified the books of the Law and the Prophets; by "fingers," however, the saints, as has been said, the Prophets. The image of the invisible God the Father is his only-begotten Son, concerning whom the Apostle says, "Who is the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). For the image of God the Father is one thing in his Son, whom he begot not from elsewhere, but from himself, that is, from his own substance, in all things like and equal to himself: but it is another thing in the human soul, which he did not beget from himself, that is, from his own substance, as most heretics have opined, but created from nothing. Just as the image of any king is one thing in his son, whom he begot from himself like himself, that is, man from man; but another thing in his ring, or in the wax impressed with his image, which is not what he himself is, as the son is naturally, that is, what the father is. The heart of God the Father mystically signifies the secret of his wisdom, from which he impassibly begot the Word, that is, his Son, without beginning, he himself saying through the prophet, "My heart has belched forth a good word" (Ps. 44:2).

It is read that God has wings, because like a bird he gathers his chosen ones under himself as if they were chicks, warms them, and protects them from the snares of the devil and of evil men: concerning which protection the Prophet says to him in the Psalm, "Protect me under the shadow of your wings" (Ps. 16:8). God is said to have shoulders, because he patiently carries the weak members of the Church as if on his shoulders, and by carrying he protects them: concerning which it is said in the Psalm to the just man, "He will overshadow you with his shoulders, and you will hope under his feathers" (Ps. 90:4). The belly of God the Father is understood as the secret origin of his substance, from which origin he ineffably begot his Son before every creature: with the Father himself bearing witness through the prophet and saying, that is, the Father to the Son, "I begot you from the womb before the morning star" (Ps. 109:3). Otherwise, the womb of God mystically suggests his incomprehensible and hidden judgments, which cannot be scrutinized: concerning which hidden judgments of his it is written in Job, "From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who begot the frost from heaven?" (Job 38:29). The hinder parts of the Son of God are understood as his incarnation, which was made at the end of time for the redemption of the human race: concerning which hinder part the Son of God, speaking on Mount Sinai to Moses through an angel, says, "You will see my hinder parts, but you will not be able to see my face" (Exod. 33:23); as if he were saying to him, "You will see my incarnation, you will not be able to see my divinity.

The feet of God are the foundation of his virtue and power, because he is present everywhere, and all things are subject to him, as he himself says through the prophet Isaiah: "The heaven is my seat, and the earth is the footstool of my feet" (Isa. 66:1). In another sense, however, the feet of the Son of God are understood as his incarnation, which is subject to the divinity, as feet are to the head, or because this incarnation occurred near the end of the world. For just as the head, as has been said, signifies the divinity, so the feet figuratively express his humanity: concerning which humanity it is written in Exodus: "They saw the God of Israel, that is, Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abiu and seventy of the elders of the people, and under his feet something like a work of sapphire stone, and like the sky when it is clear" (Exod. 24:10). And just as by the sapphire stone he wished to figuratively show the celestial creatures, that is, the holy angels, so by the clear sky he wished to show the holy Church of the elect taken from among men. Over these two creatures the man assumed by the Son of God reigns forever. Concerning this it is said in the Psalm: "All things are under his feet" (Ps. 8:8). In another sense, by the feet of the Lord, that is, of Jesus Christ, the holy preachers are signified, concerning whom it is written in Deuteronomy: "Those who approach his feet will receive from his teaching" (Deut. 33:5).

The garment of the Son of God is sometimes his flesh, which was assumed by the divinity, taken figuratively in the divine books: concerning which garment of his flesh the prophet Isaiah prophesies, saying, "Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra?" (Isaiah 63:1). Again, the garments of the same Lord are taken as the holy Church, which is joined to him through faith and love: concerning which it is written in the Psalm, "The Lord has reigned, he has put on beauty" (Psalm 93:1); and in another Psalm addressed to the Lord himself, "You have put on confession and beauty, clothed with light as with a garment" (Psalm 104:2). The cloak of Christ is rightly understood as the aforementioned Church: concerning which it is written in the book of Genesis, "He will wash his robe in wine," that is, his flesh in the blood of the passion; "and his cloak in the blood of the grape" (Genesis 49:11), that is, his Church. The sandals of our Lord Jesus Christ mystically signify his incarnation, which he deigned to assume from the mortality of the human race: concerning which incarnation he himself says through the Prophet in the Psalm, "In Idumaea I will extend my sandal" (Psalm 60:10): that is, I will manifest my incarnation to the people of the Gentiles. The steps of God are the coming of the Son of God into the world, and his return to the Father: concerning which steps the Psalmist sings, "Your steps, O God, have been seen, the steps of my king God who walks in the holy place" (Psalm 68:25).

For he came from heaven into the womb of the virgin, and from the womb, by being born, was placed in a manger. After he had fulfilled all things for which he had been sent by the Father, he was hung upon the wood of the cross; but taken down from the cross, according to the flesh he was buried, according to the soul, however, he descended into the underworld; on the third day, by the power of his divinity, he raised his flesh from the tomb; and after the days of his resurrection, namely on the fortieth day, with the Apostles looking on, he ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9), and sits at the right hand of the Father, that is, in his glory. For these are the steps of the Son of God, this descent and ascent of his which is frequently read in the sacred Scriptures. God is said to ascend when the Son of God led the flesh taken from us into heaven as if captive: as is that in the Psalm, "He ascended into the heights, he led captivity captive" (Psalm 67:19); because the nature of the human race, which was held captive in the world by the devil, he, taking it up, carried with him into heaven, where it had never been before, as if a captive. God therefore hides his face when, with certain reprobates, their sins demanding it, he conceals his knowledge from them: as we now see fulfilled in the people of the Jews; who, denying the Son of God, lost the knowledge of the true God, so that they became like the Gentiles who do not know God.

He is said to show his face, God, when by the regard of his grace he insinuates himself into the hearts of those he wills, namely his elect, through secret inspiration, and pours into them his love for loving him. He is said to sit, God, not bodily in a human manner, but potentially, as presiding over every rational creature, as it is in the Psalm: The Lord has reigned over the nations, God sits upon his holy seat (Ps. 46:9). He is also said to sit, God, upon the Cherubim, which is interpreted as "fullness" or "multitude of knowledge," by which are signified the holy Angels, or the minds of spiritual men, in whom God invisibly presides and reigns. For he sits in those who are full of his knowledge and love. In the Proverbs of Solomon, indeed, it is written: The soul of the just man is the seat of wisdom. But the wisdom of God the Father is Christ, who is said to sit in the souls of the just. He is read to descend into the world, God, when he works something new that had not previously existed in human creation: just as the Son of God the Father is narrated to have descended when he took on true flesh from the Virgin Mary for our redemption, and deigned to become a true man, not by losing what he was, but by assuming what he was not; concerning which descent, that is, the incarnation, it is written in the Psalm: He inclined the heavens and descended, and darkness is under his feet (Ps. 17:10).

He inclined the heavens, because before his coming he sent heralding angels or prophets, who would announce his advent to men. There was darkness under his feet, because impious men, blinded by their own wickedness, could not recognize his incarnation; but neither can they now. God is said to stand, when he patiently sustains the weak, that is, his creature, toward repentance and conversion of life: as it is in the prophet Habakkuk, "He stood, and measured the earth, and dissolved the peoples" (Habakkuk 3:6); that is, he stood to give aid, and dissolved those believing in him from the bonds of sins. God is said to pass over, when from the hearts of certain men, in which he was believed to dwell before through faith, he afterwards departs from them due to creeping faithlessness or any transgression, and passes over to others. Just as concerning the Jews to the Gentiles, and from heretics to Catholics, or from any irreligious and negligent persons, God is said to depart on account of their vice, and to pass over to others, which he is accustomed to do not locally or visibly, but invisibly by hidden and just judgment. God is said to walk, not by passing from place to place, which it is impious to believe thus: but his walking is to delight in the hearts of the saints; as it is written, "And I will dwell in them, and I will walk, and I will be their God" (Leviticus 26:12). Or certainly, the walking of God is to pass from place to place in his holy preachers.

God’s speaking is to inspire His will and right understanding invisibly, without the sound of a voice or any noise, secretly in the minds of the saints, or to reveal future things as to the holy prophets. This speaking of God, as some wish, is understood in three ways. First, through a created subject, as He appeared to Moses in the bush and fire; or as He deigned to appear to Abraham and Jacob, or to the already mentioned Moses and the other saints to whom He wished, in angels. Second, in dreams, as to Jacob and to the prophet Zechariah, and to Joseph, the spouse of Mary, and to other saints to whom He wished to reveal secrets. Third, neither through a visible creature nor through a dream, but by secret inspiration alone, invisibly touching the hearts of the saints, He makes them speak, just as it is read in the books of the prophets, when the prophets themselves, suddenly inspired by the divine Spirit, exclaimed, saying, “Thus says the Lord.” God’s seeing is to approve good deeds: as in Genesis, “God saw all that He had made, and they were very good”; that is, He showed to those understanding that they were good. Alternatively, God’s seeing is to know and reprove the evils of men, as in the prophet Isaiah: “And the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in His eyes.

Otherwise, to see of God is to make us see, that is, to make us know: as it is in the Psalm, "Prove me, O Lord, and know my heart, question me, and know my ways, and see if there is a way of iniquity in me," etc. (Ps. 138:23). This manner of speech is likewise found in the book of blessed Job, where, concerning the wisdom of God the Father, after he has spoken many and notable things about God the Father, he added: "Then he saw her, and narrated and investigated and prepared" (Job 28:27); that is, he made them seeing and proclaiming and investigating and announcing to others. To know of God is to make knowing, as He Himself said to Abraham, "Now I know that you fear God" (Gen. 22:12). For He does not know from time, who knows all things before they happen: but God is said to know to make knowing, so that those who previously were unknown to themselves as to what they were like, through His questioning, that is, His testing, become manifest to themselves. Such also is that in the law of Moses concerning the Israelite people, "To test them," he says, "whether they keep my commandments or not" (Deut. 13:3). Not to know of God is to reprobate certain reprobates: as it is in the Gospel, "I do not know whence you are, depart from me, all who work iniquity" (Luke 13:; Ps. 6:9). God is said to be zealous when He chastises, corrects, and scourges His creature, which He does not wish to perish, and by scourging leads it back to Himself.

God is said to be zealous, certainly, because He wishes to leave no sin unpunished. For He is just, and therefore every injustice is abhorrent to Him, which, as has been said, He in no way suffers to go unpunished. God is said to be angry, not by any movement of the mind or by any perturbation, which cannot happen to Him at all; but He is said to inflict just vengeance upon a delinquent creature, that is, upon impious and sinful men, that is, to render to them what they deserve: and this divine vengeance is called His wrath or fury. God is said to repent, not that He repents of His past deeds in the manner of men; for He who knows all things before they happen cannot repent of His past deeds: but the repentance of God is to change established decrees, and to change what was previously begun otherwise into something else; that is, either from good to evil, with faults demanding it, as Saul is read to have repented of God, that He had established him as king (1 Sam. 15:11); or as we now see happened in the Jewish people, who, when they were the people of God, on account of their impiety became the synagogue of Satan: from evil to good, as happened in the Gentile people, who before were not the people of God, but now through the grace of Christ have become the people of God. For in this hidden way of God’s judgment, Judas the traitor fell from the rank of apostleship into the abyss of hell, while the thief, after the crime of rapacity, was transferred from the cross to paradise.

This change from good to evil, as has been said, or from evil to good, which occurs by the hidden and just judgment of God, whether through the severity of justice or through His mercy, we call the repentance of God. This is more clearly written in the book of the prophet Jeremiah. The non-repentance of God is to change established things in no way: as in the Psalm, "The Lord has sworn, and He will not repent of it"; that is, the Father to the Son, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 109:4). The Son of God is called the priest of the Father, not according to His divinity, but according to His humanity, in which He offered Himself for us through His passion and death as an acceptable sacrifice to God the Father, so that He Himself was both the priest and the sacrifice. God is said to forget, when He does not have mercy on certain impious and sinful persons, which He certainly does not do through cruelty, which is not in God, but through His hidden and just judgment. God is said to harden the hearts of certain evil men, as is written about Pharaoh, king of Egypt: not that almighty God hardens their hearts through His power, which it is impious to believe; but because their sins demand it, when He does not remove the hardness of heart which they themselves nourish by perpetrating evil, He is said to harden them, because He allows them to be hardened by just judgment.

The sleep of God is when the only-begotten Son of the Father deigned to die for us in the flesh He assumed; whose death is rightly proclaimed a sweet sleep, as He Himself says through the prophet Jeremiah: "Therefore I arose as from sleep; and I saw, and my sleep was sweet to me" (Jer. 31:26). In another way, God is said to sleep when faith in Him does not keep watch amid the prosperities of this world in the hearts of certain believers, but sleeps. Our Savior signified this sleep in Himself when He slept in the ship among the waves of the sea (Matt. 8:24). Or indeed, the sleep of God is to come more slowly to the aid of His elect placed in the tribulations of this world, as in that verse of the Psalm: "Arise, why do you sleep, O Lord?" (Ps. 43:23). The wakefulness of God is to show Himself manifest in the defense of His elect and in the vengeance of His enemies. II. All these things which have been foretold, and others like them, which Holy Scripture narrates about God according to history, are to be taken not according to the letter, as has been said, but as figurative speech: because the omnipotent God in the essence of His divinity is spirit, not flesh; invisible and incorporeal, composed of no human members; and therefore He is to be contemplated not with the eyes of the flesh, but with the eyes of the heart.

God is wisdom, truth, charity, justice; and therefore He is to be seen with the same eyes by which all these things are contemplated: and for that reason, not with bodily eyes, as has been said, but with a pure heart is He to be beheld by the faithful. For it is written in the Gospel, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8). This indeed is the reward of the saints, promised not only in this life, but rather in the future life; as the blessed apostle John says, "Beloved, we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. For we know that when it appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2). This promise, as has been said, after the resurrection of the flesh and the judgment of God, is stored up for the saints in the future age. In the present life, however, no one is so holy, no one so perfect among the elect of God, who has ever seen, or will be able to see, the Lord Himself in the essence of His divinity as He is; as He Himself testifies to Moses, "For no man shall see Me and live" (Exodus 33:20); as if He were saying, No one, as long as he lives mortally, will be able to see God as He is. For the saints in the present life see God, not as He is in His substance, but through a mirror and in a riddle, but afterwards face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). They see in this life by believing, not by discerning with bodily eyes. For to see God is to believe rightly in Him and to love Him from the heart. This indeed is what the name Israel signifies, which is interpreted, "The man who sees God.

But because the Son of God, who is one in substance of divinity with the Father, for the restoration of the human race which had fallen in Adam, near the end of the world slipped into the womb of the virgin Mary, created true flesh from her substance, and in the singularity of person.

his own to himself in such a way that he was equally God and man; but in a single person, as has been said, yet in a twofold substance, he was born from the same virgin with her modesty unimpaired; so that he who was and is in divinity true God, born of the true Father invisible, incorporeal, and incomprehensible, just as the Father is, would himself also be true man, visible, corporeal, and circumscribed; and the same one himself, not one God and another man, but God and man, one Christ the Son of God, suffered for our salvation, died and was buried in flesh alone, and in that same flesh on the third day by the power of his divinity rising from the tomb, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; whom the universal Church expects to come from there to judge the living and the dead in that same flesh in which he ascended, but glorified, just as the faithful all sing in the Creed; therefore it is necessary to believe and confess the same Son of God according to the substance of his divinity as invisible, incorporeal, immortal, and uncircumscribed, just as the Father and the Holy Spirit; but according to his humanity it is fitting to believe and confess him as visible, corporeal, local, and truly having all human members.

Since just as it is impious not to believe that the same Son of God and our Redeemer is, according to his divinity, invisible and incorporeal, just as the Father and the Holy Spirit are, so it is profane not to believe and profess that the same Son of God, in the assumed man, is visible, corporeal, and local after the resurrection. Moreover, that which is written in Genesis, where God the Father says to the Son, "Let us make man in our image and likeness" (Gen. 1:26), is not to be understood as if God were corporeal and composed of the outlines of members, to which corporeal composition he made our outer man, that is, the human body, as if to his own likeness, as the Jews and many other infidels have thought—to believe which is impious. But God, as has often been said, is spirit, not flesh; he is wisdom, not a body. For God made man in his own image, not in the body, but in the soul; not in the body, but in the mind; not in the outer man, but in reason. And the soul of man, as has been said, is held to have been made in the image of God because it is a spiritual creature, invisible, incorporeal, and immortal—not drawing its origin from the substance of God, as the Manichaean and Priscillianist heretics falsely thought, but created from nothing by God. It has a beginning, but knows no end. This human soul, because it was made rational and intellectual by God, is said to be the image of God.

For in it there is by nature a rational sense, through which it understands, discerns, and distinguishes between good and evil. In it there is memory, through which it recalls past things: in it there is will, through which it chooses what it wishes: in it there is sense, through which it also feels: in it there is reason, through which it contemplates both hidden and invisible things, through which it understands God its creator, through which it distinguishes true from false, through which it contemplates or speculates upon invisible things and God with the eyes of the heart. In all these things the soul of man is said to be made in the image of God: all these things it has in common with angels, but the body with brute animals which lack intellect. The origin of this soul is hidden, and known to God alone. This same soul of man, because it is a spiritual creature, is in sacred Scripture sometimes called spirit, sometimes nature, sometimes also life, and sometimes it is said to be heart: and although it is one in its nature, it has obtained different names on account of its various effects. The likeness of God, however, is referred to in name with regard to the work of justice, as the Lord says in the Law, "Be holy, because I, your God, am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). Concerning which holiness the blessed apostle Paul, instructing us, says, "Renew yourselves in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man who is created according to God in the justice and holiness of truth" (Ephesians 4:). And again he says, "Be imitators of me, just as I am of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:).

And blessed John, exhorting, says: He who says he abides in Christ ought to walk as he walked (1 John 2:6). And the Truth in the Gospel: Be merciful, as also your heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). For just as the image of God pertains to the nature of the soul, so also the likeness is referred to the work of justice.