Commenting
on Heb 1:3 and how απαυγασμα has a passive not active sense therein, Dom Aelred Cody, a
Roman Catholic priest and scholar, wrote:
3a. The divine Son’s relation to
the Father is expressed as a ‘reflection’ (apaugasma)
of the Father’s glory and a ‘stamp’ or ‘imprint’ (charaktēr) of his nature. Apaugasma
has been variously interpreted in an active sense (‘radiation, emanation’
of light) and in a passive sense (‘reflection’ of a luminary’s light on another
surface). The active sense was the one commonly accepted in early exegesis, with
conclusions at times orthodox, at times pantheistic or gnostic, but the parallel with charaktēr indicates that it is the passive sense which is intended
by our author. Charaktēr is the
imprint of a seal, the mark of one thing found in something else. ‘Glory’ is
the form of God’s manifestation (Ex 24:16; 33:18; 40:34;cf Jn 1:14), and in
late Judaism often meant God himself. Hypostasis
is essence, substance, nature; to try to make the clear-cut metaphysical or
speculative distinctions of a later theology is out of place; the word is
chosen on the basis of theological imagery and metaphor. Without pressing these
images further than the author intends, we may say that ‘reflection of his
glory’ denotes the Son’s divine origin and perfect similarity to the Father,
and ‘stamp of his nature’ that similarity qualified by his distinction from the
Father. ‘Upholding the universe by his word of power’: pherōn has the double sense of maintaining the existence of
creation and of governing, directing the course of history. The ‘word’ here is
the dynamic OT ‘word’ which produces the physical or historical effects, and ‘word
of power’, of course, is a Semitism for ‘powerful word’. (Dom Aelred Cody, “Hebrews”
in Reginald C. Fuller, Leonard Johnston, and Conleth Kearns, eds. A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture [London:
Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1969], 1224, emphasis in bold added)
To
understand the theological significance of this and how it relates to the
Latter-day Saint belief that the Father, not the Son merely, have (1) a bodily form as part of his “substantial” nature
and (2) has a glorified body, see:
