Question
252
To
whom did God say, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness”?
Obviously, He said it to His
consubstantial and coessential Son. For of Them an image can indeed be made.
But the heretics, who in their foolish chatter said that it was spoken to the
angels, or (even worse) to the demons, are very senseless. For what likeness
can there be between the image of God and that of angels or demons? Of those
whose essence differs to an immeasurable degree, what deceitful imagination
could presume that they share the same image? Someone might even laugh at the
folly of the Jews, for they say that God said this to Himself as if in
imitation of human speech. Yet though “let us make” and “we command” or “we
write,” though plural in form, does not at all imply a call to cooperation. Moreover,
“we write” and “we command” clearly have an addressee—it is evident that they
are directed toward a subordinate—whereas in the case, the phrase “let us make<”
especially with the addition of “in our image,” does not at all allow us to
understand any other person than the Son and the All-Holy Spirit, to whom have
been entrusted the great powers, and who are accustomed to say, “We give
command,” “We write,” “We order,” and the like. Yet for the most part, divine
Scripture represents God, the Lord of all, as speaking in the singular: “The
time for every purpose is in my power,” “I regret that I made man,” “I will destroy
man,” “There shall be no other gods besides me,” and countless others. Only
occasionally does it present Him as speaking in the plural, indicating thereby
the number of persons in the Trinity, as in “Come, let us go down and confuse
their language,” and in the very phrase now under discussion.
Here then, when God was forming the
rational being, which after many generations was to be renewed through the invocations
of the Holy Trinity in the all-holy baptism, being about to create that nature
which would partake of those mysteries, He declared in a veiled way both the identity
of essence and the number of persons. By saying, “God said,” He indicated the
common divine nature; and by adding, “Let us make,” He revealed the number of persons.
Again, by saying in the singular “image,” He showed the unity of nature; and by
adding “our,” He showed the number of hypostases. Thus, foreseeing all things—even
the Incarnation of the Only Begotten and that He would take human nature from
the Virgin—the God of all very fittingly deemed this foundation of our race worthy
of the highest honour.
First, therefore, He set forth
the thought of creation, to show beforehand the rationality of His creature.
Then He declared at the same time the number of the divine persons, so that the
man being created might grasp the mysteries of theology, and he who is found worthy
of the all-holy baptism might clearly know that his Maker is also his Saviour,
and his Saviour also his Maker. Furthermore, since in a certain sense He
Himself is the immediate author of this creation, He thus showed His particular
love for His work. But we do not say that the Deity has hands, nor what He
needs reflection or prior contemplation to create—as Plato’s myths say, that He
fashioned the creature according to the image retained in His memory—but each
of these expressions simply declares God’s great care for His creation.
Question
253
What
does “according to the image” mean?
Some say that “according to the
image” refers to the invisibility of the soul; but if that were the case, then
much more “in the image” would the angels have been made. Others, very foolishly,
say that the human body was made according to the divine image, because they
were deceived by the fact that divine Scripture often mentions for God eyes and
hands and the like, not perceiving that God, speaking in human manner through
men, shapes His words according to the weakness of His hearers. Since we see by
the eyes, He calls His seeing power “eyes”; and in like manner His hearing
power “ears,” and His command “mouth.” Yet the fact that God is impossible to
describe can be seen from many passages of Scripture.
Some of the teachers, therefore,
have understood “according to our image and likeness” in this way: that when
God, the Maker of all, created both the visible and the intelligible creation,
He fashioned man last of all, setting, as it were, His image midway between the
inanimate and sensible and the intelligible, so that the lifeless and living
things should offer to him, as a kind of tribute, their use, while the
spiritual beings should show their live for the Creator through their case for
him.
Others again have said that “in
the image of God” means that men was made according to God’s ruling power; for,
they say, He added, “and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,” and
so on. Just as He has authority over all, so HE granted to man dominion over
the irrational animals.
But we may also find other
imitations of the archetype. For man took creates, following the example of his
Maker, building houses and walls, and cities and harbours, and countless other
things—representations of the heavens and images of the sun, the moon, the
stars, and of irrational animals—though the diversity of creation is indescribable.
Yet in every way that man creates, he imitates his own Creator, as the image
does the archetype. For the image bears the marks of the archetype, though it
possesses the shape of the parts, it does not possess their energies, being
without the soul by which the body moves.
So too man rules and judges after
the pattern of God, but man needs witnesses, accusers, and countless others in
the act of judgment, whereas God needs none, for He knows all things before
they come to be. Thus man is also called “god,” because he is called the image
of God. And indeed Paul says, “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is
the image and glory of God.” And moreover, God is, by His nature, truly what He
is called, whereas man, as His image, bears only the name. And again, God is truly
and actually infinite, yet the human intellect also, in a certain way, imitates
that infinity, for it ranges instantaneously to east and west, north and south,
to the things of heaven and those beneath the earth—tough only by the power of imagination,
whereas God possess infinity in His essence, wisdom, and power.
One many find also another, more
exact imitation within the human soul itself, for it contains both the rational
and vital powers. And indeed the nous begets the word, and with the word
proceeds the spirit—yet the spirit is not begotten as the word is, but ever
accompanies it. These things, however, exist in man as in an image; therefore both
the word and the spirit are without hypostasis. But in the Holy Trinity we
understand the three hypostases, who are united without confusion, and exist
each in themselves. (Photius, The Collected Amphilochia, 3 vols. [trans.
Nun Christina; 2025], 3:540-42)
On the Latter-day Saint understanding of Gen 1:26 and other
texts (e.g., Heb 1:3), see:
Lynn
Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
