But wherein lies the greatness of man according to the ecclesiastical reasoning? Not in that he was created after the likeness of the world, but in that he was made to the image of the Creator. Perhaps you will ask what is the reason of the image—how the corporeal can be like the incorporeal, how the temporal can be like the eternal, how that which is changed by continual motions can be like the immutable, that which is subject to passion and corruption like the impassible and incorruptible, and that which is ever engaged in malice and defect like Him who is without any malice. For there is a great distance between the primeval form and that which is made to its likeness. For the image, if it preserves the likeness of the principal form, is truly and properly called an image.
But if it departs from the imitation of it, it is shown to be something else. How then shall mortal man be proved to be the image of that most pure and immortal nature, ever-subsisting? Concerning these things, therefore, Truth itself alone clearly recognizes the true reason. But we, as far as we are able to grasp, diligently investigating the truth itself by certain conjectures and surmises, judge this to be the thing that is sought—concerning which neither does the divine discourse deceive us, which referred to man as made to the image of God, nor is the misery of human nature to be bewailed, since it bears the likeness of that blessed and impassible life.
But it is necessary to confess one of two things: that if anyone should compare to God what is ours, he must think either the divine substance passible or the human impassible—as though, by these equalizings, a likeness of reason in the substance were discerned in both. But if the Divinity is not in passion, nor are we proved exempt from passions, what other reason, do you suppose, is left, according to which we may say that divine word to be truthful which has testified that man is the image of God? Therefore let us take up the same Scripture in its entirety, to see whether through it some declaration may shine forth to us for what is sought. After it had said:
'Let us make man,' and indicated for what purpose he was made, adding that 'God made him to the image; to the image of God He made him; male and female He made them.' Now it has already been said above that this sentence proceeded unto the overthrow of the heretics' impiety, by which we are fittingly instructed that the only-begotten God made man to the image of God, so that by no reasoning may we attempt to distinguish the divinity of the Father and the Son, since divine Scripture equally confesses both to be God—both Him who made man, and Him to whose image he was made. But concerning these things let the assertion now be omitted.
Let us turn, however, to the proposed question: how the divine nature is indeed blessed, and yet Scripture records as wretched that which is like to it. Let us therefore explore the very words more diligently, and we shall find that one thing is what was made to the image of God, and another what is now beheld in misery. 'God made man,' it says; 'to the image of God He made him'—here is finished the constitution of him who was made to the image of God. Then there is appended, as it were, a discourse concerning the same constitution, when it is said: 'Male and female He made them.' But I think it is most well-known to all that this very thing is understood to be alien from that primeval form.
For in Christ Jesus, as the Apostle says, there is neither male nor female; but because by these the divine word divided man, a certain twofold formation of our nature is proved—both that which reflects the divine likeness, and that which is shown to differ from it. For the attestation of the account intimates something of this kind, first saying that 'God made man; to the image of God He made him,' and then subjoining that 'male and female He made them.' This latter, however, is proved to be foreign among the things that are understood of God; but I judge that through these words spoken by Holy Scripture a great and sublime doctrine is declared, which I perceive to be of this kind:
that human substance is intermediate between two things separated from one another at their extremes—namely, between the divine and incorporeal nature, and the irrational and brutish nature. For the reason of both is beheld in the constitution of man: the divine, in that he is rational and intellectual, which also shuns the distinction of male and female; the irrational, in that he bears a corporeal constitution divided into male and female (for in both of these are engaged all the things by which human substance is contained); but that what is intellectual in us is set above the thing which we see serving human propagation, we have learned by the very order of the creation that follows.
For unto the effect of generation there is a certain conjunction of man with the irrational creatures, grafted in. First, then, it says that 'God made man, to the image of God He made him'—showing by this what we said above the Apostle defined, that 'in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.' Then it brought in what would express the properties of human nature: 'male and female He made them.' Nor let anyone blame me as though I seem to derive the understanding of the proposed reasoning from on high; for God, naturally existing as whatever good we embrace in thought—nay rather more excellent than every good that can be either understood or comprehended—created man for no other cause than because He is good.
Being therefore such, and on that account having stood forth as the creator of the forming nature, He in no wise displayed an imperfect power of His goodness, as though He gave something of the things at His command, yet withheld something through the compulsion of envy; but the form of perfect goodness is in this, that He brought forth into being man who was not, and made him a partaker of good things. But since there is proved to be a great heaping-together of those very goods, which could not easily be comprehended by number, therefore Scripture, embracing all things together by a certain general expression, took care to signify them when it referred to man as made to the image of God. For this is equivalent, as if it said that human nature was made a partaker of every good:
for if the fullness of goodness is the Divinity, and man is the image of this, then assuredly this image too is in the fullness of every good, possessing the likeness according to the primeval form. There is therefore in us the constitution of every good, and of all virtue and wisdom, and whatever else can be understood as best; but above all, that we are free from all necessity, not subjugated by any natural power, but by our own choice incline toward the counsel that has pleased us. For virtue is a spontaneous thing, and subject to the dominion of none. But that which is forced by some necessity cannot any longer be virtue.
Since therefore in almost all respects the image displays the beauty and form of the primeval form, unless it differed in some respect, it would no longer be a likeness, but would be shown to be the very thing and equal to it in all respects—which is proved to be immutable in all things. In what, then, do we perceive the distance between the Divinity and its likeness? In this, without doubt, that the Divinity is uncreated, whereas this subsists by creation—which difference of property has in turn brought forth a consequence of other properties. For an undoubted profession occurs to all, that the uncreated nature is immutable and ever remains in the same manner, but the creature cannot persist without change.
For the very transit from nothing to existence was a certain motion and conversion, when the non-existent is transmuted into being by the divine counsel. And just as the holy Gospel calls the figure impressed on the coin the 'image of Caesar'—whereby we learn that according to the figure there is a likeness of Caesar, while in the underlying subject his difference appears—so also in the aforesaid matters the figures, by analogy, are those things which are beheld in the contemplation of the divine and human nature; in those things in which there is the same likeness, we find a difference wholly in the subject, which by the gaze of the mind we behold as uncreated and created nature.
Since therefore the Divinity itself ever is, but man through creation began to exist out of change, and seems to have a certain kinship with the changeable nature—therefore He who knows all things before they come to be, as the prophet had promised, foreseeing and looking ahead by the power of His foreknowledge to what the motion of human choice would incline according to its spontaneous will, beheld that which was to be, bestowing upon the image the difference of male and female, which would no longer look to the divine and principal form, but, as has been said, would seem to draw near to the irrational nature. But the cause of so great an Artificer only those indeed understand who behold the truth with their own eyes and are ministers of the Word;
but we, as far as is possible, pursuing the traces of truth by certain conjectures and tokens, set forth what has come into our mind, not in an assertive manner, but by way of exercise we impart it to devout hearers. What then is it that we have been able to think out concerning these things? When divine Scripture says that 'God made man,' by an indefinite signification it shows the whole race of men. For Adam is not here named in the constitution, as the narrative also declares in what follows; but the name belongs to the man created, generally, not to any particular man. Hence, then, from this general appellation of nature, we are compelled to think out something of this kind: that the divine power and foreknowledge embraced all human nature in the first constitution.
For one must reckon that nothing among the things created by God is indefinite, but that for each of the things that are there is a most certain mode, bounded by the wisdom of the Creator. For just as any particular man here is bounded by the quantity of his body, and the measure of his substance is its quality, which is unfolded together with the surface of the body—so I judge that, as it were in some single body, the whole fullness of humanity was embraced by the Author of the universe through the power of foreknowledge; and that Scripture intimates this when it says: 'And God made man; to the image of God He made him.'
For this image is not in a part of nature, nor is this grace bounded in some one individual who is beheld in his own singularity; but this power of so great a virtue runs out actually into the whole race. And a sign of this is that the mind is equally implanted in all; and it is established that the faculty of thinking and reconsidering is present in all—the other things by which the likeness to the divine nature is declared being included in this, that he is recognized as made to the image of God. For whether it be he who was formed in the first constitution of the world, or he who shall be in the future after the consummation of the whole world, each is alike proved to bear in himself the divine image.
On this account one man is called the universe, because to the divine power nothing is past nor future, but even that which is awaited it beholds, as though it were present, by the power whereby it contains all. The whole nature, therefore, running through from the first to the last, is one certain image of the substance; but the difference in male and female was afterwards wrought in the formation, on account of this cause, as I judge. CHAPTER XVIII. What ought to be answered to those who, doubting, inquire whether the procreation of children be sin. But it is better, I think, before the proposition be ventilated, to inquire into the resolution of the question which is brought forward by our rivals.
For they say that before sin there was neither birth, nor groaning, nor the appetite that attends the propagation of offspring; but that, after they had been driven from paradise following the transgression, and the woman had been condemned to the punishment of childbearing, then Adam came together with her so as to know his wife by right, and thus the beginning of procreation was effected.
If, then, there were no nuptials in paradise, nor groaning there, nor birth, they say it is necessary to reckon from the consequences that men would by no means be multiplied, unless immortality had fallen back into this mortality, and they would preserve nature by their wedded union, restoring by a continual succession those who are born of them in place of the dead—so that sin would seem in a certain useful manner to have been introduced for men. But the human race would have remained in those two who were first formed, since nature would be moved to succession by no fear of death. But in these matters, again, the true reasoning, whatever it is, is known only to those who, according to Paul, are proved to have been instructed by the ineffable words of the happy paradise;
But our affirmation is shown to be of this kind. When the Sadducees once resisted the truth of the resurrection, and put forward, to confirm their perverse doctrine, that woman of many marriages who had had seven brothers, and thereupon inquired whose wife of them she would be after the resurrection, the Lord answered, instructing not the Sadducees alone but laying open to all the mysteries of the life to come after the resurrection: 'In the resurrection,' He says, 'they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; for neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels, and are the sons of God, since they are the sons of the resurrection.' Now the grace of the resurrection promises us nothing else than that we should be restored to our ancient state out of our fallings.
For a certain return to the former life is the grace we await, which again happily leads back thither the man who was driven out of paradise. If therefore the converse of those restored shall be joined to the angels in fellowship and number, it is clear that man before the fall was reckoned as a kind of angel. Therefore also, when our life has recovered its former state, it will without doubt be made equal to the angels. But although, as has been said, there are no marriages among them, nevertheless they exist in countless thousands of hosts of angels, as the prophet Daniel intimates in his visions.
Therefore, in like manner, if no excess of sin had drawn us away from that angelic dignity, neither would marriages have been proved necessary to us for the multiplication of the race. But whatever that mode of nature is by which the angels are multiplied—a mode most perfect indeed, though it cannot be devised by human conjectures—nevertheless that mode, whatever it truly is, would have shown the effect of its operation also in those who were made but little less than the angels, multiplying the human race by the will of the Creator up to the predestined number.
But if perchance someone press us hard, inquiring into the very mode by which souls could have come to be, had man not sought the work of marriage, let us also ask him what is the mode of the angelic constitution, how they are held to subsist in countless thousands and yet in one essence, being established surely from a very great number. To this we more fittingly reply to him who proposes how man could continue without marriage, saying: in that mode by which the angels are known to be without marriage. For that man before his transgression was like to them, the renewal again manifests by his likeness to them.
These things therefore being laid open in this manner, let our discourse return to the question proposed, namely why, after the condition of the image, God deigned to devise by His own firm decree the difference of male and female. For to this end I confess that this foregoing consideration which we have set forth is useful. For He who produced all things that they might be, and who fashioned the whole man by His own disposition to the divine image, by no means suffered by small and slight additions that the number of souls should seem less perfect in its fulness.
But at once He conferred the entire fulness of human nature by the effect of His foreknowledge, adorning it also with a most sublime and not unlike-to-the-angels end; for because by His almighty providence He knew that the choice of the human will would not be moved rightly, and that on this account it would withdraw from that angelic converse—lest through this the multitude of human souls should be diminished, falling away from that mode by which the angels were multiplied—therefore He framed for the falling into sin a providence of multiplication suitable to our nature and worthy of those who fall into sin, in place of the angelic sublimity grafting into human substance the mode of beasts and of irrational creatures, by which they succeed one another as they pass away.
Hence it seems to me that the great David also, compassionating human misery, bewails its nature in such words, that man, while he was in honour, understood not—calling 'honour' the fact that he had been like the holy angels; therefore was he compared to the senseless beasts and made like unto them. For truly he was made like a beast, who took up in his nature this animal mode of generation, on account of the fall of conversion which befell him from the conformation of matter. CHAPTER 19. That the irrational passions in us are shown to have their occasions from the kinship of that very nature. For I think that from this beginning, all the vices also, as though flowing forth from a certain fountain, gush out in the pitiable conduct of man.
This present assertion is confirmed by this argument, that a certain kinship of passions appears to be common to us and to the irrational creatures. For it is not lawful to ascribe to human nature (in respect of that whereby it was fashioned to the divine likeness) the beginnings of passible affection; but because the life of irrational living things preceded into this world, and for the aforesaid causes man too had something from the same fashioning, according to the adornment of begetting, therefore he was made a partaker also of the rest of the effects which are beheld in nature. For man is not like to God in respect of rage, nor is that supereminent nature figured by passible pleasure;
fear too, and boldness, the appetite for more and the hatred of diminution, and the like of these, stand far off from that figure by which Divinity is expressed. These therefore the human substance contracted from its irrational part. For those things by which the life of brutes is fortified for its own preservation, when transferred to man's preservation, became the beginnings of the passions. For by rage are preserved the beasts that feed on flesh; whatever creatures are lustful multiply their kind by propagation; flight guards the weak, and fear protects him who is more easily caught by the stronger; gluttony too preserves the corpulent; and if it happen that one does not attain what pleasure seeks, it becomes the occasion of irrational grief.
All these, and whatever else is of this kind, there is no doubt have come upon the generation of men from the animal and brutish constitution. But let it be granted me to describe in words the human form according to a certain figuration of a wondrous thing. For just as we see images made from fashioned things, statues which turn the minds of beholders to astonishment—those who are proved to be of this art carve in such a way that sometimes they make a single two-formed head—so a certain twofold and contrary likeness of man seems to exist: by the mind indeed, whereby he is worthy of God, formed to the divine beauty; but by the passions, by whose onset he is buffeted, joined by a certain property to the brute animals;
and frequently the motion becomes almost brutish, whenever he is utterly inclined to irrational motions, obscuring that which is better in himself by the affection of the worse. For as soon as one bends the efficacy of the mind to the corruption of passion, and compels his counsels to serve it, then a certain depravation of the good formation is displayed, and so all nature is changed into wickedness, when now reason wholly cultivates the principles of the passions, and for the increase of iniquity multiplies the very thoughts as causes of the vices. For the mind, exhibiting its co-operation to the passions, has procreated a manifold and dense abundance of evils. Thus the lust of pleasure had indeed its beginning from the likeness of irrational nature, but in
the excesses of men it grew vehemently, begetting such great differences of the things produced—differences which come from the will itself—as you could not find among the irrational creatures. Thus the commotion of rage is indeed kindred to an irrational thing, but it grows by the accession of thought. For hence is the memory of malice, hence envy, hence falsehood, treacheries too and dissemblings are shown to come from here. But all these proceed from the cultivation of an iniquitous mind. For if the onset of passion be exalted by no support of thought, it quickly grows weary, and vehement rage is proved feeble, and as soon as it has arisen is extinguished.
Thus the greedy voracity of swine furnished the occasions of avarice; thus the prancing of the horse became the beginning of pride; and all the things which are the proofs of irrational causes, through the mind's evil use, were made the beginnings of rational mortals' vices. So, on the contrary, when thought reins in and restrains these onsets, they are forthwith transferred into the appearance of virtue. For from rage indeed descends fortitude, from dread caution; fear begets submission, and hatred stirs up the turning-away from malignity; the virtue of love too procures the desire of the true good; exaltation likewise plucks our characters out from the passions, and preserves free prudence from the slavery of baseness.
The blessed Apostle too commends the appearance of this subtlety, when he repeatedly commands us to be wise about the things that are above. And so you will find that every such motion, which lifts the mind on high, is conformed to the beauty of the divine image. But because there is a certain heavy and downward-tending quality of sins which prevails over the better part, and the ruling power of the soul is depressed rather by the weight of irrational nature, since this heavy and earthly thing is elevated by the sublimity of the mind, therefore it often comes to pass that our misery is ignorant of the divine gifts, drawing over the most beautiful image the most foul face of passion.
And therefore those who behold these things are right in not easily consenting that the divine form is present in such persons, but rather to discern the divine image in men through those who shine forth by the conduct of an upright life. For if every vicious person or one given to the flesh does not allow it to be believed of man that he is adorned with divine beauty, yet he who is perfect in virtue and most pure from every contagion confirms that opinion which subsists concerning the better part of man—so that (for what is said is better proved by example) just as the touch of malignity diminishes some comeliness of nature, he above all does so who is proved to be most notorious in sins, as was Jechoniah, or any other who is recorded to be conspicuous in wickedness.
But in Moses and those like him the beauty of the image is beheld perfect. In whomsoever therefore the comeliness is defiled by no obscurity, in these the faith of the things that are said shines forth evidently, in that man exists as an imitator of the divine goodness. But perhaps someone blushes that, taking the food of irrational life, a likeness binds us together, and therefore deems it unworthy of man who was made to the image of God; but let immunity from this function also be hoped for our nature in that life which is to come, to be granted at some time. For it is not, as the Apostle says:
The kingdom of God is not food and drink; and the Lord testified that man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God; and also testified to the glory of the resurrection, when He approves that our life is to be made equal to the angels. But among the angels there is no food. Wholly fitting therefore is the faith that this function will be free for man, who was made to the likeness of the angels. CHAPTER 20. A mystical interpretation of that which is said: of every tree that was in paradise man was permitted to eat. But perhaps someone may say that man does not return again into the same kind of life, since at first we lived by eating. Yet I, hearing Holy Scripture, know not bodily food, nor only the gladness which is from the flesh.
But I altogether acknowledge yet another food, which bears a certain likeness of proportion to this food of the body, whose pleasure too and sweetness passes only to the soul. Whence also Wisdom exhorts the hungry and says: 'Eat of my bread'; and the Lord declares blessed those who hunger for such foods. And 'if anyone thirst,' He says, 'let him come to me and drink.' The great Isaiah too says: 'Drink gladness,' commanding those who could hear his magnificence. And there is also a certain prophetic threat against those who are worthy of such vengeance, that they should be punished as it were by famine. But the famine is not a lack of bread or water, but a failing of the word. 'Not a famine,' he says, 'of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of God';
of that planting therefore which was made by God in Eden. But pleasure (which is what Edom is interpreted to mean) compels us to devise a certain worthy fruit, by which without doubt the human substance was nourished; nor indeed is it fitting to perceive in the converse of paradise this pleasure which passes away and flows off. 'Of every tree,' He says, 'that is in paradise thou shalt eat.' Who will give him, who wholesomely hungers, that tree which is in paradise, which embraces utterly every good, whose name is 'every,' the participation of which the law granted to man? For by a general and supereminent word this whole species of goods is known to itself, and this whole is one thing;