ACC ~ Colossians 1 v15a

“IMAGE” IMPLIES INVISIBILITY. ORIGEN: Let us now see what we ought to understand by the expression “image of the invisible God,” in order that we may learn from this expression how God can rightly be called the Father of his Son; and let us first of all consider what things are called images in ordinary human speech. Sometimes the term image is applied to an object painted or carved on some material, such as wood or stone. Sometimes a child is said to be an image of the parent, when the likeness of the parent’s features is in every respect faithfully reproduced in the child. … In regard to the Son of God, of whom we are now speaking, the image may be compared to our second illustration for this reason, that he is the invisible image of the invisible God, just as according to the Scripture narrative we say that the image of Adam was his son Seth. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 1.2.6.

ORIGEN: We may inquire whether there exists any substance in which we can discern neither color nor shape nor possibility of touch nor size, a substance perceptible to the mind alone, which anyone can call whatever he pleases. The Greeks speak of this substance as asōmaton, or incorporeal; but the divine Scriptures call it “invisible”; for the apostle declares that God is invisible, when he says that Christ is the “image of the invisible God.” ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4.3.15.

CHRYSOSTOM: Whose image then will you have him be? God’s? Then he is exactly like the one to whom you assign him. If you compare him to a human image, say so, and I’ll be done with you as a madman. … “The image of the invisible” is itself also invisible, and invisible in the same way, for otherwise it would not be an image. For an image, so far as it is an image, even on a human level, ought to be exactly similar, as, for example, in respect of the features and the likeness. But here indeed among us, this is by no means possible; for human art fails in many respects, or rather fails in all, if you make a careful examination. But where God is, there is no error, no failure. HOMILIES ON COLOSSIANS 3.

ATHANASIUS: But though he is Word, he is not, as we said, comparable to human words, composed of syllables; but he is the unchanging image of his own Father. For men, composed of parts and made out of nothing, speak in a composite and divisible fashion. But God possesses true existence and is not composite; hence his Word also has true existence and is not made of different parts or syllables. He is the one and only-begotten God, who proceeds in his goodness from the Father as from a good Fountain, and orders all things and holds them together. AGAINST THE PAGANS 41.

THEODORET OF CYR: The term image signifies that one living being shares the same substance with another being. However, and by contrast, inanimate images, precisely because they are inanimate and have no soul, do not possess the substance of that of which they are images [i.e., they are mere outward copies]. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE COLOSSIANS.

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: He is called “image” because he is of one substance with the Father; he stems from the Father and not the Father from him, it being the nature of an image to copy the original and to be named after it. But there is more to it than this. The ordinary image is a motionless copy of a moving being. Here we have a living image of a living being, indistinguishable from its original to a higher degree than Seth from Adam and any earthly offspring from its parents. Beings with no complexity to their nature have no points of likeness or unlikeness. They are exact replicas, identical rather than like. ORATIONS 30.20.

BASIL THE GREAT: Consider the following words also: “In our image.” What do you say to this? Surely, the image of God and of the angels is not the same. Now it is absolutely necessary for the form of the Son and of the Father to be the same, the form being understood, of course, as becomes the divine, not in a bodily shape, but in the special properties of the Godhead. … To whom does he say: “In our image”? To whom else, I say, than to the “brightness of his glory and the image of his substance,” who is “the image of the invisible God”? HOMILIES ON THE HEXAMERON 9.6.

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: For the Son remained the Word of God, although he became man, being the Father in form,according to his spiritual image, I mean, and being in every way unchangeable. LETTERS 55.27.

AUGUSTINE: In parents and children there would be found an image and an equality and a likeness if the age difference were lacking. For the child’s likeness has been derived from the parent, so that the likeness may rightly be called an image. … In God, however, the conditions of time do not obtain, for God cannot be thought of as having begotten in time the Son through whom he has created the times. Hence it follows that not only is [the Son] his image, because he is from [God], and the likeness, because the image, but also the equality is so great that there is not even a temporal distinction standing in the way between them. EIGHTYTHREE DIFFERENT QUESTIONS 74.

“IMAGE” MEANS VISIBLE. TERTULLIAN: It is fortunate that in another passage [the apostle] calls Christ “the image of the invisible God.” For does it not follow with equal force from that passage that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle describes him as the image of God? This is true, if (as Marcion contends) he is not truly man because he has taken on the form or image of a man. For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or “fashion”) and likeness and form are descriptions of a phantom. But since he is truly God as the Son of the Father, in his fashion and image, he has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, “found in the fashion” and image “of a man.” AGAINST MARCIONS 5.20.

NOVATIAN: Please note that the same Moses says in another passage that God appeared to Abraham. Yet the same Moses hears from God that no man can see God and live. If God cannot be seen, how did God appear? If he appeared, how is it that he cannot be seen? … This can only mean that it was not the Father, who never has been seen, that was seen, but the Son, who is apt both to descend and to be seen, for the simple reason that he has descended. In fact, he is “the image of the invisible God,” that our limited human nature and frailty might in time grow accustomed to see God the Father in him who is the Image of God, that is, in the Son of God. ON THE TRINITY 18.1-3.

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: He calls Christ the invisible image, not because God becomes visible in him but rather because the greatness of God is shown forth in him. In a way we do see the invisible nature of God in Christ as the image, in the sense that he was begotten by God the Word and will judge the whole earth when he appears in his proper nature at the time of his second coming. Thus, he holds for us the status of “image,” which is visible and belongs to Jesus’ earthly, human state, for the very reason that we are able to infer from this “image” [in its earthly appearance] to his divine nature. … I am astounded at those who attribute his status as the “image” to his divine nature univocally … since the term image would never have been applied to human beings (i.e., as some have done) if it had been a term exclusively proper to divine nature. COMMENTARY ON COLOSSIANS.

HILARY OF POITIERS: The Lord has declared: “If I do not perform the works of my Father do not believe me.” Hence, he teaches that the Father is seen in him because he performs his works so that the power of the nature that was perceived would reveal the nature of the power that was perceived, wherefore the apostle, indicating that this is the image of God, says: “Who is the image of the invisible God … that through him he should reconcile all things to himself.” Accordingly, he is the image of God by the power of these works. ON THE TRINITY 8.49.

AMBROSE: Be like the image on the coin, unchangeable, keeping the same habits every day. When you see the coin, see the image; when you see the law, see Christ, the image of God, in the law. And because he himself is the image of the invisible and incorruptible God, let him shine for you as in the mirror of the law. Confess him in the law that you may acknowledge him in the gospel. LETTERS 20.

Col