From the Word about the Image of God (excerpt)

This passage is part of a work attributed to St. Anastasius Sinaite, although previously some parts were erroneously attributed to St. Gregory of Nyssa or Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch. The text is devoted to theological reflection on man as the image of God. St. Anastasius claims that a person carries within himself not one, but many images and similarities, reflecting the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the incarnation of God the Word. He offers several levels of consideration of this image: 1. Image of the Holy Trinity. Adam, created guiltlessly and unbornly, is likened to God the Father. The Son born of Adam corresponds to the Son of God. Eve, descended from Adam, symbolizes the Holy Spirit. 2. Intrapersonal image. The soul, as such, is the image of pure Divinity. The union of soul and body reflects the incarnation of the Word. The interconnection of the soul, rational word and thought within a person reflects the unity and trinity of God. 3. Duality of action (energy). The soul acts both soulfully (spiritually and physically), and spiritually, like the godly and divine action of Christ. Mental-physical action is likened to the incarnate Christ, and purely mental action is likened to Divine energy. Thus, through understanding yourself and the structure of your soul, you can get closer to knowing God. From the translator's preface. Rev. Anastasius Sinait (VII century) wrote several words about the image of God. The first of them, under the name of Gregory of Nyssa, is placed among his creations. See MPG. t. 44, col. 1327. The first passage printed here obviously represents part of the second word. Further, the third word is offered here in translation almost completely (without end only). Following it is placed another passage, it is unknown from which word. The present passage, which is a translation from the Greek (MPG. t. 89, coll. 1144-1150), is inscribed with the name of Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch. But from the latter no words have been preserved about the image of God. The content of this passage comes very close to the further 3rd word, in which Anastasius Sinaite, referring to his previous words about the image (see ibid. col. 1160 CD), not only expresses similar thoughts and pursues the same main subject of content (trying to prove the reflection in man, as the image of God, of the two natures of Christ, two wills and two actions), but also literally quotes an excerpt from the present first passage (ibid. coll. 1161 C – 1164 AB; cf. coll. 1148 D – 1149 ABC). From here it is clear that the author of this passage is also Anastasius the Presbyter - Sinaite. Not only does (man) have some image and likeness in himself, but also another, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, truly depicting, as if in some mirror or natural, and not symbolic picture, the mystery of the Trinitarian Deity; and not only this, but clearly delineating the incarnation of the One from this very Trinity, God the Word. In the image of the pure (τῆς γυμνῆς) Divinity, perhaps, the soul itself (γυμνὴ ἡ ψυχή) appears, in the likeness of the incarnation of the Word - the union of our soul and body. But let us better return again to the very beginning of the speech, from where, as if from what source, we will first of all examine why God did not create the personalities (hypostases) of our ancestors and ancestors, i.e. Adam and Eve and the son born from them, following the example of other intelligent beings, i.e. angels, or, on the contrary, identical with animate animals, but Adam created innocently (ἀναιτίως) 1 and unborn, and the next man after him - a son born; He brought Eve into being neither by birth nor again innocently, but through taking or derivatively, as having come from the being of the guiltless (ἀναιτίου) Adam. And aren’t these three ancestral heads, consubstantial with the entire human race, are, as Methodius also thinks, some symbolic image of the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity? Namely: the guiltless and unborn Adam is a symbol and image of the guiltless and all-guilty Almighty God and Father; the son born from him prefigures the image of the begotten Son and the Word of God; Eve, who happened, depicts the outgoing Hypostasis of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, God did not breathe into her the breath of life, because she is the image of the Holy Spirit, Who is breath and life, and because she had to receive into herself, through the Holy Spirit, God - the truly existing breath and life of all 2. From here one can see and wonder why the unborn Adam does not have another unborn or guiltless person like himself among people, just like the originated Eve, as true images of the unborn Father and the Holy Spirit. The son born from them had all people as begotten sons, brothers similar to themselves, since he was in the image and symbolic likeness of Christ, the begotten Son, who became man, the firstborn without seed in many brethren. If this is not the case and it is not in this sense that the image must be understood (by the image), then why did there once arise not four, two or more personalities (hypostases) of the ancestors, each having, each separately, its own personal distinctive characteristics - I mean: unbornness, birth and procession, but only three and [by close connection] united? So, in three hypostases (progenitors) you have, in the image and likeness, the symbolic Trinity in one. You should also know the unity in the Trinity. And so that you can clearly understand this, listen to one of the wise men, convincing you and saying: if you want to know God, first know yourself, from your own, he says, structure, from your own composition, from what is inside you; go deep into yourself; look closely, as if into a mirror, into your own soul; consider its structure, and you will see yourself created in the image and likeness of God. After all, the essence of your soul is inexplicable, unknown, spiritual and immortal in the image and symbolic likeness of the inexplicable, unknown and immortal God. In fact, none of the people who lived in (this) century knew either the essence of God or the essence of the rational soul. The life-giving, connecting and providential soul controls the nature of the four-element body, in the image of God, the Provider of all creation, existing at the four corners of the earth and the mountain. Therefore, we do not know in what place God dwells, but we only believe that He is in every (place). [Equally] we do not know where the soul lives in the body, but we only know that in the most holy body it exists and acts 3. Your soul also has (something) other in the image of God. I mean its alien nature to all created nature. But what is most surprising of all that is in us according to the image is that the human mind is not able to refute (κατασβέσαι) the evidence (τοὺς λόγους) of the existence of God, nor [explain] our mental essence, how it arose and came into existence. But let us move on to the most important [in the question] of image and likeness, in order to show, according to the promise, the uniqueness of the Divinity in the Trinity. What it is is obvious again from the fact that there is our soul, and its rational word, and thought (ὁ νοῦς), which the Apostle called spirit, when he exhorts us to be holy in soul and body and spirit (1 Thess. 5:23). In fact, just as the unborn and guiltless (ἀναίτιος) soul is truly the image of the unborn and guiltless God and Father, so its unborn rational word, born from it inexpressibly and invisible, inexplicably and impassively, is the image of the begotten Son. Thought is neither innocent nor born, but it is outgoing, penetrating everywhere and observing everything, and invisibly perceiving in the image and likeness of the All-Holy and outgoing Spirit, about Whom it is said that the Spirit tests all things, even the depths of God (1 Cor. 2:10). The soul is not outgoing as long as it is in the body; otherwise, if it had come, we would have died at that very moment. And our word is not unborn, otherwise we would be dumb and bestial 4 . What is more amazing than all these marvels is that we have a soul as something simple, as well as a single and uncomplicated thought, and a dual word, having a double birth, but remaining united and indivisible. In fact, the word is born in the heart by some incomprehensible, incorporeal birth and remains unknown within; it is also born by a second birth, bodily - through the mouth, and then it is known by everyone, without being separated, however, from the soul that gave birth to it, so that through the two births of our word we clearly understand, in some image and likeness, the two births of God the Word. For It was born invisible and inexplicable, before the ages, from the Father, and remained unknown to the Father, as if in some soul, until, as if from some heart, it was immaculately and painlessly born from the Virgin according to the flesh and appeared to us bodily through the second birth. One can also see, as if in some image and symbol, in a person, I say, some double reflection of the action (energy) into the image and symbol (of the actions) of Christ. Indeed, as His Divinity, being active, acted both divinely (θεανδρικῶς) and (only) divinely (θεϊκῶς) in heaven, before the formation of the body, as limitless and unlimited by the body; Likewise, the soul, being in the image and likeness of the invisible God the Word, acts, on the one hand, soulfully (ψυχανδρικῶς), i.e. spiritually and physically, in the image of the godly acting Christ. On the other hand, in very many cases it acts only mentally, without assistance from its abode - the body, in the image of the invisible God the Word, who has invisibly accomplished and is doing much in heaven and on earth, through His unlimited and universal divine action. Thus, love for God is realized through mental action alone, without requiring the assistance of the body for this; in a similar way, faith is an indicator of psychic energy alone; in the same way, hope is achieved only by psychic energy; just as humility operates and is maintained through the energy of the soul. And, generally speaking, all the spiritual virtues necessary [for salvation], the root and foundation of which is purity of the heart, are accomplished with the help of the spiritual energy of our rational soul alone, without needing the body for their fulfillment. Therefore, the crippled, the sick, and the immobile in body, through these virtues, through spiritual action, can please God. The duality of our energy is especially evident in our dreams. For while the bodily feelings seem to freeze and are almost inactive, the spiritual and rational energy of the soul goes around everything vigilantly and incessantly. Otherwise, how else, having separated from the body at the time of death, does the rational soul continue to exist, if not through its spiritual, vital and ever-living energy? All inspired Scripture, both the Gospel and the Apostolic teachings say that God, who fills everything, dwells in heaven. Therefore, we know that from there God the Word descended (to earth), and we believe that He again ascended to heaven in the flesh. So, if above (in heaven) there is divine Light, our heavenly Father, and above God the Word, Light from Light, and above in the highest and the Holy Spirit; then, without a doubt, in the image of this highest Holy Trinity, we too, in a more elevated place, have the whole light of the body, and the word, and the breath of the nostrils, contiguously and collectively united in our head, and from there, as if from some high heaven, this threefold fullness governs and illuminates the world of the body. It is used here not in the sense of innocently, but without cause. Guiltless and guiltless are Slavic terms that are usually used in relation to the first Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. And since Adam, according to Rev. Anastasia is the image of God the Father, then we kept these terms. That is, in this case, she - the first wife - was the image of the Holy Virgin Mary. Of course, obviously, the body of Christ. That is, if the word had not been born in our soul.