made, and it was made, while here God said, Let us make, so that in this way too
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 147
56. The point must also be considered that in the other cases God said Let it be made, and it was made, while here God said, Let us make, so that in this way too the Holy Spirit wished to suggest the superiority of human nature. To whom, though, does he now say Let us make, if not to the one to whom he said in the other cases "Let it be made." For all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (Jn 1 :3). But why do we suppose it was said in one way, Let it be made, if not to mean that he should make it at the Father's bidding; and in the other, Let us make, if not to mean that they should both make together?
Or else, everything the Father makes, he makes through the Son, and that is why it now says Let us make, so that we human beings, on whose account scrip ture itselfwas made, might have it demonstrated in our very selves that what the Son makes on the Father's instructions the Father himself also makes; so that what was said in the other cases, Let it be made, and it was made is here being explained as not meaning that the saying and the making happened separately, but as happening together simultaneously, since here it says, Let us make.
Why the terms "image " and "likeness " are both used
57. And God said: Let us make man to our image and likeness (Gn 1:26). Every image is like the thing it is the image of; and yet not everything that is like something else is also its image. Thus you can have images in a mirror and a picture that are also like each other; but still, ifone is not derived from the other, neither of them can be called the image of the other. Only then, you see, is a thing an image of something else when it is, as it were, printed offfrom it. So why after saying to the image did it add and likeness, as though there could be an image that is unlike? So it would have been enough to say to the image. Or is there a difference between like and likeness, as there is between chaste and chastity, between brave and bravery, so that just as everything brave is brave with bravery, and everything chaste is chaste with chastity, so in the same way every thing like is like with likeness?
Now our image is not in the most proper sense said to be our likeness, while it can still quite properly said to be like us: this because the likeness by which like things are like each other is right there where chastity is, by which any chaste things are chaste. Now chastity is chaste without being so by participation in something, while it is by participation in her that any chaste things are chaste. And she is in God, where also is that wisdom which is wise without participa tion, but by participation in which any soul is wise that is wise.69 For this reason the likeness of God, through which all things were made,70 is properly called
69. All this is in the language of what one might call Augustine's Christianized Platonism. 70. Here of course he is making "likeness," or rather "the likeness of God" into another name for the Son, the Word, who is much more commonly identified with the wisdom of God.