already said to the image is that it was to show that what was called the image is
148 Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis likeness, because it is not by participation in something else that she is like, but she is the primary likeness by participation in which all things God has made through her are like.
58. So perhaps the explanation of why it added to the likeness when it had already said to the image is that it was to show that what was called the image is not like God as though participating in any likeness, but is the very likeness in which all things participate which are said to be like. Just as that is where chastity is, in which souls participate to be chaste, and wisdom, in which souls participate to be wise, and beauty, in which whatever is beautiful participates in order to be beautiful. You see, if it had only said "likeness," it would not have signified that it is begotten of him, while if it had only said "image," it would indeed have signified being begotten of him, but would not have signified that it was like him in such a way as not only to be like but to be likeness itself. Nowjust as nothing is more chaste than chastity itselfand nothing wiser than wisdom itselfand nothing more beautiful than beauty itself, so nothing can be said or thought to be, or quite simply can be more like than likeness itself. From all this we are to understand that the Father's likeness is like him in such a way as most fully and perfectly to fulfill his nature.
The whole universe, in various ways, shares in the divine likeness
59. How far, though, the likeness of God, through whom all things were made, extends to the imposing of specific form on things, is indeed something that soars astronomically beyond human thought; all the same it is still permis sible to opine, if we reflect on the matter, that every nature, whether it is perceived by merely sentient or fully rational observers, preserves, in its parts being like one another, the effigy of the whole universe. It is true that from the wisdom of God only rational souls can be called wise, and that this title is not extended beyond them; no cattle, after all, and much less trees or fire or air or water or earth can possibly be called wise by us, although it is through the very wisdom of God that all these things are insofar as they are. But on the other hand we do say that stones are like each other, and animals and men and angels.
But now in the case of individual instances, we have to say that earth could only be made so as to be earth, insofar as it has its parts and particles being like each other; and water in each of its particles is like the other particles, and could not otherwise be water; and any amount of air could in no way at all be air if it were unlike the rest of the air; and a particle of fire or light can only be made to be what it is insofar as it is not unlike other particles. So too, with any individual stone or tree or the body of any sort of animal, it can readily be perceived and understood that they would not be individually what they are if they did not have parts like each other in themselves, to say nothing of their being like others of their kind. And the more like each other the parts of which a body consists, the