The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
Made to be Godly 37 image, as in the case of two of the same eggs: because there is equality there is also a likeness, for whatever properties one of them has the other has as well, but there is no image because neither of them is a reflection of the other.6
To unpack this text, let us begin by examining the three terms at play: image, likeness, and equality.
First, imago denotes a direct expression [expressum] of that which brought it into existence. An image is a relationship admitting diverse degrees of likeness with its source. The degree to which something is an image is the result of the type of its origin (either "begotten" or "made") which gives rise to the relationship between the image and its source. To explain this, Augustine provides the example of a man looking in a mirror: the reflected image is like the man but hardly his equal. There is an imago but no æqualitas. Therefore, although an image always and everywhere denotes some degree of likeness, equality may or may not be predicated between image and model. However, wherever there is æqualitas there is always a likeness but not always an image. Simply because two beings possess the same value and share a certain uniformity, they are not necessarily derived from the same specific source and cannot therefore be said to image one another. Likeness tells us nothing of derivation. Finally, similitudo guarantees neither image nor equality, for many things are alike in some way without sharing either a common origin or a degree of inherent equality.
As alluded to, Augustine gives us a man gazing into his reflection in a mirror in order to show that while the likeness may be obvious, the image staring back at him is clearly unequal in countless ways [quia multa desunt imagini]. There is an image relationship because the object in the mirror comes
6. diu. qu. 74, lines 1–16; Teske, Miscellaneous Questions, 137; CCL 44A.213. The same example can be found at Gn. litt. imp. 16.57; see also diu. qu. 51 where Augustine draws many of the same conclusions regarding the nature, diminishment, and restoration of humanity's divine image.