The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (continued)
42 Made to be Godly image of Christ [κατ᾽ εἰκόνα Χριστοῦ], for this is in image of the Creator."16 This Eastern patristic commonplace is still upheld by Panayiotis Nellas in his work on Christian deification: "Indeed, the Fathers carry further this line of thought found in Paul and the Old Testament writers by uniting the Pauline theme of Christ—image of God with the Genesis theme of man—in the image of God. Already in, among others, Irenaios [sic], Clement, Origen, Athanasios [sic], Gregory of Nyssa . . . the distinction is clear that Christ constitutes the image of God and man the image of Christ; that is to say, that man is the image of the Image."17 For Augustine, however, humanity has been created not only in the Son's perfect image, but also in the image of all three divine persons. Augustine did not read the Genesis passage in light of Colossians, but held these two texts side by side to see two different types of image. In so doing, some scholars have feared that the "concept of Christ as the supreme archetypal image was somewhat sidelined" by the Bishop of Hippo.18 Yet this is not so, as Augustine simply wants to establish an analogous relationship between Christ as the perfect image and human persons as participating images.
Such a position bolstered Augustine's argument that we are images not only of the Image, but are created in the triune God's image. Genesis's words, "Let us make the human person to our own image and likeness," teach us how the Father did not say to the Son, "Let us make the human person to your image or to my image, but he said in the plural, to our image and likeness—and who would dare to detach the Holy Spirit from this plurality?"19 That is, Augustine continues, the hu-
16. Commentary on the Letter to the Colossians, ch. 3, homily 8.2 (my translation); PG 62.353B.
17. Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ: The Nature of the Human Person (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Press, 1997), 24.
18. John McGuckin, "Image of God," The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 179.
19. Gn. litt. imp. 61; Hill, Genesis, 151 (adjusted); "non enim ait filio loquens: faciamus hominem ad imaginem tuam, aut: ad imaginem meam, sed pluraliter ait: ad