What is the image of the Lord that was bestowed upon Adam?

St. Basil the Great says, “attend neither to the goods you possess nor to the objects that are round about you, but to yourself alone. We ourselves are one thing; our possessions another; the objects that surround us, yet another. We are soul and intellect in that we have been made according to the image of the Creator . Our body is our own possession and the sensations which are expressed through it, but money, crafts, and other trappings of life in this world are peripheral to us.”⁴⁵⁸

St. Clement of Alexandria says, “Man is therefore justly dear to God, since he is His workmanship. The other works of creation He made by the word of command alone, but man He framed by Himself, by His own hand, and breathed into him what was peculiar to Himself. What, then, was fashioned by Him, and after He likeness … was created by God Himself as being desirable on its own account.”⁴⁵⁹

The Apostle Paul says, “you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24).

The scholar Origen says, “I see, however, something indeed even more distinguished in the condition of man, which I do not find said elsewhere: ‘And God made man, according to the image of God he made him.’ We find this attributed neither to heaven nor earth nor the sun or moon … But it is our inner man, invisible, incorporeal, incorruptible, and immortal which is made ‘according to the image of God.’ For it is in such qualities as these that the image of God is more correctly understood.”⁴⁶⁰

St. Isaac the Syrian says, “Better is he that has been deemed worthy of seeing himself, than he that has been deemed worthy of seeing the angels. The latter partakes of the eyes of the body, the former of the eye of the soul.”⁴⁶¹

St. Jacob of Sarug often uses the expression, “Adam is the noble image of God” to describe human nature before the Fall. He says that God bestowed beauty upon the soul in order to elevate it above all creatures.⁴⁶² God also granted the soul freedom, intellect, wisdom, thought, and senses replete with discernment. Here are some more of St. Jacob’s words:⁴⁶³ “He gave to each creature its form, but He imprinted His own image on none but Adam. The earth is broad, the heavens high, the sun brilliant, the moon beautiful, and the march of the heavenly hosts glorious. In creating all this beauty, it was never heard that the

458 St. Basil of Caesarea, Homily on the Words, ‘Give Heed to Thyself (FOTC 9:434–435; PG 31:203A) amended.

459 St. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 1.3 (ANF 2:210).

460 Origen, Homilies on Genesis 1.13 (FOTC 71:63).

461 St. Isaac the Syrian, Mystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh , Trans., A. J. Wensinck, (Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1923) Homily 65: p. 311.

462 See St. Jacob of Sarug, Jacob of Sarug’s Homilies on the Six Days of Creation: The First Day , trans., Edward G. Mathews, (Gorgias Press, 2009) Homily 3.123–124: p. 22.

463 St. Jacob of Sarug, Memre 30.

Lord created something in His own image, except for Adam, His (the Son’s) only image; and for this reason, he was named the image of God.”

“The Lord chose not the archangels, but the human soul to bear the imprint of His image and likeness . He adorned it with beauty surpassing all other creatures.”

“God’s image gave them favor before God; so they could beseech Him without reticence through His own image.”

“O Son of God, look upon the soul, and it will be filled with Your beauty. Do not leave, O Lord, for if You distance Yourself from her, she will perish .”

“Neither paradise nor its spiritual fruits became the image of the Great Being on the day they were created … His likeness is borne by neither the Cherubim nor the Seraphim; by neither the hosts or the ranks of flame. He did not will to have His image borne by the flame of the archangel Gabriel, nor by the spirit of the archangel Michael. He passed over all the high places of heaven and instead made the human His image, bearing His likeness.