Image

 IS used to signify our Lord's relation to the Eternal Father: and first in Scripture,

 1. We find Him called [ eikon ], imago, in 2 Cor. iv. 4; and Col. i. 15. In a verse following the former of these passages it is said in like manner that the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. This carries us to Heb. i. 3, where we read of Him as the [ apaugasma ] of God's glory, and find in the word [ charakter ], figura, impress, a synonym for the word Image . St. John confirms St. Paul; he speaks of our Lord's glory "quasi Unigeniti a Patre," and says that the "Son who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him."

 These modes of expressing the nature and office of the Son as the revealed and revealing God, as the Light, the Glory, the Image, the Impress, the Face of the Almighty, are exemplified with still greater variety and fulness of language in the Book of Wisdom, ch. vii., in a passage too long to quote, in which, among other attributes and prerogatives, Wisdom, that is, our Lord, is called a [ pneuma hagion, monogenes, philagathos, philanthropos ], the [ aporrhoia tes tou pantokratoros doxes ], the [ apaugasma photos aidiou ], the [ esoptron akelidoton tes tou theou energeias ], and the [ eikon tes agathotetos autou ].

 It is impossible that the Holy Apostles, when they spoke of our Lord as the Word, Image, and Splendour of God, should not have had in mind this passage, so overpowering in its force and significance, and were not investing with personality and substance what they thus viewed as all-perfect, immutable, coeternal, consubstantial with Him.

 2. S. Athanasius and the other Fathers take up and insist upon this definite theology, thus found in Scripture.

 "We must conceive of necessity," says Athan., "that in the Father is the eternal, the everlasting, the immortal; and in Him, not as foreign to Him, but as in a Fount abiding ([ anapauomena ]) in Him, and also in the Son. When then you would form a conception of the Son, learn what are the things in the Father, and believe that they are in the Son too. If the Father is creature or work, these attributes are also in the Son, etc. ... He who honours the Son, is honouring the Father who sent Him, and he who receives the Son, is receiving with Him the Father," etc. In illud Omn. 4. "As the Father is I am ([ ho on ]) so His Word is I Am and God over all." Serap. i. 28. "Altogether, there is nothing which the Father has, which is not the Son's; for therefore it is that the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son; because the things of the Father, these are in the Son, and still the same are understood as being in the Father. Thus is understood, 'I and the Father are One;' since not these things are in Him and those in the Son, but the things which are in the Father those are in the Son, and what thou seest in the Father, because thou seest in the Son, thereby is rightly understood 'He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.'" Serap. ii. 2.

 Again: "Such as the parent, such of necessity is the offspring; and such as is the Word's Father, such must be also His Word ... God is not as man, as Scripture has said, but is existing ([ on esti ]) and is ever, therefore His Word also is existing, and is everlastingly with the Father as radiance with light ... As radiance from light, so is He perfect offspring from perfect. Hence He is also God, as being God's Image." Orat. ii. § 35. "It was fitting that, whereas God is One, that His Image should be One also, and His Word One, and One His Wisdom." Ibid. § 36.

 "He is likeness and image of the sole and true God, being Himself sole also," § 49. [ monos en monoi ], Orat. iii. § 21. [ holos holou eikon ], Serap. i. 16. "The Offspring of the Ingenerate," says S. Hilary, "is One from One, True from True, Living from Living, Perfect from Perfect, Power of Power, Wisdom of Wisdom, Glory of Glory," de Trin. ii. 8; [ teleios teleion gegenneken, pneuma pneuma ]. Epiph. Hær. lxxvi. p. 945. "As Light from Light, and Life from Life, and Good from Good; so from Eternal Eternal." Nyss. contr. Eunom. i. p. 164. App. "De Deo nascitur Deus, de Ingenito Unigenitus, de Solo Solus, de Toto Totus, de Vero Verus, de Perfecto Perfectus, Totum Patris habens, nihil derogans Patri." Zenon. Serm. ii. 3.

 "A man will see the extravagance of this heresy still more clearly, if he considers that the Son is the Image and Radiance of the Father, and Impress and Truth. For if, when Light exists, there be withal its Image, viz. Radiance, and a Subsistence existing, there be of it the entire Impress, and a Father existing, there be His true representation, let them consider what depths of impiety they fall into, who make time the measure of the Image and Countenance of the Godhead. For if the Son was not before His generation, Truth was not always in God, which it were a sin to say; for, since the Father was, there was ever in Him the Truth, which is the Son, who says, I am the Truth . And the Subsistence existing, of course there was forthwith its Impress and Image; for God's Image is not delineated from without, but God Himself hath begotten It; in which seeing Himself, He has delight, as the Son Himself says, I was His delight . When then did the Father not see Himself in His own Image? or when had He not delight in Him, that a man should dare to say, 'The Image is out of nothing,' and 'The Father had not delight before the Image was generated?' and how should the Maker and Creator see Himself in a created and generated substance? for such as is the Father, such must be the Image. Proceed we then to consider the attributes of the Father, and we shall come to know whether this Image is really His. The Father is eternal, immortal, powerful, light, King, Sovereign, God, Lord, Creator, and Maker. These attributes must be in the Image, to make it true, that he that hath seen the Son, hath seen the Father ." Orat. i. § 20, 21.

 "If God be ingenerate, His Image is not generate [made,] but an Offspring, which is His Word and His Wisdom," ibid. § 31.

 Athan. argues from the very name Image for our Lord's eternity. An Image, to be really such, must be an impress from the Original, not an external and detached imitation. It was attempted to secure this point before Nicæa by the epithets living and [ aparallaktos ], unsucessfully, vid. Decr. § 20. Thus S. Basil: "He is an Image not made with the hand, or a work of art, but a living Image," etc. vid. art. [ aparallakton ], also contr. Eunom. ii. 16, 17. Epiph. Hær. 76, 3. Hilar. Trin. vii. 41 fin. Origen observes that man, on the contrary, is an example of an external or improper image of God. Periarch. i. 2, § 6. vid. Theod. Hist. i. 3, pp. 737, 742.

 S. Gregory Naz. argues from the name of Image to our Lord's consubstantiality. "He is Image as [ homoousion ] ... for this is the nature of an image to be a copy of the archetype." Orat. 30. 20.

 Vid. S. Athan.'s doctrine concerning Wisdom, Orat. ii. § 80, etc. He says, Gent. 34, "The soul as in a mirror, contemplates the Word the Image of the Father, and in Him considers the Father, whose Image the Saviour is ... or if not ... yet from the things that are seen, the creation is such, as if by letters signifying and heralding its Lord and Maker by means of its order and harmony." And "As by looking up to the heaven ... we have an idea of the Word who set it in order, so considering the Word of God, we cannot but see God His Father." 45. And Incarn. 11, 41, 42, etc. Vid. also Basil. contr. Eunom. ii. 16.

 On the Arian objection, that if our Lord be the Father's Image, He ought to resemble Him in being a Father, vid. article, "Father Almighty." The words "like" and much more "image," would be inappropriate, if the Second Divine Person in nothing differed from the First. Sonship is just that one difference which allows of likeness being predicated of Him.