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| How the Image of God is Formed Anew in Man.
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Chapter 16.—How the Image of God is Formed Anew in
Man.
22. But those who, by being
reminded, are turned to the Lord from that deformity whereby they
were through worldly lusts conformed to this world, are formed anew
from the world, when they hearken to the apostle, saying, “Be not
conformed to this world, but be ye formed again in the renewing of
your mind;”906
that that
image may begin to be formed again by Him by whom it had been
formed at first. For that image cannot form itself again, as it
could deform itself. He says again elsewhere: “Be ye renewed in
the spirit of your mind; and put ye on the new man, which after God
is created in righteousness and true holiness.”907
That which is meant by “created
after God,” is expressed in another place by “after the image
of God.”908
But it lost
righteousness and true holiness by sinning, through which that
image became defaced and tarnished; and this it recovers when it is
formed again and renewed. But when he says, “In the spirit of
your mind,” he does not intend to be understood of two things, as
though mind were one, and the spirit of the mind another; but he
speaks thus, because all mind is spirit, but all spirit is not
mind. For there is a Spirit also that is God,909
which cannot be renewed, because it
cannot grow old. And we speak also of a spirit in man distinct from
the mind, to which spirit belong the images that are formed after
the likeness of bodies; and of this the apostle speaks to the
Corinthians, where he says, “But if I shall have prayed with a
tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.”910
For he
speaks thus, when that which is said is not understood; since it
cannot even be said, unless the images of the corporeal articulate
sounds anticipate the oral sound by the thought of the spirit. The
soul of man is also called spirit, whence are the words in the
Gospel, “And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit;”911
by which the
death of the body, through the spirit’s leaving it, is signified.
We speak also of the spirit of a beast, as it is expressly written
in the book of Solomon called Ecclesiastes; “Who knoweth the
spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that
goeth downward to the earth?”912
It is written too in Genesis, where
it is said that by the deluge all flesh died which “had in it the
spirit of life.”913
We speak also of the spirit,
meaning the wind, a thing most manifestly corporeal; whence is that
in the Psalms, “Fire and hail, snow and ice, the spirit of the
storm.”914
Since
spirit, then, is a word of so many meanings, the apostle intended
to express by “the spirit of the mind” that spirit which is
called the mind. As the same apostle also, when he says, “In
putting off the body of the flesh,”915
certainly did not intend two
things, as though flesh were one, and the body of the flesh
another; but because body is the name of many things that have no
flesh (for besides the flesh, there are many bodies celestial and
bodies terrestrial), he expressed by the body of the flesh that
body which is flesh. In like manner, therefore, by the spirit of
the mind, that spirit which is mind. Elsewhere, too, he has even
more plainly called it an image, while enforcing the same thing in
other words. “Do you,” he says, “putting off the old man with
his deeds, put on the new man, which is renewed in the knowledge of
God after the image of Him that created him.”916
Where the one passage reads, “Put
ye on the new man, which is created after God,” the other has,
“Put ye on the new man, which is renewed after the image of Him
that created him.”
In the one place he says, “After
God;” in the other, “After the image of Him that created
him.” But instead of saying, as in the former passages “In
righteousness and true holiness,” he has put in the latter, “In
the knowledge of God.” This renewal, then, and forming again of
the mind, is wrought either after God, or after the image of God.
But it is said to be after God, in order that it may not be
supposed to be after another creature; and to be after the image of
God, in order that this renewing may be understood to take place in
that wherein is the image of God, i.e. in the mind. Just as
we say, that he who has departed from the body a faithful and
righteous man, is dead after the body, not after the spirit. For
what do we mean by dead after the body, unless as to the body or
in the body, and not dead as to the soul or in the soul? Or if we
want to say he is handsome after the body, or strong after the
body, not after the mind; what else is this, than that he is
handsome or strong in body, not in mind? And the same is the case
with numberless other instances. Let us not therefore so understand
the words, “After the image of Him that created him,” as though
it were a different image after which he is renewed, and not the
very same which is itself renewed. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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