God said, Let us make man to our image and likeness.¹

Dixit Deus, faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram.

Although all things were created through the Word coeternal with the Father, yet in the very manner of the narrative of creation it is shown how far man is preferred above all animals, and above things even celestial yet insensible. For of all the rest he said, and they were made; but when he determines to make man, he prefaces it with that which is to be weighed reverently: Let us make man to our image and likeness. To wit, because a rational nature was being founded, that it might appear to be made as it were with counsel; as it were with study he is fashioned from the earth, and by the inbreathing of the Maker he is raised up in the power of a vital spirit: so that he who was being made to the image of his Maker should come to be, not through a word of command, but through the dignity of the operation. Thus Gregory.³

Quamvis per coaeternum Patri verbum cuncta creata sint, in ipsa tamen relatione creationis ostenditur, quantùm cunctis animalibus, quantùm rebus vel caelestibus, sed tamen insensibilibus homo praeferatur. Cuncta quippe dixit, et facta sunt: cùm verò facere hominem decernit, hoc quod reverenter pensandum est, praemittit: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram. Videlicet quia rationalis natura condebatur, quasi cum consilio facta videretur, quasi per studium de terra plasmatur, et inspiratione conditoris in virtute spiritus vitalis erigitur: ut scilicet non per iussionis vocem, sed per dignitatem operationis existeret, qui ad conditoris imaginem fiebat. Sic Gregorius.

And indeed this commentary or interpretation is not ours, but Rupert's, who at the opening of book 2 of On the Trinity and its Works writes in this manner. Let us make, says God, man to our image and likeness. He changed his voice: for he who hitherto had said of each thing, Let it be made, and it was made—Let the earth bring forth, Let the waters bring forth, and it was made—now, as though, weary from his circuit of earth, heaven, and sea, he had sat down, and in a breathing-space it had come into his mind that one thing was still lacking which it would be fitting or proper to be made: Let us make, he says, man to our image and likeness. Lord, says the Prophet, let thy ancient counsel come true. Does it seem to thee too small a thing that the counsel of the Holy Trinity is signified in these few little words? Great indeed was the counsel held in that wise deliberation—held among those Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in a venerable not so much Senate as soliloquy, concerning us sinners. Do you suppose that anything of what has been or is to be done concerning us was wanting there? Plainly there our whole cause was set in the midst; our death or ruin that was to come was there foreseen: and from thence the whole counsel was held, that each Person should undertake his own part of the work—namely (as already said) that then the Father should found us, afterward in the fullness of time the Son should redeem the lost, the Holy Spirit should accomplish the remission of sins and the resurrection of the flesh. And thus by the common counsel of the Trinity the wastes of the ages should be rebuilt in man, and the foundations of generation and the generations be raised up.⁵

ATQUE haec quidem commentatio seu interpretatio non est nostra, sed Ruperti: qui in exordio libri 2. de Trinitate et operibus eius, hunc in modum scribit. Faciamus, ait Deus, hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram. Mutavit vocem suam: quippe qui hactenus de singulis dixit, Fiat, et factum est. Producat terra, Producant aquae, et factum est. Nunc autem tanquam à circuitu terrae, caeli, et maris lassabundus resederit, et inter respirandum in mentem illi venerit, adhuc unum deesse quod deceret vel oporteret fieri: Faciamus, inquit, hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram. Domine, inquit Propheta, consilium tuum antiquum, verum fiat. An tibi parum videtur consilium Sanctae Trinitatis, his paucis dictiunculis esse significatum? Magnum planè consilium in illo sapientiae consilio, in illo talium personarum Patris, Filij et Spiritus sancti, non tam Senatu, quàm soliloquio venerando de nobis peccatoribus habitum est. An putas eorum quicquam quae circa nos acta vel agenda sunt, illic defuisse? Plane ibi omnis nostra in medio causa posita est, mors vel perditio nostra quae futura erat, illic perspecta est: et inde totum consilium habitum, ut unaquaeque persona suam operis partem susciperet, ut scilicet (sicut iam dictum est) tunc quidem Pater conderet, posteà in plenitudine temporis Filius perditum redimeret, Spiritus sanctus remissionem peccatorum et carnis resurrectionem perficeret. Atque ita communi Trinitatis consilio reaedificarentur in homine deserta saeculorum, et fundamenta generationis et generationes suscitarentur.

[...and the generations be] raised up. Praise to the wisdom of the Creator, honor to the grace of the Redeemer, thanksgiving to the power of the Illuminator, adoration to the one undivided Trinity, the creatrix, liberatrix, and governess of all things. Thus far Rupert.⁶

[...et generationes susci]tarentur. Laus sapientiae Creatoris, honor gratiae Liberatoris, gratiarum actio potentiae Illuminatoris, adoratio uni indivisae creatrici, liberatrici et gubernatrici omnium Trinitati. Haec Rupertus.

[like a mas]ter vehemently urge and exhort himself. But truly—those who with utmost zeal persecuted the Lord himself with calumnies, and were never ashamed of it, what have they not said? what have they not invented, having a tongue ever trained and ready to utter any falsehood? Yet this present saying utterly stops their mouth: And God said, Let us make man. Is it then, tell me, O Jew, even now a single Person, just as you please, and the very same one alone? For it is not written, Let man be made, but Let us make man. Hitherto there had as yet appeared none who might be taught; and so in the depth of the divine knowledge this proclamation was hidden and veiled: thereafter, now that man's own coming-to-be is surely awaited, the faith is uncovered a little, and the truth of this Divine decree is more openly indicated: Let us make man. Do you hear, O you who have declared perpetual war on Christ, that God himself addresses his own companion in the creating of things—through whom he made also the ages, who bears all things by the word of his power? Yet not with silence and calm does the perfidious Jew receive the right doctrine of religion. But as those beasts which pursue man with the utmost hatred, when they are shut up in their dens, gnash their teeth round about the enclosures of their cage and roar around it, displaying the bitterness and ferocity of their nature, since they cannot vent the fury they have conceived: so too the race hostile to truth, the Jews, driven into a corner, say: There are many Persons, and not one, to whom the speech of God is directed; for it is to the attendant Angels that he says, Let us make man. This indeed is a Jewish fiction; and it is a raving and idle tale, devised out of their hatred for Christ. For these men, that they may not admit even the one, namely Christ, bring in countless persons; and through this—because they hold the Son in contempt—they assign to servants the very dignity of the deliberation, and make our fellow-servants the authors of our creation. For man, as soon as he attains the first state of his perfection, is brought back to the rank proper to the Angels. But by what creature, pray, could the Creator ever be matched to his own? Now consider what follows immediately: To our image. What do you prepare to say to this? Is the image of God and of the Angels one and the same? It would have to be that the form of the Son and of the Father is entirely the same. We must understand here a form such as befits the divine majesty: that is, not one consisting in bodily features, but consisting in the peculiar property of the Godhead. Nay, you too who are of this new circumcision, hear: hear, I say, you who under pretext of Christianity hold nothing dearer than Judaism—to whom does he say, To our image? To whom, I ask you, other than to him who is the brightness of glory and the figure of his substance, and who is the image of the invisible God? Therefore to his own proper image which lives, and which said, I and the Father are one, and, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father—to him he says, Let us make man to our image. Where there is one image, what place does unlikeness there obtain? And God made man; he did not say, they made. In this place he avoided a likeness of persons. For by the one [the plural 'Let us make'] he was instructing the Jew; but by this [the singular 'he made'], excluding the error of the Gentiles, he very safely guards against vanity, that you may both understand the Son together with the Father, and most safely escape the far most perilous multitude of gods. Thus far St. Basil.⁹

[heri]liter seipsum vehementérque urgere et adhortari. Verùm enim verò, qui summo studio calumnijs persecuti sunt Dominum ipsum, nec unquam eos puduit huius, quid non dixerint? quid non finxerint, exercitam parátamque linguam semper ad quoduis falsum dicendum habentes? haec tamen vox praesens penitus ipsorum os oppilat: Et dixit Deus, Faciamus hominem. Nunquid et nunc etiam, dic mihi Iudaee, sola, perinde ut tibi placet, atque unica est ipsa persona? Non enim scriptum est, fiat homo, sed Faciamus hominem. Hactenus nondum apparuit qui doceretur: atque ideò in abysso divinae cognitionis praeconium hoc celabatur ac tegebatur: deinceps iam ipsius ortus hominis certò expectatur, detegitur parumper ipsa fides, et apertius indicatur istius veritas Divini decreti, Faciamus hominem. Audis ô tu qui bellum indixisti perpetuum Christo, Deum ipsum suum in creandis rebus socium alloqui, per quem fecit et saecula, qui portat omnia verbo potentiae suae. At non cum silentio et quiete religionis rectae sententiam perfidus Iudaeus acceptat. Sed ut ferarum eae quae summo persequuntur hominem odio, cùm vivarijs includuntur, circùm sua illius cavea sepiménta frendút dentibus et circumfremunt, amarulentiam feritatémque naturae ostendentes, cùm non queant conceptum explere furorem: Sic et inimica gens veritatis, Iudaei in angustum intrusi, Multa sunt, inquiunt, personae et non una, ad quas oratio Dei dirigitur, Angelis enim adstantibus, Faciamus hominem dicit. Iudaicum profecto hoc est figmentum: et ex illorum odio in Christum delira istius, et futilis fabula excogitatio derivata est. Isti enim, ut ne unum nempe Christum admittant, innumeras introducunt personas: et per hoc quod filium habet despicatui, servis ipsam consultationis tribuunt dignitatem, conservósque nostros auctores nostrae creationis efficiunt. Homo enim ut primum statum assequitur suae perfectionis, ad Angelorum rectam reducitur dignitatem. At, quânam tandem creatura suo adaequari unquam Creatori possit? Considera autem id quod contineter sequitur: Ad imaginem nostram. Quid ad haec dicere paras? Nam una et Dei et Angelorum imago est? Prorsus filij patrísque forma eadem ut sit necesse. Formam hic ut intelligamus necesse sit, qua divinam addeceat maiestatem: hoc est, non lineamentis constantem corporeis, sed in peculiari Numinis proprietate consistentem. Quin tu qui ex nova ista circuncisione es, audi: audi, inquam, tu qui Christianismi praetextu nihil habes quod Iudaismo ducas charius, cui dicit, Ad imaginem nostram? Cui quaeso te alij quàm ei qui splendor est gloriae et figura substantiae eius, et qui est imago Dei invisibilis? Sua igitur imagini propriae quae vivit, et quae dixit, Ego et Pater unum sumus, et qui me vidit, vidit Patrem: huic dicit, Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram. Ubi una est imago, quem ibi locum obtinet dissimilitudo? Et fecit Deus hominem, non dixit fecerunt. Evitavit hoc loco personarum similitudinem. Per illam namque Iudaeum erudiebat: per hanc verò Gentilium excludens errorem, securè admodum ad vanitatem recurrit, ut et Filium simul cum Patre intelligas, et multitudinem deorum longè periculosissimam effugias. Hactenus S. Basilius.

It might also have been understood, he says, when man was made, that what was said, Let us make man, was spoken of the Angels: because he did not say, Let me make; but since there follows, To our image, it is impious to believe that man was made to the image of the Angels, or that the image of the Angels and of God is the same; and therefore the plurality of the Trinity is rightly understood there. Which Trinity, however, since God is one, even though he had said Let us make, yet, And God made man, he says, to the image of God: he did not say, The gods made, or, to the image of the gods. Thus Augustine.¹⁶

Poterat, inquit, et illud, quando factus est homo de Angelis intelligi quod dictum est, Faciamus hominem: quia non dixit, Faciam; sed quia sequitur Ad imaginem nostram, nefas est credere ad imaginem Angelorum hominem factum, aut eandem esse imaginem Angelorum et Dei; et ideo rectè illic intelligitur pluralitas Trinitatis. Quae tamen Trinitas, quia unus est Deus, etiam cùm dixisset, Faciamus, Et fecit, inquit, Deus hominem ad imaginem Dei: non dixit, Fecerunt dij, aut ad imaginem deorum. Sic Augustinus.

But the testimony of Ambrose is a little more illustrious; whose words, in ch. 7 of book 6 of the Hexameron, are these: To whom does God say, Let us make man to our image and likeness? Surely not to himself, because he does not say, let me make, but let us make. Not to the Angels, because they are ministers; and servants with their Lord, and works with their author, cannot have a partnership in the operation: but he speaks to the Son, even though the Jews be unwilling, even though the Arians resist. But let the Jews fall silent, and the Arians with their fellows be struck dumb, who, while they exclude the One from a partnership in the divine operation, bring in many; and the prerogative they deny to the Son, they bestow on petty slaves. But suppose by this it should seem that God needed the help of slaves in order to work: if the operation is common to God with the Angels, is the image then common to God and the Angels? would he say to the Angels, Let us make man to our image and likeness? But what the image of God is, hear him who says, Who is the image of the invisible God, and the firstborn of every creature. He is the image of God the Father, who always is, and was in the beginning. In short, he is the image who says,¹⁷

Verùm, paulò illustrius est Ambrosij testimonium, cuius in c. 7. lib. 6. Hexameron haec sunt verba: Cui dicit Deus, Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram? Non sibi utique, quia non dicit, faciam, sed faciamus. Non Angelis, quia ministri sunt, servi autem cum Domino, et opera cum auctore, non possunt operationis habere consortium: sed dicit Filio, etiam si Iudaei nolint, etiam si Arriani repugnent. Sed et Iudaei conticescant, et Arriani cum suis paribus obmutescant, qui dum unum à consortio divinae operationis excludunt, plures inferunt: et praerogativa qua filio negant, servulis donant. Sed isto ut adminiculo servulorum ad operandum Deus vobis indiguisse videatur: si operatio communis est cum Angelis Deo, nunquid Deo et Angelis imago communis est? nunquid Angelis diceret, Faciamus hominem ad nostram imaginem et similitudinem? Sed quid sit imago Dei, audi dicentem, Qui est imago Dei invisibilis, et primogenitus universae creaturae. Ipse est imago Dei Patris qui semper est, et erat in principio. Denique, imago est, qui dicit,

Philip, he that seeth me, seeth also the Father. The image of God is he alone who says, I and the Father are one: so having the likeness of the Father that he has the unity of the Godhead and of the fullness. Where he says, Let us make, where is the inequality? When again he says, To our likeness, where is the unlikeness? Thus far Ambrose.¹⁸

Philippe qui videt me, videt et Patrem. Imago Dei est solus ille qui dicit, Ego et Pater unum sumus: ita habens similitudinem Patris, ut divinitatis et plenitudinis habeat unitatem. Ubi dicit, Faciamus, quomodo inaequalitas? Cùm iterum dicat, Ad similitudinem nostram, ubi dissimilitudo? Haec Ambrosius.

Man was born—whether that artificer of things, the origin of a better world, made him from divine seed; or whether the new-made earth, lately sundered from the high aether, still kept seeds of its kindred heaven. This [earth] the son of Iapetus, mixing it with the waters of the river, fashioned into the likeness of the gods who govern all things. And Cicero, in the first book of the Laws: This living creature, he says, provident, sagacious, mani-²¹

Natus homo est, sive hunc divino semine fecit Ille opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo: Sive recens tellus seductáque nuper ab alto Aethere, cognati retinebat semina caeli. Quam satus Iapeto, mistam fluvialibus undis, Finxit in effigiem moderantum cuncta deorum. Et Cicero in 1. libro de Legibus, Hoc, inquit, animal providum, sagax, multi-

And whereas the other animals look downward to the earth, he gave to man an uplifted face, and bade him behold the heaven, and raise his upright countenance to the stars.²³

Pronáque cùm spectent animalia caetera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, caelúmque videre Iussit, et erectos ad sydera tollere vultus.

EUSEBIUS, moreover, in chapter 4 of book 11 of the Preparation for the Gospel (where he discusses at length the most apt imposition of names among the Hebrews), writes thus concerning the notion and interpretation of this word Adam: That which Plato, he says, discusses in many words in the Cratylus about the imposition of names, Moses, as the wisest and most eloquent, accomplished in deed long before Plato. For the very name Adam can signify earth-born or earthen. For Adam among the Hebrews means soil, though by transference it signifies a red and corporeal nature: thus by this appellation he marked out the earth-born and earthen, that is, the corporeal man. But they also call man אנוש Enos: by which word they signify not the earthly but the rational nature. And properly, if you render word for word in Latin, it seems to denote 'the forgetting one,' Enos—such as the rational nature certainly becomes when bound to the body. For that which is truly incorporeal, divine, and rational not only remembers things past, but also, by the loftiness of its contemplation, has foreknowledge of things to come; whereas that which is joined to flesh, and by the weight of the flesh²⁵

EUSEBIUS porrò in 4. cap. lib. 11. de praeparatione Evangelica (quo loco de commodissima nominum apud Hebraeos impositione copiosè disputat) de notione et interpretatione huius vocabuli Adam hunc in modum scribit: Qua Plato, inquit, de nominum impositione in Cratylo multis verbis disputat, ea multò ante Platonem Moses, veluti sapientissimus et eloquentissimus, re ipsa praestitit. Nam et nomen ipsum Adam terrigenam aut terrenum potest significare. Adam enim apud Hebraeos humus dicitur, quamvis per translationem rubram corporeámque naturam significet: ita terrigenam atque terrenum, seu corporalem hominem, hac appellatione signavit. Verùm, etiam hominem illi אנוש Enos appellant: quo vocabulo non terrenam sed rationalem naturam significant. Propriè autem, si verbum de verbo Latinè exprimas, Obliviscentem Enos denotare videtur: qualis certè natura rationalis corpori alligata efficitur. Quod enim verè incorporeum, divinum, et rationale est, non solùm transacta meminit, sed futurorum etiam, propter sublimitatem speculationis, praenotionem habet: quod autem carni coniunctum est, et carnis pondere

[by the weight of the flesh] is pressed down, so as to be wrapped in ignorance and forgetfulness, the speech of the Hebrews rightly called אנוש Enos, that is, 'the forgetting one.' For so it is in a certain Prophet: What is אנוש Enos (man), that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? as if he should say, Who is this man—this forgetful one, I mean—that thou, who art God, art mindful of him, although he himself be forgetful? or the son of Adam, that is, the earthly man? And so among the Hebrews carnal man is signified by the name Adam, but rational man by the word Enos. And Plato thinks that 'man' is in Greek called ἄνθρωπος from the verb ἀναθρεῖν, which is to look at or to reflect upon, so that he is called ἄνθρωπος because he reflects upon the things he has seen. Thus far were the words of Eusebius.²⁶

[carnis pondere] premitur, ut ignorantia et oblivione involutum, rectè Iudaeorum sermo אנוש Enos, id est, obliviscentem, appellavit. Ita enim est apud quendam Prophetam, quid est אנוש Enos, quod memor es eius? aut filius hominis, quia visitas eum? quasi dicat, Quis est iste homo (iste, dico, obliviscens) quod tu, qui es Deus, memor es eius, quamvis sit ipse obliviosus? aut filius Adam, id est, terrenus homo? Itaque carnalis homo nomine Adam, rationalis autem vocabulo Enos significatur apud Hebraeos. Plato autem hominem, id est Graecè ἄνθρωπον, à verbo ἀναθρεῖν, quod est videre vel recogitare, dictum opinatur, ut dictus sit ἄνθρωπος quod recogitet ea quae vidit. Hactenus fuerunt Eusebij verba.