Irenaeus on the Image of God

St. Irenaeus (d. a.d. 202), who was only two generations removed from St. Paul, understood the image of God in a marvelous way, explaining that in the Incarnation the Word of God was made man in order that, since He has thus assimilated Himself to man (sibimetipsi assimilans), now therefore the result is that man, due to his resemblance to the Son, has become precious to the Father (ut per eam quae est ad Filium similtudinem, pretiosus homo fiat Patri;).

As an aside, the Latin here is from J.P. Migne, Patrologia Graece 7:2, 1167.  Only fragments of Irenaeus’ Greek are available today, but the complete copy in Migne’s Latin, a very early translation, is customarily used, as here, when the Greek is not available. The English translation is a worthy read: Against Heresies, Book V: 16, 2, Ante-Nicene Fathers , Vol. 1. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989.

What Irenaeus is saying is that Christ, by his incarnate likeness in appearance, in substance, and in physical reality to man, the eternally beloved Son has caused man to become every bit as precious to the Father as He Himself has been from eternity. Unlike all other created beings, man has possessed this marvelous feature, that he pre-figured and showed forth in advance the Incarnation of the Son of God. But now that this Incarnation has become reality, man no longer merely looks like the exemplar, but the exemplar itself has arrived, and there is a Man who is Himself God; His flesh is the flesh of God; His human attributes are the attributes of God; everything about His human nature is inseparably bound to the divine nature. Therefore every other man, every other human being, possesses the attribute of being at least somewhat like the permanently incarnate, eternally beloved Son of God. Every man resembles Jesus, and for this reason alone, according to Irenaeus, man has become particularly precious, especially since the Incarnation.