(Test ascetic bishop of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov)
"Let us make man in Our image, after our likeness! Such is the mysterious council that the Holy Trinity, our God, held in and with She even before the creation of man. Thus, man is the image and likeness of God! So God, in His greatness is inaccessible and beyond any image, Was represented in man, clearly, and with glory. The sun does is he not in a humble straw?
Human nature is to image of the divine nature. What distinguishes man from animals, making it equal to the angels, it is his spirit. The properties of the human spirit when it is still in its state of purity and innocence, are likeness with God. Yet God, His right omnipotent in man traced the resemblance is beyond any likeness and any comparison!
What then is man? A perfect, filled with dignity and beauty. The Almighty has created for her the natural world that He fully intended to serve, providing a wonderful environment for him. When he pulled from nothingness to existence of all other creatures, He just order all-powerful, but when he tried to complete the great work of creating the world by creating la plus fine et de la plus accomplie de toutes les créatures, Il a précédé cet acte d’un conseil ...
L’imposante matière créée avant l’homme, avec son infinie diversité, n’est rien d’autre (nous osons l’affirmer car c’est la vérité) qu’une création préliminaire. Un roi terrestre a soucis de préparer une salle magnifique pour y exposer son portrait. De la même façon le Roi des rois, le Dieu des dieux, a préparé la nature visible et toute sa beauté, étonnante de magnificence et que tous peuvent admirer, pour y placer Son image, cause ultime de tout what had preceded it. Moreover, after creating the world, God looked at what He had created and saw that it was good (Gen 1, 25); But after the creation of man, looking back what 'He created, He found his fine creature, complete, perfect, saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good (Gen 1, 31).
Man, therefore understand your dignity! Look at the meadows and fields, wide rivers, oceans vast, high mountains, beautiful trees, all the beasts of the earth, and those who travel under water, watching the stars, moon, sun and sky: this is for you, at your service! Sucroît and outside the world we see, there is still a world invisible to the body, incomparably greater than the visible world and this invisible world is created for man!
As God has honored His image! ... And what a noble destiny It has therefore provided for her? The visible world is but an antechamber remains incomparably larger and more beautiful. The image of God present in this hall to be coated colors definitive look for as possible to his all-holy and perfect Original: while it may, by the beauty and delicacy of this resemblance , enter the palace where the original stands ineffably, indescribably limiting His immensity Getting access to His rational creatures and beloved.
The image of the triune God is the triune man. Found in the soul of the latter three powers, which manifest the soul.
Our thoughts and spiritual perceptions show clearly the existence of reason or intellect, which is completely invisible and inconceivable. It should be noted that in the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers, the word spirit means sometimes the soul in general, and sometimes one of the powers of the soul, intellect or power of the verb. But in general, the Fathers ascribe to the soul those three special powers: the intellect (or reason), thought (or word, or verb), and the spirit . [This vocabulary will be adopted below. Translator's note] The intellect is the source and origin of thought, as the spiritual perception. The mind is the ability to perceive spiritually. (For some authors the word spirit can replace the word intellect is also employed to designate the spirits created)
By nature, our soul is the image of God. And even after the fall into sin, the soul remains in the image of God! And even thrown into the flames of hell, the sinful soul rest in God's image! Thus teach the Fathers. The Holy Church sings in its sacred hymns: "I am the image of Your ineffable glory, though I bear the marks of sin. "
Our intellect is like the Father, our thoughts (we usually call thinking every word that was not made) to the image of the Son, our spirit to image of the Holy Spirit. In the same way as in the Trinity, the Three Persons up without merging or dividing a single Divine Being in human trinity, these three "persons" make up a single person, without confusion or be divided into three beings.
Our intellect engenders and gives birth to constantly thought. Once born, the thought continues to be born again, and at the same time it is already born, hidden in the intellect. The intellect can not exist without thought, without thinking and the intellect. The beginning of one is necessarily the beginning of another. The existence of one is necessarily the existence of the other.
Similarly, the spirit proceeds from the intellect and contributes to thought. Every thought has a spirit, like a book has its own spirit. A thought can not exist without its spirit, the existence of the former is necessarily accompanied by the existence of the second. The existence of one and the other showing the existence of the intellect.
What the spirit of man? Is the union sentiments of the heart, which belong to the rational and immortal soul, and which do not exist in the souls of animals.
The heart of man differs from the hearts of animals with his mind. The animal perceptions that come from the blood and nerves, but it has no spiritual perception. This trait of the divine image is the exclusive prerogative of man. The power of man is in his mind.
our intellect, our mind and our mind, by the simultaneity of their origins and their mutual relations, are the image of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Three Persons co-eternal, without beginning, equal in honor, and even nature. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father , announces the Son, I am in the Father and the Father in Me (Jn.14 0.9 to 10). We can talk in similar terms of the human intellect and thought. The mind, invisible itself, manifests itself in thought and one who has seen the thought, took note of the intellect that produced this thought.
The Lord has called the Holy Spirit top Power, Spirit of Truth (Luke 14.49 & Jn.14, 17). Truth is the Son. The spirit of man has also the properties of this power: it is the spirit of human thought, was true or false. This spirit appears in each movement's secret heart, in thinking, in every act of man. The spirit of man manifests his intellect. He also has, through every act, thought the man who guided in its action.
The merciful Lord has adorned every man in His image and after His likeness. Exist in the image of God is nature of the soul. But the similarity lies in the properties of the soul.
By nature, the Creator is eternal, wise, good, pure, incorruptible, holy passion unrelated to any and all sin, every thought and perception of sin. The man, meanwhile, was created so, the image of God.
A clever sketch artist first shapes and facial features he portrays. Then he gives the face and clothing colors of the original, and thus completes the resemblance. Having created man in His image, God has adorned the resemblance: the image has been with in everything of resemblance to God. Had this not been the case, the result would have been incomplete and unworthy of God, and God had missed his target.
But alas, three times alas! The heavens weep, and thou sun, and you, the stars, the earth and all creatures on earth and heavenly! Weep, all nature! Holy angels also cry! Sob bitterly, and be inconsolable! Put on the clothes of mourning! The unfortunate thing is done, the only misfortune which deserves to be called misfortune image God has fallen! Honored by God's free will and seduced by the fallen angel, the man contacted the dark thoughts of spirits and the father of lies and evil. This communication was manifested by an act: the break with the divine. And Ecclesiastes says that exactly what is crooked can not be straightened, which is wanting can not be counted (Ecc.1, 15).
Disruption of the image and likeness can be easily observed in all of us. The beauty of the likeness, which consisted of the association of all virtues, was defiled by passions dark and smelly. The features of the image are deprived of their regular first: their mutual agreement . Thinking and fighting spirit, they cease to obey the mind, rise up against him. Itself remains a constant perplexity, in a terrible darkness that hides God in him, and the path that leads to God, the holy and infallible way.
This disruption of the image and likeness is accompanied by a terrible pain. Just the man to concentrate long enough on himself in solitude to convince himself that this suffering is permanent, though it subsides or wakes, as distraction is choking or not.
O man! Your and your entertainment pleasure betray the suffering festering in you! You try to drown it in the cup of noisy laughter and endless fun. Wretch! Once you find a moment of awareness, you are again defeated by this suffering that you strive to destroy. But know that distraction nourishes and strengthens. After resting in the shade of a lack of vigilance, suffering awakens with increased strength, as a witness who lives man, witnessed his fall.
The human body is also marked with the seal of the fall. From birth, he understands the animosity. He fights against all that surrounds it and against the very soul that lives within him. All elements attack. At the end of life, exhausted by the fighting inside and outside, hit by the disease, and oppressed with age, it falls under the scythe of death and goes to dust, although it was created immortal.
But again manifests the greatness of man image of God! It manifests itself, even in the fall, through the instrument which subtracts this fall: God took upon Himself His image , on One of His Divine Persons! God became incarnate in His image to extract the fall, restore its former glory, and more , raise to glory incomparably higher than that prevailing at the creation!
The Lord is just in His mercy. Ensuring Redemption, He honored His image that He more had done at its inception because the man had not himself engineered his downfall: it is the fallen angel who had attracted envy, and deceived by evil hidden beneath the Mask of the property.
Each Person of the Holy Trinity has participated in the great work of the Incarnation, according to their properties. Whoever remains the Father begets, the Son is born, the Holy Spirit acts. Let's look again at how the man is the exact image of God. It is the Son who is humanity. For Him , Holy Trinity enter into communion with man. Similarly, our thinking is the sound of words, and while it is immaterial, joins the field; by it, men enter into communion with our intellect and our minds.
The Son and Word of God became incarnate. So our thought was amended, purified by the Truth. Our mind is now able to commune with the Holy Spirit. That spirit, that eternal death had killed, was quickened by the Holy Spirit, and our intellect has had access to knowledge and vision of the Father.
The man is healed by the triune God-Trinity. Word is cured by the thought, which is transferred from the world of lies and deception to that of the Truth. By the Holy Spirit is lively mind, which is transferred from the perceptions of the carnal heart towards the spiritual perceptions. Father appears to the intellect and the mind becomes the mind of God: we thought of Christ (1Cor.2, 16) says the Apostle.
Before the coming of the Holy Spirit, man dead in spirit, asking : Lord, show us the Father! (Jn.14, 8) After receiving the Holy Spirit and sonship, man, animated by a new spirit, turned to God and his salvation, speaks to the Father through the action the Holy Spirit as someone known, and He said: Abba, Father! (Rom.8, 15)
fallen image is restored in the Holy Baptism. The man, by water and the Spirit, born to eternal life. From Baptism of the Spirit, who had moved away from the man at the fall, began to assist him in his earthly life. Through repentance, He heals the wounds that sin has opened after his baptism, and thus makes available the hello to the last breath.
The beauty of the likeness is restored by the Spirit, it is developed and perfected by the completion of the evangelical commandments. The model and the fullness of that beauty is none other than the God-Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. "Be imitators of me as I myself am of Christ" (1Cor.2, 1), says the Apostle. With these words, he calls the faithful to restore and develop in themselves the likeness. It indicates what is to man the newly recreated and renewed by the Redemption, the Holy Model of perfection: "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ! (Rom.13, 14)
The Holy Trinity, our God, for the redemption of man, His image, we offer such a possibility of success in the development of the likeness, that similarity extends to become union with Original union of the poor creature with his Creator totally perfect.
As the image of God is admirable and wonderful! God shines through it and act! The shadow of the Apostle Peter healed! One who died as he had lied when he lied to God Himself! The clothes themselves were doing the Apostle Paul signs! The bones of the prophet Elisha revived a dead man whose body had touched the remains of pneumatophores, which lay long in the dust of the tomb, and this simply by inadvertently gravediggers!
The ultimate similarity, the union with God, and obtained is confirmed by observing the commandments of the Gospel. "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch can not itself bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, so neither should you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. Whoever remains in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit "(0.4 to 5 Jn.15)
blessed union is granted when, with a consciousness purified by the removal from sin and the fulfillment of the commandments of Christ, the Christian holy communion at the holy body and blood of Christ, and therefore to His divinity, united with them. "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him" (Jn.6, 56).
reasonable picture of God! Examines how glory and honor what you are called and destined by God! The inconceivable wisdom of the Creator allowed you to have your way with yourself: is it possible that you do not want to remain the dignified image of God, that thou wouldst weaken and destroy the resemblance, you are looking to resemble the devil and go down to the dignity of animals?
God has not dumped his property in vain, he has not completed the wonderful creation of the world wrongly, it does not unnecessarily honored the creation of his image by a board prior, he has not bought unconsciously cette image after its collapse in offering Himself! It will demand an account of it, He will judge how his benefits were used, how His Incarnation was appreciated, and with it the blood shed for our redemption.
Woe to the creatures who have despised the blessings of God, their Creator and Redeemer! Everlasting fire, unquenchable, bottomless furnace, lit a long time and prepared for the devil and his angels, waiting for the images deteriorated, become redundant. There, they will burn forever without being consumed.
Brothers! As we travel on earth, as we are in this visible world, the antechamber of eternity, let us strive to correct the features of the image engraved on our souls by God! Give to the nuances and colors of the resemblance beauty, vivacity, and freshness! And God, in the terrible ordeal, make us worthy to enter His palace eternal in His eternal day in celebration and triumph forever!
Take courage, men of little faith! Make an effort, lazy! This man like us by the passions, which in its blindness once persecuted the Church, which was initially the enemy and the enemy of God, did so much to recover in his image after his conversion, so perfected the resemblance he could tell about itself: "This is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me! (Gal.2, 20)
Let no one doubt the veracity that voice! That voice was so full of the Holy Truth, the Holy Spirit so cooperating with her, that he heard the dead resurrected, the demons left the men they were killing and silenced their prophecies, the enemies of Light lost the light of their eyes, rejected pagan idols, recognized Christ as true God and worship!
Amen.
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