Image of God is the interior human
More exalted still: God made humankind; in the image of God he made them — said neither of heaven nor of earth nor of the sun. We do not take this “in the image” as bodily. The body was molded from the mud of the earth; the one made in the image is our interior human — invisible, bodiless, incorrupt, immortal. To think the bodily is in the image is to invent a bodily God — impious. Heaven is my throne does not mean stretched feet, but God’s rest in the citizenship of those whose commonwealth is in heaven.
Latin
Illud eminentius: fecit Deus hominem, ad imaginem Dei fecit eum — quod neque de caelo neque de terra neque de sole dictum. Hunc ad imaginem non corporalem intelligimus. Corpus plasmatus est de limo; qui ad imaginem factus est, interior homo est, invisibilis, incorporalis, incorruptus, immortalis. Qui corporeum putat ad imaginem, Deum corporeum inducit — impium. Coelum mihi sedes non pedum extensionem, sed in caelestium conversatione requiem Dei significat.
About this text
Origen’s Homilia I on Genesis (Rufinus’s Latin). Complete on this page: §§1–17.
English follows Baehrens, Origenes Werke VI (GCS 29, 1920), Rufinus’s Latin of Homilia I. Heine FOTC 71 was not used as wording. This page is Homilia I §§1–17 (closeout).
Witnesses
- Copy-text Baehrens, Origenes Werke VI = GCS 29 (1920) (Latin · Homilia I §§1–17)
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.