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9. We ought not therefore so to understand that man is made in the
image of the supreme Trinity, that is, in the image of God, as that
the same image should be understood to be in three human beings;
especially when the apostle says that the man is the image of God, and
on that account removes the covering from his head, which he warns the
woman to use, speaking thus: "For a man indeed ought not to cover
his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the
woman is the glory of the man." What then shall we say to this? If
the woman fills up the image of the trinity after the measure of her own
person, why is the man still called that image after she has been taken
out of his side? Or if even one person of a human being out of three
can be called the image of God, as each person also is God in the
supreme Trinity itself, why is the woman also not the image of God?
For she is instructed for this very reason to cover her head, which be
is forbidden to do because he is the image of God.
10. But we must notice how that which the apostle says, that not
the woman but the man is the image of God, is not contrary to that
which is written in Genesis, "God created man: in the image of God
created He him; male and female created He them: and He blessed
them." For this text says that human nature itself, which is
complete [only] in both sexes, was made in the image of God; and it
does not separate the woman from the image of God which it signifies.
For after saying that God made man in the image of God, "He
created him," it says, "male and female:" or at any rate,
punctuating the words otherwise, "male and female created He them."
How then did the apostle tell us that the man is the image of God,
and therefore he is forbidden to cover his head; but that the woman is
not so, and therefore is commanded to cover hers? Unless, forsooth,
according to that which I have said already, when I was treating of
the nature of the human mind, that the woman together with her own
husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one
image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of
help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the
image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God
as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in
one. As we said of the nature of the human mind, that both in the
case when as a whole it contemplates the truth it is the image of God;
and in the case when anything is divided from it, and diverted in order
to the cognition of temporal things; nevertheless on that side on which
it beholds and consults truth, here also it is the image of God, but
on that side whereby it is directed to the cognition of the lower
things, it is not the image of God. And since it is so much the more
formed after the image of God, the more it has extended itself to that
which is eternal, and is on that account not to be restrained, so as
to withhold and refrain itself from thence; therefore the man ought not
to cover his head. But because too great a progression towards
inferior things is dangerous to that rational cognition that is
conversant with things corporeal and temporal; this ought to have power
on its head, which the covering indicates, by which it is signified
that it ought to be restrained. For a holy and pious meaning is
pleasing to the holy angels. For God sees not after the way of time,
neither does anything new take place in His vision and knowledge, when
anything is done in time and transitorily, after the way in which such
things affect the senses, whether the carnal senses of animals and
men, or even the heavenly senses of the angels.
11. For that the Apostle Paul, when speaking outwardly of the sex
of male and female, figured the mystery of some more hidden truth, may
be understood from this, that when he says in another place that she is
a widow indeed who is desolate, without children and nephews, and yet
that she ought to trust in God, and to continue in prayers night and
day, he here indicates, that the woman having been brought into the
transgression by being deceived, is brought to salvation by
child-bearing; and then he has added, "If they continue in faith,
and charity, and holiness, with sobriety." As if it could possibly
hurt a good widow, if either she had not sons, or if those whom she
had did not choose to continue in good works. But because those things
which are called good works are, as it were, the sons of our life,
according to that sense of life in which it answers to the question,
What is a man's life? that is, How does he act in these temporal
things? which life the Greeks do not call but Bios; and because
these good works are chiefly performed in the way of offices of mercy,
while works of mercy are of no profit, either to Pagans, or to Jews
who do not believe in Christ, or to any heretics or schismstics
whatsoever in whom faith and charity and sober holiness are not found:
what the apostle meant to signify is plain, and in so far figuratively
and mystically, because he was speaking of covering the head of the
woman, which will remain mere empty words, unless referred to some
hidden sacrament.
12. For, as not only most true reason but also the authority of the
apostle himself declares, man was not made in the image of God
according to the shape of his body, but according to his rational
mind. For the thought is a debased and empty one, which holds God to
be circumscribed and limited by the lineaments of bodily members. But
further, does not the same blessed apostle say, "Be renewed in the
spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which is created after
God;" and in another place more clearly, "Putting off the old
man," he says, "with his deeds; put on the new man, which is
renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him that created
him?" If, then, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and he
is the new man who is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image
of Him that created him; no one can doubt, that man was made after
the image of Him that created him, not according to the body, nor
indiscriminately according to any part of the mind, but according to
the rational mind, wherein the knowledge of God can exist And it is
according to this renewal, also, that we are made sons of God by the
baptism of Christ; and putting on the new man, certainly put on
Christ through faith. Who is there, then, who will hold women to be
alien from this fellowship, whereas they are fellow-heirs of grace
with us; and whereas in another place the same apostle says, "For ye
are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; for as many as
have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ: there is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus?" Pray, have
faithful women then lost their bodily sex? But because they are there
renewed after the image of God, where there is no sex; man is there
made after the image of God, where there is no sex, that is, in the
spirit of his mind. Why, then, is the man on that account not bound
to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, while
the woman is bound to do so, because she is the glory of the man; as
though the woman were not renewed in the spirit of her mind, which
spirit is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him who
created him? But because she differs from the man in bodily sex, it
was possible rightly to represent under her bodily covering that part of
the reason which is diverted to the government of temporal things; so
that the image of God may remain on that side of the mind of man on
which it cleaves to the beholding or the consulting of the eternal
reasons of things; and this, it is clear, not men only, but also
women have.
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