{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010288.htm","path":"chr/ecf/101/1010288.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/101/1010288.htm","text":"Chapter XXII.\u2014He Explains the Divine Image (Ver. 26) of the Renewal of the Mind.\n32. For behold, O Lord our God, our Creator, when our affections have been restrained from the love of the world, by which we died by living ill, and began to be a \u201cliving soul\u201d by living well; 1369 and Thy word which Thou spakest by Thy apostle is made good in us, \u201cBe not conformed to this world;\u201d next also follows that which Thou presently subjoinedst, saying, \u201cBut be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,\u201d 1370 \u2014not now after your kind, as if following your neighbour who went before you, nor as if living after the example of a better man (for Thou hast not said, \u201cLet man be made after his kind,\u201d but, \u201cLet us make man in our image, p. 201 after our likeness\u201d), 1371 that we may prove what Thy will is. For to this purpose said that dispenser of Thine,\u2014begetting children by the gospel, 1372 \u2014that he might not always have them \u201cbabes,\u201d whom he would feed on milk, and cherish as a nurse; 1373 \u201cbe ye transformed,\u201d saith He, \u201cby the renewing of your mind, that he may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.\u201d 1374 Therefore Thou sayest not, \u201cLet man be made,\u201d but, \u201cLet us make man.\u201d Nor sayest Thou, \u201cafter his kind,\u201d but, after \u201cour image\u201d and \u201clikeness.\u201d Because, being renewed in his mind, and beholding and apprehending Thy truth, man needeth not man as his director 1375 that he may imitate his kind; but by Thy direction proveth what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of Thine. And Thou teachest him, now made capable, to perceive the Trinity of the Unity, and the Unity of the Trinity. And therefore this being said in the plural, \u201cLet us make man,\u201d it is yet subjoined in the singular, \u201cand God made man;\u201d and this being said in the plural, \u201cafter our likeness,\u201d is subjoined in the singular, \u201cafter the image of God.\u201d 1376 Thus is man renewed in the knowledge of God, after the image of Him that created him; 1377 and being made spiritual, he judgeth all things,\u2014all things that are to be judged,\u2014\u201cyet he himself is judged of no man.\u201d 1378\nAs Origen has it: \u201cThe good man is he who truly exists.\u201d See p. 190, note 6, above; and compare the use made of the idea in Archbishop Thomson\u2019s Bampton Lectures, lect. i.\n200:1370 201:1371 201:1372 201:1373 201:1374 201:1375 201:1376 201:1377 201:1378","title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...","type":"page"}