Origen: How is the Son the Invisible Image of the Invisible God?

Early Church Father Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–c. 254), considered the “greatest theological luminary of his age,”[1] his prolific writings amassed to some six thousand works. While his exegetical contribution to the formulation of Christian doctrine greatly shaped the theology of the fourth century, he is also a controversial fellow. Nevertheless, it is important that when we read such figures writing theology in the nascent stages of the Christian Faith, we must do our best to keep them in their context—to prevent hasty anathematizing. We have the privilege of 1900 years of theological development to stand on, passed on to us through toil, tears, and even death. Anyway...

I have been studying Origen’s writings, particularly his First Principles (De Principiis), and came across a wonderful insight that illuminated my thinking on Christ as the image of God. I am working on a doctrine of God course. Below is an excerpt from my lecture material. So, we are going to drop right in the middle of my exposition of his views on the essence and attributes of God.

In Christ being called the image of the invisible God, Origen wants to know how or what is meant by this term. His reasoning for doing so is so we “might perceive how God is rightly called Father of his Son.”[2] When we think of “images,” things that are painted, sculpted, or carved generally are images of something, whether of something in creation or just of the mind. But the Son is the invisible image of the invisible God, so how is an image without form said to be of that which does not have form? A great question! Origen, referencing Gen 5:3, says it has been written that Adam begot Seth in his own image and form, thus “the image preserves the unity of nature and substance of a father and of a son.” His statement is important because it reconfigures what we normally understand about images. Since we are bodied creatures, we immediately associate image with something we see with our eyes.

(Here is where my thinking opened up based on his statement). This is what I think Origen means. What we see in human begetting is that the form and function is preserved in our offspring—i.e., what is proper of humanity. Christ, as the image of God, is the form and function of God—i.e., what is proper of divinity, having been preserved in that image. So, as human children do all that their human fathers do (according to nature), the Son, as the image, likeness, and offspring (eternally speaking) of God the Father, likewise does all that his Father does (in accordance with the divine nature). With that said, Origen has to move his exposition in an abstract direction to show where the parallel (i.e., the preserved image between a human father and son/the image preserved between God the Father and the Son) image separates from the temporal. Origen writes, “by the fact that the Son does all things like the Father, the image of the Father is formed in the Son, who is assuredly born of him, as an act of his will proceeding from the intellect.”[3] The act of his will is the begetting of the Son; God produces his actions by his will, whereby the Son is the subsistence of what God wills. God is an intellectual being, so in order for the parallel to suffice, we must use language befitting of an uncreated, intellectual being. The Son as the Word is “not perceptible to the senses,” since he is Wisdom, without body, and is also the true light, who enlightens everyone. Therefore, Origen writes, the Savior “is the image of the invisible God and Father.”[4]

This relation and revelation is how we come to God. The Son’s relation to the Father himself, as Wisdom, Light (the splendor of the glory of God, as God is light),[5] and Truth, reveals the Father to us, as his image. And this image, which cannot be perceived by the senses, is the means by which we come to a knowledge of God. And Origen references Matthew 11:27, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him,” emphasizing the knowing (in contrast to seeing) the Son and the Father, but only by knowing through the Son’s revealing of the Father to whom he chooses. When the Son reveals the Father, this knowing the Father is understood according to Christ, when he says, “He that has seen me, has seen the Father also.”[6] Thus, knowing is seeing…. Only through the eyes of the heart can one behold the image of God.

—Romans 11:36

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[1] John Behr, “Introduction,” in Origen, On First Principles, John Behr, trans., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020)
[2] Origen, De Princ., 1.2.6.
[3] The Triune God is an intellectual being, with the Son as the Word/Wisdom of God, whom the Father utters from his mind. Understanding the divine economy (ancient word for the order of the Godhead) in this manner was a common approach in the Early Church.
[4] Ibid., 1.2.6.
[5] Ibid., 1.2.7., Based on Hebrews 1:3, where Christ is the splendor of the glory of God and the express image of his substance, Origen speaks of Christ as the splendor of the light of God, who proceeds from him, which is how we come to understand and perceive God as light.
[6] Ibid., 1.2.6. John 14:9, emphasis added.

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