The Image of God in the Antiochene Tradition (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Image of God in the Antiochene Tradition Nonna Verna Harrison Frederick G. McLeod, S.J., The Image of God in the Antiochene Tradition. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1999. Pp. xii + 276. $61.95. The concept of the human being as image of God (Gen. 1:27) is central to many patristic attempts to understand human identity in relation to God, Christ and the creation. McLeod focuses on the fourth- and fifth-century Antiochene exegetes Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom, Nestorius and Theodoret of Cyrus, whose approach differs markedly from the better known views of Augustine and the Alexandrians and Cappadocians. The book’s main focus is Theodore, who develops an interesting speculative theology on the basis of his exegesis. Although his works survive only in fragments, the extant material reveals much of his thought on this subject. The first chapter surveys the Antiochenes’ exegetical methods in their cultural context, while the second outlines their views of the human image of God, comparing them briefly to those of Irenaeus, the Alexandrians and Augustine. Chapter 3 surveys key Christological terminology and outlines philosophical approaches to anthropology in Stoicism, Platonism, and Nemesius of Emesa. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss Christology, particularly that of Theodore and Nestorius, and show how it is Jesus who fulfills the cosmic revelatory, cultic, and unitive function of the human as image of God. For Theodore the human being as king, that is the prelapsarian Adam and ultimately Jesus, has the task of visibly manifesting the image of an absolutely invisible God to angelic and earthly creatures. Since they have no direct access to God, they show their respect for the transcendent creator by offering reverence and service to this human image and viceroy. McLeod demonstrates convincingly that this concept of image, which has to be visible and significantly includes body as well as soul, is closely connected to the Antiochene Christological concept of prosopon, which means outward self-presentation. Chapter 6 explores what Chrysostom and Theodore say about whether women can be images of God. McLeod says that like Diodore and Theodoret, Chrysostom interprets Gen. 1:27 in terms of 1 Cor 11:7 and identifies the imago Dei as authority that belongs to men, which women do not share fully since they are under men’s authority. He argues that Theodore’s position is different since he locates the divine image in human nature as such and finds its actualization in the whole of humankind united under Jesus as head, that is, to borrow Augustine’s term, in the totus Christus. McLeod also cites Theodore’s identification of various human faculties that bear a likeness to divine attributes, which the later East Syrian writers Narsai of Nisibis and Iso’dad of Merv connect with the divine image. Thus the book makes a circumstantial case that Theodore, unlike his Antiochene colleagues, thought women could be images of God, despite a fragment commenting on 1 Cor. 11:7 that says the contrary. This case is not entirely convincing because the corporate understanding of image, while theologically insightful, by itself gives no clear indication of how [End Page 613] men other than the prelapsarian Adam and Jesus can truly bear the divine image either, at least in this life. Moreover, Theodore’s belief that other creatures should revere and serve Adam as God’s visible viceroy does not provide an alternative to the other Antiochenes’ identification of image with male authority but rather specifies the kind of authority involved. Finally, the evidence from Narsai and Iso’dad cannot demonstrate what Theodore thought, since he makes a clear distinction between image and likeness in Gen. 1:26, which they elide. See Françoise Petit in Le Muséon 100 (1987): 269–81. Paradoxically, it appears that for Theodore, women share the human characteristics that manifest divine likeness, though at least in this life they do not share the divine image. However, as McLeod explains, the tensions in Theodore’s anthropology are largely resolved in the eschaton, when the redeemed are united to Christ as head, gender differences become meaningless, and together with him they fulfill the human task of cosmic revelation...