St Basil the Great LETTERS, First Part

Translated by Bl. Jackson.

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This Part: 128 Pages

Page 54

8. Since then, as says the Lord in the Gospels, [2044] he that hath seen the Son sees the Father also; on this account he says that the Only-begotten is the express image of His Father's person. That this may be made still plainer I will quote also other passages of the apostle in which he calls the Son "the image of the invisible God," [2045] and again "image of His goodness;" [2046] not because the image differs from the Archetype according to the definition of indivisibility and goodness, but that it may be shewn that it is the same as the prototype, even though it be different. For the idea of the image would be lost were it not to preserve throughout the plain and invariable likeness. He therefore that has perception of the beauty of the image is made perceptive of the Archetype. So he, who has, as it were mental apprehension of the form of the Son, prints the express image of the Father's hypostasis, beholding the latter in the former, not beholding in the reflection the unbegotten being of the Father (for thus there would be complete identity and no distinction), but gazing at the unbegotten beauty in the Begotten. Just as he who in a polished mirror beholds the reflection of the form as plain knowledge of the represented face, so he, who has knowledge of the Son, through his knowledge of the Son receives in his heart the express image of the Father's Person. For all things that are the Father's are beheld in the Son, and all things that are the Son's are the Father's; because the whole Son is in the Father and has all the Father in Himself. [2047] Thus the hypostasis of the Son becomes as it were form and face of the knowledge of the Father, and the hypostasis of the Father is known in the form of the Son, while the proper quality which is contemplated therein remains for the plain distinction of the hypostases.

[2044] John xiv. 9.

[2045] Col. i. 15.

[2046] This phrase is not in the Epistles, nor indeed does the substantive agathotes occur in the N.T. at all. "Image of his goodness" is taken from Wisdom vii. 26, and erroneously included among the "words of the Apostle."

[2047] cf. John xiv. 11.

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