Wisdom 2:23
For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him.
Open Wisdom 2:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quoniam Deus creavit hominem inexterminabilem, et ad imaginem similitudinis suæ fecit illum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἔκτισεν τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐπ᾽ ἀφθαρσίᾳ, καὶ εἰκόνα τῆς ἰδίας ἰδιότητος ἐποίησεν αὐτόν·
The Fathers on this verse
St Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection, Part I
XI. Neither did God, as if He had made man badly, or committed a mistake in the formation of him, determine afterwards to make an angel, repenting of His work, as the worst of craftsmen do; nor did He fashion man, after He had wished originally to make an angel, and failed; for this would be a sign of weakness, etc. Why even then did He make man and not angels, if He wished men to be angels and not men? Was it because He was unable? It is blasphemy to suppose so. Or was He so busy in making the worse as to loiter about the better? This too is absurd. For He does not fail in making what is good, nor defers it, nor is incapable of it; but He has the power to act how and when He pleases, inasmuch as He is Himself power. Wherefore it was because He intended man to be man, that He originally made him so. But if He so intended, since He intends what is good, man is good. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem
6. Oh! the madness and folly of those who have forsaken the teaching of the book of Proverbs, “My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother,” and have turned to error, and say to the fool that he shall be their leader, and do not despise the foolish things which are said by the foolish man, even as the scripture bears witness, “The foolish man speaketh foolishly, and his heart understandeth vanity.” I beseech you, dearly beloved, and by the love which I feel towards you, I implore you, as though it were my own members on which I would have pity, by word and letter to fulfil that which is written, “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?” Origen’s words are the words of an enemy, hateful and repugnant to God and to His saints; and not only those which I have quoted, but countless others. …
St John Damascene An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Why it was the Son of God, and not the Father or the Spirit, that became man: and what having became man He achieved
Further, the Son of God became man, in order that He might again bestow on man that favour for the sake of which He created him. For He created him after His own image, endowed with intellect and free-will, and after His own likeness, that is to say, perfect in all virtue so far as it is possible for man’s nature to attain perfection. For the following properties are, so to speak, marks of the divine nature: viz. absence of care and distraction and guile, goodness, wisdom, justice, freedom from all vice. …