The Holy Church Is an Imprint and Image of God

A blessed old man used to say that at the first level of contemplation holy Church bears the imprint and image of God since it has the same activity as He does by imitation and in figure. For God who made and brought into existence all things by His infinite power contains, gathers, and limits them and in His Providence binds both intelligible and sensible beings to Himself and to one another. Maintaining about Himself as cause, beginning, and end all beings which are by nature distant from one another, He makes them converge in each other by the singular force of their relationship to Him as origin. Through this force He leads all beings to a common and unconfused identity of movement and existence, no one being originally in revolt against any other or separated from Him by a difference of nature or of movement, but all things combine with all others in an unconfused way by the singular indissoluble relation to and protection of the one principle and cause. This reality abolishes and dims all their particular relations considered according to each one’s nature, but not by dissolving or destroying them or putting an end to their existence. Rather it does so by transcending them and revealing them, as the whole reveals its parts or as the whole is revealed in its cause by which the same whole and its parts came into being and appearance since they have their whole cause surpassing them in splendor. And just as the sun outshines the stars both in nature and energy so also does it conceal their existence from those who look for their cause. For just as the parts come from the whole, so do effects properly proceed and get known from the cause and hold their particularities still when understood with exclusive reference to the cause and, as was said, according to the singular force of their relationship to it. For being all in all, the God who transcends all in infinite measure will be seen only by those who are pure in understanding when the mind in contemplative recollection of the principles of beings will end up with God as cause, principle, and end of all, the creation and beginning of all things and eternal ground of the circuit of things.

It is in this way that the holy Church of God will be shown to be working for us the same effects as God, in the same way as the image reflects its archetype. For numerous and of almost infinite number are the men, women, and children who are distinct from one another and vastly different by birth and appearance, by nationality and language, by customs and age, by opinions and skills, by manners and habits, by pursuits and studies, and still again by reputation, fortune, characteristics, and connections: All are born into the Church and through it are reborn and recreated in the Spirit. To all in equal measure it gives and bestows one divine form and designation, to be Christ’s and to carry His name. In accordance with faith it gives to all a single, simple, whole, and indivisible condition which does not allow us to bring to mind the existence of the myriads of differences among them, even if they do exist, through the universal relationship and union of all things with it. It is through it that absolutely no one all is in himself separated from the community since everyone converges with all the rest and joins together with them by the one, simple, and indivisible grace and power of faith. “For all,” it is said, “had but one heart and one mind” (Acts 4:32). Thus to be and to appear as one body formed of different members is really worthy of Christ Himself, our true head, in whom says the divine Apostle, “there is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither foreigner nor Scythian, neither slave nor freeman, but Christ is everything in all of you” (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). It is He who encloses in Himself all beings by the unique, simple, and infinitely wise power of His goodness. As the center of straight lines that radiate from Him He does not allow by His unique, simple, and single cause and power that the principles of beings become disjoined at the periphery but rather He circumscribes their extension in a circle and brings back to Himself the distinctive elements of beings which He Himself brought into existence. The purpose of this is so that the creations and products of the one God be in no way strangers and enemies to one another by having no reason or center for which they might show each other any friendly or peaceful sentiment or identity, and not run the risk of having their being separated from God to dissolve into nonbeing.

Thus, as has been said, the holy Church of God is an image of God because it realizes the same union of the faithful with God. As different as they are by language, places, and customs, they are made one by it through faith. God realizes this union among the natures of things without confusing them but in lessening and bringing together their distinction, as was shown, in a relationship and union with Himself as cause, principle, and end.

*Chapter One from The Church’s Mystagogy in Maximus the Confessor: Selected Writings, translated with notes by George C. Berthold, introduction by Jaroslav Pelikan, and preface by Irénée-Henri Dalmais (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), pp. 186-188. Available for purchase from Eighth Day Books (also includes The Trial of Maximus, The Four Hundred Chapters on Love, Commentary on the Our Father, and Chapters on Knowledge).