In what then does the greatness of man consist, according to the doctrine of the Church? Not in his likeness to the created world, but in his being in the image of the nature of the Creator.

What therefore, you will perhaps say, is the definition of the image? How is the incorporeal likened to body? how is the temporal like the eternal? that which is mutable by change like to the immutable? that which is subject to passion and corruption to the impassible and incorruptible? that which constantly dwells with evil, and grows up with it, to that which is absolutely free from evil? there is a great difference between that which is conceived in the archetype, and a thing which has been made in its image: for the image is properly so called if it keeps its resemblance to the prototype; but if the imitation be perverted from its subject, the thing is something else, and no longer an image of the subject.

Ἀλλ' ἐν τίνι κατὰ τὸν ἐκκλησιαστικὸν λόγον τὸ ἀνθρώπινον μέγεθος; Οὐκ ἐν τῇ πρὸς τὸν κτιστὸν κόσμον ὁμοιότητι͵ ἀλλ' ἐν τῷ κατ' εἰκόνα γενέσθαι τῆς τοῦ κτίσαντος φύσεως.

Τίς οὖν ὁ τῆς εἰκόνος λόγος, ἴσως ἐρεῖς, πῶς ὡμοίωται τῷ σώματι τὸ ἀσώματον, πῶς τῷ ἀϊδίῳ τὸ πρόσκαιρον, τῷ ἀναλλοιώτῳ τὸ διὰ τροπῆς ἀλλοιούμενον, τῷ ἀπαθεῖ τε καὶ ἀφθάρτῳ τὸ ἐμπαθὲς καὶ φθειρόμενον, τῷ ἀμιγεῖ πάσης κακίας τὸ πάντοτε συνοικοῦν ταύτῃ καὶ συντρεφόμενον; Πολὺ γὰρ τὸ μέσον ἐστὶ τοῦ τε κατὰ τὸ ἀρχέτυπον νοουμένου καὶ τοῦ κατ' εἰκόνα γεγενημένου. Ἡ γὰρ εἰκών͵ εἰ μὲν ἔχει τὴν πρὸς τὸ πρωτότυπον ὁμοιότητα͵ κυρίως τοῦτο κατονομάζεται. Εἰ δὲ παρενεχθείη τοῦ προκειμένου ἡ μίμησις͵ ἄλλο τι καὶ οὐκ εἰκὼν ἐκείνου τὸ τοιοῦτόν ἐστι.