In Genesis 1:26-27 we read that the human person was made “in the image and likeness of God.” In order to define the human being as an image of God (εἰκὼν θεοῦ, in Septuagint and patristic Greek), theologians have tried to specify what element makes man resemble God: The human body? The soul? The combination of body and soul? The intellect and will? Rationality? Or the ability to know and to love? All or some of the above? Has the human resemblance to God been damaged or altered by the Fall? And if so, can it be restored, and how?

This book offers a thorough analysis of the image of God, as found in Genesis 1, in the theology of Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the great Christian theologians of the fourth century. Thomas finds that Gregory’s account, which is dispersed over a vast corpus of orations, poems, and letters, is complex and nuanced, resembling “a richly coloured tapestry into which he has woven myriad threads” (p. 3). She argues convincingly that the “image” in Gregory relates to the whole human person, not only the soul or the nous. Moreover, this human image is interpreted in the light of Christ, the identical Imageof God, which includes Christ’s flesh and is described as a unified, visible eikon, thus paving the way for a visible human image. What is also important in Gregory’s understanding of the human image is that, having been infused with the Spirit at Creation, the eikon is a “living being,” and thus different from static and lifeless idols.