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In this paper I will show how Maximus the Confessor’s Ambiguum 7 provides a
theological construct through which to understand the function of the imago dei in Genesis.1 I
will argue that, in its Near Eastern context, Genesis employed the imago dei to remind humans of
their “proper beginning” and its connection to their “proper end”—a concept articulated in terms
of potential in Maximus’ Ambiguum 7. Both Ambiguum 7 and the Near Eastern concept of the
imago dei in Genesis contain similar paradigms for understanding humanity’s increasing
potential to participate in God, as they move towards its proper end.
In the first section, I will show that, in Ambiguum 7, it is only after humans incline
towards their proper beginning that they can move toward their proper end. For Maximus, the
proper beginning and end are the same in that they are both rooted in God. The difference
between the beginning and the end is that humanity’s proper beginning (as images of God) grants
them the potential to move towards their proper end—deification (to become like God). In the
second section, I will show how, under the pressure if Mesopotamian ideology (and Babylonian
exile), Genesis’ use of the imago dei reminded Israel of its proper beginning as God’s images,
which granted them the potential to participate in God and move toward actualizing God’s
covenant promises first made to Abraham2—their proper end. Like Maximus, the end and the
1
For this reading of Genesis’ imago dei, I will be utilizing, almost exclusively, J. Richard
Middleston’s The Liberation Image: The Imago Dei In Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press,
2005).
2 The introduction to Abraham is introduced at the end of Gen 11 and the promise begins
in Gen 12. Unfortunately, there is not space in this assessment to discuss the fuller context of
Gen 1-11 and how it builds up to the promise to Abraham. All eleven chapters contribute to the
thesis of this assessment; however, I will limit its scope to the general concept of the designation
of humans as images of God (Gen 1:26-27). It will be easy enough, however, to understand how
the promise to Abraham functions as the final end of Israel in this evaluation, despite the fact that
I will be unable to show how it functions as the final climax of Gen 1-12 and the proper end of
Israel.
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beginning are both rooted in God, and similar to Maximus, the difference between the proper
beginning and end is an increased potential to participate in God. For the author of Genesis 1-11,
humanity’s proper beginning establishes Israel’s potential to participate in God and move
towards actualizing God’s promise to Abraham—that he and his line would be blessed by God,
becoming God’s agents of God’s blessing to the world. By comparing these two paradigms, I
will show how Maximus the Confessor’s Ambiguum 7 provides a theological construct through
which to understand the function of the imago dei in Gen 1.
MAXIMUS
Maximus’ concept of a proper beginning and proper end operates under the notion that
“movement is a fundamental aspect of created beings, and so ‘nothing that moves is yet at
rest.’”3 God is uncreated, and therefore at rest—that is, no being has set God into existence. As
created beings, humans are incomplete and therefore always in motion, as apposed to God, who
is the only “unmoved” being. Therefore, the proper movement of humanity is towards their
completion and rest in God—deification. This movement towards God is possible because of
humanity’s proper beginning as logoi and the nature of the relationship between the logoi and
God, the Logos.
Understanding the relationship between God, as the Logos, and humans, as logoi, helps
illustrate the relationship between the proper beginning and the proper end, and the need to
incline toward the proper beginning in order to move toward the proper end. The one Logos and
the many logoi are one, but they are also distinct, much like the proper end and beginning. The
3
Frederick D. Auino, “Maximus on the Beginning and End of Rational Creatures,” Pages
371-381 in Ethische Normen des fruhen, Band IV (ed. F. W. Horn and U. Volp; Tubingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2013), 373.
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relationship between the Logos and logoi originates from the beginning of creation. God’s
wisdom, through which God created the world, is evident in all created things. Maximus writes,
“By his Word and by his Wisdom he made all things and is making all things…” Therefore, when
God created the world, God’s wisdom, or logos, was imprinted on humans. This logos functions
as a link between God and humans. Maximus writes, “a logos preceded everything that receives
its becoming from God,”4 and the “Logos, whose goodness is revealed and multiplied in all the
things that have their origin in him, with the degree of beauty appropriate to each being,
recapitulates all things in himself (Eph 1:10).”5 In addition, “all things, in that they came to be
from God, participate proportionally in God,”6 and “Consequently, each of the intellectual and
rational beings … through the very Logos according to which each was created … is ‘called and
indeed is’ a ‘portion of God’ through the Logos that preexisted in God.”7 This is how the Logos
and the logoi are one, yet distinct. Even though the logoi are not the Logos, humans, according to
Maximus, can become portions of God. A human’s beginning and end are both rooted in God;
however, the logoi are only “portions” of God. This means (in part) that logoi are incomplete
from their proper beginning but are still deeply rooted in God. The proper end of humanity is
completion in God, the Logos. This helps illustrate the relationship between the proper beginning
and the proper end of humanity. The logoi (incomplete), most move toward their completion in
the Logos if they are to have rest in and become like God.
4
St. Maximus the Confessor, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ (trans. Paul M.
Blowers and Robert Louis Wilken, Crestwood: St. Vladimier’s Seminary Press, 2003), 55.
5 Ibid., 55.
6 Ibid., 55.
7 Ibid., 55. Also, “The logoi of all things known by God before their creation are securely
fixed in God” (56).
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Humanity’s creation in the image of God, as logoi, grants them intrinsic potential to
participate in, move towards, and become like God, the Logos. In other words, humanity’s
movement from proper beginning to proper end is made possible because of their inherent
nature, connected to the Logos. Paul Blowers says, “[Humans] are already, in principle, suffused
and prepossessed by the generous object of their eschatological longing.”8 Maximus writes, “The
inclination to ascend and to see one’s proper beginning was implanted in man by nature.”9 This
“inclination to ascend” is part of what if means to be created in God’s image. This is how the
proper end toward which humanity moves is connected to their origin in God, their proper
beginning.
The more humans participate in the divine by actualizing the divine logoi they possess,
the more they move towards completion in God—their proper end. This connection between the
one Logos and the many logoi helps illustrate how humanity’s proper beginning is what gives
humanity the potential to move towards its proper end, something that might otherwise seem
contradictory. Maximus writes that if a person “is moved by desire and wants to attain nothing
else than his own beginning, he does not flow away from God. Rather, by constant straining
toward God, he becomes God and is called a ‘portion of God.’”10 In order to continue movement
towards God, humans must take an active role in recalling the significance of their proper
beginnings.
By drawing on wisdom and reason and by appropriate movement he lays hold of his
proper beginning and cause. For there is no end toward which he can be moved, nor is he
8 Paul M. Blowers, “The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire in Maximus the Confessor,”
Vigiliae Christianae 65 (2011): 429.
9 St. Maximus the Confessor, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ (trans. Paul M. Blowers and
Robert Louis Wilken, Crestwood: St. Vladimier’s Seminary Press, 2003), 59.
10
Ibid., 56.
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moved in any other way than toward his beginning, that is, he ascends to the Logos by
whom he was created and in whom all things will ultimately be restored.11
This movement, rooted in the relationship between the Logos and the logoi, underlies the
potential in human beings to move towards God, which is actualized when humans recognize
their proper beginning and participate in God. According to Maximus, when humans (logoi),
who have their origin in God (Logos), long to reach their proper end—deification—they are
inclined to participate in the goodness that connects (and moves) them toward God. This original
goodness is a foreshadowing of the ultimate and most desirable good—rest in God. Maximus
writes, “if we progress in a straight course, led by reason and by nature toward that which has
been impressed on our being by the Logos … we too will know things in a godlike way.”12 In the
present, humanity attempts to stay this course as they move toward their final end, when they too
will know things as God does. If humans have “not carelessly corrupted the divine logoi which
by nature were inclined towards the end set for them by the Creator,”13 and if “they have kept
themselves wholly chaste and steadfast, confident in the knowledge that they are to become
instruments of the divine nature,”14 they will “wholly pass over to God as an image to its
archetype.”15 God is the only one who can cause the image to pass over to its archetype. Humans
can move toward God in the present, but in the final end, humans become passive in their
movement toward God. As a result of humanity’s proper beginning, they can become “portions
of God.” In humanity’s proper they will become “instruments of divine nature.”
11
Ibid., 56.
Ibid., 62.
13 Ibid., 63.
14 Ibid., 63.
15 Ibid., 63.
12
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THE IMAGE OF GOD IN THE MESOPOTAMIA
The notion that Israel’s proper beginning as God’s images grants them the potential to
participate in God derives from the Near Eastern context of the imago dei and its use in Genesis
as a critique of Mesopotamian ideology. There are seven extant Mesopotamian texts that refer to
a king or a priest as being in the image or likeness of a god, and there are a number of similar
texts that compare the king or priest to a god without using the specific image terminology.16
Taken together, these texts endorse a strong similarity between the god and the king or priest, as
they are depicted as divine representatives. Generally speaking, These texts attest to a “functional
similarity between king and god in Mesopotamia, whereby the king represents the god by virtue
of his royal office and is portrayed as acting like the god in specific behavior ways.”17 Middleton
argues that this is the proper “background for understanding the extant descriptions of the king as
the image of god in the Mesopotamian references.”18 From the evidence, Middleton infers that
Mesopotamian kings earned the designation as gods images because of their function in society
“as cultic intermediaries and representatives of the gods on earth.”19 This proposal for the origin
of the concept “image of god” illustrates how the term, applied to humans, would bestow upon
them significant potential to participate in God. However, in Mesopotamian creation accounts
such as the Enuma Elish, it is quite clear that humans are not in a position to fulfill this role.
According to Middleton, this terminology was not used to describe humanity at large in
mesopotamia until Babylonian creation accounts began to challenge the proper beginnings of the
16
J. Richard Middleton, The Liberation Image: The Imago Dei In Genesis 1 (Grand
Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), 111-122.
17 Ibid., 121.
18 Ibid., 121.
19 Ibid., 118.
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Israelites. Understanding these dynamics will uncover the relationship between Israel’s proper
beginning and proper end, in the Genesis context.
MESOPOTAMIAN INFLUENCE
A survey of Mesopotamian influence is now necessary for understanding why the author
of Gen 1-11 would use the “image of God” in such a way. There are significant similarities
between Gen 1-11 and Mesopotamian creation accounts that strengthen the proposal that the
author of Gen 1-11 borrowed ideas from Mesopotamia. Themes such as human creation from
soil (Gen 2), creation followed by divine rest (Gen 1:1-2:3), and especially accounts of a great
flood (Gen 6-9), are also found in widely disseminated Mesopotamian texts.20 In addition,
“Genesis clearly portrays human history as beginning in Mesopotaia, since the Tirgris and
Euphrates rivers are described as flowing out of the garden of Eden (2:14).”21 Even the tower of
Babble seems to be located in Southern Mesopotamia.22 This influence was likely a result of the
fact that Mesopotamian culture was very influential throughout the ancient Near East.
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The civilization of Mesopotamia, stretching from the ancient Sumerians of the third
millennium B.C.E. through the Babylonian and Assyrian empires of the second and first
millennia B.C.E., constituted a truly impressive cultural achievement and was recognized
as such throughout the ancient Near East.
These cultural innovations included the invention of cuneiform (one of the earliest writing
systems ever developed), rigorous systems of scribal training, advances in mathematics, and a
20
Ibid., 131-132.
Ibid., 134.
22 Ibid., 135.
21
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wide proliferation of literary works—all of which were imitated by surrounding nations.23 “The
result was a shared literature in Akkadian cuneiform and a shared tradition of ‘business, law, and
administration’ throughout the ancient Near East due to Mesopotamian influence.”24
Mesopotamian culture became so impressive that surrounding nations were sometimes viewed as
being uncivilized, and it was common for “civilized” Mesopotamians to culturally convert
outsiders.25 This was especially true of the southern Mesopotamia (Babylon). Hence, even when
Assyria (northern Mesopotamia) militarily defeated Babylon, Babylonian customs and traditions
were still dominant throughout the region.26 Incorporated within this historical development of
“pan-Mesopotamian”27 self consciousness in the Near East, was Mesopotamian royal ideology,
rooted in the concept of the imago dei described above, and propagated by Babylonian creation
myths. Given the high level of contact with the Mesopotamian worldview, Mesopotamian royal
ideology, “may actually, in principle, have influenced Israelite oral tradition prior to any textual
trace of it in Scripture.”28 It is in the context of this historically sweeping socio-cultural
phenomenon that the author of Genesis 1-11 was likely responding, and it is under negative
23
Middleton, 196-198. “Cuneiform texts that turn up outside Mesopotamia in the earl and
middle second millennium B.C.E. include a wide variety of genres, such as literary works like
the Sumerian King List or the Gilgamesh Epic as well as business, legal, mathematical, lexical,
astronomical, and divination texts” (197).
24 Ibid., 197.
25 Ibid., 199.
26 Ibid., 198. The Babylonian Enuma Elish and Atrahasis epic also have Assyrian
recensions. These texts were wildly popular. (137)
27 Peter Machinist, “On Self-Consciousness in Mesopotamia,” in The Origins and
Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (ed. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt; SUNY Series in Ancient Near
Eastern Studies; Albany: SUNY, 1986), 183-202.
28 Middleton, 144.
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ideological pressure from Mesopotamia at large that Genesis claimed the image of God as the
proper beginning for all of humanity—not just the king.
MESOPOTAMIAN ROYAL IDEOLOGY AND ISRAEL’S PROPER BEGINNING
Designating all humans as God’s images would have severely contradicted the
predominant anthropology of Mesopotamia. In Mesopotamian creation accounts, such as Enuma
Elish, Atrahasis Epic, Ewe and Whet, Enki and Ninmah, and KAR 4, the purpose of humans is to
relieve the burdens of the gods. This includes “the building and maintaining of temples, the
provision of cultic sacrifices, and the upkeep of the irrigation and agricultural system upon which
the temple economy depends.”29 In these texts, this is the essential purpose of human existence.
For example, in the Atrahasis Epic, even though the god’s wished to wipe out humanity, Enki
(the god of subterranean fresh waters) warns Atrahasis about the coming flood, so that he and his
family can survive (parallel to the Biblical Noah). During the flood the gods become very hungry
(because the humans are no longer supporting them) and desperately flock to Atrahasis’ post
flood sacrifices. As the gods begin to understand that they actually needed humanity, Enki tells
the them: “I did it for your sakes!” (3.6.18).”30 Texts like this one served to
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legitimate the social role of vast numbers of human beings as vassals of the gods and
servants of the temple and the priesthood in ancient Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria, thus
bolstering a sociopolitical arrangement characteristic of ancient Mesopotamian
civilization for close to three thousand years.”31
The function of the cult image (as the mediator and representative of the divine) and the creation
myths, together, “provided a powerful, mutually reinforcing legitimation for the entire
29
Ibid., 149.
Ibid., 154.
31 Ibid., 170.
30
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Mesopotamian temple system,”32 and they also functioned as royal political propaganda as
well.33 Its possible that these texts originally functioned to enforce the status of “those employed
on the temple estates of ancient Sumer as vassals of the gods.”34 Then, as the idea of King as the
image of god grew in popularity and the monarchy began to overlap with the temple cult, the
function of these texts likely shifted. This shift created a universal rhetoric that legitimized the
entire social order, presided over by the king, which led to the notion that “all people (including
free citizens) owed a universal obligation to the gods, mediated by the king.”35 In this way, the
function of the cult image and the creation myths, together, mutually reinforced the oppressive
nature of this system. Genesis’ use of the imago dei applied to humanity functioned as a critique
of this system, bringing to light the author’s view of the latent potential of humanity to
participate in God, in the face of an anthropologically debilitating worldview. Perhaps, as
Babylonian enculturation grew more influential, Israel was tempted to forsake their proper
beginning for “civilized” mesopotamian enculturation. In this context, the image of God texts
would have reminded readers of their proper beginning and their potential to participate in
God.36
BABYLONIAN EXILE AND ISRAEL’S PROPER END
The relationship between Israel’s proper beginning and proper end expressed by Genesis
1-11 emerges in light of the above reconstruction of the Mesopotamian social context in which
Genesis 1-11 was likely written. Because the Mesopotamian social structures robbed humans of
32
Ibid., 169.
Ibid., 172.
34 Ibid., 172-173.
35 Ibid., 173.
33
36
Ibid., 208.
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their proper beginning, they also deprived them of their proper end. These Mesopotamian
structures were especially debilitating because of their mimetic nature, in that “any deviation
from the original divine pattern constitutes regression.”37 In Mesopotamia, “for human
sociopolitical life to achieve its best and highest form, society must replicate the divine pattern
that the gods enacted in primordial time.”38 This means the status that Enuma Elish set for
humanity was meant to play out in reality continuously, for all time. “Acceptance of this identity
would have robbed [Israel] of a sense of significant human agency and reduced them to perpetual
victim status, at the mercy of the gods, the temple system, the king, and the social order of
Babylon.”39 Gen 1-11, by reminding Israel of its proper beginning as images of God, allowed
Israel to see past the restrictive limits that Babylonian creation myths placed on them. This
would become especially apparent during Israel’s Babylonian captivity, in which the pressures of
Mesopotamian ideology would have been at their peak.
The hope for Israel’s, proper end comes into clearer view when we consider the function
of the image of God text in Babylonian captivity. Acceptance of the Mesopotamian human
identity would have done more than revoke the exiles’ status as images of God. Acceptance of
this definition of identity would have challenged Israel’s “sense of divine election and covenant,
rooted in a narrative of redemption from bondage [from Egypt], issuing in a historical mission
and destiny among the nations,”40 and it would likely mean “the end of Israel as a distinctive
people with a historical mission that started with the call of Abraham’s descendants to be a
37
Ibid., 177.
Ibid., 177.
39 Ibid., 231.
40 Ibid., 231.
38
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blessing to all the families of the earth”41—their proper end. In the face of this pressure, Gen
1-11 reminded Israel that their creation as images of God granted them the potential to align with
their promised future that began with the promise to Abraham (Gen 12)—the fulfillment of
which is their proper end. In this sense, the scope of Israel’s movement begins with their creation
as God’s chosen representatives—parts of God distributed on the earth—and ends with the
fulfillment of God’s promise that they would be agents of God’s blessing through God’s
covenant with Abraham.
If Genesis 1 were written—or heard—in the historical context of Bablylonian exile, the
imago Dei would have come as a clarion call to the people of God to stand tall again with
dignity and to take seriously their royal-priestly vocation as God’s authorized agents and
representatives in the world.42
GENESIS AND MAXIMUS
Even though the parallels between the two paradigms are not precise, the connections
between Ambiguum 7 and Genesis’ use of the imago dei in the Mesopotamian context are
apparent. Based on the following parallels, it appears that Ambiguum 7 does provide a fitting
theological construct for articulating Israel’s attempts to move towards their proper end (in the
midsts of Babylonian captivity—or just under mesopotamian ideological pressure in general) by
clinging to their proper beginning as God’s images and increasing their potential to participate in
God and become “instruments of divine nature.”
In both paradigms, movement is fundamental. In Maximus, humans must actualize their
inherent logoi in order to move toward the Logos. In the Genesis context, Israelites must realize
41
42
Ibid., 201.
Ibid., 231.
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their significance as images of God in order to be able to function as God’s representatives,
thereby making it possible to receive and actualize God’s promise to Abraham. The idea that
God, as the Logos, is one with the humans, the logoi, seems loosely parallel to the Genesis
context of the image of God—in that the human images are divine representatives. The extent to
which the logoi are one with God compared to the oneness between God and Israel (as God’s
images) is not clear; however, it is clear that both Israel and the logoi are incomplete and that
both have the potential to move towards God, who holds the key to their completion. In both
paradigms, it is ultimately God who must come through to effect the proper end. In Ambiguum 7,
humans cling to their proper beginning, as they long for the image to pass over to the archetype.
In the Genesis context, Israel clings to their creation as God’s images, in hopes that God’s
promise to Abraham will be restored and that God will bless them, freeing them from captivity
and eventually making the line of Abraham a blessing to all the families of the earth.
One of the largest difficulties in this comparison is that while Ambiguum 7 portrays the
proper end as an eschatological phenomenon, Israel’s proper end, in the Genesis context, is
slightly more realized. In some sense, clinging to their proper beginning as images of God in
Babylonian captivity gave Israel hope for a renewed and vivified return to what they once had,
considering “their exile meant the loss of the land promised by God to Abraham and his
descendants, a land that Israel had occupied for over six hundred years.”43 However this does not
mean that the promise had already been completely fulfilled. The fact that the land was taken
from Israel, would have been proof enough that the promise to Abraham had not been fully
43
Ibid., 228
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bestowed. Israel still had much to hope for in a proper end. The Babylonian exile created a
significant identity crisis.
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What was Israel to make of God’s ancient promises to Abraham, promises not only of a
land but also of a special destiny for his descendants? What of God’s promise to the line
of David? What of God’s presence, now that the temple no longer functioned? How
could Israel’s narrative of historical destiny, a story of redemption and liberation, turn
into a narrative of defeat and new bondage?44
In exile, the idea that Israel was the chosen people of God was severely challenged.45 Clinging to
their proper beginning as images of God in hopes of moving towards their proper end in God
would have been a difficult but appropriate response.
The notion that humans are God’s images, acting as God’s representatives on earth is
what largely set Israel apart from the surrounding nations. “[Israel] had different ideas about
what sort of social order was ordained of God, namely, one that nurtured the flourishing of
human life, rather than protecting the powerful at the expense of the weak.”46 Israel’s system
therefore allowed for “ordinary humans (and not just kings or priests) … to be significant
participants in the historical process,”47 meaning humans could potentially play a role in the
movement of history and, in the context of this assessment, they believed they could move
toward their proper end. In contrast to the Mesopotamian worldview, in which “the vast majority
of the human race [were] understood to live relatively predetermined lives of mimetic repetition,
beholden to their divine and human overlords, [and were] reduced to puppets in a social order in
which they had no significant agency or freedom,”48 Israelites clung to their proper beginnings in
44
Ibid., 229-230
Ibid., 230.
46 Ibid., 195; cf. 192-195.
47 Ibid., 193.
48 Ibid., 217.
45
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hopes of moving toward a promised future. Both the movement in Genesis and Ambiguum 7 is
characterized by an increasing potential to participate in God. In both paradigms, humans can
only move so close to becoming like God, until the “final end,” in which God makes good on the
promised future and proper end. If the movement from proper beginning toward proper end in
Ambiguum 7 is from “portions” toward “instruments” of God, then the shift that Genesis
proposes, against the backdrop of Baylonian exile, is from “representatives,” toward “agents” of
God.
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