ABSTRACT
THE NOETIC PASCHAL ANTHROPOS: GEN 1:27
AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE DIVINE IMAGE
IN EARLY PASCHAL LITERATURE
Dragos A Giulea
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
This study examines the theme of the heavenly Anthropos in the earliest extant
paschal writings: Melito’s Peri Pascha, Origen’s Peri Pascha, and Pseudo-Hippolytus’s
In sanctum Pascha. Instead of analyzing these materials through the prism of such
classical images as sacrifice and divine Lamb, the study investigates them through the
perspective of the categories of heavenly Man and divine Image. The particular method
of the study will be tradition criticism and will envision the paschal tradition of the
heavenly luminous Anthropos as a development of the theophanic traditions of the Jewish
Second Temple. Echoing such ancient passages as Gen 1:27, Eze 1:26, and their
reception history in Philo of Alexandria and Paul the Apostle, these paschal materials
articulate a theology of the heavenly Anthropos that can be typified through the
categories of eikonic soteriology and noetic and mystery dimensions.
The examined texts elaborate a narrative where the divine Anthropos pursues a
veritable Iliad of salvation, which I called “eikonic soteriology.” Resuscitating the
ancestral myth of the divine combat, the narrative portrays the divine Anthropos as a
heavenly warrior seeing his created image (eikon) captured and enslaved by Death. He
starts then a military campaign through changing, in a kenotic act, his own glorious
divine Form for Adam’s image. The victory over Death procures Adam’s salvation and,
moreover, his transfiguration into a divine image as Christ adorns the protopater with
heavenly radiant garment.
The other two categories qualify as well Christ the divine Anthropos. Unlike
previous Second Temple depictions of God as a heavenly anthropomorphic figure, the
paschal Anthropos is transferred to the noetic and mystery dimensions of reality. While
Clement, Tertullian, Pseudo-Hippolytus, and Origen did not rebuff the biblical idea that
God has a form or image, they struggled with this concept and the fruit of their
intellectual endeavors was surprisingly not rejection but transfer to a noetic level. In
addition, paschal liturgy was already conceived in the second century CE (see Melito’s
Peri Pascha) as the highest mystery performance. Its goal was to lead the participant to
the encounter with the mysterious and glorious divine Image of Christ.