Bonaventure, on Col 1:15

“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:”

“For since the apprehended species is a likeness generated in the medium and then impressed upon the organ itself, and through that impression leads to its principle, namely to the object to be known; it manifestly suggests that that eternal light generates from itself a likeness or splendor coequal, consubstantial, and coeternal; and that he who is the image of the invisible God and the splendor of glory and the figure of his substance, who is everywhere through his primary generation, just as an object generates its likeness throughout the entire medium, is united through the grace of union, as a species to a bodily organ, to an individual of rational nature, so that through that union he might lead us back to the Father as to the fontal principle and object. If therefore all knowable things have to generate a species of themselves, they manifestly proclaim that in them as in mirrors can be seen the eternal generation of the Word, the Image, and the Son, eternally emanating from God the Father.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.

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