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Colossians 1:15

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation:
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Ambrose of Milan

AD 397
The apostle says that Christ is the image of the Father—for he calls him the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Firstborn, mark you, not first created, in order that he may be believed to be both begotten, in virtue of his nature, and the first in virtue of his eternity. .
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Ambrose of Milan

AD 397
Be like the image on the coin, unchangeable, keeping the same habits every day. When you see the coin, see the image; when you see the law, see Christ, the image of God, in the law. And because he himself is the image of the invisible and incorruptible God, let him shine for you as in the mirror of the law. Confess him in the law that you may acknowledge him in the gospel.
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Athanasius the Apostolic

AD 373
Not then because he was from the Father was he called “Firstborn,” but because in him the creation came to be; and as before the creation he was the Son, through whom was the creation, so also before he was called the Firstborn of the whole creation, the Word himself was with God and the Word was God. … If then the Word also were one of the creatures, Scripture would have said of him also that he was Firstborn of other creatures; but in fact, the saints’ saying that he is “Firstborn of the whole creation” demonstrates that the Son of God is other than the whole creation and not a creature…. He is called “Firstborn among many brothers” because of the relationship of the flesh, and “Firstborn from the dead” because the resurrection of the dead is from him and after him.
1 min3/26
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Athanasius the Apostolic

AD 373
But though he is Word, he is not, as we said, comparable to human words, composed of syllables; but he is the unchanging image of his own Father. For men, composed of parts and made out of nothing, speak in a composite and divisible fashion. But God possesses true existence and is not composite; hence his Word also has true existence and is not made of different parts or syllables. He is the one and onlybegotten God, who proceeds in his goodness from the Father as from a good Fountain, and orders all things and holds them together.
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
For according to the form of God he is “the beginning who also speaks to us,” in which beginning God “made the heavens and the earth,” but according to the form of a slave he is “the bridegroom coming out of his chamber.” According to the form of God he is “the firstborn of every creature, and he himself is before all creatures, and in him all things hold together,” and according to the form of a slave he is “the head of the body, the church.” .
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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
In parents and children there would be found an image and an equality and a likeness if the age difference were lacking. For the child’s likeness has been derived from the parent, so that the likeness may rightly be called an image…. In God, however, the conditions of time do not obtain, for God cannot be thought of as having begotten in time the Son through whom he has created the times. Hence it follows that not only is [the Son] his image, because he is from [God], and the likeness, because the image, but also the equality is so great that there is not even a temporal distinction standing in the way between them.
1 min6/26
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Basil the Great

AD 379
Consider the following words also: “In our image.” What do you say to this? Surely, the image of God and of the angels is not the same. Now it is absolutely necessary for the form of the Son and of the Father to be the same, the form being understood, of course, as becomes the divine, not in a bodily shape, but in the special properties of the Godhead…. To whom does he say: “In our image”? To whom else, I say, than to the “brightness of his glory and the image of his substance,” who is “the image of the invisible God”? Homilies on the Hexameron
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Cyprian of Carthage

AD 258
Also Paul to the Colossians: "Who is the image of the invisible God, and the first-born of every creature."
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Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444
For the Son remained the Word of God, although he became man, being the Father in form, according to his spiritual image, I mean, and being in every way unchangeable.
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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849
The first born of every creature. St. Chrysostom takes notice against the Arians, that the apostle calls Christ the first-begotten, or first-born, not the first created, because he was not created at all. And the sense is, that he was before all creatures, proceeding from all eternity from the Father; though some expound the words of Christ as man, and that he was greater in dignity. See Romans viii. 29. (Witham)
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Gregory of Nyssa

AD 394
The meaning of the “creation,” of which he is firstborn, is not unknown to us. For we recognize a twofold creation of our nature, the first that of our conception and birth, the second that of our new creation. But there would have been no need for the second creation had we not crippled the first by our disobedience. Accordingly, when the first creation had grown old and vanished away, it was necessary that there should be a new creation in Christ … for the maker of human nature at the first and afterwards is one and the same. Then he took dust from the earth and formed man: again he took dust from the Virgin and did not merely form man, but formed man about himself: then he created; afterwards, he was created: then the Word made flesh; afterwards, the Word became flesh, that he might change our flesh to spirit, through becoming a partaker with us in flesh and blood. Of this new creation therefore in Christ, which he himself began, he was called the firstborn.
1 min11/26
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Gregory the Theologian

AD 390
He is called “image” because he is of one substance with the Father; he stems from the Father and not the Father from him, it being the nature of an image to copy the original and to be named after it. But there is more to it than this. The ordinary image is a motionless copy of a moving being. Here we have a living image of a living being, indistinguishable from its original to a higher degree than Seth from Adam and any earthly offspring from its parents. Beings with no complexity to their nature have no points of likeness or unlikeness. They are exact replicas, identical rather than like.
1 min12/26
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Hilary of Poitiers

AD 368
The Lord has declared: “If I do not perform the works of my Father do not believe me.” Hence, he teaches that the Father is seen in him because he performs his works so that the power of the nature that was perceived would reveal the nature of the power that was perceived, wherefore the apostle, indicating that this is the image of God, says: “Who is the image of the invisible God … that through him he should reconcile all things to himself.” Accordingly, he is the image of God by the power of these works.
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Ignatius of Antioch

AD 108
Through grace, in one faith of God the Father, and of Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, and "the first-born of every creature". For I have observed that ye are perfected in an immoveable faith, as if ye were nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the spirit, and are established in love through the blood of Christ, being fully persuaded, in very truth, with respect to our Lord Jesus Christ, that He was the Son of God, "the first-born of every creature"
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John Chrysostom

AD 407
For the word firstborn is not expressive of dignity and honor, nor of anything else, but of time only…. Indeed, so that people will not suppose that he has a more recent origin in time—since in the past the approach to the Father was through angels, but is now through Christ—he shows first that these angels had no power (otherwise Christ could not have been born “out of darkness” [v. ]), Paul shows next that Christ is also before them.
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John Chrysostom

AD 407
Whose image then will you have him be? God’s? Then he is exactly like the one to whom you assign him. If you compare him to a human image, say so, and I’ll be done with you as a madman…. “The image of the invisible” is itself also invisible, and invisible in the same way, for otherwise it would not be an image. For an image, so far as it is an image, even on a human level, ought to be exactly similar, as, for example, in respect of the features and the likeness. But here indeed among us, this is by no means possible; for human art fails in many respects, or rather fails in all, if you make a careful examination. But where God is, there is no error, no failure.
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John Chrysostom

AD 407
Today it is necessary for me to pay the debt, which yesterday I deferred, in order that I might address it to your minds when in full force. Paul, discoursing as we showed of the dignity of the Son, says these words: Who is the Image of the invisible God. Whose image then will you have Him be? God's? Then he is exactly like the one to whom you assign Him. For if as a man's image, say so, and I will have done with you as a madman. But if as God and God's Son, God's image, he shows the exact likeness. Wherefore has no Angel anywhere been called either image or son, but man both? Wherefore? Because in the former case indeed the exaltedness of their nature might presently have thrust the many into this impiety ; but in the other case the mean and low nature is a pledge of security against this, and will not allow any, even should they desire it, to suspect anything of the kind, nor to bring down the Word so low. For this cause, where the meanness is great, the Scripture boldly asserts the ...
5 mins17/26
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John of Damascus

AD 749
He who has been born first is firstborn, whether he is the only child or has preceded other brothers. So, if the Son of God were called “firstborn” without being called “onlybegotten,” then we should understand him to be firstborn of creatures as being a creature. Since, however, he is called both firstborn and onlybegotten, we must maintain both of these as applying to him. Thus, we say that he is “the firstborn of every creature,” since he is from God, and creation is also from God…. For this very reason, that he shared flesh and blood along with us and then, also, that we were made sons of God through him by being adopted through baptism. He who is by nature Son of God has become firstborn among us who have by adoption and grace become sons of God and are accounted as his brothers.
1 min18/26
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Leo of Rome

AD 461
Let those then “who were born not from blood, nor from the will of the flesh, but from God” offer concord to God as peaceloving children. Let all the adopted members join together into that “firstborn” of new “creation” who came “not to do his own will, but that of the one who sent him.” .
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Methodius of Olympus

AD 311
For how shall he be considered "the first-born of every creature"
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Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

AD 550
And thus might any one reasonably convict these men. Oh reckless and rash men! was then "the first-born of every creature"
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Severian of Gabala

AD 425
Paul wishes to say and show that Christ is before all. For if he is not before all, how could all things be created in him? In him, Paul says, all things were created, so that denying that our hope is in angels, we may put our hope in Christ. .
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Shepherd of Hermas

AD 150
The Son of God is older than all His creatures, so that He was a fellow-councillor with the Father in His work of creation:
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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220
It is fortunate that in another passage [the apostle] calls Christ “the image of the invisible God.” For does it not follow with equal force from that passage that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle describes him as the image of God? This is true, if (as Marcion contends) he is not truly man because he has taken on the form or image of a man. For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or “fashion”) and likeness and form are descriptions of a phantom. But since he is truly God as the Son of the Father, in his fashion and image, he has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, “found in the fashion” and image “of a man.”
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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220
For God the Father none ever saw, and lived. He calls Christ "the image of the invisible God.". If Christ is not "the first-begotten before every creature". It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ "the image of the invisible God.". Thus does He make Him equal to Him: for by proceeding from Himself He became His first-begotten Son, because begotten before all things;
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The Apostolic Constitutions

AD 375
Of God, esteem those laws more honourable than the necessities of this life, and pay a greater respect to them, and run together to the Church of the Lord, "which He has purchased with the blood of Christ, the beloved, the first-born of every creature.". For Thou art eternal knowledge, everlasting sight, unbegotten hearing, untaught wisdom, the first by nature, and the measure of being, and beyond all number; who didst bring all things out of nothing into being by Thy only begotten Son, but didst beget Him before all ages by Thy will, Thy power, and Thy goodness, without any instrument, the only begotten Son, God the Word, the living Wisdom, "the First-born of every creature, the angel of Thy Great Counsel"
1 min26/26
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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20

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