 Following Maximus Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine, Eriugena takes the imago dei idea to its ultimate consequence by forging an apophatic-negative anthropology: the human being, as the image of God,  knows that it is, but it cannot comprehend or circumscribe its own essence or nature, since, in its deepest core, as imago dei, it too is infinite as God is infinite. All that can be done is to specify the “circumstances” (circumstantiae) which surround his essence, e.g., place, time, rest, motion, condition, etc., (Periphyseon, II.586d). The human being in this sense is an image of the infinite and uncircumscribable God, and an image is identical to its archetype in all respects “except in respect of subject” (praeter rationem subiecti, Periphyseon II.598b). Any difference between God and human nature is the result not of essence but of “an accident produced by sin” (sed ex delicto accidit, II.598b). Human self-ignorance mirrors the divine self-ignorance; human incomprehensibility mirrors divine incomprehensibility. This makes human nature share in infinity.  