The Inspiration of the Divine Calling of all People 31 The human being is created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, he is, in the essence of his createdness (in the essence of his creatureliness) an image and likeness of the essence of love.38 To be the image of God and thereby the image of his love entails a responsibility. Pallotti repeatedly speaks of the fact, that the human being should be, indeed must become, a “living image of God”. To this end, he should employ his willpower and his freedom. Creation signifi es a mandate. To be human entails in its creatureliness a vocation, which will be examined more closely later on. We are all a living image of the intrinsic purity, because we are created in the image and likeness of God, who is purity in its essence (the absolute purity, purity in its being). Consequentially, we are obligated to make use of our free will in order to perfect ourselves in order to become truly living images of purity itself.39 In two parts, Chapter I deals with this fundamental thought of Pallotti about the reality of creation and the divine calling to the apostolate connected with it. Like the focal points of an ellipse, the further topics let themselves be connected with them and revolve around them. Under the perspective of these two aspects, the Pallotti’s basic thoughts are ordered, that does not result in a striving for or presentation of a completeness of his topics 1 Pallotti‘s Image-Theology Just as God is infi nite love, the human, created in the image of God, becomes, on the one hand, the representative of this love and, on the other hand, sent to realise this love. In this correlation, an anthropology is established whose consequences largely determine Pallotti’s work and which becomes the highest possible motivation for his activity. It is the topic of the theology of creation, which has biblical foundations. It was already extensively developed in the early Christian literature in the East and the West and found different interpretations during the various phases in the history of theology. Pallotti’s study of theology, including Patristics, certainly brought him in touch with this theme. In the end, it proves to be the core of his spirituality 38 OOCC III, 151: “L'Uomo è creato a imagine, e similitudine di Dio. Dunque l'Uomo secondo la essenza della sua creazione è una imagine, e similitudine della Carità per essenza”. 39 OOCC II, 44: “[...] Tutti siamo viva imagine della Purità per Essenza perché siamo creati ad imagine, e similitudine di Dio, che è Purità per essenza, onde tutti siamo obbligati a profi ttare del libero arbitrio per perfezionare noi stessi in quanto siamo imagini vivi della Purità per essenza; [...]”.
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