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IN this way, then, God brought into existence mental essence, by
which I mean, angels and all the heavenly orders. For these clearly
have a mental and incorporeal nature: "incorporeal" I mean in
comparison with the denseness of matter. For the Deity alone in
reality is immaterial and incorporeal. But further He created in the
same way sensible essence, that is heaven and earth and the
intermediate region; and so He created both the kind of being that is
of His own nature (for the nature that has to do with reason is
related to God, and apprehensible by mind alone), and the kind
which, inasmuch as it clearly falls under the province of the senses,
is separated from Him by the greatest interval. And it was also fit
that there should be a mixture of both kinds of being, as a token of
still greater wisdom and of the opulence of the Divine expenditure as
regards natures, as Gregorius, the expounder of God's being and
ways, puts it, and to be a sort of connecting link between the visible
and invisible natures. And by the word "fit" I mean, simply that
it was an evidence of the Creator's will, for that will is the law
and ordinance most meet, and no one will say to his Maker, "Why
hast Thou so fashioned me?" For the potter is able at his will to
make vessels of various patterns out of his clay, as a proof of his own
wisdom.
Now this being the case, He creates with His own hands man of a
visible nature and an invisible, after His own image and likeness: on
the one hand man's body He formed of earth, and on the other his
reasoning and thinking soul He bestowed upon him by His own
inbreathing, and this is what we mean by "after His image." For
the phrase "after His image" clearly refers to the side of his nature
which consists of mind and free will, whereas "after His likeness
"means likeness in virtue so far as that is possible.
Further, body and soul were formed at one and the same time, not
first the one and then the other, as Origen so senselessly supposes.
God then made man without evil, upright, virtuous, free from pain
and care, glorified with every virtue, adorned with all that is good,
like a sort of second microcosm within the great world. another angel
capable of worship, compound, surveying the visible creation and
initiated into the mysteries of the realm of thought, king over the
things of earth, but subject to a higher king, of the earth and of the
heaven, temporal and eternal, belonging to the realm of sight and to
the realm of thought, midway between greatness and lowliness, spirit
and flesh: for he is spirit by grace, but flesh by overweening pride:
spirit that he may abide and glorify his Benefactor, and flesh that he
may suffer, and suffering may be admonished and disciplined when he
prides himself in his greatness: here, that is, in the present life,
his life is ordered as an animal's, but elsewhere, that is, in the
age to come, he is changed and--to complete the mystery--becomes
deified by merely inclining himself towards God; becoming deified, in
the way of participating in the divine glory and not in that of a change
into the divine being.
But God made him by nature sinless, and endowed him with free will.
By sinless, I mean not that sin could find no place in him (for that
is the case with Deity alone), bat that sin is the result of the free
volition he enjoys rather than an integral part of his nature; that is
to say, he has the power to continue and go forward in the path of
goodness, by co-operating with the divine grace, and likewise to turn
from good and take to wickedness, for God has conceded this by
conferring freedom of will upon him. For there is no virtue in what is
the result of mere force.
The soul, accordingly, is a living essence, simple, incorporeal,
invisible in its proper nature to bodily eyes, immortal, reasoning and
intelligent, formless, making use of an organised body, and being the
source of its powers of life, and growth, and sensation, and
generation, mind being but its purest part and not in any wise alien to
it; (for as the eye to the body, so is the mind to the soul);
further it enjoys freedom and volition and energy, and is mutable,
that is, it is given to change, because it is created. All these
qualities according to nature it has received of the grace of the
Creator, of which grace it has received both its being and this
particular kind of nature.
Marg. The different applications of "incorporeal." We understand
two kinds of what is incorporeal and invisible and formless: the one is
such in essence, the other by free gift: and likewise the one is such
in nature, and the other only in comparison with the denseness of
matter. God then is incorporeal by nature, but the angels and demons
and souls are said to be so by free gift, and in comparison with the
denseness of matter.
Further, body is that which has three dimensions, that is to say, it
has length and breadth and depth, or thickness. And every body is
composed of the four elements; the bodies of living creatures,
moreover, are composed of the four humours.
Now there are, it should be known, four elements: earth which is dry
and cold: water which is cold and wet: air which is wet and warm:
fire which is warm and dry. In like manner there are also four
humours, analogous to the four elements: black bile, which bears an
analogy to earth, for it is dry and cold: phlegm, analogous to
water, for it is cold and wet: blood, analogous to air, for it is
wet and warm: yellow bile, the analogue to fire, for it is warm and
city. Now, fruits are composed of the elements, and the humours are
composed of the fruits, and the bodies of living creatures consist of
the humours and dissolve back into them. For every thing that is
compound dissolves back into its elements.
Marg. That man has community alike with inanimate things and animate
creatures, whether they are devoid of or possess the faculty of
reason.
Man, it is to be noted, has community with things inanimate, and
participates in the life of unreasoning creatures, and shares in the
mental processes of those endowed with reason. For the bond of union
between man and inanimate things is the body and its composition out of
the font elements: and the bond between man and plants consists, in
addition to these things, of their powers of nourishment and growth and
seeding, that is, generation: and finally, over and above these
links man is connected with unreasoning animals by appetite, that is
anger and desire, and sense and impulsive movement.
There are then five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.
Further, impulsive movement consists in change from place to place,
and in the movements of the body as a whole and in the emission of voice
and the drawing of breath. For we have it in our power to perform or
refrain from performing these actions.
Lastly, man's reason unites him to incorporeal and intelligent
natures, for he applies his reason and mind and judgment to
everything, and pursues after virtues, and eagerly follows after
piety, which is the crown of the virtues. And so man is a microcosm.
Moreover, it should be known that division and flux and change are
peculiar to the body alone. By change, I mean change in quality,
that is in heat and cold and so forth: by flux, I mean change in the
way of depletion, for dry things and wet things and spirit s suffer
depletion, and require repletion: so that hunger and thirst are
natural affections. Again, division is the separation of the
humours, one from another, and the partition into form and matter.
But piety and thought are the peculiar properties of the soul. And
the virtues are common to soul and body, although they are referred to
the soul as if the soul were making use of the body.
The reasoning part, it should be understood, naturally bears rule
over that which is void of reason. For the faculties of the soul are
divided into that which has reason, and that which is without reason.
Again, of that which is without reason there are two divisions: that
which does not listen to reason, that is to say, is disobedient to
reason, and that which listens and obeys reason. That which does not
listen or obey reason is the vital or pulsating faculty, and the
spermatic or generative faculty, and the vegetative or nutritive
faculty: to this belong also the faculties of growth and bodily
formation. For these are not under the dominion of reason but under
that of nature. That which listens to and obeys reason, on the other
hand is divided into anger anti desire. And the unreasoning part of
the soul is called in common the pathetic and the appetitive.
Further, it is to be understood, that impulsive movement s likewise
belongs to the part that is obedient to reason.
The part which does not pay heed to reason includes the nutritive and
generative and pulsating faculties: and the name "vegetative" is
applied to the faculties of increase and nutriment and generation, and
the name "vital" to the faculty of pulsation.
Of the faculty of nutrition, then, there are four forces: an
attractive force which attracts nourishment: a retentive force by which
nourishment is retained and not suffered to be immediately excreted: an
alterative force by which the food is resolved into the humours: and an
excretive force, by which the excess of food is excreted into the
draught and cast forth.
The forces again, inherent in a living creature are, it should be
noted, partly psychical, partly vegetative, partly vital. The
psychical forces are concerned with free volition, that is to say,
impulsive movement and sensation. Impulsive movement includes change
of place and movement of the body as a whole, and phonation and
respiration. For it is in our power to perform or refrain from
performing these acts. The vegetative and vital forces, however, are
quite outside the province of will. The vegetative, moreover,
include the faculties of nourishment and growth, and generation, and
the vital power is the faculty of pulsation. For these go on
energising whether we will it or not.
Lastly, we must observe that of actual things, some are good, and
some are bad. A good thing in anticipation constitutes desire: while
a good thing in realisation constitutes pleasure. Similarly an evil
thing in anticipation begets fear, and in realisation it begets pain.
And when we speak of good in this connection we are to be understood to
mean both real and apparent good: and, similarly, we mean real and
apparent evil.
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