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| Why man's form is upright; and that hands were given him because of reason; wherein also is a speculation on the difference of souls. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
VIII. Why man’s form is upright; and that hands
were given him because of reason; wherein also is a speculation on the
difference of souls1609
1609 The
Latin version divides the chapters somewhat differently at this point.
The Bodleian ms. gives this section the title,
“Of the dignity of the human form, and why man was created after
the other creatures.” | .
1. But man’s form is
upright, and extends aloft towards heaven, and looks upwards: and these
are marks of sovereignty which show his royal dignity. For the fact
that man alone among existing things is such as this, while all others
bow their bodies downwards, clearly points to the difference of dignity
between those which stoop beneath his sway and that power which rises
above them: for all the rest have the foremost limbs of their bodies in
the form of feet, because that which stoops needs something to support
it: but in the formation of man these limbs were made hands, for the
upright body found one base, supporting its position securely on two
feet, sufficient for its needs.
2. Especially do these
ministering hands adapt themselves to the requirements of the reason:
indeed if one were to say that the ministration of hands is a special
property of the rational nature, he would not be entirely wrong; and
that not only because his thought turns to the common and obvious fact
that we signify our reasoning by means of the natural employment of our
hands in written characters. It is true that this fact, that we speak
by writing, and, in a certain way, converse by the aid of our hands,
preserving sounds by the forms of the alphabet, is not unconnected with
the endowment of reason; but I am referring to something else when I
say that the hands co-operate with the bidding of reason.
3. Let us, however, before
discussing this point, consider the matter we passed over (for the
subject of the order of created things almost escaped our notice), why
the growth of things that spring from the earth takes precedence, and
the irrational animals come next, and then, after the making of these,
comes man: for it may be that we learn from these facts not only the
obvious thought, that grass appeared to the Creator useful for the sake
of the animals, while the animals were made because of man, and that
for this reason, before the animals there was made their food, and
before man that which was to minister to human life.
4. But it seems to me that by
these facts Moses reveals a hidden doctrine, and secretly delivers that
wisdom concerning the soul, of which the learning that is without had
indeed some imagination, but no clear comprehension. His discourse then
hereby teaches us that the power of life and soul may be considered in
three divisions. For one is only a power of growth and nutrition
supplying what is suitable for the support of the bodies that are
nourished, which is called the vegetative1610
1610 “Vegetative”:—reading (with several mss. of both classes of those cited by Forbes)
φυτικὴ
for φυσικὴ (the
reading which Forbes follows in his text). A similar reading has been
adopted in some later passages, where the mss.
show similar variations. It seems not unlikely that the less
common φυτικὸς should have been altered by copyists to φυσικός. But Gregory seems in this treatise to use the word
φύσις for the corporeal nature: and he may have employed
the adjectival form in a corresponding sense. |
soul, and is to be seen in plants; for we may perceive in growing
plants a certain vital power destitute of sense; and there is another
form of life besides this, which, while it includes the form above
mentioned, is also possessed in addition of the power of management
according to sense; and this is to be found in the nature of the
irrational animals: for they are not only the subjects of nourishment
and growth, but also have the activity of sense and perception. But
perfect bodily life is seen in the rational (I mean the human) nature,
which both is nourished and endowed with sense, and also partakes of
reason and is ordered by mind.
5. We might make a division of
our subject in some such way as this. Of things existing, part are
intellectual, part corporeal. Let us leave alone for the present the
division of the intellectual according to its properties, for our
argument is not concerned with these. Of the corporeal, part is
entirely devoid of life, and part shares in vital energy. Of a living
body, again, part has sense conjoined with life, and part is without
sense: lastly, that which has sense is again divided into
rational and irrational. For this reason the lawgiver says that after
inanimate matter (as a sort of foundation for the form of animate
things), this vegetative life was made, and had earlier1611 existence in the growth of plants: then he
proceeds to introduce the genesis of those creatures which are
regulated by sense: and since, following the same order, of those
things which have obtained life in the flesh, those which have sense
can exist by themselves even apart from the intellectual nature, while
the rational principle could not be embodied save as blended with the
sensitive,—for this reason man was made last after the animals,
as nature advanced in an orderly course to perfection. For this
rational animal, man, is blended of every form of soul; he is nourished
by the vegetative kind of soul, and to the faculty of growth was added
that of sense, which stands midway, if we regard its peculiar nature,
between the intellectual and the more material essence being as much
coarser than the one as it is more refined than the other: then takes
place a certain alliance and commixture of the intellectual essence
with the subtle and enlightened element of the sensitive nature: so
that man consists of these three: as we are taught the like thing by
the apostle in what he says to the Ephesians1612
1612 The
reference is really to 1 Thess. v.
23.
Apparently all Forbes’ mss. read
πρὸς
τοὺς
᾽Εφεσίους: but the Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus corrects the
error, giving the quotation at greater length. | ,
praying for them that the complete grace of their “body and soul
and spirit” may be preserved at the coming of the Lord; using,
the word “body” for the nutritive part, and denoting the
sensitive by the word “soul,” and the intellectual by
“spirit.” Likewise too the Lord instructs the scribe in the
Gospel that he should set before every commandment that love to God
which is exercised with all the heart and soul and mind1613 : for here also it seems to me that the
phrase indicates the same difference, naming the more corporeal
existence “heart,” the intermediate “soul,” and
the higher nature, the intellectual and mental faculty,
“mind.”
6. Hence also the apostle
recognizes three divisions of dispositions, calling one
“carnal,” which is busied with the belly and the pleasures
connected with it, another “natural1614
1614 ψυχικὴν: “psychic” or “animal:”—the
Authorised Version translates the word by
“natural.” | ,” which holds a middle position with
regard to virtue and vice, rising above the one, but without pure
participation in the other; and another “spiritual,” which
perceives the perfection of godly life: wherefore he says to the
Corinthians, reproaching their indulgence in pleasure and passion,
“Ye are carnal1615 ,” and
incapable of receiving the more perfect doctrine; while elsewhere,
making a comparison of the middle kind with the perfect, he says,
“but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit: for
they are foolishness unto him: but he that is spiritual judgeth all
things, yet he himself is judged of no man1616 .” As, then, the natural man is higher
than the carnal, by the same measure also the spiritual man rises above
the natural.
7. If, therefore, Scripture
tells us that man was made last, after every animate thing, the
lawgiver is doing nothing else than declaring to us the doctrine of the
soul, considering that what is perfect comes last, according to a
certain necessary sequence in the order of things: for in the rational
are included the others also, while in the sensitive there also surely
exists the vegetative form, and that again is conceived only in
connection with what is material: thus we may suppose that nature makes
an ascent as it were by steps—I mean the various properties of
life—from the lower to the perfect form.
81617
1617 The
Latin versions make ch. ix. begin at this point. The Bodleian ms. gives as its title:—“That the form
of the human body agrees with the rationality of the
mind.” | .
Now since man is a rational animal, the instrument of his body must be
made suitable for the use of reason1618
1618 It is
not absolutely clear whether λόγος in the
following passage means speech or reason—and
whether λογικὸς means “capable of speech,” or “rational.”
But as λογικὸς in §7 clearly has the force of “rational,” it
would seem too abrupt a transition to make it mean “capable of
speech” in the first line of §8, and this may determine the
meaning of λόγος. | ; as you may
see musicians producing their music according to the form of their
instruments, and not piping with harps nor harping upon flutes, so it
must needs be that the organization of these instruments of ours should
be adapted for reason, that when struck by the vocal organs it might be
able to sound properly for the use of words. For this reason the hands
were attached to the body; for though we can count up very many uses in
daily life for which these skilfully contrived and helpful instruments,
our hands, that easily follow every art and every operation, alike in
war and peace1619
1619 Reading τῶν for τὸν, with some
of Forbes’ mss. | , are serviceable,
yet nature added them to our body pre-eminently for the sake of reason.
For if man were destitute of hands, the various parts of his face would
certainly have been arranged like those of the quadrupeds, to suit the
purpose of his feeding: so that its form would have been lengthened out
and pointed towards the nostrils, and his lips would have projected
from his mouth, lumpy, and stiff, and thick, fitted for taking up the
grass, and his tongue would either have lain between his teeth, of a
kind to match his lips, fleshy, and hard, and rough, assisting his
teeth to deal with what came under his grinder, or it would have been
moist and hanging out at the side like that of dogs and other
carnivorous beasts, projecting through the gaps in his jagged row of teeth. If,
then, our body had no hands, how could articulate sound have been
implanted in it, seeing that the form of the parts of the mouth would
not have had the configuration proper for the use of speech, so that
man must of necessity have either bleated, or “baaed,” or
barked, or neighed, or bellowed like oxen or asses, or uttered some
bestial sound? but now, as the hand is made part of the body, the mouth
is at leisure for the service of the reason. Thus the hands are shown
to be the property of the rational nature, the Creator having thus
devised by their means a special advantage for reason.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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