Chapter VII.—The Earthy Material of Which Flesh is Created Wonderfully Improved by God’s Manipulation. By the Addition of the Soul in Man’s Constitution It Became the Chief Work in the Creation.

But perhaps the dignity of the flesh may seem to be diminished, because it has not been actually manipulated by the hand of God, as the clay was at first. Now, when God handled the clay for the express purpose of the growth of flesh out of it afterwards, it was for the flesh that He took all the trouble. But I want you, moreover, to know at what time and in what manner the flesh flourished into beauty out of its clay. For it cannot be, as some will have it, that those “coats of skins”48    Gen. iii. 31. which Adam and Eve put on when they were stripped of paradise, were really themselves the forming of the flesh out of clay,49    A Valentinian notion. because long before that Adam had already recognised the flesh which was in the woman as the propagation of his own substance (“This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh”50    Gen. ii. 23.), and the very taking of the woman out of the man was supplemented with flesh; but it ought, I should suppose, to have been made good with clay, if Adam was still clay. The clay, therefore, was obliterated and absorbed into flesh.  When did this happen? At the time that man became a living soul by the inbreathing of God—by the breath indeed which was capable of hardening clay into another substance, as into some earthenware, so now into flesh. In the same way the potter, too, has it in his power, by tempering the blast of his fire, to modify his clayey material into a stiffer one, and to mould one form after another more beautiful than the original substance, and now possessing both a kind and name of its own. For although the Scripture says, “Shall the clay say to the potter?”51    Rom. ix. 20. that is, Shall man contend with God? although the apostle speaks of “earthen vessels”52    2 Cor. vi. 7. he refers to man, who was originally clay.  And the vessel is the flesh, because this was made of clay by the breath of the divine afflatus; and it was afterwards clothed with “the coats of skins,” that is, with the cutaneous covering which was placed over it. So truly is this the fact, that if you withdraw the skin, you lay bare the flesh.  Thus, that which becomes a spoil when stripped off, was a vestment as long as it remained laid over. Hence the apostle, when he call circumcision “a putting off (or spoliation) of the flesh,”53    Col. ii. 11. affirmed the skin to be a coat or tunic.  Now this being the case, you have both the clay made glorious by the hand of God, and the flesh more glorious still by His breathing upon it, by virtue of which the flesh not only laid aside its clayey rudiments, but also took on itself the ornaments of the soul.  You surely are not more careful than God, that you indeed should refuse to mount the gems of Scythia and India and the pearls of the Red Sea in lead, or brass, or iron, or even in silver, but should set them in the most precious and most highly-wrought gold; or, again, that you should provide for your finest wines and most costly unguents the most fitting vessels; or, on the same principle, should find for your swords of finished temper scabbards of equal worth; whilst God must consign to some vilest sheath the shadow of His own soul, the breath of His own Spirit, the operation of His own mouth, and by so ignominious a consignment secure, of course, its condemnation. Well, then, has He placed, or rather inserted and commingled, it with the flesh? Yes; and so intimate is the union, that it may be deemed to be uncertain whether the flesh bears about the soul, or the soul the flesh; or whether the flesh acts as apparitor to the soul, or the soul to the flesh. It is, however, more credible that the soul has service rendered to it,54    Invehi. and has the mastery,55    Dominari. as being more proximate in character to God.56    John iv. 24. This circumstance even redounds to the glory of the flesh, inasmuch as it both contains an essence nearest to God’s, and renders itself a partaker of (the soul’s) actual sovereignty. For what enjoyment of nature is there, what produce of the world, what relish of the elements, which is not imparted to the soul by means of the body? How can it be otherwise? Is it not by its means that the soul is supported by the entire apparatus of the senses—the sight, the hearing, the taste, the smell, the touch? Is it not by its means that it has a sprinkling of the divine power, there being nothing which it does not effect by its faculty of speech, even when it is only tacitly indicated? And speech is the result of a fleshly organ. The arts come through the flesh; through the flesh also effect is given to the mind’s pursuits and powers; all work, too, and business and offices of life, are accomplished by the flesh; and so utterly are the living acts of the soul the work of the flesh, that for the soul to cease to do living acts, would be nothing else than sundering itself from the flesh. So also the very act of dying is a function of the flesh, even as the process of life is. Now, if all things are subject to the soul through the flesh, their subjection is equally due to the flesh. That which is the means and agent of your enjoyment, must needs be also the partaker and sharer of your enjoyment. So that the flesh, which is accounted the minister and servant of the soul, turns out to be also its associate and co-heir. And if all this in temporal things, why not also in things eternal?

CAPUT VII.

Sed dilutior videatur auctoritas carnis, quia non ipsam proprie manus divina tractavit, sicut limum. Quando in hoc tractavit limum, ut postmodum caro fieret ex limo, carnis utique negotium gessit. Sed adhuc velim discas, quando et quomodo caro floruerit ex limo . Neque enim, ut quidam volunt, illae pelliciae tunicae, quas Adam 0804A et Eva, paradisum exuti, induerunt, ipsae erunt carnis ex limo reformatio; cum aliquanto prius et Adam, substantiae suae traducem in foemina jam carnem recognoverit : Hoc nunc os ex ossibus meis, et caro ex carne mea; et ipsa delibatio masculi in foeminam carne suppleta sit, limo, opinor, supplenda, si Adam adhuc limus. Obliteratus igitur et devoratus est limus in carnem. Quando? cum factus est homo in animam vivam, de Dei flatu, vapore scilicet idoneo torrere quodammodo limum in aliam qualitatem; quasi in testam, ita in carnem. Sic et figulo licet argillam temperato ignis adflatu in materiam robustiorem recorporare, et in aliam ex alia fingere speciem, aptiorem pristina, et sui jam generis ac nominis. Nam etsi scriptum est (Rom. IX): 0804B Numquid argilla dicet figulo? id est, homo Deo; et si Apostolus, In testaceis, ait (II Cor. IV, 7), vasculis; tamen et argilla homo, quia limus ante; et testa caro, quia ex limo per adflatus divini vaporem , quam postea pelliciae tunicae, id est, cutes superductae, vestierunt. Usque adeo, si detraxeris cutem, nudaveris carnem. Ita, quod hodie spolium efficitur, si detrahatur, hoc fuit indumentum cum superstruebatur. Hinc et Apostolus, circumcisionem despoliationem carnis appellans, tunicam cutem confirmavit . Haec cum ita sint, habes et limum de manu Dei gloriosum, et carnem de afflatu Dei gloriosiorem, quo pariter caro et limi rudimenta deposuit, et animae ornamenta suscepit. Non es diligentior Deo, uti tu quidem scythicas et indicas gemmas, et rubentis 0805A maris grana candentia; non plumbo, non aere, non ferro, ne argento quoque oblaquees; sed electissimo et insuper operosissimo descrobes auro; vinis item et unguentis pretiosissimis quibusque vasculorum prius congruentiam cures; proinde perfectae ferruginis gladiis vaginarum adaeques dignitatem: Deus vero animae suae umbram, spiritus sui auram, oris sui operam, vilissimo alicui commiserit capulo, et indigne collocando utique damnaverit. Collocavit autem, an potius inseruit et immiscuit carni, tanta quidem concretione, ut incertum haberi possit utrumne caro animam, an carnem anima circumferat; utrumne animae caro, an anima appareat carni. Sed et magis animam 0805B invehi atque dominari credendum est, ut magis Deo proximam. Hoc quoque ad gloriam carnis exuberat, quod proximam Deo et continet, et ipsius dominationis compotem praestat. Quem enim naturae usum, quem mundi fructum, quem elementorum saporem, non per carnem anima depascitur? quidni? per quam omni instrumento sensum fulta est , visu, auditu, gustu, odoratu, contactu; per quam divina potestate respersa est, nihil non sermone perficiens vel tacite praemisso. Et sermo enim de organo carnis est; artes per carnem; studia, ingenia, per carnem; opera, negotia, officia, per carnem: atque adeo totum vivere animae carnis est, ut non vivere animae nihil aliud sit, quam a carne devertere: 0805C sic etiam ipsum mori carnis est, cujus et vivere. Porro, si universa per carnem subjacent animae, carni quoque subjaceant , per quod utaris , necesse est. Ita caro, dum ministra et famula animae 0806A deputatur, consors et cohaeredes invenitur. Si temporalium, cur non et aeternorum?