16

for you are not sensible of the gifts, but you are mad and rage against the wisdom that so provides for you. And the dog recognizes the one who feeds it, and attends to him when present, and longs for him when absent, and upon his return shows its pleasure, drooping its ears, and wagging its tail, and signifying its submission, and confessing its servitude, and making clear the kindness shown it; and it does these things while serving without reason, and deprived of all speech, but by time, and habit, and frequent kindnesses, it learns the difference between a stranger and an acquaintance, and a friend and an enemy. But you, who partake of reason, and have received the mind as your guide, the winged one, swifter than all things seen. For the sun in one day runs its double course across the inhabited world, but the mind, as soon as it wills, both journeys around the inhabited world, and reaches the heavens in imagination, and passes beyond them, and reflects God as it is able, and beholds the countless myriads of angels, and the thousands of archangels, 83.600 it meddles with the things under the earth, and though it strives to go beyond these things, it cannot; for the limit of its imagination is what it has learned to exist. Having this as a guide, and a pilot, and a charioteer, you are not sensible of the divine gifts; you do not reckon the multitude of kindnesses, but you persist in being ungrateful; and with so many teachers set before you, you are unwilling to learn the elements of Providence. See that it not leave you completely uncared for, and you learn by experience the difference between providence, and care, and desolation. Come, therefore, O my friend, let us move you to another part of the body. Look now for me at the spine, having its beginning from the broad bone situated upon the buttocks, and extending up to the neck, and like a solid column, and composed of many vertebrae, bearing the belly, and shoulders, and hands, and neck, and head. For since the Creator has placed no bone around the outside of the belly, so that in receiving food it may easily be widened, and make sufficient bulk for the nourishment, the spine supports it from behind. And the Creator composed it of several bones, so that it may also be bent easily, when the creature wishes to stoop, and not be shattered by the bending. And the spinal marrow nourishes this, having the brain as its source. What need is there for me to speak of the hands, whose use the various arts proclaim? But we shall make mention of them in the discourse after this; therefore let us save the explanation of the use of the hands for that. Go up, then, to the neck, and observe its formation; and recall for me the columns, those bored through from bottom to top, and having many such perforations, and one great one in the middle, through which the water channels bring up a great quantity of water, and distributing this, they bid it go down through the others, and some they send to the southern part of the city, some to the eastern, another to the western, and another to the northern. The neck provides this service to the body. For, as I have already said, art imitates nature, and makes its own contrivances similar to her works. The neck, therefore, has the opening of the gullet, and sends food and drink to the stomach. And it has the windpipe, which reaches from the lung to the larynx; and it also has the veins and the smooth arteries, through which the brain receives blood and breath; and being nourished and growing, through the bones that are fused together it sends the spinal marrow to the spine; from which the whole 83.601 nature of the bones is nourished, and from which sprout the strongest nerves, the thick and the thin, the flat and the round, by which the joints are bound, and the muscles receive their motive energy. But since we have come to the head itself, see it as a kind of acropolis of the city of the body on high

16

γὰρ αἰσθάνῃ τῶν δωρεῶν, ἀλλὰ μέμηνας καὶ λυττᾷς κατὰ τῆς οὕτω προμηθου μένης σου σοφίας. Καὶ ὁ μὲν κύων ἐπιγινώσκει τὸν τρέφοντα, καὶ παρόντι προσεδρεύει, καὶ ἀπόντα ποθεῖ, καὶ ἐπανιόντι δείκνυσι τὴν ἡδονὴν, χαλῶν τὰ ὦτα, καὶ τὴν κέρκον σείων, καὶ τὴν ὑποταγὴν ση μαίνων, καὶ τὴν δουλείαν ὁμολογῶν, καὶ τὴν εὐερ γεσίαν παραδηλῶν, καὶ ταῦτα ἀλογίᾳ δουλεύων, καὶ λόγου παντὸς ἐστερημένος, τῷ δὲ χρόνῳ, καὶ τῷ ἔθει, καὶ συχναῖς εὐεργεσίαις, ἀγνῶτος καὶ γνωρίμου, καὶ φίλου καὶ ἐπιβούλου τὸ διάφορον μανθάνων. Σὺ δὲ, λόγου μετέχων, καὶ νοῦν ἡγεμόνα λαβὼν, τὸν ὑπόπτερον, τὸν καὶ τῶν ὁρωμένων ἁπάντων ὀξύτε ρον. Ἥλιος μὲν γὰρ ἐν ἡμέρᾳ μιᾷ τῆς οἰκουμένης διατρέχει τὸν δίαυλον, ὁ δὲ, ἅμα τε νεύει καὶ τὴν οἰκουμένην περινοστεῖ, καὶ τῶν οὐρανῶν ἐφ ικνεῖται τῇ φαντασίᾳ, καὶ τούτους ὑπερβαίνει, καὶ Θεὸν ὡς δύναται κατοπτρίζεται, καὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων τὰς ἀπείρους θεωρεῖ μυριάδας, καὶ τῶν ἀρχαγγέλων 83.600 τὰς χιλιάδας, πολυπραγμονεῖ τὰ ὑπὸ γῆν, ἐπέκεινα τούτων ὑπερβαίνειν φιλονεικεῖ μὲν, οὐ δύναται δέ· ὅρον γὰρ ἔχει τῆς φαντασίας ἃ μεμάθηκεν εἶναι. Τοῦτον ἔχων ἡγεμόνα, καὶ κυβερνήτην, καὶ ἡνίοχον, τῶν θείων δωρεῶν οὐκ αἰσθάνῃ· οὐ λογίζῃ τῶν εὐερ γεσιῶν τὸ πλῆθος, ἀλλ' ἐπιμένεις ἀχαριστῶν· καὶ τοσούτων σοι διδασκάλων προκειμένων, μαθεῖν οὐκ ἐθέλεις τὰ τῆς Προνοίας στοιχεῖα. Ὅρα μή σε παν τελῶς ἀτημέλητον καταλίπῃ, καὶ τῇ πείρᾳ μάθῃς προνοίας, καὶ κηδεμονίας, καὶ ἐρημίας διαφοράν. ∆εῦρο τοιγαροῦν, ὦ φιλότης, ἐφ' ἕτερόν σε μεταγά γωμεν τοῦ σώματος μέρος. Βλέπε δή μοι τὴν ῥάχιν, ἀπὸ μὲν τοῦ πλατέος ὀστοῦ τοῖς γλουτοῖς ἐπικειμένου τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔχουσαν, μέχρι δὲ τραχήλου διήκουσαν, καὶ κίονι παραπλησίως στεγανῷ, καὶ ἐκ σπονδύλων πολλῶν συγκειμένῳ, τήν τε κοιλίαν φέρουσαν, καὶ ὤμους, καὶ χεῖρας, καὶ αὐχένα, καὶ κεφαλήν. Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ οὐδὲν ἔξωθεν ὀστοῦν ὁ Ποιητὴς τῇ κοιλίᾳ περιτέθεικεν, ἵνα τὴν τροφὴν ὑποδεχομένη εὐρύνηται ῥᾳδίως, καὶ τὸν ἀρ κοῦντα τοῖς σιτίοις ὄγκον ἐργάζηται, ὄπισθεν αὐτὴν ἡ ῥάχις ὑπερείδει. Ἐκ πλειόνων δὲ αὐτὴν ὀστῶν ὁ Ποιητὴς συνέθηκεν, ὅπως καὶ κάμπτηται ῥᾳδίως, κύπτειν τοῦ ζώου βουλομένου, καὶ τῇ κάμψει μὴ θρύπτηται. Τρέφει δὲ ταύτην ὁ νωτιαῖος μυελὸς, πηγὴν τὸν ἐγκέφαλον ἔχων. Τί με δεῖ λέγειν περὶ χειρῶν, ὧν τὴν χρείαν αἱ παντοδαπαὶ κηρύττουσι τέχναι; Ἀλλ' ἐκείνων τὴν μνήμην ἐν τῷ μετὰ ταῦτα ποιησόμεθα λόγῳ· οὐκοῦν καὶ τῆς τῶν χειρῶν χρείας τὴν ἐξήγησιν ἐκείνῳ φυλάξωμεν. Ἀνάβηθι τοίνυν ἐπὶ τὸν τράχηλον, καὶ θεώρησον τὴν τούτου διάπλασιν· καὶ ἀναμνήσθητί μοι τῶν κιόνων, τῶν κά τωθεν ἄνω διατετρημένων, καὶ πολλὰς τοιαύτας δια τρήσεις ἐχόντων, καὶ μίαν μέσην μεγίστην, δι' ἧς οἱ τῶν ὑδάτων ὀχετοὶ πλεῖστον μὲν ἀνάγουσιν ὕδωρ, διανέμοντες δὲ τοῦτο, κατιέναι διὰ τῶν ἄλλων παρα κελεύονται, καὶ τὸ μὲν εἰς τὸ νότιον μέρος τῆς πό λεως παραπέμπουσι, τὸ δὲ εἰς τὸ ἑῷον, ἄλλο δὲ εἰς τὸ ἑσπέριον, ἕτερον δὲ εἰς τὸ βόρειον. Ταύτην ὁ τρά χηλος τὴν χρείαν παρέχει τῷ σώματι. Μιμεῖται γὰρ, ὡς ἔφην ἤδη, τὴν φύσιν ἡ τέχνη, καὶ ἐξομοιοῖ τὰ οἰκεῖα μηχανήματα τοῖς ἐκείνης ποιήμασιν. Ὁ τράχηλος τοιγαροῦν ἔχει μὲν τοῦ στομάχου τὸ στόμα, παραπέμπει δὲ τῇ γαστρὶ τὰ σιτία καὶ ποτά. Ἔχει δὲ τὴν τραχεῖαν ἀρτηρίαν ἀπὸ τοῦ πνεύμονος μέχρι τοῦ λάρυγγος ἀφικνουμένην· ἔχει δὲ καὶ τὰς φλέβας, καὶ τὰς λείας ἀρτηρίας, δι' ὧν ὁ ἐγκέφαλος δέχεται μὲν αἷμα καὶ πνεῦμα· τρεφόμενος δὲ καὶ αὐξόμενος, διὰ τῶν συμπεφυκότων ὀστῶν τὸν νωτιαῖον μυελὸν παραπέμπει τῇ ῥάχει· ἀφ' οὗ τρέφεται μὲν ἅπασα 83.601 τῶν ὀστῶν ἡ φύσις, ἀποφύεται δὲ νεῦρα τὰ ἰσχυρό τατα, τά τε παχέα καὶ τὰ λεπτὰ, τά τε πλατέα καὶ τὰ στρογγύλα, δι' ὧν τά τε ἄρθρα δεσμεῖται, καὶ οἱ μύες τὴν κινητικὴν ἐνέργειαν δέχονται. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ εἰς αὐτὴν ἥκομεν τὴν κεφαλὴν, βλέπε αὐτὴν ὥσπερ ἀκρόπολίν τινα τῆς τοῦ σώματος πόλεως ἐν ὕψει