Opening the library…
On the Workmanship of God, or the Formation of Man
Lactantius
A reflection on the human body and soul arguing that their design, function, and mutual relation reveal providence and distinguish purposeful creation from materialist explanation.
For our Creator and Parent, God,
But if any fall as a prey to the greater animals, that their race might not utterly perish, they have either been banished to that region where the greater ones cannot exist, or they have received a more abundant fruitfulness in production, that food might be supplied from them to the beasts which are nourished by blood, and yet their very multitude might survive the slaughter inflicted upon them, so as to preserve the race. But He made man—reason being granted to him, and the power of perceiving and speaking being given to him—destitute of those things which are given to the other animals, because wisdom was able to supply those things which the condition of nature had denied to him. He made him naked and defenceless, because he could be armed by his talent, and clothed by his reason. But it cannot be expressed how wonderfully the absence of those things which are given to the brutes contributes to the beauty of man. For if He had given to man the teeth of wild beasts, or horns, or claws, or hoofs, or a tail, or hairs of various colour, who cannot perceive how misshapen an animal he would be, as the dumb animals, if they were made naked and defenceless? For if you take from these the natural clothing of their body, or those things by which they are armed of themselves, they can be neither beautiful nor safe, so that they appear wonderfully furnished if you think of utility, and wonderfully adorned if you think of appearance: in such a wonderful manner is utility combined with beauty.
But with reference to man, whom He formed an eternal and immortal being, He did not arm him, as the others, without, but within; nor did He place his protection in the body, but in the soul: since it would have been superfluous, when He had given him that which was of the greatest value, to cover him with bodily defences, especially when they hindered the beauty of the human body. On which account I am accustomed to wonder at the senselessness of the philosophers who follow Epicurus, who blame the works of nature, that they may show that the world is prepared and governed by no providence; but they ascribe the origin of all things to indivisible and solid bodies, from the fortuitous meetings of which they say that all things are and were produced. I pass by the things relating to the work itself with which they find fault, in which matter they are ridiculously mad; I assume that which belongs to the subject of which we are now treating.
Omnes enim suis ex se pilis. Others read, “pellibus texit.”
[ποδωκίην λὰγωο̑ις —Anac., Ode i. 3.]
[Φύσις κέρατα ταύροις ὁπλὰς δ' έδωκεν ίπποις.—Anac., Ode i. 1, 2.]
[λέουσι χάσμ' οἠδόντων —Ib., 4.]
[“The survival of the fittest.” The cant of our day anticipated.]
[τοι̑ς ἀνδράσιν φρόνημα —Ib., 5. See p. 172, note 5, supra.]
[The admirable investigations of the modern atheists are so many testimonies against their own theories when they come to talk of force, etc., instead of God. P. 97, note 4, supra.]