I have read in the records
of the Arabians, reverend Fathers, that Abdala the Saracen,(1)
when questioned as to what on this stage of the world, as it were, could be
seen most worthy of wonder, replied: "There is nothing to be seen more wonderful
than man." In agreement with this opinion is the saying of Hermes Trismegistus:
"A great miracle, Asclepius, is man."(2) But
when I weighed the reason for these maxims, the many grounds for the excellence
of human nature reported by many men failed to satisfy me--that man is the intermediary
between creatures, the intimate of the gods, the king of the lower beings, by
the acuteness of his senses, by the discernment of his reason, and by the light
of his intelligence the interpreter of nature, the interval between fixed eternity
and fleeting time, and (as the Persians say) the bond, nay rather, the marriage
song of the world, on David's testimony but little lower than the angels.(3)
Admittedly great though these reasons be, they are not the principal grounds,
that is, those which may rightfully claim for themselves the privilege of the
highest admiration. For why should we not admire more the angels themselves
and the blessed choirs of heaven? At last it seems to me I have come to understand
why man is the most fortunate of creatures and consequently worthy of all admiration
and what precisely is that rank which is his lot in the universal chain of Being--a
rank to be envied not only by brutes but even by the stars and by minds beyond
this world. It is a matter past faith and a wondrous one. Why should it not
be? For it is on this very account that man is rightly called and judged a great
miracle and a wonderful creature indeed.
2. But hear, Fathers, exactly
what this rank is and, as friendly auditors, conformably to your kindness, do
me this favor. God the Father, the supreme Architect, had already built this
cosmic home we behold, the most sacred temple of His godhead, by the laws of
His mysterious wisdom. The region above the heavens He had adorned with Intelligences,
the heavenly spheres He had quickened with eternal souls, and the excrementary
and filthy parts of the lower world He had filled with a multitude of animals
of every kind. But, when the work was finished, the Craftsman kept wishing that
there were someone to ponder the plan of so great a work, to love its beauty,
and to wonder at its vastness. Therefore, when everything was done (as Moses
and Timaeus bear witness), He finally took thought concerning the creation of
man. But there was not among His archetypes that from which He could fashion
a new offspring, nor was there in His treasure-houses anything which He might
bestow on His new son as an inheritance, nor was there in the seats of all the
world a place where the latter might sit to contemplate the universe. All was
now complete; all things had been assigned to the highest, the middle and the
lowest orders.(4) But in its final creation it
was not the part of the Father's power to fail as though exhausted. It was not
the part of His wisdom to waver in a needful matter through poverty of counsel.
It was not the part of His kindly love that he who was to praise God's divine
generosity in regard to others should be compelled to condemn it in regard to
himself.
3. At last the best of artisans
ordained that that creature to whom He had been able to give nothing proper
to himself should have joint possession of whatever had been peculiar to each
of the different kinds of being. He therefore took man as a creature of indeterminate
nature and, assigning him a place in the middle of the world, addressed him
thus: "Neither a fixed abode nor a form that is thine alone nor any function
peculiar to thyself have we given thee, Adam, to the end that according to thy
longing and according to thy judgment thou mayest have and possess what abode,
what form, and what functions thou thyself shalt desire. The nature of all other
beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of laws prescribed by Us.
Thou, constrained by no limits, in accordance with thine own free will, in whose
hand We have placed thee, shalt ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature.
We have set thee at the world's center that thou mayest from thence more easily
observe whatever is in the world. We have made thee neither of heaven nor of
earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with
honor, as though the maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself
in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate
into the lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power,
out of thy soul's judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine."
4. O supreme generosity
of God the Father, O highest and most marvelous felicity of man! To him it is
granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills. Beasts as soon
as they are born (so says Lucilius)(5) bring
with them from their mother's womb all they will ever possess. Spiritual beings,
either from the beginning or soon thereafter, become what they are to be for
ever and ever. On man when he came into life the Father conferred the seeds
of all kinds and the germs of every way of life. Whatever seeds each man cultivates
will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative,
he will be like a plant. If sensitive, he will become brutish. If rational,
he will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual, he will be an angel and
the son of God.(6) And if, happy in the lot of
no created thing, he withdraws into the center of his own unity, his spirit,
made one with God, in the solitary darkness of God, who is set above all things,
shall surpass them all. Who would not admire this our chameleon? Or who could
more greatly admire aught else whatever? It is man who Asclepius of Athens,
arguing from his mutability of character and from his self-transforming nature,
on just grounds says was symbolized by Proteus in the mysteries. Hence those
metamorphoses renowned among the Hebrews and the Pythagoreans.
5. For the occult theology
of the Hebrews sometimes transforms the holy Enoch into an angel of divinity
whom they call "Mal'akh Adonay Shebaoth," and sometimes transforms others into
other divinities.(7) The Pythagoreans degrade
impious men into brutes and, if one is to believe Empedocles, even into plants.
Mohammed, in imitation, often had this saying on his tongue: "They who have
deviated from divine law become beats," and surely he spoke justly. For it is
not the bark that makes the plant but its senseless and insentient nature; neither
is it the hide that makes the beast of burden but its irrational, sensitive
soul; neither is it the orbed form that makes the heavens but their undeviating
order; nor is it the sundering from body but his spiritual intelligence that
makes the angel. For if you see one abandoned to his appetites crawling on the
ground, it is a plant and not a man you see; if you see one blinded by the vain
illusions of imagery, as it were Calypso, and, softened by their gnawing allurement,
delivered over to his senses, it is a beast and not a man you see. If you see
a philosopher determining all things by means of right reason, him you shall
reverence: he is a heavenly being and not of this earth. If you see a pure contemplator,
one unaware of the body and confined to the inner reaches of the mind, he is
neither an earthly nor a heavenly being; he is a more reverend divinity vested
with human flesh.
6. Are there any who would not admire man, who is, in the sacred writings of Moses and the Christian's not without reason described sometimes by the name of "all flesh," sometimes by that of "every creature," inasmuch as he himself molds, fashions, and changes himself into the form of all flesh and into the character of every creature? For this reason the Persian Euanthes, in describing the Chaldaean theology, writes that man has no semblance that is inborn and his very own but many that are external and foreign to him; whence this saying of the Chaldaeans: "Hanorish tharah sharinas," that is, "Man is a being of varied, manifold, and inconstant nature."(8) But why do we emphasize this? To the end that after we have been born to this condition--that we can become what we will--we should understand that we ought to have especial care to this, that it should never be said against us that, although born to a privileged position, we failed to recognize it and became like unto wild animals and senseless beasts of burden, but that rather the saying of Asaph the prophet should apply: "Ye are all angels and sons of the Most High,"(9) and that we may not, by abusing the most indulgent generosity of the Father, make for ourselves that freedom of choice He has given into something harmful instead of salutary. Let a certain holy ambition invade our souls, so that, not content with the mediocre, we shall pant after the highest and (since we may if we wish) toil with all our strength to obtain it.
Translated by Elizabeth Livermore Forbes
1Abdala,
that is, Abd Allah, probably the cousin of Mohammed.
2Asclepius i.6 (Hermetica, ed. W. Scott, I, 294).
3Ps. 8:5.
4Cf. Plato Protagoras 321cff.
5Frag. 623 (Marx).
6Cf. Ficino Theologia Platonica xiv.3.
7Book of Enoch 40:8.
8The source of this quotation could not be discovered.
9Cf. Ps. 82:6.