Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

NOTE 1. Man may be considered in a threefold state, of Nature, of Grace, and of Glory; that is, either inasmuch as he is a rational man, or as he is a Christian, or inasmuch as he is to be beatified. And according to this threefold order he likewise possesses excellencies of a threefold kind: for, as a rational creature, he contains in epitome all the perfections of the whole Universe, and is as it were a world abridged, embracing and shadowing forth in himself the excellencies of every being, corporeal, spiritual, and divine. In the order of grace, he is the sanctuary and the goal of all divine charisms: For all things are for the Elect. But in the order of glory, he is an inhabitant of the Heavens, a fellow-citizen of the Angels, a familiar of God, His heir and possessor. Of the former only is there question here; the perfections of the latter kind we shall discuss in what follows.

NOTE 2. There is a threefold way of detecting the perfection of man: namely, first, by negation, removing from him, to be sure, whatever defects are found in the other creatures; second, by affirmation, attributing to him all the excellencies which we see shining in the other creatures; third, by eminence, attributing that all those perfections are found in him in a nobler degree and in a more excellent manner than in the other created beings. For just as by the negative definition we remove from God the defects of all created being; by the affirmative we attribute to Him whatever perfection shines forth in created being; and by the way of eminence we think and predicate of Him above all being and every conceivable perfection: so in this threefold way the various excellencies of man, above the other created beings, can be detected and affirmed.

NOTE 3. And since man, according to the judgment of the Philosophers and of the holy Fathers, is a Microcosm, or a little world, or a world abridged, his native excellence must be measured and delineated from that intimate commerce which he has with the threefold order of the world. For Platonic philosophy of old distinguished three worlds, namely, the Archetypal, the Intellectual, and the Corporeal world, which man most happily gathers together in himself. The Archetypal world is God, bearing the world in His mind and forming it after His own like image: for He is the first principle, exemplar, and end of all creatures; for in Him exists the fullness of all being, infinite wisdom, and supreme goodness. By reason of the first, He is the supreme cause of existences and essences; by reason of the second, He possesses in Himself the unique ideas, and vindicates to Himself the name of prototype and exemplar; by reason of the third, He discharges the office of the last end. The celestial Intelligences themselves, separated from all matter, are called the intellectual world: spiritual substances, incorruptible in state, everlasting in duration, most wise in the power of understanding, ardent in love, etc. The corporeal world is completed and formed by all creatures devoid of reason and endowed with sense, distinguished in a threefold grade: for some of them have life, existence, and nature, as any inanimate thing whatsoever; some have life; others sense. But in what manner man embraces in a more eminent degree the excellencies of this threefold world must be determined in the present place: wherefore let there be

One single Conclusion. — MAN BY HIS NATIVE AND INBORN ENDOWMENTS EXCELS THE OTHER CORPOREAL CREATURES. The truth of this conclusion is evident above all from the various prerogatives with which the primal formation of man was illustrated.

For first of all he was created last of all, as the supreme Prince and Monarch of the other corporeal things, for whose sake all things were created. Which prerogative Philo thus weighs in the book De mundi Opificio: Therefore, he says, just as those who give concerts do not come upon the stage before the things necessary for the stage have been made ready, and those who exhibit gymnastic games and theatrical shows, before the spectators gather in the theaters or stadia, make ready an abundance of the contestants and of those things which pertain to the delight of the eyes or of the ears: so the Prince of the whole world, as the giver of a contest or of an assembly, about to call man to the banquet and to the spectacles, prepared whatever pertained to both: lest, on his entrance into the world, both the banquet and the most sacred theater should begin at once. To him agrees St. Gregory of Nyssa in the book De hominis Opificio: For it was not, he says, consonant that the Prince should delight himself before those things existed over which he was to rule: but that the empire being already constituted, the king should at length be proclaimed. St. Gregory Nazianzen also agrees, Orat. 13: It was fitting, he says, that the palace be built first as for a King, and so the king be introduced with all ⟦greek: …⟧ Philo himself adduces other causes of this last formation, namely, that from so great and so abundant an apparatus of goods man might learn that he was thereafter to live amid the greatest affluence of things if he should render obedience to his Creator, and should emulate the holiness of Him whose dominion he bore. He adds also that man was created last for this reason, that, coming upon the scene after all things had been brought forth, he might strike terror into the other living beings: for so it was to come about that, at his first sight of him, they, stupefied, would adore him, as an arbiter given by nature, and as Lord. Other reasons also can be brought forward why man was created in the last place, namely, 1. that, since he was to be a rational and contemplative animal, it was fitting that all those things be prepared beforehand which were to be the worthy and just object of his contemplation and meditation. 2. That what preceded in the intention of God it was fitting should follow in His operation, according to the common rule: what is first in intention is later in execution, and vice versa. Now the end, among sublunary creatures, was intended first and principally by God, was man; therefore he had to be last in creation. 3. That a dwelling had first to be provided for man, furnished and adorned with all furniture, namely, this world, complete in all the genera of things, of which man was to be formed the inhabitant. 4. That man has need of all corporeal things, either for conducting and defending his life, or for apprehending and cultivating all doctrines and arts. Finally, that man, since he is a certain nature placed between corporeal and incorporeal things, and a partaker of the nature and properties of both kinds, had to be formed after the extremes, by whose participation he was to consist.

The second prerogative is that man was constituted otherwise, and with a more noble apparatus, than the other corporeal beings; for in the formation of the others God, by the absolute command of His divine will put in use, spoke, and they were made: but when it came to the creation of man, as in an exquisite work, the product of greater industry and wisdom, He first employs consultation and counsel, saying: Let us make man to our image and likeness. Which St. Gregory of Nyssa weighs in a wonderful manner in lib. De hominis Opificio, cap. 3. The rest of creation, he says, is after a certain hasty manner brought forth by the divine power, subsisting by the sole command: but the structure of man is preceded by counsel, and is sketched by the Artificer Himself with a certain summity of painting, what he was to be. To him concurs St. Basil, homil. 20. in Hexaemeron. To know himself? or from this does he take his beginning For upon none of the works which God had theretofore created was that word Faciamus passed into letters; but all things were created by the simple word and command of God. Learn therefore from this, O man, and mark how great goods thou alone art esteemed: for He judged that thy generation was not to be handed over by the common command of creatures, as of a common price: in God the consultation goes before, how great this animal ought to proceed unto life. Let us make, He says, is a wise consultation, and He sets forth for decision what the Artificer was determining with Himself. Before these Tertullian had gone, lib. 2. Contra Marcionem, cap. 4. Who, in fine, he says, is worthy to be cut into the work of God, than His own image and likeness? That also the goodness, and indeed the more operative, wrought it, not with an imperial word, but with a familiar hand, even with a blandishing word set before it: Let us make man to our image and likeness: Goodness framed man of the slime of the earth, etc.

The third prerogative is, that of the other creatures it is said not merely that they were made, but that He created them. But of man it is said that He Formed him, Therefore the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: which Severianus thus weighs, homil. 5: He did not say simply He made, but He framed, or formed: for formation indicates elegance, the grace of art. For the dignity and excellence of that work is commended above all by the divine Artificer Himself, who deigned with His own hands, as it were, to fashion from the very mire that vile and most abject particle of that condition, namely, the body. Which Tertullian commends and weighs thus, lib. De Resurrectione carnis, cap. 5. And God framed man. Great without doubt was the reason of the difference, on account of the condition, namely, of the things. For the lesser things, which were being made, were made for the sake of him for whom they were being made — they were being made for man himself, upon whom the delays of God were bestowed. Therefore deservedly, at the formula of command and of empire, and by the sole vocal power, had all things proceeded forth. On the contrary, man, as the Lord of them, was in this built up by God Himself, that he might be able to be lord, while he is made by the Lord. Moreover, to the commendation of the same excellence of the work pertains this besides, which Prosper sang thus in the poem on Providence.

…And when all things by the word He created: this one with His hands, that he might have more of the Father, He deigns to form.

The fourth prerogative is, that man alone, beyond the other corporeal creatures, bears the likeness and image of God, is alone the contemplator of the divine works and of the Deity, and has the highest commerce with the Divinity. Whence Gregory of Nyssa in the Catechetical book, cap. 5, says that the cause of procreating was man: That God might have one who should behold His light, and be a witness of His glory, and enjoy His goodness. Wherefore, he says, it was necessary that Man, who was created for the enjoyment of divine goods, should have in his nature something cognate to Him of whose participation he was to be. Therefore he cites that he was adorned with reason, and wisdom, and all divine goods. Whence also the Pythagorean Gryphanus speaks elegantly: God, he says, placed man, the most precious animal in the world, answering to his own nature, and a certain eye of the whole Universe: who in the manner of God should range through and behold all things, but above all should delight himself and be occupied in the contemplation and love of the Divinity. Wherefore Lactantius, lib. 7, says that the world was made for this reason, and man constituted in it. Namely, that there might be one who should understand His works: who could admire the providence of disposing, the reason of making, the virtue of consummating, and the senses, and could utter them with his voice: whence he concludes: A plainer argument can be brought forward that God made the world for man's sake, and man for His own, than that of all living beings he alone was so formed, and his eyes directed to Heaven, his face looking toward God, his countenance common with his parent, and it seems that God raised man, as it were lifted up with an outstretched hand from the earth, to the contemplation of Himself. Which also Ovid presaged, lib. 1. Metamorphoseon:

An animal more sacred than these, and more capable of high mind, Was still wanting, and one that could rule over the rest: Man was born: whether He made him of divine gift, That Artificer of things; the beginning of a better world….. He framed him in the likeness of the Gods who rule over all.

Finally, the fifth dignity and prerogative of man beyond the other corporeal things is, that he embraces the excellencies of all beings whatsoever, as well corporeal as spiritual: wherefore St. Gregory, homil. 29. in Evangelia, calls him every creature; and testifies that this was the sentiment of Christ the Lord, when He sent forth the Apostles into the whole world that they might preach the Gospel to every creature: For by the name of every creature, he says, man is signified, because man has something of every creature: for he has being in common with the stones, life with the trees, sense with the animals, understanding with the Angels: whence he concludes: if therefore man has something in common with every creature, in accordance with something every creature is man. Therefore to every creature the Gospel is preached, when it is preached to man alone. — Hence it is that man has been called by the ancients μικρὸς κόσμος or a little world, and the most artful, as it were, abridgment of the whole universe, in which the Creator willed all things both celestial and terrestrial, summarily, as it were depicted in a little map. Thus they named him Clement of Alexandria in the Protrepticus, and Chalcidius in Plato's Timaeus: There is, he says, in our bodies that part which is likewise of the aether, and also of fire and of earth, whence man the more is called by the rest a brief world. The same is the opinion of Philo Judaeus in the book above cited, where he says that man was for this reason created last, that he might correspond as the last to the first divine work. For as at the beginning God had created Heaven, the most perfect of all sensible and incorruptible things; so at the last He made man, born of the earth, and far the most excellent of corruptible things, and abridged as it were Heaven, in which assuredly the endowments and excellencies of the others shine as the stars in Heaven: whence St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 38. affirms that man was created by God as it were a certain other world, great in the little, placed above the earth, an honorary Angel, a mixed adorer, a spectator of visible creature: a mystery intelligible: of those things indeed which are on earth the king, but subject to the heavenly King, earthly alike and celestial. The other natural and inborn excellencies of man we shall open more clearly in the following Articles.

You will say: There are more corporeal creatures which by their native endowments and excellencies excel man: therefore it is false that man holds the first place over the rest. The antecedent is evident: for first, in the perfection of the exterior senses, the sight of the Eagle is keener, that of the fox and the mole more acute, the scent of the dog more sagacious, the touch of the oyster more vigorous, and that of the Spiders more subtle: therefore, etc. Next, in strength of body man yields to the bulls, in stature to the elephants, in longevity to the crows, in swiftness to the tigers. Add that the bodies of the other animals are covered with natural coverings, either hairs, or skins, or hides, or shells, or scales: they are likewise instructed and fortified with natural arms and defenses: some are armed with horns, others either with claws, or teeth, or spines, or stings, whereby they can both defend themselves and terrify and overthrow their enemies: to man alone is given a body naked and unarmed, weak and invalid for attacking and defending. Hence certain persons complain, as in Seneca lib. 2. De Beneficiis, cap. 29. That they are not conquered by the elephants in magnitude of body, by the stag in swiftness, by the lions in ferocity, by the bulls in onset: That the hide is more solid in beasts, more comely in stags, denser in bears, softer in fibres: That dogs conquer us in the sagacity of their nostrils: That many animals surpass us in swimming, the eagle in keenness of eyes, the crow in length of age. — Lactantius answers, lib. De Opificio Dei, cap. 2, that God supplied all these things in man most abundantly with the gift of natural reason and innate sagacity: He gave, he says, to men sense and reason, that Artificer and parent of ours, God, that it might appear that we were generated by Him, because He Himself is intelligence, Himself sense and reason: to the other animals, since He did not attribute that rational life, He provided beforehand how their protection should rather be. For He clothed them all with their own skins, that they might the more easily sustain the force of rain and the colds. But to each genus He constituted its own proper defenses for repelling external onsets: so that either those which are stronger resist by their whole natural powers: or those which are less warlike withdraw themselves from dangers by the swiftness of flight: or those which need both strength and celerity protect themselves by cunning or know hiding places, as.

But man, reason being conceded, and the power of sensing and of speaking being given, made destitute of those things which are attributed to the other living beings: and because wisdom could render what nature had denied to them when created, He determined him naked and unarmed, because he could be armed by genius and resist by reason. But how wonderfully those very things which were given to the mute animals and denied to man make for the beauty of man cannot be expressed. For if He had added to man the teeth of beasts, or a horn, or claws, or a tail, or hairs of various color, who does not perceive how foul a deformity it would have produced in the living being, just as if the mute animals were fashioned naked and unarmed? If you take from them the natural clothing of their body, or those things wherewith they arm themselves of themselves, they can be neither beautiful nor safe: so that, wonderfully, if you regard utility, they will seem equipped; if beauty, adorned: so wonderfully does utility consent with comeliness. But man, whom He was fashioning an eternal animal, and immortal, He armed not outwardly, as the others, but inwardly; nor did He place his defense in the body, but in the mind, since it was superfluous, when He had bestowed on him that which was greatest, that corporeal coverings should both be defenses and especially impede the beauty of the human body.

Seneca adds in the place cited: Therefore whosoever thou art, an unjust estimator of the lot of man, ask how great things our Parent bestowed on us. How much stronger animals do we send under the yoke: how much happier ones do we acquire: since there is nothing mortal not placed by our nod. So many virtues have we received, so many arts, in fine the mind, to which nothing is not perceived at the same moment at which it directs itself, swifter than the stars, whose courses to come after many ages it anticipates: Finally so great a store of fruits, so great a store of riches, of other things heaped one upon another. Though thou look about upon all things, and since thou shalt find nothing whole which thou wouldst rather be, from all thou mayest select single things which thou wouldst wish to be given thee. Thus, the indulgence of nature having been well estimated, thou must needs confess that thou hast been in her delights. These things Seneca spoke assuredly not less truly and wisely, than elegantly and eloquently.