Works (CSEL) 17 part 14/16

In short, wherever anyone thinks something is to be rubbed with garlic, the leopard leaps away from there and does not resist. The smell which that venomous beast cannot endure, you take in place of food and pour into your inward parts! But sometimes it is used as a medicine for pains: then let it be taken as a remedy, not as food; let it be taken by the sick, not by those who are feasting. You seek a remedy and flee from fasting, as though you could find some greater cure. If a serpent tastes the spittle of a fasting man, it dies. You see how great the power of fasting is, that by his spittle a man kills the earthly serpent—and rightly the spiritual one too. How great a prudence the Lord has instilled even into the smallest creatures! The turtledove casts over its nest leaves of the squill, lest the wolf attack its young.

For it knows that wolves are accustomed to flee leaves of this kind. The little fox knows how to cherish its posterity, and do you not know—do you neglect—how you may keep the posterity of this life more secure against the wolves of spiritual wickedness? But let us return to the surveyor of creation, and let us consider by what reason He has made the necks of some animals shorter and trimmer in form, as for lions and tigers and bears too, and longer for others, as for elephants and camels. Is not the cause evident, that for those wild beasts which feed on flesh there was no need of length of neck? For they do not cast down neck and mouth to the earth for the sake of feeding, but either fall upon a stag, or have caught an ox or a sheep.

But the camel, since it is taller, how could it feed on the tiniest herbs, unless it stretched out its longer neck all the way down to the earth for the purpose of grazing? And so the camel has been allotted, in proportion to its build, a longer neck; the horse in proportion to its own, the ox likewise in a similar way—for these feed on herbs. The elephant, however, has even a projecting proboscis, because, since it is taller than all, it cannot bend itself down to feed. And so it uses its service for gathering food. To that huge beast it pours in the moisture of abundant drink, and therefore it is hollow, so that for quenching the thirst of so great a beast it may draw up full lakes, that with the gathered stream it may flood the drinker.

The neck, indeed, is of a divine design, such as the mass of so great a body demands, lest it too should be more of a burden than of use. And therefore it does not bend its knees, because it had need of stiffer legs, by which, as by columns, so great a frame of limbs could be sustained. It curves its heel slightly, while the rest of its feet are rigid from top to bottom. Nor, as we often lower ourselves into a sitting posture, can so great a beast likewise bend itself; and deservedly it cannot have in common with the other animals the practice of turning or curving itself. It is propped up on this side and that by very large beams, so that in sleep it may rest a little while without danger, because its foot is not distinguished by any jointing of the limbs.

For the tame ones, then, such props as those which have need of this use are provided by human ingenuity; but for the wild and savage ones, since no one lays beneath them props of this kind by which they might be supported, hence comes the danger they incur. For, leaning on a tree, they either rub their ribs or relax themselves in sleep. And the tree sometimes, overcome and bent by so great a body, is broken, and he who had flung himself upon it falls down and cannot raise and lift himself up, and lying there perishes, or, betrayed by his own groaning, is laid low, while his belly and the other softer parts nearby lie open to a wound; for his back and other outer parts no weapons easily wont to penetrate.

There are, however, those who, for the sake of ivory, lay these snares for them: that the trees against which they are wont to lean, on the other side, where they make less frequent use of them, they so weaken the support, that, when the beast lets itself down, it cannot sustain the limbs of its body, and they bring about its fall. But if anyone finds fault with this, let him also find fault with the height of trees, because the higher ones threaten a heavier fall and, once fallen, are more difficult to restore. Yet if we frequently raise up those trees either for the sake of beauty or for a lookout, we ought to approve these qualities also in elephants, because they furnish great use in matters of war.

Hence the Persian battle-line, fierce in wars, is checked—mighty in arrows and in every casting of weapons—because the weapons are hurled from above with a stronger effort, bent down toward the lower parts. Their line advances fenced about as it were by moving towers. In the midst of the plains they fight as though from a wall, and, placed as in some citadel and watchtower, they look upon the battles more than they undergo them; and so, removed from danger, they seem safe upon the masses of the beasts. For who would dare to approach them, when from above he is easily transfixed by javelins, and below is crushed by the onset of the elephants? In short, battle-lines yield to them, and the wedges of armed men, and those squared encampments of the standards. For with an unbearable onrush they rush upon the enemy.

So that they are held back by no battle-line of warriors, by no dense crowd of soldiers, by no opposing wall of shields, but like certain moving mountains they turn about in the battles, and like hills they tower with lofty summit, and with the crash of their bellowing they throw into confusion the confidence of all. What can the foot-soldier do against them, however strong of arm and ready of hand, when a wall hemmed in by hosts of armed men runs against him with its advancing motion? What can the horseman do, when his horse, terrified out of its wits by the monstrousness of so great a beast, scatters in flight? What can the archer do, when from above the iron-clad bodies of the men cannot feel the blow of the javelin, and the beast too is not easily penetrable by iron even when bare, and, fortified with breastplates, cuts through the opposing battle-lines without danger to itself, and crushes the squadrons?

And so, like vast buildings, the elephants are sustained by stronger foundations; otherwise, supported on unequal feet, they would collapse within a short span of life. As it is, however, they prolong their life to three hundred years, and the beasts by their joining of limbs—because all their limbs are fitted to their great size. And therefore their limbs are not separated as ours are, but compacted, so that they may be the stronger. How quickly are men's knees and soles afflicted, if they have stood long, or run too swiftly, or walked continuously! For limbs that are joined and articulated more readily than those that are grown together and solidified admit either a feeling of pain or a cause of injury.

And why do you marvel if they are feared when clad in armor, since they are always armed with their own teeth as with natural darts? Whatever they wrap with their proboscis, they break; and whatever they crush with their foot, they make lifeless as by a kind of collapse of a huge ruin. They wrap groves with their proboscis for their own food, and like certain loftiest serpents they scourge with serpentine coils those they have seized. Often they gather them into a circle, especially when food is picked up from the ground or drink is drawn. They are therefore a proof to us that nothing has been created superfluous. And yet this beast of so great a bulk, made subject to us, serves human commands. For indeed, since we are about to speak of the creation of man, we ought to build up beforehand and foretaste his commendation.

It seemed that creation had nothing more robust than the elephants, nothing so terrible or so tall, nothing so fierce as lions and tigers are. And these serve man and lay aside their own nature under human instruction. They forget what they were born to be, and put on what they are commanded. Why say more? They are taught like little children, they serve like the weak, they are beaten like the timid, they are corrected like subjects, they pass into our ways, since they have lost their own movements. Wondrous, therefore, is nature in the greatest things—for wondrous is the Lord in the heights—wondrous also in the smallest.

For just as we marvel at the level plains no less than at the heights of mountains—we can be more astounded at the loftiness of the cedar than at the brief fruitfulness of the vine or the olive—so it will be possible to marvel no more because something is tall than at the mouse, because it is terrible to the elephant. This, then, is the power of nature: that things terrible to some are objects of dread to others. For a certain prerogative has been granted to individual creatures, that they may be supported by certain proper privileges. The elephant, formidable to bulls, fears the mouse. The lion indeed, the king of beasts, is agitated by the tiny sting of a scorpion and is killed by the venom of a serpent. Surpassing is the beauty of the lion: he shakes the muscles on his maned neck, or, with chest lifted high, raises his face.

But who would not marvel that out of so small a sting of a scorpion—so small that you would think it bodiless—there should come the death of huge bodies? Nor let anyone find fault with this, that the Creator of the serpent has mingled among His creatures other kinds also, whether of animals or of herbs, that are venomous. For these were created for our correction, not for our disfigurement. For the things which are most often an occasion of offence and terror to the slothful or the weak or the impious, are thus a use to others, like tutors to little children.

They seem bitter, harsh and troublesome, formidable with the lash; they deny the freedom of wantonness, they exact the necessity of discipline, they restrain childish spirits with terror, lest they melt away in luxury; and therefore by their severity these turn out frugal, sober, self-controlled, given more to praise than to play. Do you see what those terrible scourges accomplish? So too serpents are scourges for those whose age of mind is feeble and whose virtue is, as it were, of a childish mind; but they cannot harm the stronger. In short, to him who trusts in the Lord it is said: 'You shall walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and you shall trample the lion and the dragon.' A viper bit Paul, and they thought that he, like a sinner scarcely saved from shipwreck, would die of the venom:

but after he remained unharmed, the viper shaken off into the fire, he found greater veneration among those who beheld him. And the Lord Himself too says to all: 'He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe shall be condemned.' And He said that these would be the signs of those who believe: that they should handle serpents with the hand, and venoms and every deadly thing, even if they drink them, should not be able to harm them. Therefore your own unbelief, O man, is more to be feared by you than the venoms of serpents. Fear them, then, so that at least, while they are dreaded, they may be able to provoke you to faith. But if you do not fear God, then dread at least the avenging venoms of faithlessness.

Now, since you see that the elephants are subjected to you and the lions made subject, know yourself, O man—not, as they say, the saying of Pythian Apollo, but of holy Solomon, who says: 'Unless you know yourself, O fair one among women'—although long before Moses wrote in Deuteronomy: 'Take heed to yourself.' 'O man, take heed to yourself,' says the Law, and the prophet says: 'Unless you know yourself.' To whom does he say this? 'O fair one,' he says, 'among women.' What is fair among women but the soul, which in both sexes possesses an excellence of beauty? And deservedly it is comely, which desires not earthly but heavenly things, not corruptible but incorrupt, in which beauty is not wont to perish;

for all bodily things wither away with the advance of age or with the unevenness of sickness. 'Take heed to this,' says Moses, 'in which you wholly are, in which is the better portion of yourself.' In short, the Lord has interpreted who you are, saying: 'Take heed to yourselves of false prophets'; for these weaken the soul, undermine the mind. You are not, therefore, flesh. For what is flesh without the governance of the soul, the vigor of the mind? Flesh is taken up today, laid aside tomorrow. The flesh is temporal, the soul lasting. The flesh is the garment of the soul, which clothes itself in a certain vesture of the body. You are not, therefore, the garment, but he who uses the garment.

Therefore it is said of the gift, that putting off the old man with his deeds, you may put on the new, who is renewed not in the quality of the body, but in the spirit and the acknowledgment of the gift. You are not flesh, I say; for it is not to the flesh that it is said: 'For the temple of God is holy, which you are,' and elsewhere: 'You are the temple of God, and the holy Spirit of God dwells in you'; but it is said to the renewed and the faithful, in whom the Spirit of God remains. In the carnal, however, it does not remain, because it is written: 'My Spirit shall not remain in these men, since they are flesh.' But let us consider the surveyor of our very creation. 'Let us make,' He says, 'man after the gift and likeness of Ourselves.' Who says this? Is it not God, who made you? What is God?

Flesh or spirit? Not flesh, surely, but spirit, whose likeness flesh cannot be, because He Himself is incorporeal and invisible, but flesh is both grasped and seen. To whom does He speak? Not to Himself, surely, because He does not say 'I make,' but 'Let us make'; not to the angels, because they are ministers, and servants together with the Lord, and works together with the Author cannot have a partnership in the work; but He speaks to the Son, even though the Jews are unwilling, even though the Arians resist. But let both the Jews be silent and the Arians together with their forefathers, who, while they exclude One from the partnership of the divine work, insert many, and the prerogative which they deny to the Son they bestow on petty slaves. But grant that God seemed to you to have needed the aid of servants in order to work:

if the work is common to God with the angels, is the image then common to God and the angels? Would He say to angels: 'Let us make man after the image and likeness of Ourselves'? But hear who the image of God is, from Him who says: 'He who rescued us,' he says, 'from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His glory, in whom we have redemption and the remission of sins, who is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of all creation.' He Himself is the image of the Father, who always is and was in the beginning. In short, He is the image who says: 'Philip, he who sees Me sees the Father also.' And how is it that you, when you see the living image of the living Father, say: 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?

The image of God is power, not weakness; the image of God is wisdom; the image of God is justice. But wisdom is divine, and justice everlasting. The image of God is He alone who said: 'I and the Father are one,' having so the likeness of the Father that He has the unity of divinity and of fullness. Where He says 'Let us make,' how is there inequality? When again He says 'after Our likeness,' where is there unlikeness? So too in the Gospel, where He says 'I and the Father,' surely it is not one Person; but where He says 'are one,' there is no discrepancy of divinity or of work. Not, therefore, in both is there one Person, but one substance. And He well added 'we are,' because to be always is divine, so that you may believe Him coeternal whom you cannot believe to be unlike.

For He is eternal of whom Moses says: 'He who is has sent me.' Beautifully too did He set first the 'I am.' For if He had set the Father first, you would judge the Son to be lesser; but He set the Son first, who is not fittingly to be believed superior to the Father, and joined the Father, that you may perceive that God the Father and His Son are not held by any prejudgment of rank. 'Take heed,' He says, 'to yourself alone.' For one thing are we ourselves, another thing are the things that are ours, others the things that are about us. We ourselves are, that is, soul and mind; ours are the members of the body and its senses; about us, however, are money, slaves, and the equipment of this life.

Take heed, therefore, to yourself; know yourself—that is, not what kind of arms you have, not how great a bodily strength, not how great possessions, how great power, but what kind of soul and mind, from which all counsels proceed, to which the fruit of your works is referred. For it is the soul that is full of wisdom, full of devotion and justice, since all virtue is from God. To it God says: 'Behold, O Jerusalem, I have painted your walls.' That soul is painted by God which has in itself the gleaming grace of the virtues and the splendor of devotion. That soul is well painted in which the likeness of the divine working shines forth; that soul is well painted in which is the splendor of glory and the image of the paternal substance.

According to this image, which shines back, the painting is precious. According to this image was Adam before sin; but when he fell, he laid aside the image of the heavenly and took on the likeness of the earthly. But let us flee this image, which cannot enter the city of God, because it is written: 'Lord, in Your city You shall bring their image to nothing.' And an unworthy image does not enter, and what has entered is shut out, because, it says, 'there shall not enter into it anything common, and he who does abomination and a lie, but he shall enter into it whose name is in his forehead'—namely, the Lamb's name. Our soul, therefore, is after the image of God. In this you are wholly, O man, because without this you are nothing, but you are earth, and into earth you shall be dissolved.

In short, that you may know that without the soul the flesh is nothing, 'Do not,' He says, 'fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.' Why, then, do you presume upon the flesh, you who lose nothing if you lose the flesh? But fear this, lest you be defrauded of the help of your soul. For what exchange shall a man give for his soul, in which there is no small portion of himself, but the substance of the whole human totality? This is that by which, ruling over the rest, you rule over the animals of beasts and birds; this is that which is after the image of God, but the body is after the likeness of the beasts. In the one is the holy mark of divine imitation; in the other, a base fellowship with wild beasts and monsters. But let us treat more finely what it is to be after the image of God. Is the flesh, then, after the image of God?

Then earth is in God, because flesh is earth; then God is corporeal; then He is weak as flesh, and subject to passions? And perhaps the head seems to you to be after the likeness of God, because it is prominent, or the eyes, because they behold, or the ears, because they hear. If you consider height, do we seem tall in comparison with buildings, because we project a little above the earth with our crown? But is it for this reason not shameful that we are called like to God—because we are taller than serpents and other creeping things, or than little does and sheep, or wolves? And how much, in that respect, are the camel and the elephant taller than we! The gaze, indeed, is excellent for beholding the elements of the world, for knowing things that no one announces, but which your sight detects:

yet how great a thing is this very thing which we see, that on account of it we should say we are after the likeness of God, who sees all things, beholds all things, detects hidden affections, searches out the secrets of the heart? Am I not ashamed to say this, when I cannot see my whole self? What is before my feet I see; what is behind my back I cannot see. I do not know my own neck, I am not acquainted with the back of my head, I cannot see my own loins. Likewise, how great a thing is it that we hear, when I can neither see nor hear what is even a little way off? If creatures—if walls—be in the way, sight is hindered, hearing is hindered. Then, our body sticks fast in one place, is shut up in a narrow space; all wild beasts are broader than man, all also swifter.

It is not, then, the flesh that can be after the image of God, but our soul, which is free and roams hither and thither with its far-ranging thoughts and counsels, which by reflection beholds all things. Behold, we are now in Italy, yet we ponder things that seem to belong to the eastern or the western regions; we seem to converse with those who are stationed in Persia, and we see those who dwell in Africa. If that land has received any whom we know, we follow them as they journey, we cling to its allurements, we are joined to the absent, we address the parted; and the dead too we rouse up to converse with us, and we embrace them as though living, and hold them fast, and render to them the offices and use of life.

That, therefore, is after the image of God which is reckoned not by bodily measure but by the vigour of the mind: which beholds the absent, traverses lands beyond the sea by its gaze, runs across them with a look, searches out hidden things, and in a single moment carries its perceptions hither and thither through the bounds of the whole world and the secret places of the universe; which is joined to God, cleaves to Christ, descends into the lower regions and ascends, and dwells freely in heaven. Hear, then, the apostle who says: 'But our citizenship is in heaven.' Is it not, then, after the image of God, the soul in which God ever abides? But hear that it is after the image of God; for the apostle says: 'We all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of God, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.'

Since, therefore, we have learned that the soul is after the image of God, let us now consider whether the privilege was spoken of the soul: 'Let us make man.' But hear this also, that the soul is called by the name of 'man.' For it is written in Genesis: 'And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were nine souls. All the souls, therefore, that entered with Jacob into Egypt were seventy-five.' And far more fittingly is it called the soul, whether in Latin 'unitus' or in Greek 'anthropos': the one term taken from humanity, the other from the keenness of beholding — which without doubt suits the soul rather than the body. To this same matter that saying in the Lamentations of Jeremiah also rightly accords: 'The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.'

He spoke of men, yet thought it right to add 'the soul'; for the soul seeks better when it is alone, withdrawing itself from the mire of the body and from carnal desire. It is itself after the image of God, conformed to the Lord Jesus; and they who are conformed to the Son of God are holy. For thus we read, Paul saying: 'And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, to them who, according to his purpose, are called holy; whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And whom he predestinated, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.'

Whether, then, justification seems to you to be conferred according to the body or according to the soul, I pray you answer. But you cannot doubt, since righteousness, from which justification comes, belongs surely to the mind and not to the body. You are painted, therefore, O man, painted by the Lord your God. You have a good citadel and a good painter. Do not blot out the good painting, which shines not by a false dye but by truth, not pressed out in wax but in grace. You blot out the painting, O woman, if you smear your face with material pigments, if you overspread it with an acquired blush.

That painting belongs to vice, not to beauty; that painting belongs to deceit, not to simplicity; that painting is temporary — it is wiped away either by rain or by sweat —; that painting beguiles and deceives, so that you neither please him whom you desire to please (for he perceives that what pleases is not yours but another's), and you displease your own Maker, who sees that his work has been blotted out. Tell me: if upon some craftsman's work you were to bring in another, who should overlay the work of that former artist with new works, would not he who recognizes that his own work has been adulterated grieve? Do not take away the painting of God and assume the painting of a harlot, since it is written: 'Shall I take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid!'

But if anyone adulterates the work of God, he commits a graver offense than the former. For it is a grave crime that you should think a man can paint you better than God. It is grave that God should say of you: 'I do not recognize my own colours, I do not recognize my own image, I do not recognize the countenance which I myself formed. I reject what is not mine. Seek the one who painted you; with him keep fellowship; from him receive the grace to whom you have paid the wage.' What will you answer? And if it is grave to adulterate the work of God, what shall we say of those who do away with the work of God, who shed human blood, who wrest away the life that God has given, who say: 'Let us take away the just man, for he is unprofitable to us'? Whence it was well read today:

'The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests where they may rest; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.' The fox, then, hides itself in a hole, the birds protect themselves in a nest; but man is not hidden in a hole, but is ensnared. For the hole is the mouth of man, the deep hole is the breast of man, where are harmful and fraudulent designs and evil thoughts. You walk along, and another prepares a snare for you. You walk in the midst of nooses, which your enemies have hidden for you in the way. Look about you, therefore, on every side, that you may escape like a roe from the nets and like a bird from the snare. The roe by the keenness of its sight avoids the nets, the bird shuns the snares if it betakes itself to the heights and flies above earthly things;

for in the heights no one stretches nets, no one hides a snare. Therefore he whose citizenship is in the things above is not wont to fall as prey into the trap. But why do you marvel if man is deceived by man, when the Son of man had not where to rest? And he indeed made such a man as one in whom he might lay his head; but after there began to be in our breast not a resting place for our neighbour but a pit, after one began to weave snares for another whom he ought to help, Christ turned his head away from us; yet afterward he chose rather to offer that very head to death for us. Be not, therefore, fraudulent, cruel, harsh, that Christ may rest his head in you.

And likewise, when he had made the monsters of the sea, when he had made the kinds of wild beasts and of cattle, he did not rest; but he rested after he had made man after his own image. In whom he might rest, hear him saying: 'Or upon whom shall I rest, save upon the humble and the quiet and him that trembleth at my words?' Be, then, humble and quiet, that God may rest in your affection. He who did not rest in the beasts, much more does he not rest in a bestial breast. For there are bestial spirits, there are wild beasts clothed in the form of men, of whom the Lord says: 'Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly are ravening wolves.'

In these, however, God does not rest, but he rests in human characters, which God made after his own image and likeness, when he made the man, who ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God. To the soul of this man he says: 'Behold, O Jerusalem, I have painted thy walls.' He did not say, 'I have painted thy belly,' he did not say, 'I have painted thy lower parts,' but he says, 'I have painted thy walls' — declaring himself to have given to man the strong defenses of walls, so that, if there be a watchful sentinel upon the walls, he may be able to repel the danger of a siege. And so he says: