For when the inner organs were emptied and exhausted, being voided by a momentary discharge, an insatiable and unappeasable craving for food and drink would necessarily be engendered, which without doubt an untimely death would follow. And therefore the food is providently prepared first in the upper stomach, then cooked in the liver, and its juice, digested by the heat of the liver, is transfused into the remaining parts of the body; and by that substance the human limbs are nourished — which the vigorous receive for growth, the old for endurance — while the remainder, as something superfluous, is led down through the intestines and channeled off through that crosswise doorway. Indeed even in Genesis the ark of Noah is arranged after the structure of the human body, concerning which God said: Make for yourself an ark of squared timbers.
And you shall make nests in it, and you shall pitch it within and without with pitch. And thus you shall make the ark; and: You shall make the door on the side, and the lower parts of the ark you shall make with second and third stories. This therefore the Lord signifies, that the door is on the hinder part, through which the superfluities of food are expelled. For our Creator, led by seemliness, turned away the channel of the remnants from the face of man, lest, while we stoop, we should defile our sight. Consider this also: that those things which are full of shame have been set in that place where, being covered by garments, they cannot disgrace us. The beating of the veins is a messenger either of infirmity or of health.
Yet these same veins, though they are diffused through the whole body, are neither bare nor uncovered, and are covered by light tissues in such a way that there is opportunity for examination and swiftness of sensing, since there is no thickness of flesh that could muffle the pulse. The bones too are all covered with thin tissue and bound up with sinews, but especially those of the head are covered with a light hide and, that they may have some defense against rains and cold, are clothed with thicker hair. What shall I say of the genitals, which, by veins led down from the region of the neck through the kidneys and loins, receive the generative seed for the office and grace of procreating? What of the function of the feet, which sustain the whole body without any injury from the burden?
The knee is flexible, by which beyond the other members the Lord's displeasure is softened, anger is soothed, grace is called forth. For this is the gift of the most high Father toward the Son: that at the name of the Lord all should bend the knee, of things heavenly and earthly and beneath the earth, and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. For there are two things that soften God beyond the rest: humility and faith. The foot, then, expresses the disposition of humility and the homage of diligent service; faith makes the Son equal to the Father and confesses the same glory of both. And rightly man has not more, but two feet;
for four feet belong to wild beasts and brutes, two to birds; and therefore man is, as it were, one of the winged creatures, who by his sight seeks the heights and flits aloft, as by a kind of rowing, through the keenness of his lofty senses. And therefore it has been said of him: Your youth shall be renewed like the eagle's, in that he is nearer to heavenly things and loftier than the eagles, he who can say: But our citizenship is in the heavens. But now let there be an end to our discourse, since the sixth day is completed and the sum of the world's work is brought to its close, man being plainly made perfect, in whom is the sovereignty over all living things and a certain summit of the universe and the grace of every worldly creature. Surely let us yield to silence, since God rested from all the works of the world.
But He rested in the retreat of man, He rested in his mind and purpose; for He had made man capable of reason, an imitator of Himself, an emulator of the virtues, desirous of the heavenly graces. In these God rests, who says: Or upon whom shall I rest, except upon the humble and quiet one, and him who trembles at my words? I give thanks to the Lord our God, who made a work of such a kind in which He might rest. He made the heaven — I do not read that He rested; He made the earth — I do not read that He rested; He made the sun and the moon and the stars — nor do I read there that He rested; but I read that He made man and then rested, having one to whom He might remit sins.
Or perhaps then already the mystery of the Lord's future Passion went before, by which it was revealed that Christ would rest in man — He who was predestining rest for Himself in the body for the redemption of man, according to what He Himself said: I slept and took my rest, and rose again, because the Lord upheld me. For He Himself rested who made all. To Him be honor, glory, and everlastingness, from the ages, both now and always and unto all the ages of ages. Amen.