The connection with the preceding commonplace.
The connection with the preceding commonplace.
§ 1. The decree of predestination, which was made before the foundations of the world were laid in the eternal plan of God, was followed in time by the creation of man.
In the beginning, after the Architect of the entire universe had created the heavens, earth, sea, and all that are in them by His omnipotent word in six days, He finally on the last day undertook the creation of man, and not without prior deliberation.
The deliberation of God in the creation of man.
§ 2. The fact that God1 underwent something like a deliberation about this wondrous work in such a novel and thus far unusual way demonstrates not the weakness of the workman but the excellence of His work. Tertullian (Adv. Marc., bk. 2): “Man was created by God not with an imperative word, as were the other animals, but with an intimate hand and the preceding enticing word: ‘Let Us make man after Our image and likeness’ [Gen. 1:26].” Gregory (Mor., [bk.] 9, 27): “That [man], who was made after the image of his Creator, might come into being not through a word of commanding but through the grandeur of [God’s] working.”
§ 3. From Tertullian and Gregory (to whom we can also add Basil, Hexaem., homily 10), you can see that a sort of human dignity was established in him—for the earth was not commanded to produce man, but it says God made man with His own hands. Nevertheless Augustine disapproves of this (De Gen. ad lit., bk. 6, ch. 12), saying:
We must not listen to what some people think—that man is the chief work of God because He spoke the rest and they were made [Ps. 33:9], but He Himself made man; on the contrary, it is because He made him after His own image. For those things which He spoke were also made, and this is why it was written that they were made through His word. A man can speak to other men using words which he thinks up in time and which are carried forth by his voice, but God does not speak in this way except when He speaks through a corporeal creature. Surely God also made the heavens with His word, and yet it is written: “The heavens are the work of Your hands” [Ps. 102:25]. It was also written about the foundation of the world: “The sea is His, and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land” [Ps. 95:5]. So let this not be attributed to the honor of men, as if God spoke everything else and they were made, but [man] He made with His hands. Rather, the excellency of man consists in that God made him after His own image, etc. One should not say that God Himself made man but that He gave His command and the animals were made, for He made both the former and the latter through His word, “through which all things were made” [John 1:3]. But because His word and wisdom and might are the same, His hand also is not said to be a visible part of His body but is His power to create.
Those are Augustine’s words.
“Let Us make man.”
§ 4. Now, to whom does God say, “Let Us make man” [Gen. 1:26]? Ambrose (Hexaem., bk. 6, ch. 7) writes: “Surely not to Himself, because He does not say, ‘Let Me make’ but ‘Let Us make.’ Surely not to the angels, because they are His servants, and servants cannot have a joint operation with their lord, nor can the works have a joint operation with the author. Rather, He is speaking to His Son, through whom (and to the Holy Spirit, in whom) all things were created [cf. John 1:3].”
§ 5. Therefore away with the rabbinic scholars and their followers. Some of them teach that God was speaking about Himself in the plural for the sake of honor. Some say that He was speaking about His something about the souls of the righteous. Some claim absurdly that God was addressing the four elements. A deliberation about the work is not referred to those who have no part in the work. Therefore we repeat the decree of the Council of Sirmium (recorded by Socrates, bk. 2, ch. 25): “If anyone says that ‘Let Us make man’ is not the Father speaking to His Son but God speaking to Himself, let him be accursed.”
§ 6. The one operation of the three persons is seen in that He says, “Let Us make.” The one equal essence of the three persons is indicated in that He says “after Our image and likeness.” In this way the mystery of the Holy2 Trinity was set forth rather obscurely in the creation of the first Adam, which was later proclaimed openly in the Baptism of the second Adam, Christ, and this Baptism was sanctified through Him for our regeneration and renewal [ἀνάπλασιν].
God’s plan concerning man.
§ 7. Clearly a great plan concerning us sinners was considered in that council of wisdom, in that senate, or, rather, venerable soliloquy of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Do you suppose that anything that was done or had to be done for us was not taken care of there? Surely there our entire case was brought out into sight; our coming death and destruction was seen there, and the plan was wholly considered of how each person would take up His own part of the work: that at that time the Father would create, that in the fullness of time the Son would redeem what had been lost, that the Holy Spirit would complete the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the flesh. Thus by the common counsel of the Trinity, the ancient ruins would be rebuilt in man, and the foundations of generation and regeneration would be raised up [cf. Isa. 58:12]. Rupert (De Trin. et ejus operibus in princ., bk. 2): “Praise be to the wisdom of the Creator; honor to the grace of the Liberator; thanksgiving to the power of the Illuminator; worship to the one undivided Trinity, the Creator, Liberator, and Governor of all things!”
§ 8. Man was created after the work of heaven and earth had been completed, after all the rest of the creatures had been finished, for he is something like an epitome of them, an-[“little world”] (as Rabbi Kimchi calls him, on Zechariah 2) or a “microcosm” ([Aristotle,] Phys. acroas., bk. 8, text 17). The things we find divided in creatures we find joined together in man, because he shares in a communion of the spiritual and physical nature. Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 10, ch. 12): “Almost every creature is in man. In short, he is the center of creation and of nature.”
All things were created for man.
§ 9. In fact, just as man was created for God to serve Him, so also the world was created for man to be of service to him. Therefore man was set in the center, that he might be served and that he might be of service, that he might receive both what obeys him and what he employs, that everything might work out to the good of man. For thus did God want to be served by man, so that it would not be God but the man who would benefit in his service. He also wanted the world to serve man and man to be helped in this way too. Therefore everything was for the good of man; it was made for him and he for it.
After creating man, God rested.
§ 10. After creating man, God rested from His works [cf. Gen. 2:2], for man was going to be the most peaceful dwelling place of the Holy Trinity.3 It is in God that man looks for true rest for his heart, and he will find it. He should use creatures, but he should not misuse them. He should use them for their obedience, for their service, but he should not establish the end of his desire in them. Streams should lead back to their source, a road to its destination.
Man was made from the dust of the ground.
§ 11. Man was made from the dust of the ground [cf. Gen. 2:7], that this beginning might be an emblem and reminder of his humble estate and that it might bear witness that man in the presence of God is like clay in the hands of the potter [cf. Isa. 64:8]. (“dust and ashes,” Gen. 18:27), mire and smoke. The ֵָָBefore God we are all same God who was able to fashion the body of man out of clay will also be able to raise it from the dust of the earth. His power has not been diminished by the number of years.
The source of man’s soul.
§ 12. The body of man was formed from the dust of the earth, but the soul, that essential breath of life within, came to him through the inbreathing of God. Lactantius (Instit. divin., bk. 2, ch. 12): “After making the body, God breathed into man a soul from the life-giving and enduring spring of His Spirit so that man would be similar to the world, which itself consists of contrary elements.” Moreover, just as God fashioned the body of man without hands, so also did He breathe a created spirit into him without lungs. The inspiration of God into the face of man is the giving of a rational soul. God does not breathe the soul of man from the depths of the mouth of His essence as the Father with the Son breathe the Holy Spirit within the divine essence from all eternity—who is therefore called “the Spirit of the mouth of the Lord” (Ps. 33:6), “the Spirit of the mouth of Christ” (2 Thess. 2:8), “the breath of the Almighty” (Job 33:4). Rather, He breathed into man a soul created in time outside of His own essence. That breath of life was made by God but not out of God.
Man was created after the image of God.
§ 13. Man was made after the image and likeness of God, which has provided him his own special characteristic: the loftiest dignity and the summit of preeminence beyond all other corporeal creatures. Oh, that that image of God in man were as conspicuous to us for learning of it as it once was famous for gaining the greatest grace for man! However, we lost the image of God through sin, in the same people in whom we were created according to His image. Now there scarcely remain some tiny remnants of it; in fact, scarcely the shadow of its great name remains. Therefore it is hardly strange if full knowledge of it escapes our understanding, especially since possession of it has long perished! In this darkness of ours we shall follow the torch of Scripture.
1 Read Deus with Cotta instead of Deos.
2 Read sacrosanctae with Cotta instead of Spiritus’s
3 Read sacrosanctae Trinitatis with Cotta instead of Spiritus s. trinitatis.