Now it will be well to examine for how many reasons man is said to be made to the image and likeness of God, because, this understood, he will know the height of his dignity, so that he may be ashamed and embarrassed to make ugly this divine image by lowering himself to the vilenesses of the flesh. And by this he will also see what he owes to the Creator, who gave him such a jewel. Then first man is said to be image of God, because he has free will and understanding like God and like his angels; because none of all the other creatures has this liberty, for all are natural agents that cannot fail to do that for which they have faculty. And thus fire cannot fail to burn, nor the sun to give light, etc. But man is free and lord of his works, and thus he can do and leave undone what he should wish. In which it appears that man alone is lord, and that all the other creatures are like captives and servants, since he alone is free of his works, and they are not.
But not only the liberty of the will, but also the faculty of the understanding differentiates us from the beasts and makes us similar to God, since he too is an intellectual substance, although by another higher manner. This likeness of understandings is seen in the likeness of the works that proceed from them, whereby it is said that art imitates nature as much as it can, which in clearer terms is to say that man imitates God in the manner of working. Whereby, just as the author of nature in all his works always disposes and proportions the means with the ends that he intends (as the teeth to cut and grind the food, and the hands to work, and the feet to walk, and the shanks of the bones to sustain the load of the body), so art keeps this same proportion in all its works, as we see in the clothing that it cuts to dress, and in the hose and shoes that it makes to put on, and in the houses that it builds to dwell in, and in the ships that it fabricates to navigate, etc., where we see how proportioned each one of these things comes for the end that is intended.
Item, just as the author of nature seeks in all his works to join in one utility and beauty (as we see in the face of man, that is, in the site and seat of the mouth, of the noses, of the ears, of the eyes and of the eyebrows and brows that accompany them, all of which no less serves for the beauty of the face than for the good execution of the office of each one of these parts, because anything of these that should be changed would impede the one and the other), so art, as much as it can, imitates the same, seeking to make all artificial things not only profitable, but also beautiful, as is seen in all the furnishings of rich men and great lords, who seek that all things deputed for their service be fabricated in such manner, that they may serve not only necessity, but also beauty.
Item, just as the works of nature are almost infinite, so too in their manner are those of art. Which he will be able to note who should circle with his eyes some great city, such as Venice or Lisbon. For walking through all the streets of these cities, he will see them populated with a thousand differences of offices and mechanical officers, and if he should go to the marine, he will see the trade of the sea and so many differences of ships great and small, with all their rigging
fabricated very to the purpose for the office of navigation. And if from there he should enter into the storehouse of munitions, there he will see so many manners of arms, some defensive and others offensive, some for fighting from afar and others from near, that he will not be able to fail to marvel how a rational animal, whom nature created naked and unarmed for peace and company and political life of men, had heart and wit to invent so many differences of equipment and artillery shots for the destruction of the human race. And if from there he should pass to the bookshops and general schools, he will find a thousand manners of books and of arts and natural and supernatural sciences, invented by human understanding. And if at last he should enter on a solemn day into a cathedral church beautifully fabricated and ornamented, there he will find in what to pasture the eyes with the beauty of the building and ornament of the altars, and in what to recreate the ears with the suavity of the voices and musical instruments that there sweetly resound. And if over all this he should find himself at a general fair, such as that of Medina del Campo, or another similar one, there he will see so great a variety and multitude of artificial things that it will seem to him that art competes with nature, not only in the fabric and beauty of things (as has been said), but also in the variety and multitude of them. And just as God created this world full of natural works, so art has made almost another new world of artificial things.
For all of which it serves itself from the hands, which the Creator fabricated with marvelous abilities and artifice, so that they should be a most fitting and general instrument of the most principal parts of our soul, which are the will and reason. For by them reason works all these aforesaid things and many others more, for they (as Tully says) “serve us to till the fields, to build the houses, to weave and sew garments, and for the fabric of the things that are made of iron or of metal. With the hands also we build cities, walls, and temples. And by them also we provide ourselves with diverse and abundant fruits for our maintenance, for by them we sow the fields, which give us diverse fruits, some that are eaten at once, and others that are gathered and kept for later. By them also we maintain ourselves from animals, as well from those that walk on the earth, as from those that swim in the water, as from those that fly through the air, not only hunting them, but also raising them in our houses. With them also we tame the beasts, which carrying and bringing loads serve us, also giving us force and lightness for walking. We also with the hands place yokes on them, and likewise we use the most acute sense of the elephants, and the sagacity of dogs for our profit. We also with them draw iron from the entrails of the earth, a thing greatly necessary for the labor of the fields, and likewise we discover the hidden veins of steel, of silver, and of gold, from which things we serve ourselves as well for the use of life as for the beauty and ornament of it. We profit also from every kind of trees, both fruitful and wild, part to warm ourselves and prepare foods, and part to build, with which we defend ourselves from excessive colds and heats. And the same matter serves to fabricate ships, by whose means abundant provision comes to us from all parts for the necessities of life. And thus by the art of navigating we come to make ourselves lords of the two most violent things that there are in nature, which are the sea and the winds, and by this means we enjoy many things that are brought by the sea. Likewise ours is the lordship and use of all the fruits and conveniences of the earth, because we enjoy the fields and the mountains, ours are the rivers and the lakes, we sow the crops
and the trees, we with artificial irrigations make the lands fertile, we dam and straighten the rivers, and guide them through the parts that can profit us, and finally using the industry of the hands in the things of nature, we have come to fabricate another new nature.” The aforesaid is from Tully.
Then all this declares to us the dignity and likeness that our soul has with its Creator, since it has so much likeness in the manner of working with him. For Saint Dionysius places three things both in the Creator and in his creatures, which are being, power, and working, in which there is such order and proportion that, as the being is, such is the power, and as the power, such the works. And thus by the works we know the power, and by the power the being. And since, as has been said, we see so much conformity between the works of man and those of God, by this we can trace the likeness and kinship that there is between him and God, and we shall understand with how much reason it is said that man was created to the image and likeness of God, which is an incomparable dignity.
I
It is also a singular property of God to be present in every place, in the world and outside the world. And our intellective soul also runs through all the places of the world, when it wishes. Now (says Saint Ambrose) we are in Italy, and we think on the things of East and West, and we converse with those of Persia and with those of Africa, and there we treat with friends, we walk with those who walk, we draw near to pilgrims, we join ourselves with the absent, we speak with those who are apart from us, and even the dead we resurrect, and embrace and converse with them as if they were alive. Then by this it is understood that that bodily part that there is in us was not made to the image of God, but that one which with the sharpness of its sight sees the absent, and passes to the other side of the sea, and runs with sight through all things, scrutinizes the hidden, and in one moment circles its senses through all the ends of the world, and joins itself with Christ, and descends to hell, and rises to heaven, and freely walks through it, as he did who says: “Our conversation is in the heavens.”
But there is another thing more admirable, in which our soul imitates the virtue and power of God, in which it surpasses even the angels. For although in them the image of God shines forth more perfectly, because they are purely spiritual substances, apart from all matter, yet our soul, besides being spiritual substance, represents this image by another way, which is with the variety of the offices that it exercises in the bodies where it dwells. For what God works in this greater world, that our soul works in the lesser world, which is in man. We see, then, in the greater world how much infinity of creatures and of natural works there is, and in all of them God works, conserving them in the being that they have, and giving them virtue and faculty for all the works that they do, because the first cause concurs with all the other inferior ones, without whose virtue and influence they could not work. Then in this manner our soul has so full jurisdiction and lordship within this territory of its body, that no work is done in it of which it is not principle and cause. Which appears by the lack that it makes when by death it is lacking, since then all these works cease. So that though being one simple and spiritual substance, it is
principle of all the offices of life. For it is the one that sees in the eyes, hears in the ears, smells in the noses, tastes in the tongue, touches with all the other members, cooks the food in the stomach, converts it into blood in the liver, and distributes it through the veins in all the body, creates the spirits of life in the heart, and the animal ones in the brain, and distributes the one through the arteries, and the others through the nerves in all the members of the body. It paints the things that it saw in the imagination, and remembers infinite words and things with the memory, and discourses and disputes with the understanding, and loves or abhors with the will. And finally, there is nothing so minute in our body of which it is not principle and principal cause. So that what the weights are in the clock, that is the soul in our body, and thus as these weights removed, all these wheels of the clock stop, so the soul being lacking to our body, all the officers and offices of our life are lacking.
This is a thing at which the prophet David greatly marvels when he says: “Marvelous is your wisdom, Lord, which I know by what I see in myself, and so high is it that I cannot attain it.” Upon which words, which in this sense Theodoret alleges, he makes a long exclamation saying thus: “When I, Lord, recollected within myself, and free from exterior cares and business, enter into myself, and set myself to contemplate my own nature and that faculty of the rational soul that you gave me, and I look at the sciences of which it has been capable, and the arts invented by it, with which the world is full, by whose benefit life is made more joyful and suave, and I look at that infinite abundance of words that fit in it, within which they are distinctly kept and conserved, and thus offer themselves to it easily when it has need of them, and I look also at how this soul governs the whole body, and how it itself committed to the eyes the office of judging among colors, and to the tongue that of knowing the difference of flavors, and made it interpreter of its concepts by means of the use of words, and to the noses gave faculty of examining odors, and to the ears of perceiving the words that come from outside, and it itself extended the sense of touching through the whole body, with which touching it sometimes feels pain, sometimes joy and delight: considering, then, with my spirit all these things and other similar ones, and seeing how many of them, apparently contrary, concur in the fabric of one animal, together with that admirable union of the two natures, one mortal and the other immortal, I remain frightened by this so great miracle, and not being able to attain the reason of a thing so great, I confess that I remain conquered, and preaching the victory and wisdom of the Creator, I come to break forth in voices of praise, and exclaim with this Prophet saying: ‘Marvelous is your wisdom, Lord, which shines forth in me: so high is it that I cannot comprehend it.’” The aforesaid is from Theodoret. This, then, is another admirable excellence of our soul, in which it imitates its Creator, working (as we said) all things in its body, as the Creator works them in this world. For which, besides what has been said, it is called image of God.
II
But what does it mean that it is not only said to have been made to the image of God, but also to his likeness? To this Saint Bernard and Saint Ambrose respond, saying that image is called by reason of the natural thing that it received, and likeness by the gratuitous. They mean to
say that image is called because of the natural gifts and faculties that it received to live this common and natural life, but likeness because of the grace and supernatural virtues that in its first creation it received to live supernatural life, meritorious of eternal life. Whence it appears that the image, which is the natural, is never lost, although the soul be in hell, but the likeness is lost when grace is lost, which is lost by any mortal sin. But it is much to feel not only the man’s losing this likeness, but much more the likeness that succeeds in place of this. And what it is, the Prophet declared when he said: “Man constituted by God in dignity and honor did not understand the estate that he had, for which reason he came to be compared with the brute beasts, and made similar to them.” Then what thing is more to feel than this so great fall, in which the man who represented in the purity of his life the likeness of God, comes to change the divine likeness into likeness of beasts? Where can human misery more decline and descend? Then by this man will see how much is the malice of sin, which is cause of this so great evil.
Let this suffice to conclude the matter of the intellective soul, and with it of all that belongs to the two worlds, both greater and lesser, which is man. Now it will be reason to profit from all that has been said, lifting ourselves by the creatures to the knowledge of the Creator.