論天意(十講) 第 1 章 第 3/11 段

And the Maker composed it of many bones, so that it might bend easily when the living creature wishes to stoop, and might not be broken by the bending.

And the spinal marrow nourishes it, having the brain as its source.

What need is there for me to speak about the hands, whose usefulness the arts of every kind proclaim? But we shall make mention of them in the discourse that follows;

therefore let us reserve the explanation of the use of the hands for that discourse.

Ascend, then, to the neck, and observe its formation;

and call to mind for me those columns which are pierced from below upward, and which have many such perforations, and one central and largest of all, through which the water-conduits draw up the greatest amount of water, and, distributing it, direct it to descend through the others, sending some to the southern part of the city, some to the eastern, another to the western, and yet another to the northern.

This same service the neck provides for the body.

For, as I have already said, art imitates nature, and makes its own contrivances resemble her works.

The neck, then, has the mouth of the gullet, and conveys food and drink to the stomach.

And it has the windpipe, reaching from the lungs to the larynx;

and it has also the veins, and the smooth arteries, through which the brain receives blood and breath;

and being nourished and increased thereby, the brain, through the connected bones, sends down the spinal marrow to the spine;

from which the entire nature of the bones is nourished, and the strongest sinews grow forth — both the thick and the thin, both the broad and the round — by which the joints are bound together, and the muscles receive the power of motion.

...seated aloft, and, as some wealth and treasure, guarding the brain within a most strong fortress.

For the skull is like a fence and a helmet;

for the helmet takes its name from this, having been fashioned in imitation of it;

lying around the brain, it wards off, as far as possible, the injury that comes upon it from outside.

But so that this brain, being exceedingly soft and altogether spongy, might not, being pricked by the bones, which are hard and resistant, receive some injury, He put around it two coverings, which the sons of the physicians call meninges.

The thinnest one, called the choroid, He joined together with it, and made it touch it very closely, able to hold it together, yet possessing no force of impact, on account of its extreme thinness;

the other He made compact and strong, and this one was allotted the space between the brain and the skull, so that it might neither, having a harder substance, grieve the brain, nor, having a softer nature than the bones, be injured by them.

The brain, then, like a certain wealth, as I have said, is guarded in the head as in an acropolis.

And since the mind, as garrison-commander, needed scouts too, to foresee what is hostile and what is friendly, the Maker gave these also, and did not entrust this watch to one alone, but set up two guards, ordaining that the one keep watch and look out over the right side, and the other over the left.

And since these too needed guards, and battlements, and outworks, and a rampart, the Maker of this city did not neglect these either;

but upon the eyes, to which He had entrusted the sense of sight, He set the projections of the eyebrows as a kind of battlements and outworks, beneath which, being hidden, the eyes can safely look about at things far off.

And upon these battlements, as it were a roof against the rains sent down from above, He made certain fine hairs grow, inclined toward the outer part of the face, which receive the sweat flowing down from the forehead, pass it on to one another, and let it drip away through the temples, thereby freeing the eyes from this affliction.

And since the guards also needed full armor, He clothed them with the coverings of the eyelids, and composed the eyelashes like spears and arrows — no longer inclined in the same manner as the eyebrows, lest they become traitors instead of defenders;

nor stretched out in a straight line, lest they rub against one another when the eyelids close, but slightly inclined outward, so as to repel injury from the smallest particles.

For when the wind blows more violently, not only fine dust but also coarser dust is stirred up, and chaff, and other such things;

and gnats come upon the eyes too, and such small creatures, but seeing the eyelashes as if they were stakes, they flee away.

For by setting the awns upon the husks of the wheat, He does not allow the seed-gathering birds to ravage the grain too greatly;

but, as with the points of spears, He frightens them, and makes them flee.

But perhaps you, sick with ingratitude, would say:

"What, then, has been granted to me more than to the ears of wheat?" But even the nature of the ears of wheat, you fool, He made for your need.

Why, then, are you ungrateful, if He also, for your sake, armed what is yours with your own weapons? You sow the wheat, most ungrateful one;

He Himself waters it, and warms it, and nourishes it, and guards it, and protects it, and sets it ripe before you.

But you, having reaped it, and delivered it to the threshing floor, and cut it by your craft, and separated it from the chaff, and ground it fine with the millstone, and separated it from the bran, and kneaded it with your hands, and delivered it to the oven or the baking-pan, delight yourself in the loaves — and fail to recognize the Provider.

But let us return to the eye.

Consider its nature;

see how many coats it has;

see its outward beauty of form;

the crystalline sphere lying beneath this, peeping through the middle; the vitreous humor diffused around it; the net-like retinal covering; the glandular seat on which the whole rests; the nourishment supplied from the brain through a most fine vessel; the outflow of waste matter through the corners of the eye.

Consider into how many colors the blood is transformed.

This was first food;

and having been ground fine by the teeth, it was conveyed to the stomach;

the stomach changed it to its own color, and made it white;

the liver, receiving this, again changes it into its own color.

The nature of the blood, having thus come to be, passing into the brain, is again whitened, and is congealed into bones, and is transformed into sinews that are compact yet flexible.

But perhaps I am doing something like those who attempt to count the sand, contending to search out the forethought of the Maker that appears in the body.

By yourself, then, traverse in contemplation all the senses — taste, smell, hearing;

how the one has the perception of smells, and welcomes the pleasant, but repels the foul-smelling, and has been entrusted with the excretion of the head's waste matter.

For since, being situated above the body, it receives all the vapors sent up from below, and the flood of these would have wrought great damage upon the most sovereign part — I mean the brain — the Maker of all things did not neglect this either, but, having fashioned certain passages within them, and made them spongy and cavernous, guided the moist and thick portions of the waste to the palate and the nostrils, and allotted two outlets for these excretions, so that the harmful matter might be quickly carried off;

and He caused the vaporous and smoky waste matter to be dispersed and expelled from above through the sutures of the skull.

Consider also the activity of hearing;

see how, though receiving countless sounds, it is not sated, is not filled up, does not receive them all alike, but knows the difference between a high-pitched and a low-pitched sound;

it delights in good sound, and turns away from bad sound.

Submit this hearing to our words; receive a medicine that purifies the soul, and frees it from wicked blasphemy;

set upon it gates — reason — and a gatekeeper — the fear of God — and become a judge of the words brought before you; and let the gatekeeper open the gates to the words of the pious, but send away the blasphemous, the abominable, and the God-hating, and close the gates, and set upon them, as an unbreakable bar, the firmness of faith.

For thus it is possible both to be rid of enemies, and, by hearkening to the words of friends and benefactors, to keep the soul in health;

not having, according to the divine Paul, itching ears, nor submitting this hearing to words that please but harm the rational faculty;

but becoming upright and just judges of what is said, choosing what brings benefit, and, according to the prophet, ever setting God before us, both night and day, whether walking or sitting, and whatever we may be doing or undergoing.

To Him be glory, and honor, and worship, forever.

Proof from human hands and from the arts that have been invented.

I have heard the prophetic voice singing and crying out:

a voice carried along — which breath produces as it is driven through the windpipe to the mouth, and speech bringing the tongue harmoniously against the teeth, and the lips folding, and the air being struck and producing resonance — such as none of us men has ever heard.

Appearing, and displaying both its greatness and its beauty, and furnishing to men the service of a roof, it proclaims the Creator in silence, and stirs the tongues of all to hymnody.

And just as, when we see a house very skillfully built, firmly set upon a solid foundation, fitted together with straight corners, having breadth and length and height that preserve due proportion to one another, and light-wells made in rhythm and order, and all the other things that are wont to adorn such houses, we straightway admire the craftsman, and though he is not present we picture him in our mind, and we refer the whole comeliness of that beauty to his art;

so also, seeing heaven, and the useful dance of the heavenly luminaries, we do not worship these, but honor their Maker with hymns as powerful as we can, and from the greatness and beauty of the creatures we contemplate, in due proportion, the Author of their coming-to-be.

For we reason rightly and justly:

If the magnitude of the works is so great, how great is the Maker? And if such is the beauty of the things that came to be, what must be the beauty of the master-craftsman and Maker of all things? Thus, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands"; thus, "Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night declares knowledge" — not sending forth a voice, nor speaking through a tongue, but continually succeeding one another, and gaining from one another for the service of men;

and they cry out, as it were, so loudly that the whole race of men hears their voice.

"For there are," it says, "no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard." For every nation, and every tongue, hears the proclamations of day and of night.

For though tongues differ, one nature reaps the same benefit from these.

"Your knowledge is become too wonderful for me; it is strengthened, I shall not be able to attain unto it." "For," he says, "having turned to myself, and having come to be within myself, and having been freed from all the tumults from outside, I wished to come to a contemplation of my own nature, and to observe precisely the rational power of the soul — the sciences of which it is receptive, the arts with which it has filled our life, by which it lives more pleasantly and more cheerfully, the multitude of words which it labors to bring forth, the immeasurable abundance which it receives;

how it stores these away, and keeps them distinctly separated;

how it easily brings forth from what is stored whatever it wishes;

how it directs the body, and to the eyes entrusts the discernment of bulk and of colors;

and to the tongue it entrusted the judging of flavors, and appointed it as minister of its own travail [of speech], and it made the nostrils the judge of odors, and opened wide the ears to words borne from outside;

and to the rest of the body it entrusted the power of touch;

and it supplies to these the activity of sensation, and in turn receives from them both pain and gladness."

"Your knowledge is become too wonderful for me; it is strengthened, I shall not be able to attain unto it." These words, too, are fitting for us at present, who have wished to observe the wisdom manifest in the parts of the human body, but have been taught our weakness by experience.

Nevertheless, we have gained no small profit from this dim contemplation;

for we have beheld, even in the smallest part of the body, the providence of God shining forth.

For what is more insignificant than hairs? And what, among the parts of the body, is so devoid of sensation? Yet even of these, reason has shown the necessity of their use;

and the eyebrows and eyelashes bear witness to this, and so too do those hairs which both adorn and cover the head;

for indeed those who have been deprived of these teach us their usefulness.

For first, they blush, as being deprived of beauty;

and then they devise certain other coverings, to fulfill the function of those hairs.

Thus, those who are now passing into manhood, and going beyond the age of boyhood, [nature] adorns with a beard, and with a certain portion of the cheeks along with the chin.

For first the down blossoms forth, and afterwards a moderate growth of hair covers [the face], so that by this addition it may teach the difference of ages, and by this outward form persuade [the young man] to refrain from childish games, and to take up serious pursuits.

But since for women the pangs of childbirth suffice for such teaching, it has thus crowned the cheeks of men alone.

But if someone, taught only to contradict the truth, should object with the growths of hair in other parts of the body, let him learn that even concerning these he is thankless in vain.

For nature has placed around [those parts] a covering that grows of itself, in the places where we take pains to put on things made by hand.

And those who have already begun to have knowledge, and have learned the use of each of their members, [nature] has adorned very well and very fittingly with this girding, covering them, as it were, as though they were blushing over what they ought not [to display];

for the forefather Adam did not have this shame in paradise.

"For," it says, "the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed." But after the transgression of the law, having come to a perception of their offenses, and having heard the divine voice, they sewed fig leaves and made themselves girdles.

Observe, then, O bitter accuser both of the creation and of providence, even in these members the Maker's tender care.

For, it says, "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good"; and, "Let us make him a helper corresponding to him." And the first blessing of God was:

"Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and have dominion over it." And since our discourse has, I know not how, been compelled to proceed to those members of the body which, according to the divine Paul, seem to be less honorable, observe once more the ineffable loving-kindness of the Maker.

For the mouth, entrusted both to serve speech, and to receive food, and to pass it on to the stomach, he placed near the eyes;

but the passage of excretions, which is capable of vexing the sight, and of turning one away from food, and of filling one with disgust, he made not merely somewhere far off from these, but rendered altogether invisible to them, turning the rectum backward, and opening the passage between the buttocks, and by their projection again contriving for it a natural covering.

Be ashamed, then, before the immeasurable extent of the divine loving-kindness;

shudder at its ineffable solicitude, seeing it fashioning the very things you are ashamed to name, seeing it providing for the very things at whose mention you blush;

at once expelling [what is superfluous], so that the need of food might not continually trouble us, since the emptying [of the body] ever demands its filling.

But why must I recount all the wonders of nature? For it is now time to come to the hands, the mention of which we omitted yesterday, and promised today to explain their use.

Observe, then, that they are neither extended beyond what is needed, lest they become a superfluous burden to the rest of the body, nor again do they have a length more deficient than they ought, but they have received a measure proportionate to the tasks for the sake of which they came to be.

For this reason the Fashioner also divided them into three sections, and set the first joint in the shoulders, and joined the upper arm and the forearm at the elbow, and articulated the other end of the forearm with the wrist, and having set upon this the back of the hand, implanted upon it the five fingers.

And each of these he composed of three small bones;

and having hollowed out the ends of some, and fashioned others in a rounded form, and having inserted the rounded end into the hollow, he bound them together with tight sinews, and having entrusted voluntary movement to the muscles, he clothed them with soft skin, so that hardness might not become an impediment when they are brought together.

And having made the tips of the fingers soft on the inside, he took care for their security on the outside.

For he set upon them nails, thin and broad, having rounded projections on the outside;

and he made them thin, so that they might not weigh down the soft flesh of the extremities, becoming a superfluous burden;

and broad, so that in laborious tasks they might hold firm, supporting from outside the soft flesh that lies exposed;

and he fashioned their projections rounded, contriving by this shape their resistance to injury.

For in thin bodies, the angles of triangular and quadrangular shapes are easily broken.

For to lions, and bears, and leopards, and the other wild beasts, the Maker implanted claws that are sharp, thick, long, and very strong, and he furnished them with a natural panoply, since their lack of reason prevents them from partaking of the help of craft.

But having created man rational, and having implanted in him a mind that is the discoverer of countless sciences and arts, he made him bare of that natural panoply;

and he neither gave him beast-like claws, nor covered his feet with hooves or talons;

For how could he have climbed ladders? And how could he have stood on narrow walls, weaving together stones or bricks, and constructing a house? And how could he have stood on the tops of roofs, if he made use of hooves or talons? But as it is, the softness and elongated shape of the feet, and the flexibility of the toes, makes his movement easy and his footing secure.

And using his feet bare, he walks with great ease even upon timbers, and ventures upon slender ladders, and performs countless things with much facility.

But the use of hooves or of talons he possesses as something imported from without.

For taking skin from the subject animals, and using the arts of tanning and of cobbling as his helpers, he imitates the shape and bulk of the feet, their length and breadth, and thus clothes them, so as both to ward off, in walking, injury from resistant bodies, and to blunt the sharpness of frosts.

For this reason the Maker granted to this creature alone the members that are the hands, as instruments, so to speak, fitting for a rational being.

for now, using their hands, they reap the crops, and gather in the wages of their toil, bind them as sheaf-binders, and carry the loads to the threshing-floors, and separate the wheat from the chaff;

using their hands as helpers.

And they harvest the vine, and gather the olive, and press out the wine, and cultivate every kind of vegetable, and devising by their skilled arts countless varieties of fruits, they both gather them and present them to those who wish to enjoy them.

For by God-given wisdom, having discovered the art of shipbuilding, and having taken from the art of the smith — which he devised before this one — an axe, a saw, an adze, and all the other instruments of carpentry, and having, with those instruments, cut down the fruitless trees furnished by agriculture, that art's elder sister, and having laid down the keel like some foundation, and then having woven the planks upon it like walls, and having fastened them together most skillfully with pegs, and having smeared them over with a coating of pitch, and having in this way walled off the inflow of the waters, he made the hull into a vessel for the sea.

But since this vessel needed a team of horses and mules as well, and yet the flowing element could not bear these, the pilot of the ship wisely contrived also for this, again making use of his hands as servants;

for in place of a yoke-pole, he raised up the mast, and joined the sails to it after the manner of a yoke, and he uses the blowing gusts of the winds in place of horses and mules, and yokes them, as though they were colts, to his harness-straps.

And since the vessel also needed to have reins, the rudders imitate these, and the pilot, having taken hold of the tiller, like a charioteer, holding the stern as it were the rim of a chariot-wheel, easily steers the vessel this way and that;

and he knows how to steer skillfully not only when a favorable wind is blowing, but also to counter the disorderly onslaughts of the winds, and to restrain them by the rein as though they were untamed and hard-to-bridle colts; and all these things the human mind contrives, using the hands as its servants.

But come, let us put in from the sea to the mainland.

For the time does not suffice for an exact account of each art.

Observe, then, that all the arts borrow what is useful from one another, as a common contribution;

building receives its instruments from the art of the smith;

and the smith's craft receives its house from the builder's craft;

and both receive their food from the farming craft;

And farming, in turn, receives from these both the building of houses, and the things able to assist in cultivation.

But rather, consider from the beginning how the Maker set before this living being its necessary needs.

Who gave women the wisdom of weaving, and the skill of embroidery? For indeed this hue of the craft too is truly god-given.

for with time it has come to be held cheap, and the knowledge of its workmanship has stripped away the renown of those who discovered it.

But if one wished to examine each detail accurately, he would greatly admire this craft as well.

For the wool, once sheared and cleansed with water, is first carded and divided into fine fibers; then the carded roving becomes a spun skein;

then wool-working, taking it up, separates what is pure and, as it were, has straight fibers, from the rest;

and combining the rest, produces weft-thread to go with the warp.

Then the hands of women take these up and spin the fine threads; and having first stretched them out in order upon the looms like cords, they insert the weft, and, separating the warp-threads with the shuttles, and of the threads that have been strung, loosening some and tightening others, then, with the instruments devised for this purpose, as it were pushing and beating the weft into place, thus they complete the woven fabric.

Who could admire, as it deserves, the wisdom given to this creature? How is it that with a single color of the underlying material—wool or silk thread—the figures of every kind of animal are woven in, and likenesses of men, some hunting, others praying, and images of trees, and countless other things besides?

Truly praise the Lord, all you nations, who have been counted worthy of such wisdom, who delight in so many good things.

Who revealed the sea-creature as a dye for wool? Who again became the discoverer of this craft, which clothes the appearance of wools anew in countless kinds of colors? But perhaps, being sick with ingratitude, you will say that even worms spin finer threads than men.

But this too is a work of divine care.

For lest you should be puffed up over the wisdom of arts of every kind, nor grow insolent because of the abundance of wealth, the Guardian instructs you through worms, to show that these things are not from your own power, but are gifts of divine loving-kindness.

But while thus disciplining you, he again consoles you, lest you be grieved at being outdone by them, by bringing those threads to you, and subjecting their worker to your yoke.

You alone, of all living beings, have built cities in beauty, and fortified them with towers and walls, and have built beautiful lodgings and dwellings, and by harbors have joined the sea to the mainland.

And since the Maker, having made you mortal for this present life, knew that you would also fall into illnesses (for the mortal is allotted together with sufferings), he also taught you the medical art, and arrayed this science as an army against your sufferings.

From this you have learned to discern the distinctions of hidden afflictions, and by the movement of the pulse to recognize the intensifications and remissions of fevers, and to discern the timing of onset, crisis, and decline, and to foresee beforehand the signs of death, and to know the character of the offending matter, and to apply to it what is by nature suited to combat it—to dry what is moist, to cool what is hot, to kindle and warm what has grown cold, and to carry off what is overflowing, whether by emetic or purgative drugs, or by the opening of the veins.

And what account could ever attain either the multitude of afflictions, or the multitude of remedies? For many are the things that make war against the nature of the body, but many times more numerous are the remedies against them.

For the art has discovered many things by nature suited to combat each affliction.

For this reason the Maker also commanded the earth to sprout many plants, not only edible ones, but also those useless for eating, since we human beings stand in need not only of nourishment, but also of healing.

Of these, then, we prepare some as food, others the grass-eating among the irrational animals consume, and others still the disciples of physicians gather and fashion into remedies that avert harm, so that what is deadly for eating becomes a harm-averting remedy.

Let not even these things, then, move you to accuse Providence.

But indeed I seem like those swimming in the open sea, washed over on every side by the waves, longing to reach the shore—having ventured boldly upon the sea of the wisdom of the arts, striving to escape the onrush of the thoughts pressing upon me like waves, and to run to the end, and to reach it as if it were a seashore.

Leaving aside, then, all the others, I shall proceed in my discourse to the art of grammar and letters, which is more rational than the others, and fitting for the rational animal.

This art, then, discovered the elements, and defined them by number, and joined these to one another, and formed combinations of syllables;

then, joining two and three syllables together at once, it taught the reading of words;

and having composed and woven these together, it produced the single harmony of speech.

From this, countless books were filled with ancient words.

some, of sacred and divine and mystical things; others, of external, secular learning;

which, by the variety of its meters, and the beauty of its words, and the harmony of its composition, veils what is mythical, and so delights the ear, yet becomes for the pious a weapon against the nurslings of impiety.