Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Let us, however, come back now to God's works. So that the eyes might be better fortified against harm, he hid them under coverings of lashes, from which Varro thinks the eyes themselves get their name. For the eyelids, to which their mobility—that is, their blinking—gives their name, are fenced with hairs standing in ranks, and provide the eyes with a most fitting rampart; their constant motion, meeting with inconceivable speed, does not hinder the course of sight but rather refreshes the gaze. For the pupil—that is, that transparent membrane—ought not to dry out and grow parched, but stays bright only when it is kept moist by continual bathing; otherwise it grows dull. Again, do not the very ridges of the eyebrows, adorned with short hairs, serve as a kind of rampart and defense for the eyes, so that nothing may fall on them from above, while at the same time lending beauty? From their meeting-point the nose rises, and stretching out like an even ridge, both separates and protects each eye at once. Below, too, the cheeks swell in a fitting way, gently rising like hillocks, so that on every side the eyes gain greater safety; and the supreme craftsman took care that any rather violent blow, should one occur, would be deflected by these projections. Now the upper part of the nose is formed solid all the way to the middle, while the lower part is softened by attached cartilage, so that it can be manipulated by the fingers as needed. And in this single member, simple as it seems, three functions have been established: one, drawing breath; another, receiving smell; a third, that through its passages the refuse of the brain might drain away. And God devised these very passages with such wondrous, such divine calculation, that the opening of the nostrils should not disfigure the appearance of the face—which would certainly have happened had there been one single undivided opening. Instead he partitioned and divided it as though by a wall run through the middle, and by that very doubling made it most beautiful. From this we understand how much the number two, solidified into one simple structure, contributes to the perfection of things. For although the body is one, the whole of it could not consist of simple undivided members unless there were right and left parts. And so, just as the two feet and likewise the two hands serve not only some usefulness and function for walking or working, but also confer an admirable form and beauty, so likewise in the head—that summit, as it were, of the whole divine handiwork—the supreme craftsman split hearing into two ears, sight into two eyes, and smell into a pair of nostrils; for the brain, seat of the faculty of sensation, though one, is still divided by an intervening membrane into two parts. The heart too, which seems to be the seat of wisdom, though it is one, still has two chambers within, in which the springs of living blood are contained, divided by a wall between them—so that just as in the universe itself the sum of things governs and holds together the whole, whether as a duality arising from unity or a unity arising from duality, so too in the body the whole, composed of two parts, might exhibit an indissoluble unity. The shape of the mouth, too, and its opening set crosswise—how useful, how fitting it is cannot be told; it serves two purposes: consuming food and forming speech. Housed within, the tongue—whose motions cut the voice into distinct words—acts as the mind's spokesman, though it cannot manage the task of speaking on its own; only when its tip meets the palate, assisted further by the teeth's tapping and the lips' pressure, can it do so. Yet speech owes more to the teeth than to anything else: children, until their teeth come in, cannot yet talk, and elderly men, once their teeth are gone, lisp so badly that they appear to have tumbled back into childhood. But this pertains only to man—or to birds, in which the tongue, sharpened and quivering with precise movements, produces countless variations of song and diverse modes of sound. The tongue, moreover, has another office, which it exercises in all creatures, though not in dumb ones alone: it gathers up food that has been chewed and ground by the teeth, and, having compacted it, forces it down by its own strength and sends it on to the stomach. And so Varro thinks the tongue takes its name from binding food together. It aids beasts also in drinking: for, stretched out and hollowed, they draw up water, and having caught it in the hollow of the tongue, so that it should not flow back through slowness or delay, they dash it swiftly against the palate. This whole apparatus is covered by the vault of the palate as though by a shell, and God has walled it about, as it were, with the fence of the teeth. As for the teeth themselves, lest bare and drawn back they should inspire more horror than adornment, he adorned them with soft gums—so named from the sprouting of teeth—and, beyond that, with the lips as covering; the teeth themselves, hard as millstone, are firmer and coarser than other bones, fit for the grinding of food and fodder. The lips themselves, which before seemed joined together, how fittingly he split them apart! The upper lip he marked, just beneath the middle of the nostrils, with a slight hollow like a small valley; the lower lip he softly spread outward for the sake of gracefulness. As for the perception of taste, whoever thinks this sense resides in the palate is mistaken; it is the tongue by which flavors are perceived, and not even the whole tongue, for the sides of it, which are more tender, draw in flavor by the subtlest sensations. And although nothing is diminished from the food or the drink, still the flavor penetrates to the sense in an indescribable way, by the same reasoning by which the sense of smell takes in nothing material from any substance it perceives. As for the rest, how graceful it all is can scarcely be expressed: the chin, drawn down gently from the cheeks and closed off below in such a way that a slight indentation seems to mark its very tip; the neck, firm and rounded; the shoulders sloping down from the neck as though on soft ridges; the arms, strong and bound tight with sinews for strength, vigorous with the notable swelling of the projecting muscles, and the elbow's bend, both useful and graceful. And the hands—reason's and wisdom's instruments—what can be said of them? These the most skillful craftsman fashioned with a flat, slightly hollowed palm, so that whatever needed to be grasped might rest fittingly within it, and brought them to an end in fingers—in which it is hard to determine whether their appearance or their usefulness is greater. For their number is complete and full, their arrangement and gradation most fitting, the curve of their matching joints flexible, and the round shape of the nails, gripping and securing the tips of the fingers with their hollow coverings, provides great adornment, so that the softness of the flesh should not give way when grasping something. But this above all is wonderfully suited to use: that one finger, set apart from the rest, arises together with the hand itself and is spread out earlier in the opposite direction, as if reaching out to greet the rest, so that it alone—or above all others—holds nearly the whole power of gripping and acting, ruling and governing over the others like a magistrate; from which it even received the name thumb, because in strength and power it prevails (pollet) over the others. It has, indeed, two visible joints, not three like the others, but is joined to the hand by flesh for the sake of beauty: for had it too been divided into three joints, its ugly and unbecoming appearance would have taken away the grace of the hands. Now the breadth of the chest, held high and open to view, displays in a wondrous way the dignity of one's bearing. The reason for this is that God seems to have shaped man alone as it were lying on his back—for scarcely any other animal can lie upon its spine—while he fashioned the dumb animals as though lying on alternating sides, and pressed them down toward the earth. For this reason their chest is narrow, turned away from view and cast down toward the ground, while man's is open and upright, because a chest filled with reason given from heaven ought not to be lowly or unbecoming. The nipples too, lightly raised and crowned with small, somewhat darker circles, add no small measure of charm, given to women for nourishing their offspring, to men solely for adornment, lest the chest appear shapeless and, as it were, mutilated. Beneath this lies the flat expanse of the belly, marked roughly at its middle by the fitting sign of the navel, whose purpose was this: through it the offspring, while still within the womb, could be nourished.
It follows of necessity that I should now begin to speak also of the inner organs: to which, since they are hidden, not beauty but incredible usefulness has been assigned, given that this body of earth had to be sustained by some fluid drawn from food and drink, in the same way that the earth itself is fed by rain and frost. The most provident craftsman made in its middle a receptacle for food, so that, once broken down and dissolved, it could send life-giving fluid out to every member. Man, however, is composed of both body and soul, and the receptacle just described feeds the body only; for the soul he gave a different seat. For he made a certain kind of organ, soft and porous, which we call the lung, and he did not fashion it in the manner of a wineskin, lest the breath should be poured out all at once or inflated all at once. And so he made it indeed a solid organ, but one capable of being inflated and receiving air, so that it might gradually take in breath as the vital wind is spread through that porous substance, and gradually give it back again as it unfolds itself from within; for this very alternation, the drawing in and letting out of breath, sustains life in the body. Since, then, there are two receptacles in man, one for air, which nourishes the soul, the other for food, which nourishes the body, there must necessarily be two passages through the neck, one for food and one for breath—the upper one running from the mouth to the stomach, the lower from the nostrils to the lung. Their nature and structure differ. For the passage that runs from the mouth is made soft, and, being always closed, clings together like the mouth itself, since drink and food, being bodily things, make room for their own passage by parting and opening the throat. Breath, on the other hand, being incorporeal and fine, could not make room for itself, and so it was given an open pathway, which is called the windpipe. This consists of curved, soft bones, joined to one another like rings, in the manner of hemlock-stalks, and this passage always stays open. For breath can have no rest in its movement; and because it is always passing through, a portion hanging usefully down from the brain, which is called the uvula, restrains it as though by a kind of check, lest the breath, coming with force, should injure the delicate lining of its dwelling by drawing in a noxious current, or should bring the full force of harm to the inner organs. For this reason too the nostrils are opened only briefly, and are so named because through them scent or breath does not cease to be drawn (nare). Yet this breathing channel has an opening leading to the mouth as well as the nostrils, at the palate's furthest edge, where those looking toward the throat see the uvula begin to swell. The reason for this is not obscure: for we would have no faculty of speech if, just as the throat's passage opens only to the mouth, so the windpipe opened only to the nostrils. Divine skill, therefore, opened a path for the voice from that breathing passage, so that the tongue might exercise its function and might break the unbroken flow of the voice itself into words with its own strokes. If this channel is in any way blocked, it must necessarily render one mute; for whoever thinks there is some other cause why men are mute is certainly mistaken. It is not, as commonly believed, that they carry a bound tongue, but rather that such people expel that vocalized breath out through the nostrils in a kind of lowing sound, because the passage of the voice to the mouth is either altogether absent or not open enough to let out a full voice. This most often arises naturally, though occasionally it happens by accident too, when some illness closes off this opening and keeps the voice from ever reaching the tongue, turning would-be speakers into mutes. And when this happens, hearing too must necessarily be blocked, so that because one cannot send out a voice, one also cannot take one in. This passage, then, was opened for the sake of speech. It also serves this purpose: that when we are bathing, since the nostrils cannot bear the heat, hot air can be drawn in through the mouth; likewise if by chance cold has blocked the nasal passages with mucus, we can draw breath through the mouth, lest, with the way blocked, breath be strangled. As for food received into the belly, when mixed with the moisture of drink and thoroughly cooked by heat, its juice, spread through the members in an indescribable way, waters and vivifies the whole body. And the many coils of the intestines, wound in upon themselves yet bound together by a single ligament, form how wonderful a work of God! For when the belly has released the softened food from itself, it is gradually pushed out through those inner windings, so that whatever juice is in it, by which the body is nourished, may be distributed to all the members; and yet, lest it should anywhere adhere and stick—which could easily happen because of the frequent turnings of the coils folding back upon themselves, and could not happen without harm—he smeared the inside of them with a thicker fluid, so that the waste of the belly might more easily slide toward its exit along that slippery surface. Here too is a most delicate device: the bladder, a feature birds lack, though wholly distinct from the intestines and lacking any duct to pull urine from them, still fills up and swells with fluid regardless. How this happens is not hard to see. The parts of the intestines that receive food and drink from the belly are wider than the rest of the coils and much thinner. These surround and enclose the bladder; and when the mixed food and drink reach these parts, the thicker waste passes on and moves through, while all the moisture is filtered through that thin lining, and the bladder—whose membrane is likewise thin and fine—absorbs and collects it, so as to discharge it outward through the passage nature has opened for that purpose.
Concerning the womb also and conception, since we are speaking of internal matters, it is necessary to say something, lest we seem to have passed over anything; for although these things lie hidden out of sight, they cannot escape our understanding and reason. In males, the vessel that holds the seed is double, lying a little farther in than that receptacle for the unclean fluid. For just as there are two kidneys, and likewise two testicles, so too there are two seminal vessels, joined together nonetheless in a single structure—which we can see in the bodies of animals when they are cut open and laid bare. The one on the right holds the male seed, the one on the left the female; and in general, in the whole body, the right side is masculine, the left feminine. Some think that the seed flows only from the marrow, others that it flows from the whole body into the generative vessel and there congeals; but how this happens the human mind cannot grasp. Likewise in women the womb divides itself into two parts, which spread apart in opposite directions and curve back on themselves like the horns of a ram; the part that turns toward the right is masculine, the one toward the left, feminine. Varro and Aristotle think that conception happens in this way. They say that seed exists not only in males but also in females, and that from this children are very often born resembling their mothers—but that the female seed is purified blood; and if this is properly mixed with the male seed, both, having congealed and coagulated together, are shaped into form; and first the heart of the human being is formed, since in it resides all life and wisdom, and finally the whole work is completed on the fortieth day. These conclusions have perhaps been gathered from cases of miscarriage. Yet in the case of bird embryos, it is beyond doubt that the eyes are formed first, as is often observed in eggs; from which I think it cannot be otherwise than that the formation of the body begins from the head. As for resemblances in the bodies of children, they think this happens in the following way: when the seeds mix together and coalesce, if the male seed prevails, the offspring, whether male or female, comes to resemble the father; if the female seed prevails, the offspring of either sex corresponds in likeness to the mother. And that seed prevails, of the two, which is more abundant, for it in some way embraces and encloses the other; hence it often happens that the features of only one parent are displayed. But if the mixture is equal, from equal amounts of seed, the features too are blended, so that the common offspring seems to resemble neither parent, since it does not take its whole likeness from one alone, or else seems to resemble both, since it has borrowed a part from each. For in the bodies of animals we see that the parents' colors are sometimes blended into a third color resembling neither parent, or else both are expressed in such a way that a harmonious mixture of differently colored parts varies throughout the whole body. Differences of nature, too, are thought to arise in this way: when by chance the seed of a male line falls into the left part of the womb, the opinion is that a male is indeed born, but because he was conceived on the female side, he has in him something feminine beyond what befits masculine grace—either a striking beauty, or excessive fairness of complexion, or physical delicacy, or refined limbs, or short stature, or a light voice, or a weak character, or several of these together. Likewise, if seed of the female kind flows into the right part, a female is indeed produced, but since she was conceived on the male side, she has in her something of manliness beyond what the nature of her sex allows—either strong limbs, or unusual height, or a dark complexion, or a rough face, or an unbecoming countenance, or a strong voice, or a bold spirit, or several of these. But if the male seed reaches the right side and the female the left, both kinds of offspring come out properly formed, so that women retain in every respect the grace proper to their nature, and men preserve manly strength both in mind and in body. But how wonderful is this very institution of God, that for the preservation of each kind he devised the two sexes, male and female, by whose union through the allurement of pleasure additional offspring might be provided, lest mortality's condition should extinguish every living kind. But greater strength was given to males, so that women might more easily be brought to bear the yoke of marriage. Thus man (vir) is so called because there is greater force (vis) in him than in woman, and from this virtue (virtus) takes its name; likewise woman (mulier), as Varro explains, comes from softness (mollities), with a letter changed and dropped, as though mollier. When she has conceived and the time of birth begins to draw near, her swelling breasts are distended with sweet juices, and her fertile chest overflows with founts of milk for the nourishment of the newborn. For it would not have been fitting for so wise a creature to draw nourishment from anywhere but the region of the heart; and this very thing has been most skillfully arranged, so that a warm, rich fluid might nourish the tenderness of the new body, until it is furnished with teeth and strengthened enough to take sturdier food. But let us return to our proposed task, so that we may briefly explain what remains.