De opificio dei

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De opificio dei ( About God's work of creation ) is the first writing by the early Christian church father Laktanz , which he wrote in Latin after his conversion to the Christian faith at the beginning of the 4th century . It is a little anthropology that shows man as a well-thought-out creature of God with a God-given destiny. Nevertheless, direct references to Christianity are avoided, so that the script, with its many references to ancient philosophy and pronounced medical details , can be described as crypto-Christian .

Outline and sources

The first 19 chapters (the twentieth contains concluding remarks) are divided into three subject groups:

  • Chapters 1–7: God's excellent formation and shaping of man. The animals (also created by God of course) are far less well equipped
  • Chapters 8–16: a comprehensive anatomical / physiological description of the human body
  • Chapters 17–19: reflections on anima / animus (soul, life force)

Following the customs of his time, Laktanz did not develop his own thoughts, but compiled, affirmed and discarded writings that he found. Since large areas of the philosophical and medical writings in Latin and Greek were available to him, most of which are no longer preserved, his sources are difficult to determine. He himself mentions Marcus Terentius Varro , Lucretius (mainly to attack him) and Marcus Tullius Cicero several times . Maybe he was influenced by Hermetic texts.

The work contains no quotations from the Bible and only an allusion to a passage from the Bible ( Genesis 1.27f in Chapter 8.3).

Further sources on individual topics are given below.

content

The excellent education and shaping of man by God

In chapters 1–7, lactance represents God's work of creation with regard to all living beings. However, through the divine gift of reason, humans are superior to animals that are endowed with physical abilities. The Christian writer Minucius Felix and Cicero, among other authors of antiquity , had already developed this basic idea in his De natura deorum (Book II, 121–153). Lactant also refers to this, even if he does not find it sufficient (Chapters 1, 13). He emphasizes the divina providentia (= divine providence, care) for animals and vehemently polemicises against the Lucretius named by name, who denies this in his De rerum natura (Chapter 6).

Anatomical / physiological description of the human body

In Chapter 8, Laktanz begins with the words nunc ... singulorumque membrorum quae in corpore aperta aut operta sunt, utilitates et habitus explicabo ("well ... I will explain the individual exposed or hidden body parts according to use and external appearance") Description of the human body. First he introduces the human limbs and organs starting from the head: eyes, ears, nose, mouth with teeth and tongue, shoulders, arms, hands, etc. From Chapter 11 he goes through the human body again with the internal organs: windpipe, esophagus , Lungs, stomach, etc. Laktanz thus structures its text using a structure similar to that of Aristotle in the Historia animalium (Book I, 9-12 and Book I, 16-17). The explanations contain enthusiastic praises of the work of creation. So he writes about the hands (chapters 10:22):

quid dicam de manibus rationis ac sapientiae ministris? Quas sollertissimus artifex ...

“What should I say about the hands, these masters of understanding and wisdom? This is what the most skilled artist has ... "

For other things factual descriptions are taken over. Laktanz may have taken over the explanation for occasional double vision (Chapter 9) from Galen ( De usu partium corporis humani , II, 97). There are no dark causes here, rather it is due to the fact that man has two eyes through which the spirit looks like through two windows.

Chapter 12 then deals with uterus et conceptio , i.e. genitals and conception . Much can be traced back, presumably through excerpts and translations from various authors, to Aristotle 's De generatione animalium (which Laktanz itself calls), for example the idea that the heart is formed first in the embryo . The question of whether the sperm is formed in the whole body and - especially - how the sex of the embryo is determined, is also given wide by lactant. However, here he only partially follows Aristotle. He starts from the idea that there are two vena (vessels) in the male body near the urinary bladder , of which the right forms seeds for male embryos and the left for female ones. Accordingly, these grow in the right or left part of the uterus. However, if there is a crossover, i.e. male embryos in the female part of the uterus or vice versa, this leads to strange characteristics in the children: men with delicate voices and weak souls, women with strong limbs and wild hearts (Chapters 12: 12-14).

anima / animus

Laktanz introduces the last part of his treatise with superest de anima dicere (“it remains to talk about the soul”). He represents the creative type of early Christian psychology, i.e. the origin of every soul directly from God. The person distinguished by the soul should seek the closeness of God through a virtuous life (chapters 19, 10).

But non-Christian content is also discussed (Chapter 18), such as the distinction between anima (soul, life) and animus (soul, spirit, mind). For this he mentions Epicurean poets and discusses the possibility that the sleeper, whose animus is resting, may be shown the future in a dream. By quoting Virgil, he proves the possibility of true and false dreams.

Lore

The text was apparently quite common. Isidore of Seville uses it extensively in his Etymologiae and quotes it almost 50 times in his work Liber differentiarum . Even Cassiodorus uses it to ( De anima within the Variae (epistulae) ). Samuel Brandt was able to use nine medieval manuscripts for his 1893 edition . In addition, there are around 150 manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries that are inefficient for text reconstruction and understanding. The first edition was in 1465 as incunabula in Offizin of Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweynheym - in - pioneers of printing in Italy Subiaco printed. Dr. Anton Knappitsch created a translation into German, which was published in 1919 in the Library of the Church Fathers series.

Text editions and translations

  • Samuel Brandt : L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti opera omnia. Accedunt carmina eius quae feruntur et L. Caecilii qui inscriptus est De mortibus persecutorum liber (= Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum . Volume 27). Prague / Vienna / Leipzig 1893, pp. 1–64 ( digitized version ).
  • Sister Mary Francis McDonald, OP (translation): Lactantius, The minor works (= The Fathers of the Church. Volume 54). Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC 1965, pp. 5-58 (English translation).

literature

  • Samuel Brandt: About the sources of Laktanz 'De opificio Dei. In: Vienna Studies. Journal of Classical Philosophy. Volume 13, 1891, pp. 255-292 ( digitized version ).
  • Antonie Wlosok : De opificio dei (opif.). In: Reinhart Herzog (ed.): Restoration and renewal. The Latin literature from 284 to 374 AD (= Handbook of Classical Studies . Eighth section: History of Roman literature. Volume 5). CH Beck, Munich 1989, pp. 382-385.
  • Heinrich Karpp: Problems of early Christian anthropology. Biblical and Philosophical Psychology among the Church Fathers of the Third Century. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1950, pp. 132–171.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Antonie Wlosok : De opificio dei (opif.). In: Reinhart Herzog (ed.): Restoration and renewal. The Latin literature from 284 to 374 AD (= Handbook of Classical Studies . Eighth section: History of Roman literature. Volume 5). CH Beck, Munich 1989, p. 383.
  2. ↑ Samuel Brandt: About the sources of Laktanz 'De opificio Dei. In: Vienna Studies. Journal of Classical Philosophy. Volume 13, 1891, pp. 272-275.
  3. ^ Heinrich Karpp: Problems of Early Christian Anthropology , p. 160, note 3
  4. ^ Aristotle, de generatione animalium 2,4.
  5. ^ Heinrich Karpp: Problems of Early Christian Anthropology , p. 143.
  6. ^ Heinrich Karpp: Problems of Early Christian Anthropology , p. 167 ff.
  7. ^ Samuel Brandt: L. Caeli Firmiani Lactanti opera omnia. Accedunt carmina eius quae feruntur et L. Caecilii qui inscriptus est De mortibus persecutorum liber (= Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum . Volume 27). Prague / Vienna / Leipzig 1893, pp. VII – XV.
  8. ↑ Antonie Wlosok: De opificio dei (opif.). In: Reinhart Herzog (ed.): Restoration and renewal. The Latin literature from 284 to 374 AD (= Handbook of Classical Studies. Eighth section: History of Roman literature. Volume 5). CH Beck, Munich 1989, p. 383.
  9. ↑ Entry in the complete catalog of the Wiegendrucke; Digitization of the incunabulum on the website of the Munich Digitization Center .