Chapter 28: On the mode of production, parts, marriage, possession, and chief dignity of humankind
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. On the mode of production, parts, marriage, possession, and chief dignity of humankind.
Thus far concerning the origin of humankind as far as concerns his principle, namely God, whose being, existence, self-sufficiency, and power variously weighed: there follows the MODE by which humankind arose, which is his production from red earth with the breath of the spirit of life according to the image and likeness of the Creator.
Humankind, as he was the last of creatures, was also the compendium of all creatures both immediately and mediately perfect, participating their nature as to spirit and these as to body: the epitome of the world, the horizon of time and eternity. He was moreover also the end of those mediately perfect, and therefore viewed in them and above them with respect to the Creator's intention. Therefore he is said to have been created in another mode than the other creatures. For those were produced by the Word alone: Let there be light, let there be an expanse, and so on; but humankind as if by greater counsel and deliberation: Let us make humankind — Genesis 1:26 — whose image's reason is declared to us by (1) Christ's human nature, pure and whole as in Adam before the fall; (2) human nature glorified in heaven; (3) universal sin, which succeeded into the place of this lost image; (4) begun renovation, by which it begins to be restored in us — Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24.
Latin
CAPUT VIGESIMUM OCTAVUM, De modo productionis, partibus, conjugio, possessione et praecipua dignitate HOMINIS. Hactenus de ore hominis, quantum ad suum principium, Deum videlicet, cujus essentiam, subsistentiam, sufficientiam et efficientiam varie expendimus: sequitur MODUS quo homo ortus est, qui est productio illius e rubra terra cum afflatu spiritaculi vitae ad imaginem et similitudinem creatoris. Homo, ut fuit ultima creaturarum, ita et creaturarum omnium tam immediate quam mediate perfectarum compendium fuit, participans illarum naturam quantum ad spiritum, harum vero quantum ad corpus: mundi epitome, temporis et aeternitatis horizon. Fuit insuper etiam mediate perfectarum finis, et propterea in illis et supra illas quantum ad intentionem creatoris spectatus. Idcirco alio modo creatus dicitur quam caeterae creaturae. Nam illae per solum verbum productae fuerunt: Esto lux, esto expansum, etc.; homo vero quasi consilio ac deliberatione majore: Faciamus hominem — Gen. I.26 — cujus imaginis rationem nobis declarant 1. Natura Christi humana, quia pura erat et integra, qualis in Adamo ante lapsum; 2. Natura humana in caelo glorificata; 3. Universale peccatum, quia in locum hujus imaginis amissae successit; 4. Renovatio inchoata, quia per eam in nobis incipit restitui — Col. III.10; Ephes. IV.24.