About the Planting of Noah (16-20)

And, indeed, God has caused plants to grow with their heads downwards, having fixed their heads in the deepest parts of the earth; and having drawn up the heads of the irrational animals from the earth, he has set them up high on long necks, putting their fore feet under their necks as a kind of foundation.

But man has received a preeminently superior formation. For of all other animals God has bent the eyes downwards, so that they look upon the ground; but on the other hand, he has raised the eyes of man so that he may behold the heaven, being not a terrestrial but a celestial plant as the old proverb is. [*] [*]

But the others who say that our mind is a portion of the ethereal nature, have by this assertion attributed to man a kindred with the air; but the great Moses has not named the species of the rational soul by a title resembling that of any created being, but has pronounced it an image of the divine and invisible being, making it a coin as it were of sterling metal, stamped and impressed with the seal of God, the impression of which is the eternal word.

For, says Moses, "God breathed into man’s face the breath of life," [*] so that it follows of necessity, that he that received the breath must be fashioned after the model of him who sent it forth. On which account it is said too, that "Man was made after the image of God," [*] and not after the image of any created being.

It follows, therefore, since the soul of man has been fashioned in accordance with the archetypal word of the great cause of all things, that his body also, having been raised up to the purest portion of the universe—the heaven, must extend its vision, in order that, by a comparison with what is visible, it may attain to an accurate comprehension of what is invisible.