Beyond Medical Knowledge
Even without anyone to instruct us we are quite able, on the basis of what we see, live and feel, to understand how our body is formed. Its own nature teaches us.
It may be useful, nonetheless, to consult experts to have a clearer idea. The science of anatomy has allowed us to know the positions of the individual parts of the human body. Other sciences help us to grasp their uses.
In a detailed study we must examine the organs as having three kinds of function: life, enjoyment and conservation.
The organs without which it is impossible to have life are three: the brain, the heart, the liver.
Then there are the gifts that nature gives to the human being to make life pleasant: the senses. The lack, which is not infrequent, of one or other of them does not result in death, but without being able to use them life is less enjoyable.
Finally, we should recall those organs which have no purpose in themselves but are useful to conserve life, for example, the stomach and the lungs.
The true and perfect life, however, is that of the soul. In the soul is found the beauty of the likeness of God, who created humanity with the words: ‘Let us make human beings in our own image, after our own likeness.’
Gregory of Nyssa, The Creation of Man, 30 (PG44, 240)
To Despise the Body is Blasphemy
The Creator of the human body’s members was not ashamed to assume the flesh they are made from. As God himself asserts:
‘Before I formed you in the womb I chose you as my prophet, before you were born I consecrated you.’ [Jer. 1:5]
It is God who fashions every infant in the womb. As Job says:
‘Like clay you have moulded me, like milk you have poured me out, like cheese you have curdled me. You have clothed me in flesh and blood, knit me together with bones and sinews.’ [Job 10:9-11]
There is therefore nothing disgraceful in the composition of the human body, provided only that it is not polluted by adultery or lasciviousness.
The One who created Adam created also Eve. Male and female were formed by God’s hands, and no member of the body was created sinful.
Thus those who despise the body should keep quiet: they despise Christ himself who made it.
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, 12, 26 (PG33, 757)
~Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary, Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World
