Man as Microcosm and Priest of Creation
Man as microcosm (small world) and horizon of the universe, the boundary between heaven and angels above and earth and brute animals below. He has and ties together all degrees of spiritual and corporeal things. Man was introduced into the world to be its high priest, exercising the priesthood on behalf of all creatures. Ambrose: man was created last so he might be king of the elements.
Chapter I (The Six Days of Creation)
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Verse 26: Let Us Make Man in Our Image and Likeness
— Man is a Microcosm and the Horizon of the universe, the boundary between heaven and angels above and earth and brute animals below; he has and ties together all degrees of spiritual and corporeal things.
"he is and is called a Microcosm, and by Plato he is called the Horizon of the universe, because he marks the boundary between and joins in himself the upper hemisphere, namely heaven and the angels, and the lower, namely earth and brute animals"
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Verse 26: Let Us Make Man in Our Image and Likeness
— Man was introduced into the world to be its high priest, exercising the priesthood on behalf of all creatures, and to give thanks for benefits conferred on all.
"Diogenes, as Plutarch attests in his book On Tranquillity of Mind, and Philo in Book I of On Monarchy, teach that the world is like a sacred and beautiful temple of God, into which man was introduced to be its high priest, and to exercise the priesthood on behalf of all creatures"
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Verse 26: Let Us Make Man in Our Image and Likeness
— Ambrose: man was created last so he might be king of the elements; he lives among wild beasts, swims with fish, flies above birds, converses with angels.
"he lives among wild beasts, swims with fish, flies above birds, converses with angels; he dwells on earth and serves in heaven; he plows the sea, feeds on air; a tiller of the soil, a traveler of the deep, a fisherman in the waves, a fowler in the air, an heir in heaven, a co-heir of Christ."