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A wonderful sculpture of the cathedral of Chartres represents Adam, with the bust just mentioned, which emerges from the mother land, shaped by the hands of God already the face of the first man reproduces the features of his model. It is a parable carved in stone, that translates to our eyes in an expression as simple as the mysterious words of the Book of Genesis: "God made man in His own image and likeness." Christian tradition has continued, since its origins, to comment on this verse. We recognized our first title of nobility, the foundation of our greatness. Reason, freedom, immortality and dominion over nature: they are all divine prerogatives of their source, that God communicates to his creation and to shine on his face. Each of these prerogatives, which from the beginning are the man in the image of God should bloom until then to complete in him the divine likeness. Thus they open to man's destiny more sublime.
"Know then thyself, man." This is the cry that the mouth of his doctors and his apologists, the early Church launches everywhere around him. Resumed after Epictetus, the gnothi seauton Socratic, transforms and deepens it. What the ancient sage was primarily a board of moral attention, it makes it a point to evaluate metaphysics. Known, it says, ie know your nobility and your dignity, understand the greatness of your being and your vocation, the vocation which constitutes your being. Know you see in the spirit of God reverb, made for God " [Anima,] tu devi fare attenzione a te stessa; questo è, infatti, il modo più sicuro per conservare le cose buone: sappi quanto tu sei stata onorata dal Creatore al di sopra del resto della creazione… Nessuna cosa che esiste è così grande da essere commisurata alla tua grandezza ». Qualche filosofo ti ha detto che eri un « microcosmo », piccolo mondo fatto dagli stessi elementi, dotato della stessa struttura, sottomesso agli stessi ritmi del grande universo; ti hanno spiegato che eri fatta a sua immagine e che subivi le sue leggi; hanno fatto di te la rotella di un ingranaggio, tutt’al più una macchina cosmica in miniatura. Non si sbagliavano del tutto. Per il tuo corpo e per tutto quello che in te può essere that 'nature', that is true. But if you go deeper, and if your reflection is illuminated by the guidance of the holy books, then you will be amazed at the depth that will open you. In front of your eyes are open spaces immeasurable. You will notice early on that in a kind of infinity, you transcend from all over this great world and that in reality it is, the macrocosm, to be contained in this apparent "microcosm" ... In parvo magnus. You might think that the paradox is taken from some of our modern idealists. Not at all. Formulated by Origen, then by St. Gregory Nazianzen, is then repeated by many others. St. Thomas Aquinas will give a similar explanation, when he says that the soul is in the world "Continens magis quam happy" there, and was still the talk of Bossuet.
No doubt, man is made of dust and mud - in other words we would say today that he comes from the animal. The Church does not forget, as this is attested in the same page of Genesis. No doubt the man is more sinful, and the Church does not cease to remind her. The estimate that it wants to inculcate itself does not result from a superficial and naive. Like Christ, she knows "what is in man" ... But he knows that this humility of its physical origin no way prevents the sublimity of his vocation, and all tares that may result from sin does not hinder in any way that this calling is to maintain and is a principle of inalienable greatness, indeed, it thinks that it should occur early in the conditions of life this as a source of freedom and as a principle of progress, a necessary revenge on the forces of evil. Finally, the Church acknowledges the mystery of God made man the guarantee of our vocation and consecration of our greatness. So it can be celebrated every day in its liturgy, "the dignity of human nature," even before rising to the contemplation of the new birth ...
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Henri de Lubac
Henri de Lubac, The Drama of Atheistic Humanism , Jaca Book, Milano 1992, pp. 19 -21.
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