Medical-Chemical Work

...in Didascalicon, book 1, says: See, man, says the world, how He loved you, who made me for your sake. I serve you because I was made for your sake, so that you may serve Him who made both me and you; me for your sake, and you for Himself. If you feel the benefit, return the debt; if you receive kindness, return charity.

Lactantius Firmianus (On the Work of God, or the Formation of Man, ch. 8): When therefore God had decided to make man alone of all animals celestial, and all other things terrestrial, He set him upright for the contemplation of heaven and established him as a biped, namely, that he might look toward the same place from which he also has his origin. But He depressed the others to the earth, so that because there is no expectation of immortality for them, with their whole body projected into the soil, they might serve their belly and their fodder. Thus, the upright reason of man alone, and his sublime status, and his face common and close to God the Father, testify to his origin and his creator.

Thriverius in Apopthegmata, 30: Just as the chameleon has skin that is translucent, thin, and transparent, so that it may imitate the color of everything upon which it sits or which approaches it, so the more subtle and noble a man is, the more suited he is to every affection.

Stobaeus, book 6, On Laws: Plato used to say that man is a gentle animal. That if he were educated by right discipline, he would emerge as a most gentle and truly divine animal; but if he were not sufficiently or not well educated, he would become the most ferocious of all animals born on earth. The same, sermon 116: Musonius, describing what man is, says: Man alone of all dwelling on earth is the image of God and has virtues similar to Him. For not even among the gods can anything more excellent be conceived than justice, fortitude, temperance, etc. The same Stobaeus, sermon On Virtue: Perictione the Pythagorean used to say that man was founded and composed for this, that he might contemplate the nature of things and the reason of wisdom itself; and that the labor enjoined upon him is to acquire and contemplate the wisdom of things that exist. The philosopher Anaxagoras, when asked why he thought he was born, answered: For the sake of seeing the heaven and the sun. Which voice, indeed, the genius of the wise has received with the highest admiration, and Lactantius (Institutes, lib. 3, cap. 9) pursues with laughter, thinking that, not knowing what to answer, he burst out into this. But I, on the contrary, would contend that it was not rashly uttered. For if one has weighed the whole matter exactly, he will find clearly that the majesty of the Deity shines forth in the perennial and vital light, to the celebration of which we were made and born, so that it may be seen that God, as if with a stretched-out hand, raised man from the dust to the contemplation of His work, than which nothing is more beautiful.