Greek Texts & Translations

And when our Superiors had generated all these kinds as nutriment for us inferior beings, they channelled out our body itself, like as if they were cutting channels in gardens, to the end that it might be irrigated as it were by an inflowing stream. And firstly, beneath the junction 77dof the skin and flesh they cut for hidden channels two veins ^note along the back, seeing that the body was in fact double, with right side and left; and these they drew down along by the spine, keeping between them the spermatic marrow, in order that this might thrive as much as possible, and that the stream of moisture from there, being in a downward course, might flow easily to the other parts and cause the irrigation to be uniform. After this 77ethey clave the veins round the head and interlaced them, and drew them opposite ways, bending those from the right of the head to the left and those from the left to the right, in order that they, together with the skin, might serve as a bond between the head and the body, seeing that the head was not encircled by sinews at the crown; and in order, also, that the sense-impressions derived from the parts on either side might be manifest to the whole body.

78aThereupon they arranged the irrigation on some such plan as this—a plan which we shall perceive more easily when we have first agreed upon the following postulates. All bodies composed of smaller particles shut in the larger, but those composed of larger particles cannot shut in the smaller; and fire, because of all the elements it has the smallest particles, ^note passes through water and earth and air and all things composed thereof, and nothing can shut it in. We must conceive that the same law holds good of the action of our belly. Whenever foods and drinks flow into it 78bit shuts them in, but air and fire, being of smaller particles than its own structure, it cannot shut in. These elements, therefore, God employed to provide irrigation from the belly to the veins, weaving out of air and fire a veil of mesh-work like unto a fish-weel, having two innerweels at its entrance; and one of these inner-weels He wove over again so as to make it bifurcated; and from the inner-weels He stretched as it were ropes all over it in a circle up to the extremities of the veil. Now the inward parts of the veil 78cHe constructed wholly of fire, but the inner-weels and the envelope of air; and taking this He placed it round about the living creature that was molded in the following manner. The part consisting of the inner-weels He let down into the mouth; and since this part was twofold, He let down one inner-weel by way of the windpipe into the lungs, and the other into the belly alongside the windpipe. And cleaving the former of these weels in two He gave to both sections a common outlet by way of the channels of the nose, so that when the first conduit by way of the mouth failed to act, 78dits streams as well should be plenished from this. The rest of the enveloping mesh-work He made to grow round all the hollow part of our body; and He caused all this at one time to flow gently into the inner-weels, seeing they were of air, and at another time the weels to flow back into it. And inasmuch as the body was porous, He caused the veil to pass in through it and out again; and the inner rays of fire that were enclosed within it He made to follow the air as it moved in either direction; whence it comes that, so long as the mortal living creature preserves its structure, this process goes on unceasingly. 78eAnd to this kind of process the Giver of Titles ^note gave, as we say, the names of “inspiration” and “expiration.” And the whole of this mechanism and its effects have been created in order to secure nourishment and life for our body, by means of moistening and cooling. For as the respiration goes in and out the inward fire attached thereto follows it; and whenever in its constant oscillations this fire enters in through the belly 79aand lays hold on the meats and drinks, it dissolves them, and dividing them into small particles it disperses them through the outlets by which it passes and draws them off to the veins, like water drawn into channels from a spring; and thus it causes the streams of the veins to flow through the body as through a pipe.

Once again let us consider the process of respiration, and the causes in virtue of which it has come to be such as it now is.