Hence Aristotle affirms, that man and the sun beget man. A noble doctrine of human philosophy, truly! Follow this highest effort of natural reason and it will bring you at length to the inevitable conclusion, that both man and the sun are eternal and infinite, as the same philosopher concluded the world itself was. For you will never find a man who was or is in himself either the beginning or the end of himself or of his race. Wherefore I myself am not able to discover by my own reason, either the beginning or the end of my Martin Luther, if I wish to understand either my beginning or my end, and not to believe it. For as to our possessing a formal knowledge or a knowledge of the forms of things, a cow possesses the same, which knows her own home, or, as the German proverb has it, "The cow sees and knows the gate." Here again the awfulness of the original fall and sin is revealed. For we are thereby rendered so destitute of true knowledge that we cannot of ourselves discover either our beginning or our end.

After all the disputations therefore of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero and other philosophers of note, who have concluded from man's walking upright, while all other animals have their heads inclined downwards, looking towards the earth, and from his possessing the powers of intellect, that man is a singular animal and created to immortality according to all this argument and conclusion, what a poor, meagre and almost futile wisdom is this! The whole of it after all is derived from a contemplation of the form. And if you should still go on to argue upon the material of man, would not the same human reason compel you to conclude that this nature of ours is perishable, must be dissolved and cannot be immortal?

What then is the conclusion of the whole matter? Let us learn it. It is, that the only true wisdom is found in the Holy Scriptures and in the Word of God. For the Word teaches us not only concerning the material, not only concerning the form of the whole creation, but also concerning the efficient and the final cause of all things; and concerning the beginning and the end of all things; WHO created them, what he created and for what end he created that which he did create. Without the knowledge of the two causes, the efficient and the final, all our highest wisdom differs but little from that of the beasts, which use their eyes and their ears, but know nothing of the beginning or the end of what they see.

The text before us therefore is very remarkable. And the more it seems to be contrary to all our experience and to reason, the more diligently should we ponder it and the more firmly should we believe it. By this text therefore we are taught the beginning of man, that the first man did not exist by generation, as Aristotle and the other philosophers, deceiving themselves by human reasonings, have dreamed; that the propagation of the posterity of the first man is indeed effected by generation; but that the first man himself was created from the dust of the field and that the first woman was formed and fashioned out of a rib of the man, extracted from him while he was asleep. Here therefore we have the true beginning of man which all the reason and philosophy of Aristotle could not discover.

The beginning then of man, as wrought of God, being thus established by the testimony of Moses, there follows the propagation of man by means of the union of male and female; in no degree less wonderful than the original creation of each. The whole human race are procreated by a single drop of human blood. On this propagation of mankind it is that the apostle Paul eloquently displays his philosophy, derived from this sacred portion of the Scripture, before the philosophers of Athens, "The God that made the world and all things therein," etc., "seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and he made of one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being," Acts 17:24-28. Here Paul speaks before all the Athenian philosophers of the propagation of mankind "by the blood of one," as he expresses it. If therefore the whole race of mankind have been generated from one small drop of blood of one man, and are still so generated, as the experience of all men throughout the whole world testifies, most certainly this miracle is no less wonderful and admirable than were those original wonders, namely, the creation of the first man from the dust of the ground, and that of the first woman from the rib of the man.

But how is it that the original miracles of the creation of Adam and Eve seem to us so wonderful and so incredible; while the still standing miracle of the continuous propagation of man, which we all know and daily see, excites no wonder or admiration at all? It is because, as Augustine says, "Miracles become no miracles at all, by familiarity." Hence we wonder not at the admirable light of the sun, because we see it every day. For the same reason we admire not other gifts and blessings of God's creation, but are blind and deaf to them all. On the same ground Pythagoras well said, that a most sweet and marvelous concert of sounds was effected by the harmony and velocity of the motions and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, but that men became deaf to this celestial concert by hearing it continually; just as those who are accustomed to the roarings of the Nile are not at all affected by the thunders of the water, while to others, who are not accustomed to them, they are awful and intolerable. There is no doubt that Pythagoras received this idea from the fathers by tradition. Not however that they really believed in any actual harmony of sounds, made by the motions of the heavenly bodies. Their meaning was that the creation of these celestial bodies was truly delightful and marvelous; but that their beauty and their glory were not duly observed by us ungrateful and insensate beings; and that we did not render unto God the praises due to him, as the Creator of such wonderful and admirable creatures.

Thus also it is a great miracle that a small seed placed in the ground should cause to spring forth a lofty and magnificent oak. But as this is so familiar as an everyday occurrence, it makes no impression upon us; just so little do we appreciate the nature and manner of our own propagation. For why is it not worthy of the highest admiration that a woman should receive human seed, which then grows, and as Job 10:11 so beautifully says, "Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews;" that is, formed me and nourished me in my mother until I was matured to live in the air, separated from her. In this new state of existence I received no new nourishment, but it came from the same mother in a new way and manner, in that from both breasts of my mother as from fountains, her milk went forth by which her infant was nourished. All this is most wonderful and utterly incomprehensible, but lightly esteemed by us because we have truly become deaf to this most pleasant and lovely music of nature.

Whereas could all these marvelous realities be seen and estimated by the vision of true faith, they would be no more common things to the beholder, nor less miracles, than that which Moses here records, when he testifies that one of Adam's ribs was taken from his side while he was asleep, and that the woman Eve was formed out of it by the hand of God. For if it had pleased the Lord to form us as he did Adam, from the dust of the ground, by this time that manner of forming man might have ceased also to be a miracle in our sight; and we might now perhaps be rather admiring the existing law of the generation of mankind by male and female. So true is that barbarously-composed perhaps, but by no means random-shot poetical line,

Omne rarum carum: vilescit quotidianum.
"Rare things will e'er delight our eyes,
But common things are no surprise."

Thus if the stars did not rise every night and in all places, what crowds would gather where the light of one night's starry heaven might be witnessed! But now not one of us opens a single window to behold the sight.