it shows, clearer than light, [the extent of his] faculty, and how many virtues are called principal, and what are the genera of virtue and vice that proceed from them; and at the same time, in what manner joy, sadness, laughter, tears, and sleep are constituted. For what is there, most excellent prelate, that you ought more deservedly to note and consider, in common with all students, than this matter? After the Creator, the Word, had determined, from the creation of the intellectual, visible, and material world, to bring forth an animal (by which a proof of greater wisdom, and a storehouse of generosity and goodness concerning natures, might be made known), He created man, establishing him upon the earth as a second world, as it were, great in small. This one, I say, He created, another angel, an adorative, rational [being], an arbiter of visible nature, but an expert in intellectual mysteries, a king of earthly things, and one who is ruled by higher powers: suitable for earth and heaven, temporal and immortal, visible and intelligible, midway between the exalted and the humble; who is the same, both spirit and flesh. And he is the same, who is in charge of power here, yet is to migrate elsewhere, and at the end of the mystery, pointing toward God, becomes divine. For you will perceive that Meletius himself, in this work, has expressed the nature and structure of this animal, and you will be able to clearly grasp from this that there is nothing in the entire nature of things more excellent than man, especially that one whom many recognize as being endowed with counsel, probity, humanity, innocence, religion, and greatness of spirit, in all things.
CRAMER'S NOTICE TO THE READER
In the third volume of the *Anecdota [Oxoniensia]* we are now publishing, for the first time in Greek, the short work of the iatro-sophist Meletius, *On the Constitution of Man*, which has hitherto been circulated only through the Latin version of Nicolaus Petreius of Corfu, printed at Venice in the year 1552. We present the text according to the authority of three Bodleian codices: Baroccianus 131 (A), Roe 14 (B), and 15 (C); of which the Baroccianus is by far superior in antiquity and quality. I judge that this was written at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The other two are much more recent. And that the Baroccianus was indeed the exemplar from which Petreius made his version is suspected by the very learned Lud. Bachmann in his *Quaestio de Meletio Graece inedito ejusque Latino interprete Nic. Petreio* (a), p. 4; but although Bachmann has judged most excellently concerning Meletius and his codices, he has not arrived at the truth in this conjecture; for it appears even from this that Petreius did not use the Baroccianus codex, because the latter is far fuller in the part of the work that treats of the soul. Sometimes, however, Petreius brings forth citations which are missing in our codex, as, for example, p. 136 (col. 1278 in our edit.), these words of Callimachus: *Go, women's gentleness, on the path where destructive pains do not tread.*
Since, however, the Baroccianus certainly surpasses all the codices, if you except the Parisian ones, which I have not inspected, I have not doubted that its authority is to be held preferable everywhere, except where it clearly had to be corrected from the others, of which B obtains the second place. This codex seems to me to correspond with the Viennese one, which Bachmann also marked as B (p. 5). And it will perhaps be the same codex of which Fabricius speaks (supra col. 1137): "In another Imperial Library codex, chapter 35, it occurs five times as large." But we now present this ten times as large as it is in the Baroccianus. As for Meletius's treatise, it seems to be the work of a pious and learned man, compiled from various sources, now for the most part lost. But it is rich in etymologies, which he seems to have drawn from Socrates and Soranus. It is therefore no wonder that it has very many things in common with the *Etymologicum Magnum*, to the correction of which it sometimes serves.
(a) Rostock. 1833. 4.
NOTICE OF THE NEW EDITOR
In this our edition, we have accurately applied the variety of readings of the Parisian codex of excellent quality, no. 2299 (P), which V. D. Car. Daremberg kindly communicated to us; we have corrected Cramer's text here and there; we have accommodated the version of Nic. Petreius, where it seemed necessary, to the new text; and finally, we have taken care to transcribe and now publish for the first time the fragment *Anecdoton on the Elements* (col. 1283) from the same Parisian codex.
BEGINNING WITH GOD: THE WRITINGS OF MELETIUS ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF MAN. PROOEMIUM.
A The present summary on the nature of man was worked out, collected, and composed by Meletius, monk of the Opsician theme, of the Band of Akrokos, in the village of Tiberioupolis, of the monastery called "The Three," that is, the Holy Trinity; not that he intended to invent anything new to physicize about the nature of man, but he wished to set forth a brief and complete treatise for those who are eager to learn and diligent in study. For although many of the ancient wise men composed many treatises regarding our nature, either in abridged form or in separate sections, none completed it as a concise and lacking-nothing work.
B For Hippocrates, though he wrote a few and obscure things regarding the nature of a child and a man, mentioned nothing concerning the universal man, or the faculties or activities within him, or the parts of his body. And Galen, when he mentioned the nature of parts and the quality of temperaments, in none of his treatises appears to have written down such a complete hypothesis. Socrates, moreover, in the work which he inscribed *On the Nature of Man*, explained the properties of the parts and names of man, discussing it more as a grammarian than as a philosopher. But the holy teachers of the Church, such as the great Basil, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, the golden-tongued Chrysostom, and the all-blessed Cyril, and many others who flourished in their time, while they were delivering teachings on divine matters in their masterly sermons, also handed down precepts concerning the interpretation of nature, and undoubtedly philosophized at length about animals, and about vital and natural faculties and activities. C Yet, none of the aforementioned men, nor any collector of these holy men, appears to have brought the whole subject into one single treatise. Therefore, I have gathered the things dispersed, as they lay in their books, and have composed the present written work as best I could. To those who wish to have it, it will be, as is natural, a reminder of the nature and constitution of the whole body; for me, it is an exercise and a refuge from my own ignorance. One therefore, who reads without idle curiosity, must do so with love and the fear of God, and for the sake of profit; and he must not hunt for words in order to criticize the one who wrote this. For, as I think, what is composed here is not easily grasped by all, but rather much of it is—
are contained here, but also much of what is A required by the many for investigation; and especially for those who are lacking in philosophy and medical science.
EPITOME
The entire treatise is from the beginning joined and bound together, and as it were articulated, clarifying the parts of the body one by one, and investigating their natural composition. It adapts the elements of the cosmos to the body, and calculates which element of the cosmos is equivalent to the element of the body; and what are the simple and primary elements, and what are the similar and dissimilar parts; and how many faculties operate within the living creature; and how many senses; and what is the tripartite soul, and of what things the intellect is sovereign. And whence speech is generated; and what is spoken speech, and what is internal; and what is appetite, and whence it arises, and how foods are processed, and how they B are digested, and how they are distributed; and how many digestions there are, and how many kinds of waste; and how blood is generated, and how and whence the whole body is irrigated; and how sleep occurs; and why and whence laughter and joy, grief and tears, are constituted. When, however, the thesis is thus completed and as it were woven together, as if making a repetition, the discourse examines the parts again one by one, explaining each one from head to foot, defining its nature, its operation, its names, and its terms; not tautological, as one might think, but teaching more broadly what was said in the epitome and concisely, and clarifying it for those who hear; for these reasons, a table is also provided for easy diagnosis.
TABLE OF THE WHOLE VOLUME
1. Concerning the head and its bones and sutures; and why it is called the head, and why it is round and not long; and how many are its names. Concerning the brain, and why it is cold and white and blood-less; and concerning the nerves and muscles. 2. Concerning the eyes; and of how many tunics and humors they consist; and why some became white and others black; and concerning the visual spirit, and concerning its operation and power. 3. Concerning the nose and the smells that occur through it; and whence smell is constituted, and where it ends. 4. Concerning the large and small canthi. 5. Concerning the cheeks. 6. Concerning the upper jaw and the lower. 7. Concerning the ears and their substance, and the sense of hearing. 8. Concerning the chin and the beard. 9. Concerning the face, and why it is so called; and what is signified by it.