From Creation to the Flood: Man and Nature in the Metrum in Genesin

The Metrum in Genesin, a brief yet sophisticated Late Antique poem, reworks the opening chapters of Genesis by blending the biblical account, mediated through patristic exegesis, with resonances of classical culture. Cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis are not presented as mere narrative episodes, but as structural pivots through which the relationship between humanity, nature, and God is articulated. The ontological excellence of the human being - endowed with speech, reason, and a spiritual dimension - underpins cultural and moral progress, while at the same time situating human agency within a horizon of responsibility and subordination to God, the one Lord. The episode of original sin highlights the pedagogical and providential function of divine punishment, portraying nature not as an autonomous force but as an instrument of God’s will. Human centrality thus assumes both an ontological and a theological dimension, inseparable from moral responsibility and from participation in the cosmic order established by the Creator. In this perspective, and in contrast to Lynn White’s well-known critique of biblical anthropocentrism, the Metrum presents human authority as ethically and theologically regulated, in full continuity with patristic exegesis. It also resones with contemporary reflections expressed in the encyclical letter Laudato si’, thereby bearing witness to the Church’s enduring vision of Christian anthropology.