Man is a Macrocosmos

You must remember, dear reader, that God first created the invisible world and then the visible, “in order to reveal a greater wisdom and the manifold purposes of nature”, as St. Gregory the Theologian noted. God also created last of all man with an invisible soul and a visible body. He, therefore, has created man to be a cosmos, a world unto himself, but not a microcosmos within a greater one, as the philosopher Democritos declared and as other philosophers have upheld.  Such philosophers considered man to be a microcosmos, minimizing and restricting his value and perfection within this visible world. God, on the contrary, has placed man to be a sort of macrocosmos  – a “greater world” within a small one. He indeed a greater world by virtue  of the multitude of powers that he possesses, especially the powers of reason, of spirit, and of will, which this great and visible world does not have. This is why St. Gregory the Theologian again stated that God has placed this second cosmos (i.e. man) to be upon earth as a great world within the small one. – St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain in A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel