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God, then, made man in His own image. For He created for him a
soul endowed with reason and intelligence, so that he might excel all
the creatures of earth, air, and sea, which were not so gifted. And
when He had formed the man out of the dust of the earth, and had
willed that his soul should be such as I have said, whether He had
already made it, and now by breathing imparted it to man, or rather
made it by breathing, so that that breath which God made by breathing
(for what else is "to breathe" than to make breath?) is the
soul,, He made also a wife for him, to aid him in the work of
generating his kind, and her He formed of a bone taken out of the
man's side, working in a divine manner. For we are not to conceive
of this work in a carnal fashion, as if God wrought as we commonly see
artisans, who use their hands, and material furnished to them, that
by their artistic skill they may fashion some material object. God's
hand is God's power; and He, working invisibly, effects visible
results. But this seems fabulous rather than true to men, who measure
by customary and everyday works the power and wisdom of God, whereby
He understands and produces without seeds even seeds themselves; and
because they cannot understand the things which at the beginning were
created, they are sceptical regarding them, as if the very things
which they do know about human propagation, conceptions and births,
would seem less incredible if told to those who had no experience of
them; though these very things, too, are attributed by many rather to
physical and natural causes than to the work of the divine mind.
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