mud, so the soul by vivifying the matter of the body forms it into a harmonious unity and does not allow it to fall into dissolution.
The Breathing Forth of the Spirit, and
What Is Meant in the Scriptures by the Spirit of Man
10. Scripture says, "And he breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul." 42. If up to this point there was only the body, we should understand that the soul was at this point joined to the body. Perhaps the soul had been already made, but was still as if in the mouth of God, that is, in his truth and wisdom. 43. But it did not depart from there as if separated by places, when it was breathed forth. For God is not contained by place, but is present everywhere. 44. Or perhaps the soul was made when God breathed the breath of life into the mud he had formed so that the breathing forth signifies God's activity by which he made the
____________________The idea that the soul was made and yet remained in the wisdom of God seems to echo Origen's hypothesis in Peri Archōn 1.4.4. To avoid the idea of God's inactivity prior to creation, Origen suggested that God was active from eternity; he was then forced to admit a creature coeternal with God. In Origène, Traité des Principes 2. Livres 1-2, SC 253 (1978) 80, H. Crouzel and M. Simonetti say, "La création co-éternelle à Dieu c'est le Monde Intelligible, contenant les plans de la création et les germes des êtres à venir, et s'identifiant avec le Fils en tant qu'il est Sagesse." Augustine much later hears of this position from Orosius who informed him that both the Aviti and Basil held "that the things God made remained forever in his wisdom, before they became visible." Augustine answers in CO 8.9 that their position lacks sobriety and argues that, if they are made, they have not remained in God's wisdom.
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Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: On Genesis:Two Books on Genesis against the Manichees; And, on the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, an Unfinished Book.
Contributors: Saint Augustine - Author, Roland J. S. J. Teske - Unknown.
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press.
Place of publication: Washington, DC.
Publication year: 1990.
Page number: 104.
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