by these words is signified the plurality of the Divine Person,
Whose image is more clearly expressed in man.
Reply Obj. 3: Some have thought that man's body was formed first in
priority of time, and that afterwards the soul was infused into the
formed body. But it is inconsistent with the perfection of the
production of things, that God should have made either the body
without the soul, or the soul without the body, since each is a part
of human nature. This is especially unfitting as regards the body,
for the body depends on the soul, and not the soul on the body.
To remove the difficulty some have said that the words, "God made
man," must be understood of the production of the body with the soul;
and that the subsequent words, "and He breathed into his face the
breath of life," should be understood of the Holy Ghost; as the Lord
breathed on His Apostles, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John
20:22). But this explanation, as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii,
24), is excluded by the very words of Scripture. For we read farther
on, "And man was made a living soul"; which words the Apostle (1 Cor.
15:45) refers not to spiritual life, but to animal life. Therefore,
by breath of life we must understand the soul, so that the words, "He
breathed into his face the breath of life," are a sort of exposition
of what goes before; for the soul is the form of the body.
Reply Obj. 4: Since vital operations are more clearly seen in man's
face, on account of the senses which are there expressed; therefore
Scripture says that the breath of life was breathed into man's face.
Reply Obj. 5: According to Augustine (Gen. ad lit. iv, 34), the works
of the six days were done all at one time; wherefore according to him
man's soul, which he holds to have been made with the angels, was not
made before the sixth day; but on the sixth day both the soul of the
first man was made actually, and his body in its causal elements. But
other doctors hold that on the sixth day both body and soul of man
were actually made.
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QUESTION 92
THE PRODUCTION OF THE WOMAN
(In Four Articles)
We must next consider the production of the woman. Under this head
there are four points of inquiry:
(1) Whether the woman should have been made in that first production
of things?
(2) Whether the woman should have been made from man?
(3) Whether of man's rib?
(4) Whether the woman was made immediately by God?
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