{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050701.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050701.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050701.htm","text":"Chapter 29 [XVIII.]\u2014The Sixth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor.\nLet us now look at the quotation from Genesis, where the woman was created out of the side of the man, and was brought to him, and he said: \u201cThis is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.\u201d Our opponent thinks that \u201cAdam ought to have said, \u2018Soul of my soul, or spirit of my spirit,\u2019 if this, too, had been derived from him.\u201d But, in fact, they who maintain the opinion of the propagation of souls feel that they possess a more impregnable defence of their position in the fact that in the Scripture narrative which informs us that God took a rib out of the man\u2019s side and formed it into a woman, it is not added that He breathed into her face the breath of life; for this reason, as they say, because she had already been ensouled 2387 from the man. If, indeed, she had not, they say, the sacred Scripture would certainly not have kept us in ignorance of the circumstance. With regard to the fact that Adam says, \u201cThis is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh,\u201d 2388 without adding, Spirit or soul, from my spirit or soul, they may answer, just as it has been already shown, that the expression, \u201cmy flesh and bone,\u201d may be understood as indicating the whole by a part, only that the portion that was taken out of man was not dead, but ensouled; 2389 for no good ground for denying that the Almighty was able to do all this is furnished by the circumstance that not a human being could be found capable of cutting off a part of a man\u2019s flesh along with the soul. Adam went on, however, to say, \u201cShe shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.\u201d 2390 Now, why does he not rather say (and thus confirm the opinion of our opponents), \u201cSince her flesh was taken out of man\u201d? As the case stands, indeed, they who hold the opposite view may well contend, from the fact that it is written, not woman\u2019s flesh, but the woman herself was taken out of man, that she must be considered in her entire nature endued with soul and spirit. For although the soul is undistinguished by sex, yet when women are mentioned it is not necessary to regard them apart from the soul. On no other principle would they be thus admonished with respect to self-adornment. \u201cNot with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but which (says the apostle) becometh women professing godliness with a good conversation.\u201d 2391 Now, \u201cgodliness,\u201d of course, is an inner principle in the soul or spirit; and yet they are called women, although the ornamentation concerns that internal portion of their nature which has no sex.\n\u201cAnimata,\u201d possessing the \u201canima,\u201d or soul.\n328:2388 328:2389\n1 Tim. 2:9, 10.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}