{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050702.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050702.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050702.htm","text":"Chapter 30\u2014The Danger of Arguing from Silence.\nNow, while the disputants are thus contending with one another in alternate argument, I so judge between them that they must not rely on uncertain evidence; nor make bold assertions on points of which they are ignorant. For if the Scripture had said, \u201cGod breathed into the woman\u2019s face the breath of life, and she became a living soul,\u201d it would not have followed even then that the human soul is not derived by propagation from parents, except the same statement were likewise made concerning their son. For it might have been that whilst an unensouled 2392 member taken from the body might require to be ensouled, 2393 yet that the soul of the son might be derived from the father, transfused by propagation through the mother. There is, however, an absolute silence on the point; it is entirely concealed from our view. Nothing is denied, but at the same time nothing is affirmed. And thus, if in any place the Scripture is possibly not quite silent, the point requires to be supported by clearer proofs. Whence it follows, that neither they who maintain the propagation of souls receive any assistance from the circumstance that God did not breathe into the woman\u2019s face; nor ought they, who deny this doctrine on the ground that Adam did not say, \u201cThis is soul of my soul,\u201d to persuade themselves to believe what they know nothing of. For just as it has been possible for the Scripture to be silent on the point of the woman\u2019s having received her soul, like the man, by the inbreathing of God, without the question before us being solved, but, on the contrary, remaining open; so has it been possible for the same question to remain open and unsolved, notwithstanding the silence of Scripture, as to whether or not Adam said, This is soul of my soul. And hence, if the soul of the first woman comes from the man, a part signifies the whole in his exclamation, \u201cThis is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;\u201d inasmuch as not her flesh alone, but the entire woman, was taken out of man. If, however, it is not from the man, but came by God\u2019s inbreathing it into her, as at first into the man, then the whole signifies a part in the passage, \u201cShe was taken out of the man;\u201d since on the supposition it was not her whole self, but her flesh that was taken.\n\u201cAnimari,\u201d or endued with the \u201canima,\u201d or soul.\n328:2393","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}