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Annotation XXVIII, Whether the body was made before the soul (Genesis 2:7)

“He breathed into his face the breath of life.”

Annotatio XXVIII

”He breathed into his face the breath of life.” — Genesis 2:7

Augustine, in the second book On Genesis Allegorically, chapter 8, teaches that the body of man was not founded before the creation of the soul, but together with the soul itself at one and the same time.1 He disapproves this same [view] in book 1 of the Retractations, chapter 10.

Footnotes

  1. Left margin: Whether the body was made before the soul. (An corpus ante animam factum sit.) — and: St. Augustine retracts himself. (D. Augustinus se retractat.) ↩

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Sixtus of Siena, O.P., “Annotation XXVIII, Whether the body was made before the soul (Genesis 2:7),” in Annotations on the Old Testament, English translation, Mind of the Church, https://mindofthechurch.com/works/bibliotheca-sancta/029-annotation-xxviii-whether-the-body-was-made-before-the-soul-/.

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