Scripture, which we have commented on from the opening
CHAPTER 2
A summary of previous investigations into the origin of Adam's soul.
3. Hence, we must first see whether this book of Sacred Scripture, which we have commented on from the opening verse, permits us to doubt about this matter. Then perhaps we shall be able to ask legitimately either what opinion we should choose to adopt or what restrictions we ought to observe in a matter that is uncertain.
Without doubt, on the sixth day God made man in Hts image; and in the same place in Scripture it is also said, Male and female He made them.? In the foregoing discussions, where the image of God was mentioned, I took this as referring to the soul; but where the difference of sex was mentioned, I took this as referring to the body.* Furthermore, the abundant and compelling evidence of Scripture in the texts which have been examined and discussed above would not allow me to understand that the man was formed from the slime of the earth and the woman from his side on the sixth day of creation; but it was clear that this was done later, after the original works of God in which He created all things together.>
I sought, therefore, to discover what we should believe about the soul of the first man, and after I had examined every aspect of the question, the explanation that seemed probable and reasonable to me was that the soul of the man was made in the original works of creation but that the seminal reason of his body was placed in the corporeal world. Otherwise we should be forced to accept, against the testimony of Scripture, the conclusion that on the sixth day the whole work was done, that is, the man made from the slime of the earth and the woman from his side, or that in the works of the six days man was not made at all; or that it was the causal reason of the body only that was made and not any reason of the soul, although it is in his soul that man is the image of God; or again (and this position is not patently opposed to the words of Scripture, but it is strange and unacceptable) that it was in a spiritual creature created for this purpose alone that the reason-principle of the human soul was