God, then, made man in His own image. For He created for him a soul
endowed with reason and intelligence, so that he might excel all the
creatures of earth, air, and sea, which were not so gifted. And when
He had formed the man out of the dust of the earth, and had willed
that his soul should be such as I have said,--whether He had already
made it, and now by breathing imparted it to man, or rather made it
by breathing, so that that breath which God made by breathing (for
what else is "to breathe" than to make breath?) is the soul,[562]--He
made also a wife for him, to aid him in the work of generating his
kind, and her He formed of a bone taken out of the man's side,
working in a divine manner. For we are not to conceive of this work
in a carnal fashion, as if God wrought as we commonly see artisans,
who use their hands, and material furnished to them, that by their
artistic skill they may fashion some material object. God's hand is
God's power; and He, working invisibly, effects visible results.
But this seems fabulous rather than true to men, who measure by
customary and everyday works the power and wisdom of God, whereby He
understands and produces without seeds even seeds themselves; and
because they cannot understand the things which at the beginning were
created, they are sceptical regarding them--as if the very things
which they do know about human propagation, conceptions and births,
would seem less incredible if told to those who had no experience of
them; though these very things, too, are attributed by many rather to
physical and natural causes than to the work of the divine mind.