Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 21

by Philip Schaff et al.

Chapter 21.—The Second Passage Quoted by Victor.

On the same principle we treat the passage in which God says: “For my Spirit shall go forth from me; and I have created every breath.”^[1] Here the former clause, “My Spirit shall go forth from me, must be taken as referring to the Holy Ghost, of whom the Saviour similarly says, “He proceedeth from the Father.”^[2] But the other clause, “I have created every breath,” is undeniably spoken of each individual soul. Well; but God also creates the entire body of man; and, as nobody doubts, He makes the human body by the process of propagation: it is therefore, of course, still open to inquiry concerning the soul (since it is evidently God’s work), whether He creates it as He does the body; by propagation, or by inbreathing, as He made the first soul.

Footnotes

1. Isa. lvii. 16. In the Septuagint it is, Πνεῦμα γὰρ παρ’ ἐμοῦ ἐξελεύσεται, καὶ πνοὴν πᾶσαν ἐγὼ ἐποίσα.
2. John xv. 26.