Mind of the Church

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Annotatio XXXI — Genesis 2:7

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

Annotatio XXXI

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

Augustine, in the sixth book On Genesis to the Letter, chapters 27 and 28, treating this very passage, writes that Adam through sin lost the image of God, impressed in the spirit of the mind, according to which he was created.1 He retracts this same thing in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 24,2 saying that this opinion is not to be so taken as though none [of the image] remained in him; but that it remained so deformed that it had need of reformation. Read Annotation 49 of this book.

Footnotes

  1. Right margin: Whether Adam, by sinning, lost the image [of God]. (Utrùm Adam peccando imaginem amiserit.) ↩

  2. Right margin: St. Augustine retracts himself. (D. Augustinus se ipse retractat.) ↩