Gênesis 2
Gregory of Nyssa · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Gênesis 2:7
Above, the text says that God created; here it says how God created. If the verse had simply said that God created, you could have believed that he created [humanity] as he did for the beasts, for the wild animals, for the plants for the grass. This is why, to avoid your placing him in the class of wild animals, the divine word has made known the particular art which God has used for you: "God took of the dust of the earth." — ON THE ORIGIN OF MAN
Gênesis 2:7
God made the inner person; he molded the outer. "Molding" is suitable for clay, but "making" is [fitting] for an image. So on the one hand, he "molded" flesh, but on the other, he "made" the soul. — ON THE ORIGIN OF MAN
Gênesis 2:7
"God took of the dust of the earth and fashioned man." In this world I have discovered the two affirmations that man is nothing and that man is great. If you consider nature alone, he is nothing and has no value; but if you regard the honor with which he has been treated, man is something great. — ON THE ORIGIN OF MAN
Gênesis 2:7
Others, on the contrary, marking the order of the making of man as stated by Moses, say that the soul is second to the body in order of time, since God first took dust from the earth and formed man, and then animated the being thus formed by his breath. By this argument they prove that the flesh is more noble than the soul, that which was previously formed [more noble] than that which was afterward infused into it.… Nor again are we in our doctrine to begin by making up man like a clay figure and to say that the soul came into being for the sake of this, for surely in that case the intellectual nature would be shown to be less precious than the clay figure. But as man is one, the being consisting of soul and body, we are to suppose that the beginning of his existence is one, common to both aspects, so that he should not be found to be antecedent and posterior to himself, as if the bodily element were first in point of time and the other were a later addition. — ON THE MAKING OF MAN 28.1-29.1
Gênesis 2:25
The resurrection promises us nothing else than the restoration of the fallen to their ancient state; for the grace we look for is a certain return to the first life, bringing back again to paradise those who were cast out from it. If then the life of those restored is closely related to that of the angels, it is clear that the life before the transgression was a kind of angelic life, and hence also our return to the ancient condition of life is compared to the angels. — ON THE MAKING OF MAN 17