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Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430

"The Confessions of St. Augustine"

We behold the lights shining from
above, the sun to suffice for the day, the moon and the stars to cheer
the night; and that by all these, times should be marked and
signified. We behold on all sides a moist element, replenished with
fishes, beasts, and birds; because the grossness of the air, which
bears up the flights of birds, thickeneth itself by the exhalation
of the waters. We behold the face of the earth decked out with earthly
creatures, and man, created after Thy image and likeness, even through
that Thy very image and likeness (that is the power of reason and
understanding), set over all irrational creatures. And as in his
soul there is one power which has dominion by directing, another
made subject, that it might obey; so was there for the man,
corporeally also, made a woman, who in the mind of her reasonable
understanding should have a parity of nature, but in the sex of her
body, should be in like manner subject to the sex of her husband, as
the appetite of doing is fain to conceive the skill of right-doing
from the reason of the mind.


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