Ziel, oorsprong
"Toen maakte God, de HEER, de mens. Hij vormde hem uit stof, uit aarde, en blies hem levensadem in de neus.
Zo werd de mens een levend wezen." Gen. 2:7
../..
Some persons at this point may maintain that souls, if they only began a little while ago to exist, cannot endure for any length of time. They may say that souls must, on the one hand, either be unborn in order to be immortal, or if they have had a beginning in the way of generation, then they must die with the body itself. However, let them learn that God alone, who is Lord of all, is without beginning and without end.
Irenaeus (c. 180, E/W), 1.411.
Anyone who thinks in this manner concerning souls and spirits, and, in fact, concerning all created things, will not by any means go far astray. For, indeed, all things that have been made had a beginning when they were formed. And they endure as long as God wills that they should have an existence and continuance. . . . But he who rejects this, proves himself ungrateful to his Maker. For, although he has been created, he has not recognized Him who bestowed [life]. Therefore, he deprives himself of continuance forever and ever. Irenaeus (c. 180, E/W), 1.411, 412.
Both [body and soul] are revealed to the world as but one. For the soul was not prior to the body in its essence. Nor, in regard to its formation, did the body precede the soul. But both of these were produced at one time. Irenaeus (c. 180, E/W), 1.576.
From that time, ever since the blessing was pronounced upon man’s generation, the flesh and the soul have had a simultaneous birth—without any calculable difference in time. Therefore, the two have been even generated together in the womb. . . . Contemporaneous in the womb, they are also temporally identical in their birth. The two are no doubt produced by human parents of two substances—but not at two different periods.Rather, they are so entirely one that neither is before the other. Tertullian (c. 197, W), 3.578.
But Scripture—which has a better knowledge of the soul’s Maker, or rather God—has told us nothing more than that God breathed on man’s face the breath of life, and that man became a living soul. Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.191.
The flesh and the soul have had a simultaneous birth, without any calculable difference in time, so that the two have even been generated together in the womb. . . . The two are no doubt produced by human parents. Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.578.
If someone should teach that the immortal being of the soul is also sown along with the mortal body, he will not be believed. For the Almighty alone breathes into man the undying and undecaying part. . . . For He says that He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Methodius (c. 290, E), 6.316.
Man consists of soul and body—that is, from heaven and earth. For the soul (by which we live) has its origin, as it were, out of heaven from God. But the body has its origin out of the earth, from the dust of which we have said that it was formed. Lactantius (c. 304–313, W), 7.61.
A question may also arise respecting this: whether the soul is produced from the father, or from the mother, or from both. Now, I think the following answer should be given, although not dogmatically: None of those three possibilities are correct. Rather, souls are produced neither from both parents or from either one alone. Of course, a body may be produced from a body, for something is contributed from both. But a soul cannot be produced from souls. . . . Therefore, the manner of the production of souls belongs entirely to God alone. . . . Nothing but what is mortal can be produced from mortals. . . . From this, it is evident that souls are not given by parents, but by one and the same God and Father of all. He alone knows the law and method of their birth, for He alone produces them. Lactantius (c. 314, W), 7.298, 299.