67EXEGESIS - GENESIS."He did not dare to approach the man because of his strength, but addressed himself to the woman as the weaker, whilst she was still a virgin ... By the virgin Eve death ensued. By the Virgin, or rather from the Virgin, must come forth life: that as the serpent deceived the one, so Gabriel might bear the good tidings to the other."* "And the Lord God said to the serpent... I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." -- iii. 14, 15. The following observations are borrowed in brief from Fr. Harper: -- "Three Hebrew codices have certainly the feminine here (as ipsa in the Vulgate); five others are dubious. Also one Chaldaean Codex -- and it is quoted in the same form by Maiemonides. S. Ambrose has the received reading of the Vulgate:--"+ "...et semen mulieris: Ipsa tibi observabit caput, et tu illius calcaneum." Prudentius from Spain, writes: -- "Auctor et ipse coluber And Claudius Marius Victor, a native of Marseilles, who wrote, about A.D. 426, a curious sort of commentary on the book of Genesis, in verse: -- "...Pedibus repes et pectore prono, S. Augustine uniformly quotes in the same way, without any hint as to the reading being new or doubtful.|| He had a great predilection for the works of S. Cyprian, who adopts the masculine reading: yet, notwithstanding this, he never makes any explanation or apology, nor suggests any doubt, but uses what is now the received text as a matter of course. * S. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. xii. n. 5; 15. + De Fuga saeculi, vii. 43. He died in 396. ++ Cathemerion, iii. vv. 126-128. He died 405. ** Comment in Genes. L. i. 1. Migne, Patr. Lat. T. 61, p. 948.
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