A citation from the library
Maximus the Confessor, on Gen 1:28
Maximus the Confessor · c. A.D. 579–662
Gen 1:28 · Douay-Rheims
“And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.”
On this verse:
“Indeed being in himself the universal union of all, [Christ] has started with our [sexual] division and become the perfect human being, having from us, on our account and in accordance with our nature, everything that we are and lacking nothing, "apart from sin," and having no need of the natural intercourse of marriage. In this way he showed, I think, that there was perhaps another way, foreknown to God, for human beings to increase, if the first human being had kept the commandment and not cast himself down to an animal state by abusing his own proper powers. Thus God-made-man has done away with the difference and division of nature into male and female, which human nature in no way needed for generation, as some hold, and without which it would perhaps have been possible.”
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.