order to give him (as the passage was later interpreted) a human soul. The second passage, , reinterprets the Genesis passage prophetically, in foreseeing God resurrecting the dead bones of exiled Israel by means of his life-giving breath. And finally, in , Christ is represented as conveying the Paraclete to his disciples, and so initiating the commissioned church, by breathing on them, here too, very possibly, with implicit reference to the original creation. The two passages were connected explicitly in later Christian exegesis: the same breath that created man re-created him. "[Insufflation] signifies, To blow into, Gen. 2. 7. This sheweth mans soul not to be of the earth, as his body was, but of nothing, by the insufflation of God, and so differing from the spirit of beasts, Eccl. 3. 21. This word is used also, when Christ to make men new creatures, inspired his Apostles with the holy Ghost, Joh. 20. 21." "The Lord God, saith the Text, formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his Nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living Soul. His Body made of Earth, but his Soul the Breath of God. … We must not understand it grosly; for so Breath is not attributable unto God, who is a simple and perfect Spirit; but … as a figurative expression of God's communicating unto Man that inward Principle, whereby he lives and acts, not only in common with, but in a degree above other Animals. … The Learned P. Fagius takes notice of three things in the Text of Moses, which do conclude the Immortality of the Soul of Man. I. Insufflatio illa Dei: This Inspiration from God spoken of: For he that breaths into another, contributes unto him aliquid de suo somewhat of his own: And therefore, saith he, when our B. Saviour would communicate his Spirit to his Disciples, he did it with Insufflation, breathing on them, thereby to signifie, se Divinum & de suo quiddam illis contribuere [i.e., that he was himself divine and was infusing something of his own into them]." The associations with creation, rebirth, initiation, and revivification created by these passages of Scripture suited insufflation for a role in baptism as it has been most commonly regarded: as figuring the waters of creation (over which the Spirit brooded); as figuring the womb of rebirth; and as figuring (in Saint Paul's metaphor)