...if a woman becomes masculine and wishes to act according to the other sex, even asking for a wife, she must be denied; for one must always stand by promises confirmed by an oath. Furthermore, the illustrious Paré adds that hermaphrodites must, under penalty of death, always remain and live within the sex they have chosen.

ON GENERATION AND SEXUAL UNION

Since God, the Best and Greatest, is the cause of all causes, it is only fitting that human beings attribute their origin to Him. Although some philosophers may disagree, the Sacred Scriptures reveal that He not only created the entire world out of nothing but also fashioned man from the clay of the earth. Reflecting on this, Isaiah said: "Tread them down like mud." Thus, when the supreme architect of the world created man on the sixth day, He then took woman from the rib of the sleeping Adam, so that the origin of all people might be traced back to a single human source. For God intended that humans thereafter be brought forth through marriage, so that, joined by a perpetual necessity, fathers and sons might embrace one another with mutual benevolence.

Later, the poets—and most notably Ovid—took this as an occasion for myth-making, singing that once the world was established, only man was lacking to possess and cultivate the earth. Therefore, Prometheus, the son of Iapetus, fashioned man from earth moistened by rain into an image most like the gods. Unlike other animals that walk prone, man was made to stand upright and forever gaze toward heaven, as described in these verses:

“Which the son of Iapetus, mixed with river water,

Fashioned into the likeness of the Gods who govern all;

And while other animals look down at the earth,

He gave to man an uplifted face, etc.”

What Ovid sang regarding Iapetus, Hesiod later sang concerning Pandora, and countless other trifles of this sort can be read in the works of the poets. The ancient philosophers also left various records concerning the origin of humanity: some established that the human race had existed from eternity, while others claimed it was created and subject to corruption. The first opinion must be rejected; for if no cause for human origin could be recognized beyond one's parents, philosophy would undoubtedly contemplate the First Cause of all things in vain.

Furthermore, Avicenna dared to assert that after immense floods, both the human race and all other animals were produced from decaying corpses and celestial influence without any seed. However, we cannot be led to believe that so noble a creature—in whose creation God was entirely occupied—could be extracted from rotting matter. Therefore, such a great and beautiful work, worthy of divine labor, could not have emerged spontaneously. Moreover, philosophy does not even assign spontaneous birth to beasts; thus, it cannot attribute such an origin to man, the most noble of animals.

And although "sea-men" of unknown origin have occasionally been seen emerging from the waters, this seems to have flowed from the "lust" of the sea or the mockery of demons. A true human, endowed with a mind—which is a small spark of divinity—could by no means spring from such a base origin.

Others then doubt whether a human fetus can be produced from anywhere other than a human womb. Plutarch reported that a daughter with a human face and donkey legs, called Onoscelis, was born from a she-ass, and elsewhere he declared that a similar offspring came from a mare. Again, in his *Symposium*, Plutarch mentions a crying child with horse legs born of a mare.

Indeed, someone reports that among the Belgians, an infant was born from a cow, though this remains poorly verified. Yet it is profoundly true and beyond doubt that a real human being, distinguished by a mind, can only emerge from a woman’s womb.

Nevertheless, if it is only the male power that fashions the fetus and the woman is merely the "workshop," perhaps according to the philosophers, a human could be nourished in the womb of a beast after an unspeakable coupling. However, theologians should maintain that this has never happened. Therefore, if the offspring of beasts ever possessed something human-like, it is more credible to believe they were devoid of a mind.

Demùm