CHAPTER 2

2:1-3 And the heavens and the earth were finished, and the whole world of them. 2 And God finished on the sixth day his works which he made, and he ceased on the seventh day from all his works which he made. 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he ceased from all his works which God began to do.

ALCUIN OF YORK. (Gen. 2:2). HOW IS IT CONSISTENT THAT WE READ IN GENESIS, "GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS", AND IN THE GOSPEL, "MY FATHER WORKS UNTIL NOW; AND I WORK" (JOHN 5:17)? — Answer. He rested from the making and creation of new creatures, not from his rule over the creatures made; and so God should be considered to have been then a creator in the six-day-long creation, and to be now a ruler over the whole world's creatures. (Bed. in Pent., PL 91, col. 202. Bed. Hexm., PL 91, col. 36.) [Question 1]

WHAT IS MEANT BY "GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS"? — Answer. If you divide the number seven into one and six, these will be the first two perfect numbers. Unity is perfect in itself in nature and power, while the number six is the first perfect one in work and action, and is completed by its own parts, because one, two, and three make six. So by the rest on the seventh day is signified the fact that God, before the creation of the world, is perfect in himself in nature and power, and eternally has rest in himself, while the creatures, having received the action of creation from him, have through him a certain perfection in their own natures and have rest in the work of obedience, and rational creatures are especially blessed with the good that consists in resting in their Maker. [Question 42]

(Gen. 2:3). WHY IS IT SAID ABOUT THE DAY OF SABBATH, "GOD BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY AND SANCTIFIED IT", WHEREAS WE DO NOT READ THAT HE SAID THIS ABOUT THE OTHER DAYS? — Answer. In order to show the saints' rest after the hardships of the six ages of this world, for they will rest in an eternal Sabbath and blessed rest, as in what he will say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom" (Mt. 25:34). That is also why we do not read any mention of an evening for that day, because the last rest of the saints will be everlasting. [Questions and Answers on Genesis, 43]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. Scripture tells us that God rested on the seventh day from all his works, and as such he blessed and sanctified him. If we want to understand this mysterious rest, according to the scope of our intelligence supported by divine grace, let us begin to banish all carnal ideas from our minds. Is it possible without impiety to imagine and say that creation has cost God some work, when we see things come out of nothingness to His word, that execution follows the commandment, it is no longer a fatigue, even for man, without doubt, the word demanding that we strike the air, ends by to become a fatigue: but, when it comes to uttering a few words, like those that God makes in Scripture: fiat lux, fiat firmamentum, and so on, until the completion of creation on the seventh day there would be an extravagance too ridiculous to maintain that they weary, I do not say God, but a man.

Would it seem that fatigue consisted for God, not to give orders immediately executed, but to meditate deeply on the means of realizing his plans; that, freed from this preoccupation at the sight of the perfection of his works, he rested and willingly wished to bless, to sanctify the day when, for the first time, he had no longer to display so much attention? Such reasoning would be the height of unreason. Intelligence is in God infinite, unlimited, like power itself.

What idea should we stop? Should we not here see the rest which intelligent creatures, of which man is a part, after having attained their development, by the help of the Holy Spirit who spreads charity in our hearts (Rom. V, 3), and which our The most ardent desires must bring us to the center of happy rest where we will have nothing to desire? It is rightly said that God does all that we do by his help; likewise one rests in him, when repose is one of his benefactions. This idea is easy to conceive. If there is one truth easy to understand, it is because God rest, when he gives us rest, just as he knows, when he illuminates our intelligence…

We may find the explanation we have just given satisfactory, and according to which God has rested from all the works he has done with so much perfection, in so far as he will make us taste the rest to ourselves, when we have done our good works. But since we have begun to discuss this passage of Scripture, we are obliged to examine whether God was able to rest in himself, while admitting that rest is the pledge of the very repose we will one day taste. him. Now God made heaven and earth and all that they contain, and he finished his works on the sixth day: far from granting us the power to create anything, it is by us that He finished, since he finished all his works, as Scripture says, on the sixth day. Similarly, we should not see the rest that God will make us taste in this passage of Scripture: "God rested the seventh day from all his works," but the rest to which he gave himself, after having completed his creations. This method will reveal to us that all that has been written has been realized, and will then help us to grasp its metaphorical sense. Therefore, the discussion which brought to light that the works of God belonged only to him, requires during the demonstration that his rest is, so to speak, personal.

Thus the most legitimate motive commits us to examine, to the extent of our strength, and to prove that the passage where God rested from His works, and those words of the Gospel uttered by the Creator Word himself: "My Father never ceases to act, and I also act," (Jn. 5:17) offer no contradiction. He made this answer to those who complained that he did not observe the Sabbath, instituted from the beginning, according to Scripture, to recall the rest of God. It is likely that the observance of the Sabbath was prescribing to the Jews as a symbol of the spiritual rest that God promised, under the mysterious figure of his own rest, to the faithful who performed their good works. Jesus Christ himself, who suffered only when he liked it, confirmed by his grave the hidden meaning of this repose. For he rested in his tomb on the sabbath day and made it a day of holy inactivity, after having completed the sixth day, that is, the day of preparation and the Sabbath eve, all his works on the gallows even of the cross. "All is consumed," he exclaimed, and, bowing his head, he returned the spirit. Is it strange, then, that God rested the very day that Christ was to rest, to represent this event in advance? Is it strange that he rested a single day before developing This series of centuries that prove the truth of this word: "My Father does not stop acting?"

One can still explain that God rested from having created the species of beings that fill the universe, in that he created no new species henceforth, while continuing to govern those which were then established. It should not be supposed that even on the seventh day his power gave up the government of the world and the beings it had created there: this inaction would have led to a universal upheaval. The power of the Creator, this infinite and all-embracing force, is the only cause that makes creatures subsistent: if this force withdrew from the world and no longer governed beings, even for a moment the development of species would stop and the whole of nature would collapse. For there is none of the universe as a building, which remains after the architect has abandoned it: it would not last a wink, if God ceased to govern it.

The word of the Lord: "My Father does not cease to act, therefore reveals to us this continuous creation by which God maintains and rules His works. The Lord is not content to say that his Father is acting now, which would not imply a permanent activity; he says he's still acting today, since when? Obviously since the creation. Scripture says of divine wisdom that it extends its power from one end of the world to the other, and disposes everything with harmony; and elsewhere, that his movement has a speed, a speed incomparable (Wis, 7:24). For those who have the right mind, it is clear that Wisdom communicates to the beings that it arranges so harmoniously its incomparable movement, above all expression, and if we can thus speak, its immutable activity ; and that, if this movement ceased to animate nature, it would be annihilated immediately. The word that the Apostle addresses to the Athenians by preaching to them the true God: "It is in him that we have life, movement and being," this word of a clarity that the human mind can not push further, corroborates the opinion that makes us believe and say that God never stops acting in his creatures. In fact, we are not part of the divine substance, and we are not in him in the same way as he is in the life in himself; (Jn. 5:26) since we are distinct from God, we do not can be in him only as much as he acts in us. This activity consists in governing everything, in extending its power from one end of the world to the other, in arranging everything in harmony, and it is thanks to this order which is constantly maintained that we have in it the movement. And life. Therefore, if God stopped animating the creature, we would no longer be the being, the movement and the life. It is evident, therefore, that God never ceased, even one day, to govern created beings, to prevent them from losing those movements which animate and preserve them with the properties and according to the laws of their species; and that they would be immediately annihilated -without this activity of the Divine Wisdom, which everywhere spreads order and harmony. Let us agree, then, that God rested from His works, insofar as He created no beings of a new kind, and not with a view to abandoning government and the maintenance of creation. Thus reconciles this double truth, that God rested the seventh day and that he does not cease to act.

We can appreciate the excellence of God's works: as for the joys of his rest, we will judge after having accomplished our good works. The Sabbath which he commanded the Jews to observe (Exod. XX, 8) was the symbol of this rest: but such was their carnal mind, that seeing the Lord working that day for our salvation, they made it a crime, and denatured the answer in which he spoke to them of the activity of his Father, with whom he governed the universe and worked our salvation. But from the moment that grace has been revealed; this observance of the Sabbath, represented by a day of rest, was no longer a law for the faithful. Under the reign of grace, the Sabbath is perpetual for him who does all his good works for the rest to come, and who does not boast of his deeds, as if he had the gift of a virtue that he may not have received. Not seeing in the Sabbath, that is to say, the rest of the Lord in his tomb, that the sacrament of Baptism, it is. rests of his past life: walking in the ways of a new life (Rom. VI, 4), he recognizes the action exercised in him God, who all together acts and rests, governing the creature within an eternal tranquility.

As the human soul has the defect and the weakness to attach himself so keenly to his works, that he seeks rest rather than in himself, although the cause is necessarily superior to the effects, God teaches us by this passage of Scripture, that he composed none of his works with a pleasure capable of making us suppose that creation was for him a necessity, or that without it he would have had less grandeur and bliss. Indeed, every creature owes its being to it, but it owes its bliss to none; he trumped by a pure effect of his goodness: therefore he did not sanctify the day when he began his works, nor the one where he finished them, so that his happiness did not seem to increase the pleasure of the train and see them in their perfection; he has sanctified only the day when he rested from his works in himself. He never needed rest, but he revealed the benefit to us in the mystery of the seventh day; he taught us again that he was perfect for tasting it, for the very choice he made the day after the completion of universal creation. The being who enjoys absolute rest could rest only to teach us.

Notice that in revealing to us the rest which assures God of his bliss in himself, it was necessary to make us conceive in what capacity we say that God rests in ourselves: this word signifies that God assures us rest in himself. To give it a right definition, therefore, the rest of God implies that he lacks no good; therefore we are assured of finding rest in him, because the good which is essential to God is our happiness and his bliss is independent of the good that is in us. We represent some good indeed, since we are among the works he has done excellent. But no being is good apart from him, unless he has created it, and consequently he needs no good besides him, since he can not need the good even that he created. This is what God's rest is after the completion of his works. If he had not created anything, what good would he really miss? Whether he is resting from his works in himself, or creating nothing, he is none the less the absolute good. But if he had not been able to compose excellent works, he would have been powerless; if, in spite of his power, he had not wanted it, he would have been jealous of his being. As he joins the omnipotence to infinite goodness, he has made all his works excellent; and as he finds in him absolute goodness and perfect bliss, he has rested in himself from that rest from which he never left. Say he rested his works to do, we understand that he has never done anything. Say that he has not rested from his accomplished works, one will not understand so clearly that he has no need of his creatures.

But what day could better reveal the truth than the seventh? This is easily seen by recalling the properties of the number 6, the perfection of which served as a type for the perfection of divine works. Suppose that the creation was to be, as it was, modeled on the very order of the elements that make up the number 6, and that we wanted to reveal to ourselves the rest of God, in order to convince ourselves that the very creature even add nothing to his happiness: the day it was necessary. to sanctify for this purpose was necessarily to follow the sixth in order to tear us away from life here below, and to inspire us with the desire to attain rest in the bosom of God.

There would be, in fact, a sacrilegious imitation of wanting to rest oneself in one's own works, as God did after his own, we must rest only within the immutable good, and by consequent of our Creator. What, then, will be for us sovereign repose, foreign to pride, and conformable to true piety? To take a model on the God who, resting on his works, sought his happiness, not in his works, but in himself or the good that makes him happy, and consequently, to hope that we will find only in him. peace in the wake of all our good works which are also his; it will be to aspire to this peace, as to a consequence of the acts of which we recognize the principle in God more than in us. In this way God will rest himself again from his works, since he will give us rest in his bosom following the good works that we will have accomplished by his grace. It is a noble prerogative to hold the existence of God: there will be more glory still in resting in him. Therefore, as creation adds nothing to the bliss of God and can do without it, he rested in himself rather than in his. works; that is why he chose the day of rest and not one of the days used to create, to sanctify it: he revealed thus that his happiness consisted not in making the world, but in having no need for his creatures.

What is simpler to express, more sublime, and more difficult to conceive than the repose of God after the completion of his works? Could he find rest elsewhere than in himself, since he is happy only in himself? When could he taste it, if not always? For the time when his works, of which he distinguishes his rest, are finished, as a very different order of things, what day could he choose, except the one that succeeds the entire completion of creation, and consequently the seventh? The perfection of the works must indeed be the signal of rest for the being who does not find in the most perfect creatures any element of happiness.

The rest of God considered in himself counts neither morning nor evening, since he has neither beginning nor end; as for his works arrived at perfection, the morning is born for them without being followed of the evening. Indeed, the creature in its perfect form sees the beginning of the movement that brings it to rest in its Creator; but this movement towards perfection admits no limits, like those which contain the works of creation. As such, the divine rest begins, not for God, but for the creature, when it reaches its perfection: it is the moment when it begins to rest in the one who formed it, it is the morning. No doubt, considered in itself, it is likely to meet in the evening, or its natural limit; but, considered in its relations with God, it does not know at night, because she can not go beyond the degree of perfection in which it has arrived.

In the period of days when beings were formed, the evening was for us the end of a creation, and the morning the signal of another. The evening of the fifth day ended the creation of the fifth day; the morning that followed it marked the beginning of the works of the sixth day; the evening has come again to close the creation. As there was nothing left to create, the morning appeared to serve as the beginning, not of a universal creation in its author, but of the repose of universal creation in its author. For heaven, earth and all that they contain, I mean bodies are spirits, do not subsist in themselves, they remain in Him who gives life, motion, and being (Act XVII, 28). Although each part may subsist in whatever it serves to form, the whole can only subsist in its principle. It is therefore natural to believe that, if the evening of the sixth day was followed in the morning, it was no longer to open a new order of creations, but to mark that all beings were commenting on establishing themselves in a durable equilibrium, thanks to the rest of their Creator. This rest has neither beginning nor end for God; for the creature, it begins, but admits no limit. This is how the seventh day begins for the creature in the morning, and does not end in the evening.

Do we want that in the six primitive days, the morning and the evening represent the same succession in time as today? I do not see why the seventh day has no evening and the next night, morning; nor why the scripture does not say according to its use: And the evening came, and in the morning is fulfilled the seventh day. For this day is part of this period of the seven days, which, being renewed unceasingly, form the duration of months, years, and centuries, and the morning succeeding the evening of the seventh day, would have been the beginning of the eighth, limit to which one had to stop, since the series starts again to form a new week. It is therefore more probable that the seven primitive days, in spite of the analogy of name and number, represent a revolution in time, quite different from the present revolution; they are explained by an inner revolution of beings of which we see no more example, and in which the words evening and morning, darkness and light, night and day mark a succession quite other than that which is measured by the course of the sun it is a point that must be recognized, at least for the three days that are counted before the creation of the stars.

Also, whatever the morning or the evening in this period, it would be a contradiction to see in the morning which succeeded the night of the sixth day, the beginning of the divine rest: it would be to lend to the eternal and immutable God, by an impious illusion, an accidental bliss. The rest which God tastes in himself, and which he finds in the absolute good which is his essence, can not have for him either beginning or end, but begins with the creature who has arrived at his perfection. For every being, in fact, perfection comes less from the whole of which it is a part, than from the very author of the whole, the Creator is to him that he borrows according to the conveniences of his nature, the stability and equilibrium, in other words, the order assigned to it by its role in creation. Thus the universe, as it was completed at the end of the six days, changes its appearance according as one considers it in itself or in its relations with God. Without finding in himself, like God, his center of rest, he has stability and equilibrium only insofar as he is attached to him who does not seek, apart from his being, a goal to attain for his to rest there; for without leaving his being, God brings back to himself all that he has drawn from it. The creature thus retains in itself the limit which separates it from its Creator; but it is in him that she finds her resting place, and the principle which preserves her being. The word place which I have just used is undoubtedly improper, since it designates the space occupied by a body; but as bodies do not rest in their place, so long as they have been attracted by their gravity, it seemed natural to me to apply this expression to the spirits, by metaphor, although there is an abyss between these two ideas.

My opinion is, therefore, that the morning which succeeds the night of the sixth day, represents the first moment when the creature participates in the rest of the Creator. This moment, indeed, can exist for her only on the condition that she has attained her perfection: now, the creation having been completed on the sixth day, the evening is fulfilled; the morning then appeared, in order to mark the moment when the creature reaches its perfection, and begins to rest in the heart of its Creator. For the first time she finds in the absolute rest of God her relative rest, all the more certain, all the more durable, because if she needs God as a center, God does not need her. And as the creation, in spite of all the changes that are taking place in it, will never be a pure nothingness, it must remain forever attached to its Creator: this evil man thus opened forever and was not followed by the evening.

This, in my opinion, is how the seventh day, when God rested from all his works, began after the evening of the sixth day, on a morning to which no evening corresponded.

But we can give on the same subject a more literal and, in my opinion, more decisive explanation, although it is more difficult to explain; it would consist in saying that it was the rest of God, and not that of the creature, which had the signal this morning, to which the evening was never to succeed, in other words, which began to have no end. If we only say that God rested on the seventh day, without adding that it was after his works, we would be unable to see where this rest begins. For the rest for God has no date: without beginning as without end, it is eternal; and since he rested from all his works in the sense that he could do without them, it is conceivable that rest admits in God no term in which he begins and expires. It may be said, however, that the repose taken by him in consequence of his works coincides with the very completion of creation; for God would not have rested, before they were composed, of those works useless to his felicity, and whose perfection even he was indifferent to him: besides, as he never needed - of these works, and that the happiness which makes him independent of his creatures can not grow, nor can it be terminated consequently, it is easy to understand why the seventh day had no evening which marked the end of it.

A question no less high, no less worthy of attention, is how God rested from all his works in himself, since the Scripture says, "God rested in the seventh day . She does not say that he rested in himself, but in the seventh day. How to define this seventh day Should we see there a special creation or a space of time? But duration itself has been created, with beings that last: as such, it is a creation itself. There is no moment in time, present, past, future, which does not have God for cause: if therefore the seventh day is a period of time, God, the creator of time, can only have created it. Now, the Scripture has spoken to us previously of six days, as creations with or during which other creations are accomplished. Therefore, on these seven days, if we mean by these well-known days that flow without return and have with those who replace the name of common, the first six were created at times that we can determine: as for the seventh, called Sabbath, we can not distinguish the time of its creation. Far from composing any work that day, God rested there from all that they had made. How, then, would he have chosen to rest, a day he would not have created? And how could he have created it immediately after the first six days, since he finished his works on the sixth day, since he created the seventh day and devoted it to rest? He confined himself to creating a first day, the others of which were only a reproduction in the long run, so that it would have been useless to create the seventh day, since it was only the first to be renewed. for the seventh time? He separated the light from the darkness, naming the other night one day (Gen, I, 3). Thus God made the day, and it is the renewal of the same duration that Scripture successively names second, third day, until the sixth when God finishes his works: the seventh is then only the reproduction of the first day for the seventh time. In this way, the seventh day is not a special creation; it is the renewal for the seventh time of the phenomenon that God produced when He called the light day and darkness night. [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

JEROME OF STRIDON. AND GOD FINISHED THE WORKS ON THE SIXTH DAY. — Instead of the sixth day, there is in Hebrew, ‘the seventh day’. We will press here the Jews, who pride themselves on the rest of the Sabbath; the Sabbath was abolished, since God works on that day, since he finishes his works there, since he blessed them on that same day, which is the day he completed the creation. [Hebrew Questions on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. (Gen. 2:1) And in the evening and in the morning was the sixth day: and as on that day God ceased to produce new creatures, so says Moses, Thus were the heavens, the earth, and all their ornaments finished. (Gen. II, 1.) What simplicity in these words! and as the Holy Scripture cuts off all vain and superfluous expression! It confines itself to stating that the whole of the creation was finished on the sixth day, and without repeating minute details, it contented itself with saying that heaven and earth were finished with all their ornaments; that is to say with all that they contain. Now, the ornaments of the earth are its various productions, the plants, the harvests, the fruit trees, and all the riches of which the Lord has deigned to embellish it. The ornaments of the sky are the sun, there moon, the variety of stars, and all the intermediate creatures. This is why Scripture here mentions only heaven and earth, because under these two elements it understands the whole of creation.

(Gen. 2:2-3) And God finished the sixth day all his work. The sacred writer repeats it here so that we know that the creation was fully accomplished in this space of six days. On the sixth day God completed all his work, and rested the seventh of all the works he had made. What does it mean that God rested on the seventh day from all the works he had done? Evidently the Scripture expresses itself in a human way, and is proportionate to our weakness. Without this condescension, it would have been impossible for us to understand his thought. "And God," said she, "rested on the seventh day from all the works which he had made: that is to say, he stopped in the work of creation, and ceased to to draw new creatures from nothingness. And indeed, he had produced all and every creature, and he had formed the man who was to enjoy it.

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified him, because he had rested on that day from all the works that he had made. The Lord therefore ceased to create, because in the space of six days he had produced all the creatures to which his goodness destined existence. He rested on the seventh day, not wanting to create anything; for according to his designs the work of creation was finished. But in order that this seventh day should also have some prerogative, and that he should not be inferior to other days, since he was not to enlighten any new production, he deigned to bless him. And God, says the Scripture, blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. What ! Had not the other six days been blessed? No doubt they had been, since in each of them the Lord had produced different orders of creatures. This is why Scripture does not say. not expressly that God blessed them, while she mentions here the blessing of the seventh day. And he sanctified it, she said again. What does this word mean: and he sanctified it? He tells us that God distinguished this day from all others; and Scripture tells us the reason, when it adds, "May God sanctify the seventh day, because in that day he rested from all the works that he had made.

Thus from the beginning a great mystery is revealed to us, and we learn to sanctify a day of the week by devoting it to the exercises of piety. This rest of the seventh day reminds us that God deigned to bless him after having completed in six days the whole of creation, and that he sanctified it because in that day he had rested from all the works he had made. But here thoughts are rushing, and I reproach myself for not communicating them to you. Camelles seems to me rich, and I want to share with you their wealth. And first, here is a first question. In Genesis, Moses tells us that God rested from His works, and in the Gospel Jesus Christ tells us: My Father always works, and so do I. (Gen. V, 17.) Does it not seem, at first glance, that there is here an obvious contradiction? But God forbid that Scripture be opposed to Scripture! when she tells us in Genesis that God rested from the works he had made, she teaches us that on the seventh day he ceased to create, and to draw new creatures from nothingness. When, on the contrary, Jesus Christ says to us: My Father always works, and so do I; he manifests to us the incessant action of Providence; and he calls action, or operation, that care which directs the universe, maintains it, and preserves it. Hey! how would it remain if the hand of the Lord ceased for a moment to sustain and lead men, animals, and the elements! For the rest, it suffices to reflect seriously on the blessings with which the Creator fills us every day, to recognize how immense is the abyss of his mercies. And to quote only one trait, what word and thought could express this ineffable kindness which, always generous to man, makes his sun shine on the good and on the wicked, which rains on the just and sinners, and who supplies abundantly to all their needs. [Homilies on Genesis]

ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA. he ceased. Now we would say that neither does God the Word feel fatigue, nor any of those beings who belong to a better and diviner order of things, because the sensation of fatigue is peculiar to those who are in the body. [Contra Celsus, 6.61 ANF v. 4]

2:4-5 This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made, in the day in which the Lord God made the heaven and the earth, 5 and every herb of the field before it was on the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up, for God had not rained on the earth, and there was not a man to cultivate it. 6 But there rose a fountain out of the earth, and watered the whole face of the earth.

ALCUIN OF YORK. (Gen. 2:4). WHY DID HE SAY, "THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH"? — Answer. Against those who claim that the world has always existed without beginning. [Question 44]

WHY DID HE SAY, "IN THE DAY THAT HE MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH" AND NOT "IN THE DAYS"? — Answer. He said "the day" for the whole time of the primordial creation, in the same way as when the apostle said, "Behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2), he meant the day to be understood as the whole time during which the saints labor in this life for eternal salvation. [Question 45]

(Gen. 2:5). WHAT IS MEANT BY "EVERY PLANT OF THE FIELD BEFORE IT SPRUNG UP IN THE EARTH"? — Answer. It was in order to convey the speed of God's work; that is, before any fruit sprang up or sprouted by growing from the earth, suddenly all the plains and hills were covered in grass and trees. [Question 46]

WHAT IS MEANT BY "FOR THE LORD GOD HAD NOT RAINED UPON THE EARTH"? — Answer. It was said for us to understand how different the first germination of the earth was from that in our times, which, with delay, is effected at last with the watering of the rains, with difficulty and slowly, whereas the first one, at God's command, sprang up immediately and appeared. [Question 47]

(Gen. 2:6). AGAIN, WHAT IS MEANT BY "A SPRING ROSE OUT OF THE EARTH, WATERING ALL THE SURFACE [VARIANT: ALL THINGS UPON THE FACE] OF THE EARTH"? — Answer. Either he is referring to Paradise alone, which is believed to be watered by one spring, or, if it must be taken to refer to all of the earth, then he meant all the abundance of waters to be understood there. [Questions and Answers on Genesis, 48]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. "This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made, and God made heaven and earth, all the greenery of the field before there was any on the earth, all the herbs of the fields before they grew.” For God had not yet rained on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate it; but a spring rose up from the earth and sprinkled on the whole surface; the Scripture furnishes here a new proof in support of the opinion that God made one day, of which the six or seven others were only the regular return; for, after having summed up the creation in a way, she adds these significant expressions: "When the day was created. It will doubtless be said that the heaven and earth of which we are speaking here is the same work that preceded the creation of the day, according to this passage: "In the beginning God made heaven and earth.” If we want to see there a creation accomplished by God outside of the day, and before his birth, I have explained how it was possible, without forbidding anyone a theory more satisfactory than mine. Be that as it may, Scripture shows enough in the passage, "This is the book of the origins of heaven and earth,” (Gen. 2: 4-6) when the day was made, which she sees not here in heaven and earth the work that was created in the beginning, before the birth of the day, when the darkness was on the abyss: it is clear, in my opinion, that it speaks of heaven and earth, as they were formed, after the creation of the day, in other words, with this order which distributed the elements, disposed beings according to their kind, which finally gave to the whole creation this organization and this harmony which we call the world.

Heaven is here only the firmament, as it was created and appointed by God, with all the beings that it contains; and the earth is only the lower region with the abyss and with all the beings that it contains. This is so true that Scripture immediately adds: "God made heaven and earth. Speaking of heaven and earth, before and after the formation of the day, she does not even allow us to conjecture that she sees here in these two works the same creation as that which preceded the birth of the day. Because in the passage: "This is the book of the origins of heaven and earth, when the day was made and God made heaven and earth," the very arrangement of words does not allow to see, in the first phrase, heaven and earth as God made them in the beginning, before the creation of the day; We can not stop at this opinion, under the pretext that heaven and earth are named before the creation of the day, without being immediately stopped by the sacred text where the creation of the day is scarcely signaled that we return to the formation of heaven and earth.

The only value of the conjunction when, in this passage, would be enough for a dialectician to maintain that any other meaning is impossible: remove it, indeed, and say: Here is the book of the origins of heaven and earth, the day was created, God made heaven and earth; one could then imagine that there is no question in the first part of the phrase except of heaven and earth, as they were created in the beginning, before the birth of the day; that the creation of the day is later mentioned, as it is in the story which opens Genesis, and that finally the last phrase relates to the creation of heaven and earth; that they were organized after the formation of the day. But the conjunction connects the proposition that it announces, at the beginning of the sentence, or at the end, in other words, it is necessary to read: "Here is the book of the origins of the sky and the earth, when the day was made" Or: "When the day was done, God created heaven and earth; In both cases, we are forced to agree that the Scripture here wanted to speak only of the formation of heaven and of the earth accomplished when the day was created. Moreover, the expressions which Scripture adds: "All the greenery of the earth," unquestionably relate to the third day. It is clear, then, that God created one and the same day which, by renewing itself regularly, produced the period of the six days.

As the words heaven, earth designate in the language of Scripture the whole of creation, or may ask what use are the words it adds: "And all the greenery of the earth.” In my opinion, they serve to determine the day Scripture wants to speak when it says, "When that day was done.” One would have been tempted, indeed, to see there a day like this succession of day and night that the physical light produced by its revolution: but when the thought relates to the continuation of the divine works and that one finds that all the verdure of the fields was created on the third day, before the formation of the sun, which appeared as the fourth, and whose presence on the horizon is worth the present day; when we then hear the Scripture say: "When the day was done, God made heaven and earth and all the greenery of the fields," then we must see in these words a warning that the day was produced either by a light a physics unknown to men, either by an intellectual light diffused in the society of angels: in any case, it did not resemble that of today, and another must be conceived by an effort of reason. .

Another question comes naturally here. Scripture could say: Here is the book of the origins of heaven and earth, when God created heaven and earth. These expressions would have reminded us of all the beings contained in heaven and earth; for Scripture usually designates under the names of heaven and earth, to which sometimes it joins that of the sea, the whole of creation; and sometimes even she expressly says: "Heaven, earth and all that they contain (Ps. CXLV: 6):" therefore, to all the ideas that these words awake we would have associated that of a, day; either primitive or similar to the sun produced by its revolution. But far from expressing himself thus, the Sacred Writer brings into play the idea of ​​day which he places between the two others. He does not say: This is the book of the creation of the day, of heaven and earth, as he would have done if he had followed the historical order; he does not say either: This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when God made heaven and earth and all the greenery of the fields; lastly, he does not use this trick: This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when God made the day, the sky and the earth, and the green of the fields. He does not use these most used forms of language, and expresses himself thus: "This is the book of the origins of heaven and earth, when the day was" made, and God made the sky and the earth with all the verdure of the fields, as if to reveal to us that God made heaven and earth with the green of the fields at the same time that He made the day.

Now in the story which opens Genesis, Scripture reveals to us the creation of a primitive day and counts it: then it quotes the second, where the firmament was created; the third where the earth and the sea appeared in their definite forms and where the earth produced its trees and plants. Do not we see here clearly this simultaneity in the divine creation, which I have tried to prove above, since the period of the six days, when Scripture sets out with order the creation and completion of the works of God, can it be summed up now in a single day that includes the formation of heaven and earth and the birth of vegetation? We can not see here a day like ours. it suffices, as I have just said, to remember that before the diurnal revolution of the sun, God commanded the earth to produce its plants and its verdure. Thus the simultaneity of creation is no longer a truth borrowed from another book of Scripture (Ecclesia XVIII, 1): on the second page of Genesis, we find a testimony that invites us to go back to this principle, in these words: "When the day was done, God made heaven and earth" with the green of the fields. "Design, then. although this day has been renewed seven times to produce the seven days; then, on hearing that, at the moment when the day was at hand, everything was done at the same time, try, if you can, to understand that this renewal has been accomplished outside the slow and regular succession of time; if you can not go that far, abandon these theories to the meditation of minds capable of hearing them.

For you, walk under the guidance of Scripture, which does not leave you with your weakness and who, like a mother, knows how to slow down your steps with yours. His language, indeed, has a height that astonishes pride, a depth that terrifies attentive minds, a truth that sustains the strong and a grace that nourishes the little ones.

What do the following words mean in this order: "When the day was done, God made heaven and earth, and all the greenery of the field, before there was any on the earth, and the grass of the field sprung up?” What mean, say I, these words? Must we examine the time, the place where the vegetation was made, before existing on the earth, before having grown there? Would it not be natural to believe that God did it, not before it grew, but at the very moment that it was born, if one were not warned by the word of God that it was made before springing up? Therefore, even if we could not find out where and when it was, we would not be allowed to believe piously, on the faith of Scripture, that it was made before it was born: not to believe in Scripture being an impiety.

What to say? Must we admit here the widespread opinion that everything was done in the Word of God before being born on earth? But if everything was done in the Word, everything was done before the birth of the day, and not at the time when the day was created. Now Scripture says in express terms. "When the day was done, God made heaven and earth and all the greenery of the field before it existed on the earth, and all the grass before it grew. So this creation took place with the day, far from being anterior to it: consequently, it did not come into the midst of the Word of God with its Father, before every age and every creature, but at the moment when the day is did. The ideas which, before any creature, subsist in the Word, are not made at the moment when the day was born, according to the formal testimony of Scripture. And yet grass and greenery were made before they existed and grew on the earth.

Where were they created? Would it be in the earth conceived as their cause and principle, just as germs contain beings before they develop and acquire their proportions and forms over time? But these germs that we see are already on the earth, they have already taken birth. Were they then hidden under the earth, and can it be said that the plants were made before they were born, in the sense that they took birth, when the germs were inflated and flourished in the open air, to grow in them? the proportions that nature today assigns to their development? So it would be the sprouts that would have been created before the birth of the day and that would have contained the plants and the greenery of the fields, not in the form they take when they grow on the ground, but internally and by virtue of natural fertility to any seed? So the earth would have started by producing the seeds themselves? But Scripture had a very different language when it said, "The earth brought forth the herb bearing seed according to its kind, fruit trees bearing fruit and having their seed in themselves on the earth. These words clearly show that the seeds were produced by grasses and trees, and that the vegetation, far from emerging from primitive seeds, originated in the earth. The best reason for this is that Scripture affirms it; for it does not say: that the seeds produce the grass and the vegetation, but that "the earth produces the grass bearing seed; It is to express very clearly that the seed comes from the grass, and not the grass of the seed. "And it was so," and the earth produced grass bearing seed; In other words, the commandment was realized in the spirit of the angels, then the earth began to produce, so that the divine word received its fulfillment in the physical world.

What is this creation that preceded the appearance of herbs on the earth? What difference was there for them to make at the same time as heaven and earth, at the birth of that mysterious day that God originally created, or to grow upon the earth in the space of time necessary for each species, and measured on the course of the sun? If this mysterious day exists, if it is only the light that enlightens and unites the society of Virtues and angels in the highest heaven; It is evident that the heavenly spirits know the works of God more perfectly than we do: besides seeing them in the Word of God, the author of all things, they know its nature by a deeper and different intuition. In fact, they know them in their elements, and so to speak, in their origin, as God originally made them, before resting from his works, ceasing henceforth to create: we, on the contrary, know them by observing them. the laws which govern them, in the order of time, after their formation, and according to which God continues to act in the bosom of the creatures he created, during this perfect number of six days, with all their perfection.

The divine order then consisted in creating the cause from which plants and trees come out, in other words, to communicate to the earth its fertility principle. In this principle, I was going to say in these roots, all the vegetation to come was deposited and delivered to the action of time. Later, in fact, God planted a garden on the east side, and brought forth from the earth all kinds of trees that flattered the eye or offered exquisite fruits. It can not be said that he then did a new work, that he gave a new degree of perfection to the works he had finished and judged excellent on the sixth day; but, as all the species of plants and trees had been already created in their principle, since God rested from this work, while continuing to direct and maintain in harmony, in the midst of the revolutions of time, the creation which he had completed and of which he had rested, it must be admitted that God planted then not only this garden, but all the vegetation that is born even today. What else can indeed create it; if not God, whose activity is exercised even now? However, today it creates it with the elements that exist, while it passed from nothingness to existence, when the day itself was absolutely nothing, I mean the purely intellectual creation. [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. (Gen. 2:5) Et homo non erat operari terram. (And there was no man to cultivate the land) The Latin manuscripts present qui operaretur terram. (who would work the land) [Locutions]

GREGORY I OF ROME. For he who had related that the heaven, and the earth, the trees and herbs, were created on different days, now declares that they were made on one day; in order clearly to point out that every creature began to be at the same time in substance, although it came not forth at the same time in appearance. [Morals on Job 32.12]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. (Gen. 2:4-6) Now this is the passage: This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when they were created, in the day that God made heaven and earth, and all the plants of the field, when there is had none on the earth, and all the grass of the field, when the earth did not produce it; for God had not yet poured rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate it. But there rose from the earth a spring that sprinkled the surface. (Gen. II, 4, 5, 6.) Consider here, I ask you the admirable wisdom of the sacred writer, or rather that of the Holy Spirit who inspired him; for first, he told us each part of creation separately, he described to us the works of the six days, the formation of man and the power God gave him over all creatures, and now he summarizes all his narrative in these words: This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when they were created.

Perhaps it will not be without interest to examine why Scripture calls Genesis the book of the creation of heaven and earth, though it includes so many other things. And indeed this book, which recounts the virtues of the ancient righteous, teaches us also of several points of doctrine, and in particular of the goodness of God, and of his indulgence towards the first man and all his descendants. It also covers a large number of other topics that need not be specified here. But do not be surprised, my dear brother; for usually the Scripture does not enter into minute details. It is content to expose briefly the principal facts, and abandons the rest to the zeal and research of its readers. The passage just read is a striking proof. For after having previously told us in detail all the works of the six days, she speaks only of them to say in general: this is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when they were created, in the day that God made heaven and earth.

So you see that Moses, by naming here only heaven and earth, commits us to contemplate all the creatures. And indeed he understands them all under this designation, both those who are in heaven and those who are on the earth. Henceforth he will not resume the details of the creation, and will confine himself to recalling it summarily. Thus he calls the whole of Genesis the book of the creation of heaven and earth, though it contains many other things. He wants to teach us to discover them under this general title, since indeed all the creatures that exist either in heaven or on earth, are necessarily included in this book. In the day, says the Scripture, God made the heaven and the earth, and all the plants of the field, when there was none on the earth, and all the grass of the field, when the earth produced point. For God had not yet poured rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate it. But there rose from the earth a spring that sprinkled the surface. These few words contain a precious treasure, and I must explain them to you with great circumspection, so that by the help of divine grace I may make you enjoy these spiritual riches.

The Holy Spirit, who foresees all the succession of ages, wanted from the beginning to prevent human reason from contradicting the dogmas of the Church, and to pervert the true meaning of Scripture. This is why he takes up the whole order of creation here, and reminds us first of all of the works of the first and second days; and then he tells us how, in the third, the earth, by the command of the Lord, brought forth its various productions without the help of the sun which did not exist, and without the influence of the rain, nor the work of man . Because it had not been formed yet. Thus the repetition of these details is intended to repress the audacity of our imprudent critics. Let us re-read this passage: In the day that God made heaven and earth, and all the plants of the field, when there was none on the earth, and all the grass of the field, when the earth did not produce it. point. For God had not shed rain yet. on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate it: But there rose up from the earth a spring that sprinkled on the surface.

Scripture therefore reveals to us that suddenly, at the word and order of the Lord, all creatures emerged from nothingness, and received existence. Then the earth gave birth to the plants of the field, and under this name are understood all its various productions; but concerning the rain, the same scripture observes that God had not yet poured it on the earth, that is to say, it had not yet made it fall from the sky. Finally, it proves to us that the earth owed its fruitfulness to the work of man, since there was no man to cultivate it. Learn, she tells us, and do not forget what is the origin of all (67) the productions of the earth, and do not believe that they are the result of the care of man, nor the fruit of his works. The earth has given birth to the word and the order of the Creator. Let us conclude, therefore, that in order to germinate herbs and plants, the earth needs no help from the other elements, and that the Creator's command is sufficient for it.

But here is a new wonder more amazing still. The same God whose word has communicated to the earth so marvelous a fertility, and whose power surpasses all human intelligence, has established over the waters the immense mass and the enormous weight of the world. This is what the Psalmist teaches us by these words: He has spread the earth over the waters. (Ps. CLXXV, 6.) Can man pierce this mystery? For in the construction of a building, one first digs the foundations, and if one encounters a few veins of water, one exhausts them before to sit the first seated of the building. But the Creator acts quite differently to show his ineffable power, and to prove to us that at his order the elements produce effects contrary to their usual phenomena.

I explain by an example, so that you understand better my thought, and then I will resume the continuation of my subject. No doubt it is against the nature of the waters to carry a weight as heavy as that of the earth; and it is against the nature of the earth to rest solidly on a fluid body. But why surprise us? Whatever may be the creature you study with care, you will discover the action of the immense power of the Creator, and you will convince yourself that He governs all things by His will. See the fire: this element devours everything, and it consumes easily the hardest bodies: wood, stones and iron. But when God orders it, he does not even hurt the most tender bodies: and so he respected the three young Hebrews in the fiery furnace. (Dan, III.) But the prodigy spread even further, for this element deprived of reason proved to them more obsequious than it could be said. Not only did he not touch their hair, but he still seemed to surround them and press them amicably; so he retained his natural activity to display only his full and complete obedience to the Lord's orders, and he preserved safe and sound those admirable children who walked in the midst of the flames with as much security as in a meadow enameled with flowers.

Moreover, so that it could not be believed that this material fire was devoid of all action, the Lord was anxious to preserve its activity. But he hung it from his servants, who triumphed over it, and were not hurt. As for the soldiers who had thrown the young Hebrews into the furnace, they knew how great is the power of the Lord, for the fire exerted all their violence upon them; and the same element, which, in the interior of the furnace, bent gently over the three children, raged outside and consumed the satellites of the tyrant. So you see how God changes the properties of the elements at will. He created them, and disposes of them according to his will. Do you still want me to show you the same miracle about the waters? The fire, as I said, respected the three children of the furnace, and did them no harm. thus forgetting all their violence against them, but he devoured their executioners, and displayed against them his inflexible activity; and in the same way the waters of the sea submerge some, and retire before the others for their leash: a free passage. I am referring here on one side to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and on the other to the Israelites. These, according to the command of the Lord, and under the guidance of Moses, crossed the Red Sea on dry ground; and those who wanted with Pharaoh to follow the same path were swallowed up under the waves. Thus the elements respect the servants of God, and for them they suspend their natural activity.

Let us, therefore, we men, irascible and violent men, and we, who, laxly subject to a thousand other passions, compromise the success of our salvation. We have reason in common, and we can not imitate the obedience of these unreasonable elements. For if the fire, the most active and the most violent of all, has been able to respect tender and delicate bodies, what will be the excuse of the man who, disdaining the divine precepts, refuses to subdue his anger, and of to stifle the feelings of an ulcerated heart with regard to his brothers. But here, what is truly amazing, is that the fire, which burns with such violence, suspends its activity, and that the man, being (68) reasonable, gentle and benevolent, acts against his nature, and by his negligence imitates in his morals the ferocity of savage beasts.

So Scripture, to designate the various passions that dominate in us, gives to the man endowed with reason the name of different animals. Thus, in his language, the word dog indicates impudence and violence. They are dumb dogs, and do not know how to bark. (Is. LVI, 10.) The horse represents the effervescence of the voluptuousness: They have become like horses running and neighing after the cavales: each of them has pursued the wife of his neighbor. (Jeremiah V, 8.) Sometimes the donkey marks the grossness and stupidity of the sinner: Man is compared to animals that have no reason, and he has become like them. (Ps. XLVIII, 13.) Sometimes she names the men lions and leopards by allusion to their ferocious and voracious appetites, and sometimes aspics because of their deceitful and deceitful spirit. Their lips, says the Psalmist, contain the venom of the asp. (Ps. CXXXIX, 4.) Finally she likens them to the serpent and the viper, because of the hidden poison of their malignancy. Also. Did the holy precursor say to the Pharisees: Serpents, and a race of vipers, who showed you to flee from the coming wrath? (Matthew iii, 7) Scripture still gives men other names, in order to characterize their different passions, and recall them with a salutary shame to the feeling of their nobility. Ah! May they not degenerate from their origin, and prefer the law of the Lord to those criminal passions that dragged them into sin! [Homilies on Genesis]

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. (Verse 5) By this He signifies to us, that the whole earth was at that time watered by a divine fountain, and had no need that man should till it; but the earth produced all things spontaneously by the command of God, that man might not be wearied by tilling it. [To Autolycus 2.19 ANF v.2]

2:7 And God formed the man of dust of the earth, and breathed upon his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.

ALCUIN OF YORK. (Gen. 2:7). WHAT DOES IT MEAN THAT GOD BREATHED INTO ADAM'S FACE THE BREATH OF LIFE? — Answer. God's breathing into the face of man is the giving of the rational soul. [Question 8]

"AND THE LORD GOD FORMED MAN OF THE SLIME OF THE EARTH." WHY "AND"? DO WE NOT READ THAT MAN WAS CREATED BEFORE, ON THE SIXTH DAY? — Answer. He has already, by anticipation, spoken summarily of man's creation, which he has now undertaken to expound more fully by recapitulation. [Question 49]

WHAT IS MEANT BY "AND THE LORD GOD FORMED MAN OF THE SLIME OF THE EARTH: AND BREATHED INTO HIS FACE THE BREATH OF LIFE"? — Answer. It means that man was made as a substance of body and soul, of which the body was formed of the slime of the earth, and the soul was created from nothing when God breathed into man's face. [Questions and Answers on Genesis, 50]

AMBROSIASTER. DO SOULS COME BY WAY OF PROPAGATION LIKE BODIES? — It seems to me unseemly to say that souls are engendered simultaneously with bodies, and that the soul gives birth to the soul, a property which God has not given to the soul. If each of the celestial powers has been given the power to give existence to all others in creation, one might admit that all souls derive from the one soul of Adam. But this feeling is not admissible, because the generation of a simple being is a privilege which God has exclusively reserved for himself. This generation, considered in the person of the Savior, is so mysterious that not only pagans and Jews, but even those who call themselves Christians, regard it as an incredible thing. Indeed, the Photinians and the Arians reject this article of faith and refuse to believe that God has begotten. Will it be said that at the moment when the germ of the body is sown, the soul begets the soul? But we read that God drew a rib of Adam without the sacred writer adding that the soul gave birth to the soul. If a soul were joined to this seed, it cannot be said that this soul was born, it is a part detached from another soul. Nor does Scripture say anything about this circumstance. We read, on the contrary, in the prophet Zechariah: "God who has formed in man the spirit of man (Zech. 12:1).” He speaks the same truth when he says, "This is what the Lord has said to you who created you, who formed you in your mother's womb (Is. 44:2).” If the soul is formed in the womb of the mother, it is united to a body which has already received its form. As it extends its action to all the members of the body, it is said of the soul that it is formed in the body. Thus, just as water, which has no particular form, receives one from the vessel that contains it, the soul, incorporeal and simple substance, receives as its form in the body by communicating life to all its members. This is what Moses expresses even more clearly in these words: "If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child, and she miscarry indeed, but live herself: he shall be answerable for so much damage as the woman's husband shall require, and as arbiters shall award” (Exod. 21:22), words which prove that the soul is not united to the body before it is formed. If to the seed of the body is joined with the incorporeal seed of the soul, a great number of souls perish daily, when the seed is lost without being followed by birth. But if we look at it more closely, we will see the feeling that we need to adopt. Consider the creation of Adam. In the person of Adam we have an example which makes us understand that the body was already formed when it received its soul. God could doubtless mix the soul with the silt of the earth and thus form the body. But a sovereign reason presided over his formation; it was necessary first to construct and assemble the different parts of the house before introducing the one which was to inhabit it. The soul being a spirit cannot dwell in a solid element; it is for this reason that it is said to be shed in the blood. When, then, the lineaments of the body are not yet formed, where can the soul be? Shall it go abroad, until it be united? But reason teaches us that it exists only to animate the body, and not to wander without fulfilling any function. Now let those who think differently tell us from whom the soul comes. Is it man or woman? Will they say of the woman? We cannot accept this thought because the example in question is contrary to it. For they say that the soul was given to the woman with the seed that was drawn from man, this thought is debated, as we have seen, for a great number of reasons. Perhaps one will be tempted to say that the soul is given by woman, especially because of the Savior, who was born of woman by the operation of the Holy Spirit, apart from any carnal union. But this thought gives too much to woman by attributing to her a right and an authority which belongs to man. Moreover, they assert that it is from man that the origin of the body and the soul originates, and now, changing their minds, they attribute to woman the origin of the most excellent nature, of the soul, and to man the origin of the less perfect nature, that is to say of the body, whereas it is manifest that one cannot change the order that God followed in the example he gave us.

DID ADAM HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT? — I discovered that some of our brethren who have not made a thorough study of the Scriptures, claim with a certain simplicity that Adam as soon as he was created, received the Holy Spirit as it is now given to the faithful, and that he lost the Spirit by his sin. They rely on a feeling supported by a great number, that the reparation of man has taken place by faith which has restored him to his former state, and restored to him all that Adam had received from his creation. Moreover, they say, man has been created perfect, which can only be admitted as much as he has received the Holy Spirit. For me, I declare that not only man, but all things that God has made, he has created them in a state of perfection, although it cannot be said that they have received the Holy Spirit. All species of animals are perfect in their kind to complete the end of their creation, so man is perfect in his kind, in that he can discern the evil of good, the error of truth. He is an intelligent animal, perfect for the purpose God has created by creating him. He is endowed at the same time with speech, thought, and action, and accomplishes by intelligence what he cannot do by his power. How, then, have we dared to say that man must be born perfect with the absolute knowledge of all things, while it is evident that he knows nothing but what he learns? What he does not learn, he does not know. Thus, he does not know what he is, because it is not the object of his study here below, but he who does not know what he is, how can he know everything, although it is less difficult to know oneself than to know all the other things? But as his mind turns to these things, instead of studying himself, he acquires knowledge of what is outside of him, without knowing himself, without knowing whether he existed before or after his body. If man had been created in a state of perfection which would have excluded all need, it would not have been a man, but a god, and he would not have yielded to the seduction which was the cause of his sin. But to have the Holy Spirit in oneself is a privilege above the natural perfection of man and which gives him the power to do the things of God. Did the ass who spoke to Balaam not do an action superior to his nature? (Num. 22:28) It was given the faculty to do what was not in its nature. but in ours. But because man is of a nature superior to that of animals, does it follow that animals are imperfect? The holy angels are not what God is; will it be said that they are imperfect? ​​The planets and the stars are inferior to the angels of heaven; clouds often come to cover the sun and the moon like a veil; are these stars less perfect? The members of the body have a mutual need of each other (because the feet cannot do what the hands do); is it a reason to say that they are imperfect? No, no doubt. All created beings have a perfection in relation to the place and rank they occupy and the end for which they are created. They are therefore all perfect because their Creator is perfect, yet compared to the Creator, they are obviously imperfect. The perfection of God extends to everything, because he is the source and the origin of all things. The created beings are perfect, no doubt, but for the end that God has given them by creating them. Considered in another respect, they no longer have this perfection because they need each other. They are perfect in so far as they are sufficient for themselves, and not as they need a foreign aid; they are therefore a mixture of perfection and imperfection. The hands claim the accord of the feet, because if the feet refuse to walk, the hands are without action. The feet in their turn need the hands, because they can neither fit themselves nor take from them the care they demand. The body is therefore perfect in its limbs, however it can neither fly nor carry such heavy loads as the mule. These animals are themselves perfect, yet they can neither govern themselves nor administer the remedies they need. What made the Psalmist say: "Do not be like the horse and the mule, animals without intelligence.” (Ps. 31:9) Water and fire are two incompatible elements, but they are perfect in their kind because they fulfill the purpose for which they are created. The fire cooks and consumes the objects on which it expels its activity, it purifies and warms; water washes, refreshes, sprinkles and quenches thirst. All created objects are therefore perfect in their kind, yet they cannot do anything without man, just as man, though more perfect, cannot do without their help. This is why the Apostle declares that we are imperfect and perfect at the same time. In comparison with the faithful, we are perfect, because we know God, but we are imperfect because we do not have sufficient knowledge of the promises made to us, because as long as we are in this life, we cannot understand in all their extent the truths that are the object of our faith. Now, since there are some who think that the faithful come into possession of the perfection of Adam, let us see if the reparation of man does not open to him a source of graces more abundant than those given to Adam. Adam was placed in a garden to cultivate it and to be its faithful guardian, that is to say, to cultivate the earth and keep the commandments of God which taught him that by receiving the empire over all created objects he lived, however, under the control of his Creator, and that this empire did not owe all pride and make him forget who had created him, he was therefore placed in this garden to support his existence by the food he needs. But by virtue of the grace that Jesus Christ gave to men, after their resurrection, they will no longer need to eat or drink, because that which is mortal in man will then be absorbed by life. Adam was created to dwell on the earth, but faith gives us the singular hope of living one day in heaven. Here is the testimony of Scripture itself: "Adam the first man was created with a living soul; and the second has been filled with a vivifying spirit. The first man is the terrestrial formed of the earth, the second is the heavenly who comes from heaven. As the first man was earthly, his children are also earthly; and as the second is heavenly, his children are also heavenly.” (1 Cor. 15:45) Is it not evident from these words that Adam did not receive the Holy Spirit? He has received a living soul, but through Jesus Christ we receive a life-giving spirit, which in a way renders man like the Creator in whom he believes. Indeed, the mystery of the faith that man must believe to be saved is the mystery of God in three persons, and in man we also see these three things, the body, the soul, and the Holy Spirit, by which we deserve to be called the children of God, a title which was not given to Adam, for he was earthly and formed of the earth. But it is the children of God whose birth is wholly spiritual and not carnal, who deserve to be called heavenly. It is, therefore, well established that God has given to men at the advent of the Savior much greater blessings than Adam had received. Man was not only restored to his former state, he was raised to a more excellent condition; he was restored to his first state, because he was cleansed of his sins; but for all the rest he was raised to a much higher perfection. In fact, justice and reason demanded that the goodness of God should be more abundant in his benefits, while he deigned to reveal to his creature the mystery of his divinity. Men having known what had remained hidden for centuries and generations before, the mystery of God in three persons, it was fitting, to consecrate this new revelation, that with the remission of their sins and justification, they still receive the adoption of the children of God and the Holy Spirit who imprints in them the sign of this adoption. The adoption that comes from God must bear the sign of God the Father so that we may be called justly the children of God. The prophets themselves had predicted that this favor would be given to men when the mystery of God would fail in his triumph over death, so that every creature would recognize that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were one and the same God. That is why the Evangelist says: “The Spirit was not given yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” This glorification took place when the manifestation of his power made him recognize for what he was, according to the testimony he had given of himself, because this glorification was the source of the grace promised by the prophet Joel: "In the last days, says God, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, etc." (Joel 2:28, etc.) And the Apostle on his side: "When the blessing and the tenderness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of the works of righteousness that we have done, but by his mercy, by making us reborn by baptism and renewing us by the Holy Spirit whom he has shed abundantly upon us by Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by His grace, we are heirs, according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:4) The Apostle confirms the prophet Joel's prediction, a prediction that God accomplishes after Jesus was glorified, spreading the Holy Spirit on those who believe in Jesus Christ. However, to receive the Holy Spirit is to become heirs of eternal life, for the Holy Spirit is eternal, and he who receives it receives eternal life and immortality whose Holy Spirit is the pledge. He who receives it and perseveres in his love after this life enters the heavens to be eternally united with him whose Spirit he has, for it would be neither right nor just that whoever comes out of this life having in him the Holy Spirit, was held in hell. Indeed, the sign in the man of the victory that Jesus Christ has won over death is his Spirit, and he in whom this Spirit finds himself cannot be held captive in the underworld. So the Holy Spirit was not in the saints of the old law as it is today in the faithful. These righteous, at the end of this life, dwelt in hell, and it cannot be said that because of the sin of Adam, which was transmitted by generation to all his descendants, condemned them to this captivity, the Holy Spirit himself even was subject to the sentence of ruling pronounced against Adam. Without a doubt, the Holy Spirit was with the prophets and righteous of the old law; with the prophets for the fulfillment of their ministry; with the righteous because of their holiness, as we read of old Simeon, whose saying is, "The Holy Spirit was in him," (Luke 2:25) not as a sign of divine adoption, but as a principle and as a reward for his merits. The sons of God by faith began only when the Son of God made himself known to all creatures by his triumph over death. If we wish to maintain that the Holy Spirit was in Adam or the other righteous ones of the old law, as he is now in the faithful, what are the new ones in which God made us when he inaugurated among us the kingdom of his Son? And how can one call, blessed and prosperous above all others, the time when the Savior appeared on earth, if he did not pour out upon others other graces than those they had already received? And what do these words of the Savior himself mean to his disciples? "Many prophets and righteous have desired to see what you see and have not seen, hear what you hear and have not heard it?" (Matt. 13:17) By what reason, then, can one say that this blessed time has given men nothing more than what has been granted to the ancients? Such a feeling is injurious to the Savior who would not have given men any new thanks to those who received him to consecrate the birth of his empire. Do the rich of the earth not seek, and at great cost, to give to their guests, on the anniversary of their birth, selected and distinguished presents? It is therefore an insult to God to think that he has made no new and extraordinary grace to those whom he has invited to this great and new solemnity worthy of all the praises of men. Where would be the truth of these words of the Gospel "He came into his domain, and his people did not receive it? As for those who received him, he gave them the power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, born neither of the blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the Lord, but who are born of God?” (Jn. 1:11, etc.) How, then, would not God have showered extraordinary graces on those who believed in Jesus Christ, since He gave them the power to become children of God, that is, to say the brethren of his own Son, not from the will of the flesh, nor from man, but from God Himself. If it is claimed that men had already received this precious gift, then the advent of Jesus Christ on earth was for men the principle of no new grace. Adam's creation was carnal and earthly, not spiritual. He was not born of God without the help of flesh and blood, since God made him of earth; He could not, therefore, receive the Holy Spirit, because he was not spiritual, and had not been given to call God his father in prayer. On the contrary, those who have received the Holy Spirit receive at the same time the inseparable power of the Holy Spirit who is in them, to call God in their prayers the father of the Christians. Now, as the righteous of the old law did not have this privilege, they had not received the Holy Spirit either. So those who claim that Adam or the righteous have had the Holy Spirit, do not know the price of the grace that God has given them, and they are unable to render him worthy deeds of grace, since they are filled with his the most precious gifts they say have received nothing more than those who lived under the old law.

CAN IT BE SAID THAT ADAM RECEIVED THE HOLY SPIRIT AFTER GOD HAD GIVEN HIM BEING AND LIFE, BECAUSE IT IS WRITTEN, "GOD BREATHED ON HIS FACE A BREATH OF LIFE?” — It was not in order that Adam received the Holy Spirit; it was a reserved grace for the end times, and that God was to give to believers in the days when the mystery of one God in three persons was to be announced to men. The Trinity had been preached from the beginning, but the intelligence remained as veiled. The person of the Father was first announced and manifested with complete clarity and without figure, because he is the principle of all things. As for the persons of his Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they were neither the object of absolute silence nor of complete manifestation. The unbelievers raise reckless questions about Our Lord and the Holy Spirit. there are even those who push the absurdity to the point of maintaining that the Holy Spirit is the same as the Father, just as Sabellius confuses in one person the Father and the Son. There is no doubt against the person of the Father. So when the Trinity manifests itself, the Holy Spirit is given to the faithful, so that the existence of this divine person remains well established, and those who receive it bear in themselves the sign that they are the children of God. God, by the very fact that they have the Spirit of God in them. It is a mark of perfection to know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is this perfection that gets us this gift. And then, the Son of God coming to the earth to reveal and discover these truths, had to pour out more abundant graces on men, and it was right that he gives this perfection to the souls who believed in him, for this not in the Son or in the Father, considered in isolation, is salvation, but in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is what makes St. John the evangelist say: "And we have all received of his fullness, and grace for grace: for the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came from Jesus Christ.” (Jn. 1:16) It is certain that at the advent of the Savior, the truth has come to its fullness. This fullness of truth was produced by the revelation of all the hidden mysteries that God had promised to manifest to men. It was then that the faithful became the children of God through the reception of the Holy Spirit, and the inspiration of God over Adam is to be understood from the soul he gave him because in Scripture the mind is frequently used for the soul, especially in this passage of the Gospel: "And her spirit returned to her," (Luke 8:55) and in the Psalm: "God does not despise a spirit broken by pain and a contrite and humiliated heart." (Ps. 50:19) frequently found in some manuscripts, instead of God inspired, this other variant: "God poured on his face a breath of life, and the man had a living soul." The spirit of life in the thought of the sacred author is therefore not synonymous with the Holy Spirit, for he says also in speaking of animals: "Who had the spirit of life.” (Gen. 7:22) But it is called the spirit of life, because it is for the bodies a principle of life. [Questions on the Old and New Testaments]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. "And God made the man of the dirt of the earth, and breathed on his face a breath of life, and the man became a living soul." The first question that arises is to see if the scripture takes again her story, to explain, the formation of the man whose creation she told on the sixth day, or if God did not make the man in principle, when he created all at once, as he did the grass of the earth before it had sprung up: in this case, man does as in germ in the depths of nature, so that, all beings created together at the moment when the day was born, would have taken over time these forms under which today he spends his life in the practice of good or evil, in the same way that the grass, made before having grown on the earth, developed with time and under the influence of the waters of source.

Discuss the first hypothesis first. It would be possible for man to have been made on the sixth day, following the same law as the primitive day, the firmament, the earth, and the sea. It can not be said that these works were formed in power in some primordial creation. and that having developed with time, they appeared to compose the edifice of the universe: it was at the beginning of time, when it was born, that the world was created and that were deposited at the in its elements, the germs whose plants or animals were to emerge in the course of time. For we must not believe that the stars themselves were at first virtually created in the elements of the universe, to compose themselves with time, and finally to appear as they shine in the heavens: everything was created together in the period marked by the perfect number six, when the day came. Was man created like them in his natural size, as he lives, and does good or evil? Or would it have been formed in power, like the grass of the field, to be born later and become with time the being that was formed of dust?

Let us admit as true that man was formed on the sixth day of the mud of the earth in his natural perfection, and that Scripture fills this gap by taking up his story. Let's see if there is an agreement between her and our opinion. In the account of the sixth day she says, "And God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness; and let him rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the heavens, and the domestic animals, and all the earth, and every reptile that crawls on the earth. And God created man: he created him in the image of God; he created him male and female. And God blessed them and said to them, "Grow and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fishes of the sea, the birds of the sky, the domestic animals, the earth, and all the creeping reptiles on the earth (Gen. I, 26-28). Therefore the man was already made of dust, the woman had already been formed of one of his ribs during his sleep; but these works were not then described in Scripture, and she returns to her narrative to complete it. On the sixth day indeed, God, far from creating man, leaving to woman the necessary time to be born, "created man and created him male and female: and he blessed them. But how was the woman created for him when he had already been placed in Paradise? Would there still be an omission that repairs Scripture? It is the same sixth day, indeed, that Paradise was planted, that man was established there, then asleep so that his wife was formed, finally that he woke up and gave him the name of Eve. Now all this can be done only successively; these works are therefore distinct from the creation where everything was simultaneous…

"And God made the man of the mud of the earth, and breathed on his face a breath of life: and the man was made a living soul. "These are the words of Scripture that at the beginning of the previous book we proposed to comment: we have exposed the formation of man in general and his body in particular, with all the development that we seemed necessary and in keeping with the spirit of holy books. As the human soul raises a question of the highest, we thought of making it the subject of a special book. We did not know to what extent the Lord would second our ardent desire to speak of it justly; what was not a secret to us was that his help was indispensable to us in keeping this language. Now the correctness here consists in avoiding with sincerity and in measure every chance refutation, like every reckless assertion, on the true or false points, which Christian faith or science have not yet fixed; it consists at the same time in affirming without hesitation the truths demonstrated by the very evidence or supported by the infallible authority of Scripture.

Let us first examine the text: "Flavit vel sufflavit in faciem ejus. Some manuscripts bear spiravit or inspiravit. The version of the Septuagint giving enephusesen, the exact expression must be flavit or sufflavit. We saw in the previous book what was meant by the hands of God, when he formed the man of the loam of the earth: is it not equally clear that God, to blow on the face of the man did not use his throat or lips?

However, this expression of Scripture will serve us as much as I can believe, to study such a complicated problem.

But, it is said, on what account is it written that God breathed on the face of man of him a living soul, n if the soul is not a parcel of God or a absolutely identical substance? This is a mistake, and the very expression of Scripture suffices to make it fully felt. In the act of breathing, the soul sets in motion the body which is submitted to it, and draws from it, instead of borrowing it from its own substance, the air which it expels. Would one be so little educated as to ignore the fact that, in the phenomenon of respiration, one absorbs and drives out the surrounding air in turn, and that it is enough for the will to produce wind by the same operation? Even if we do not borrow from the outside air, but from the body's own substance, the fluid that blows out the breath, the nature of the soul would not be identical to that of the body: it is a point on which our opponents agree with us. Therefore, the soul, the driving and driving force, is essentially distinct from the breath it produces by putting the organs into play and drawing not from its substance, but from the body that is subjected to it. Now God governs the creature as the soul governs the body, though in an infinitely superior way; why then would it not be admitted that God, in the act of insufflation of which Scripture speaks, drew a soul from the creature subject to his will, since the human soul is powerful enough to produce a breath through play? organs, without borrowing it from its substance, although it exercises on the body an empire less absolute than God over the universal nature?

We could have said that the divine breath is not the soul, and that God by an act of insufflation created the soul in man: but as one could imagine that God made by his word works more perfect than with his breath, for the reason that speech in man is more excellent than breath; we will recognize that we can confuse the soul with the divine breath, without abandoning the reasoning which precedes it, on the condition of seeing in the insufflation, not an emanation of the divine substance, but the production of a breath; and in the production of a breath, that of a soul. This opinion is in accordance with the word that God has spoken through the mouth of Isaiah: "The spirit will come out of me; it is I who created all breath. That there is no question here of a material breath, the following makes him see enough. The prophet adds: "And because of sin, I afflicted him, and I smote him." What does he mean by breath, if not the afflicted soul; struck because of sin? The expression: "I have created all breath," does not it mean to say: I have created all souls?

If God were to us the soul of the physical world, and if the physical world were like his body we would have to admit that he formed, by blowing, a material soul, composed of the outside air, by expiration; Nevertheless, the substance produced by this insufflation should be seen not as an emanation of soli, but as a compound of the air diffused into its body, similar to the breath which the soul produces with the ambient air by the play of organs. without pulling it on its own. But as God, according to us, does not command only a. physical nature, and rising infinitely above all bodies as of all created spirits, we must admit that the soul which he has created by insufflation is neither a flow of its substance, nor a compound of material elements.

Now, has the soul been drawn from nothingness, or is it coming from an immaterial principle that has been created without being itself? This question deserves to be examined. Now, if we believe that God draws nothing from nothingness, since he has created everything at once, if we admit that he has rested, after having completed in principle the works from which he was henceforth to draw all the beings he would produce, I do not see how one could explain that today he creates the souls of nothing. Must we admit, on the contrary, that in creating the works of the six primitive days he made this mysterious day, and according to a more probable opinion, the world of minds and intelligences; that is to say the society of Angels, then the universe, that is to say, heaven and earth? Must we believe that in these substances and create the principles, not the very substances of all beings to come, for the reason that if they had been created as they were to exist one day, they would not have needed any more? to be born? Then one must recognize that the soul did not yet exist substantially in the divine works, and that its birth dates from the moment when God made it by a human act of insufflation and associated it with the body of the man.

The question is far from being solved: one wants to know if God has drawn from nothing the substance called soul and until then pure nothing, if I say, the act of insufflation having not taken place with the help of a foreign element, like that which the soul accomplishes by expelling the air from the body, has not operated on any principle, and has produced, when God willed it, the human soul; or Lien, if there was a spiritual principle which, without being the substance of the soul, pre-existed it, and which under the divine breath was to form the human soul, just as the human body was not (228) realized, before God had formed him of the mud or dust of the earth. In fact, dust or silt did not have the properties of human flesh; and yet it was the matter from which flesh, which had no existence of its own, was to be formed. [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. (Gen. 2:7) But I do not know how I deviated from my subject. I return to it, and I approach the various instructions contained in the story of the sacred writer. After saying: This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, he tells us in detail the formation of man; no doubt he had already told us that God had made man, and that he had done it in his image; but here he expresses himself more explicitly: God, he says, formed the man of the mud of the earth, and poured a breath of life on his face, and the man had a living soul. (Gen. II, 7.) How great and admirable are these words! and how much they surpass our intelligence! and God formed the man of the mud of the earth. Speaking of all visible creatures, I told you that often the Creator, to show his omnipotence, acted contrary to the laws of nature, and we find the same conduct in the creation of man. This is how he established the earth above the waters, which apart from faith our reason can not conceive. Thus, even at his command, all the elements produce effects opposed to their nature. Scripture teaches us something similar in the formation of man, telling us that God formed him of the mud of the earth.

What do you say? what! God has taken a little earth, and formed the man! Yes, it is so; Moses assures us; and even he does not content himself with saying that God took earth, but silt, that is to say all that is basest and most despicable. Truly, one would be tempted to tax this story with fable and paradox; but as soon as we remember who is the author of these wonders, we easily believe them, and we humbly adore the power of the Creator. For if you wish to measure the divine works to the weakness of your thoughts, and scrutinize them curiously, it will seem to you far more natural that a clay or a vase be formed from the mud of the earth than the body of man. You see, then, to understand all the sublimity of the language of Moses, we must meditate carefully, and repress the infirmity of reason. For the eye of faith alone can discover these wonders, although the sacred historian has proportioned his word to the weakness of our intelligence. And indeed, when he tells us that God formed man, and that he poured out on him a spirit of life, does not he seem to descend into a detail unworthy of divine majesty? but Scripture thus expresses condescendingly for our weakness, and it descends to the smallness of our mind, and then raises it to the sublimity of its revelations.

And God, taking silt, formed the man. Certainly, if we want to understand it, here is a great lesson of humility. For if we reflect on the origin of man the most superb pride suddenly falls, and the thought of our nothingness teaches us modesty and humility. Also, it is by an effect of his providence with respect to our salvation that God inspired this style and language to Moses. For he had already said that God (69) had formed man in his image, and that he had given him dominion over all visible creatures. But here, fearing that this same man would burst into pride, and that he would transgress the limits of a humble dependence, if he knew nothing of his origin, the Scripture recounts the story of his creation, and describes in detail the way he was trained. She tells him, therefore, that he was formed of the earth, and of the same matter as plants and animals, above which he rose only by the soul, a simple and immaterial substance. But he held this soul of divine goodness, and it was in him the principle of reason, and that of his empire over all other creatures. In spite of this knowledge so explicit of its origin, the first man was deceived by the serpent, and he imagined that he, who had been formed of the mud of the earth, could become like God. But if Moses had not added to his first story such precise details, in what extravagances would we not have fallen!

This is how the history of our origin is for us a great lesson of humility. And God, says the Scripture, formed the man of the mud of the earth; and he poured on his face a breath of life. Moses spoke to men who could not understand him, if he had not used such a simple and crude language. He tells us, then, that this man, made of the mud of the earth, received from the divine liberality a soul which was essentially reasonable, and that he thus became a perfect being. And God, he said, poured a breath of life on the face of man. This is how he refers to the soul that is in man, formed of the mud of the earth, the principle of life, action and movement. So, he adds immediately: And man became alive and animated; this man, he said, formed of the mud of the earth, received a spirit of life, and became alive and animated. What to say, alive and animated? That is to say, man was master of his actions, and in him the members of the body were subject to the will of the soul.

But I do not know how we reversed this beautiful order. Alas! our malice is so great that we force our soul to obey the passions of concupiscence. This soul, born to reign and to command, is thus dethroned with our own hands, and we bow under the slavery of the pleasures of the flesh, thus disregarding its nobility and eminent dignity. Because, please, remember your memories of the formation of the man, and ask yourself what he was. before God had poured out on him a spirit of life, and had become alive and animated. He was an inert body, heavy and useless. It is therefore only this breath of life that God poured upon him, which raised him to the honor of becoming a living and animated being. For the rest, it is easy to understand it, and by this account of Genesis, and by what happens every day before our eyes. As soon as the soul is separated from the body, it becomes a hideous and repulsive object. What am I saying, hideous and repulsive? he is frightening, fetid and deformed. And yet, when the soul resides there, this same body is beautiful, pleasant, and lovable. Moreover, he participates in the prudence of the soul, and executes his orders with rare dexterity.

Convinced of these truths and penetrated by the feeling of the dignity of our soul, let us avoid all that could dishonor it. Let us therefore fear to defile it with sin, and not reduce it under the slavery of the flesh. Ah! it would be too cruel and too inhuman to a creature so high in nobility and honor. It is through our soul that, despite the shackles of the body, we can, with a firm will and the help of grace, resemble celestial and immaterial virtues. Yes, although attached to the earth, we can live in a sort of heaven, equal these pure intelligences, and even surpass them. But how to achieve it? Here it is: when in a mortal body we realize a life entirely angelic, we rise before God to a degree of merit superior to that of the angels, because in the midst of the sad necessities of the body, we preserve intact the nobility of our soul. [Homilies on Genesis]

JOHN OF DAMASCUS. Just as man is a creature, in whom we find both sense and mind blended together, in like manner also man’s most holy temple combines the properties of sense and mind, and has this twofold expression: for, as we said, the life in the body is spent in the most divine and lovely region, while the life in the soul is passed in a place far more sublime and of more surpassing beauty, where God makes His home, and where He wraps man about as with a glorious garment, and robes him in His grace, and delights and sustains him like an angel with the sweetest of all fruits, the contemplation of Himself…The soul, accordingly, is a living essence, simple, incorporeal, invisible in its proper nature to bodily eyes, immortal, reasoning and intelligent, formless, making use of an organized body, and being the source of its powers of life, and growth, and sensation, and generation , mind being but its purest part and not in any wise alien to it; (for as the eye to the body, so is the mind to the soul); further it enjoys freedom and volition and energy, and is mutable, that is, it is given to change, because it is created. All these qualities according to nature it has received of the grace of the Creator, of which grace it has received both its being and this particular kind of nature. [Orth. Faith 2.11-12 NPNF s.2 v.9]

LEO I OF ROME. For the first man received the substance of flesh from the earth, and was quickened with a rational spirit by the in-breathing of his Creator, so that living after the image and likeness of his Maker, he might preserve the form of God’s goodness and righteousness as in a bright mirror. [Sermon 24.2, NPNF s.2 v.12]

PSEUDO BASIL. It was there, that God placed the man whom he had formed. In another part of the earth he formed him, and then translated him to paradise. As he made the luminaries of heaven, and then placed them in the firmament; so he formed man from collected particles of earth, and then placed him in paradise. Observe it is not said, “The man whom he had made,” but “The man whom he had formed.” (verse 8) When he made man, he made him after his own image. That is, his incorporeal nature: and what is incorporeal is uncircumscribed by place. For that which was made, followed that which had been formed. In other words, the creation of the soul was consequent on the formation of the body, and the union immediately took place. An abode is prepared previously to the formation of the body, and the soul is afterwards contained in a locality, by reason of the corporeal conjunction; for it cannot, from its intrinsic nature, be circumscribed in space. [De Paradiso, PG 30, cols. 61-72]

TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE. Since God forms us in the womb, He also breathes upon us, as He also did at the first creation, when "the Lord God formed man, and breathed into him the breath of life." Genesis 2:7 Nor could God have known man in the womb, except in his entire nature: "And before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified you." Well, was it then a dead body at that early stage? Certainly not. For "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." [Treatise on the Soul 36]

Besides, what else is man than flesh, since no doubt it was the corporeal rather than the spiritual element from which the Author of man's nature gave him his designation? "And the Lord God made man of the dust of the ground," not of spiritual essence; this afterwards came from the divine afflatus: "and man became a living soul." What, then, is man? Made, no doubt of it, of the dust; and God placed him in paradise, because He moulded him, not breathed him, into being—a fabric of flesh, not of spirit. [Against Marcion 1.24]

In fact, the Scripture, by expressly saying Genesis 2:7 that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and that man became thereby a living soul, not a life-giving spirit, has distinguished that soul from the condition of the Creator. The work must necessarily be distinct from the workman, and it is inferior to him. The pitcher will not be the potter, although made by the potter; nor in like manner, will the afflatus, because made by the spirit, be on that account the spirit. The soul has often been called by the same name as the breath. [Against Marcion 2.9]

So that man was clay at first, and only afterwards man entire. I wish to impress this on your attention, with a view to your knowing, that whatever God has at all purposed or promised to man, is due not to the soul simply, but to the flesh also; if not arising out of any community in their origin, yet at all events by the privilege possessed by the latter in its name. [On the Resurrection 5]

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. man became a living soul. Whence also by most persons the soul is called immortal. [To Autolycus 2.19 ANF v.2]

2:8 And God planted a garden eastward in Edem, and placed there the man whom he had formed.

AMBROSE OF MILAN. On approaching this subject I seem to be possessed by an unusual eagerness in my quest to clarify the facts about Paradise, its place, and its nature to those who are desirous of this knowledge. This is all the more remarkable since the Apostle did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body, yet he says that he 'was caught up to the third heaven.' [2 Cor. 12:2] And again he says: 'I know such a man-whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows-that he was caught up into paradise and heard secret words that man may not repeat. Of such a man I will boast; but of myself I will glory in nothing save in my infirmities. For if I do wish to boast, I shall not be foolish; for I am speaking the truth.' [2 Cor. 12:3-6] If Paradise, then, is of such a nature that Paul alone, or one like Paul, could scarcely see it while alive, and still was unable to remember whether he saw it in the body or out of the body, and, moreover, heard words that he was forbidden to reveal--if this be true, how will it be possible for us to declare the position of Paradise which we have not been able to see and, even if we had succeeded in seeing it, we would be forbidden to share this information with others? And, again, since Paul shrank from exalting himself by reason of the sublimity of the revelation, how much more ought we to strive not to be too anxious to disclose that which leads to danger by its very revelation! The subject of Paradise should not, therefore, be treated lightly. With these words let us set aside the question of what was hidden to Paul.

Nevertheless, we can find out who was the Creator of this Paradise. We read in Genesis that 'God planted a garden to the east and he put there the man he had formed.': Who had the power to create Paradise, if not almighty God, who 'spoke and they were made' [Ps 32:9] and who was never in want of the thing which He wished to bring into being? He planted, therefore, that Paradise of which He says in His wisdom: 'Every plant which my Father has not planted will be rooted up.' [Matt.15:13] This is a goodly plantation for angels and saints. The saints are said to lie beneath the fig tree and the vine. [Mich 6:6] In this respect they are the type of the angels [Mark 12:25] in that time of peace which is to come.

Hence, Paradise has many trees that are fruit-bearing, with plenty of sap, and vigor. Of these it is said: 'All the trees of the woods shall rejoice.' [Ps 95:12] The woods flourish ever with the green shoots of merit, just like that 'tree which is planted near the running waters, whose leaf shall not fall off,' [ s 1:3] because its fruit is plenteous. Here, then, is Paradise.

The place where it is planted is called delight; wherefore holy David says: 'Thou shalt not make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure,' [ Ps 35:9] for you have read that 'a river rose in Eden watering the garden.' [Gen 2:10] These woods, therefore, which were planted in Paradise are watered by the outpouring of the waters of that spirit concerning which He says elsewhere: 'The stream of the river maketh the city of God joyful.' [Ps 45:5] Here is that city of Jerusalem which above is free, [Gal 4:26] in which the different merits of the saints come to fruition.

In this garden, therefore, God put the man He had formed. Take note that He placed man there not in respect to the image of God, but in respect to the body of man. The incorporeal does not exist in a place. He placed man in Paradise, just as He placed the sun in heaven, awaiting lordship over the heavens, just as the creature expects the revelation of the sons of God. [Rom 8:9]

Hence, if Paradise is a place where shrubs have opportunity to blossom, then Paradise has a certain vital force which receives and multiplies seeds in which each and every virtue is planted, and where flourishes the tree of life which is called Wisdom. Of this, Solomon says that Wisdom arose not of the earth but of the Father: 'For she is the brightness of eternal light' and 'the emanation of the glory of the almighty God.' (Wisd 7:25-26) [On Paradise]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. There are, I know, a host of opinions on the earthly Paradise, but they can be reduced to three main ones: the first is to see in Paradise only a garden; the second, to consider it as an allegory; the third, which reconciles the two others, admits the literal sense and the figurative sense. I admit in passing that I share this last feeling. Here I begin to speak of the terrestrial paradise in the literal sense, according to the graces which God will deign to grant me, and to make understand how the man formed of the silt of the earth, that is to say provided with a body was established in a real garden. Adam, no doubt, was the figure and type of the future Adam; yet we see in him a man endowed with all the faculties of his kind, who lived a certain number of years, and after having left numerous posterity died like the rest of men, though he was born of some, parents, but formed of the earth, as the first man: likewise one must see in the garden where God placed him, a place, an earthly stay destined for a being formed of the earth.

 The story of Genesis does not in fact fall into the genre of allegories, like the Song of Songs: it is historical like the book of Kings and all those who offer the same character. Historical narratives containing the ordinary facts of human life are easily explained, or rather literally primitive, in order to deduce from past events the allegorical meaning of future events; but as we do not find here the ordinary course of nature, we can not bring ourselves to see reality and we conceive everything as symbols; we do not even want to begin the history properly so called until Adam and Eve, having been expelled from Paradise, united and had children. But, in truth, is it in the natural course of things that they have lived so many years, that Enoch was taken up to heaven, that a woman gave birth despite old age and barrenness, and a thousand other wonders? [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. Plantavit Deus paradisum secundum Orientem. (God planted a paradise according to the east.) Latin manuscripts have ad Orientem (to the east.) [Locutions]

EUSEBIUS OF PAMPHLII. Edem (Eden). The place to the east of the paradise of God. Interpreted "delight" (Translated pleasure or delight). [Onomasticon]

IRENAEUS OF LYONS. For Enoch, when he pleased God, was translated in the same body in which he did please Him, thus pointing out by anticipation the translation of the just. Elijah, too, was caught up when he was yet in the substance of the natural form; thus exhibiting in prophecy the assumption of those who are spiritual, and that nothing stood in the way of their body being translated and caught up. For by means of the very same hands through which they were molded at the beginning, did they receive this translation and assumption. For in Adam the hands of God had become accustomed to set in order, to rule, and to sustain His own workmanship, and to bring it and place it where they pleased. Where, then, was the first man placed? In paradise certainly, as the Scripture declares “And God planted a garden [paradisum] eastward in Eden, and there He placed the man whom He had formed.” And then afterwards when man proved disobedient, he was cast out of there into this world. Wherefore also the elders who were disciples of the apostles tell us that those who were translated were transferred to that place for paradise has been prepared for righteous men, such as have the Spirit; in which place also Paul the apostle, when he was caught up, heard words which are unspeakable as regards us in our present condition (2 Cor. 12:4), and that there shall they who have been translated remain until the consummation of all things, as a prelude to immortality. [Against Heresies 5.5.1 ANF v.1]

JEROME OF STRIDON. AND THE LORD GOD PLANTED PARADISE IN EDEN, FACING THE EAST. — Instead of paradise, the Hebrew carries a garden, that is, GAN. Now, Eden corresponds to ‘delights’. Symmachus translated it as ‘flowering paradise’. What follows, in front of the east, is written in Hebrew MECEDEM, which Aquila replaces by apo archēs, and which we can render ‘from the beginning’. Symmachus as ek prōtēs and Theodotion as en prōtois, expressions that do not respond to the east, but ‘to begin’. In this way, it is the last evidence that before heaven and earth were made, God created paradise, as it is written in the Hebrew text: The Lord God had planted paradise in Eden from the beginning. [Hebrew Questions on Genesis]

JEROME OF STRIDON. Eden, pleasure, delights, ornament. [Book Hebrew Names]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Observe again that animals, being destined for the service of man, were to be created before him, so that he might first use them. And so the body was formed before the soul, so that from the moment it existed, by an act of the ineffable wisdom of the Lord, it could act by means of the body. And God, saith the scripture, planted a garden of delight in Eden toward the east, and there he placed the man whom he had formed. Oh! how good and generous is the Lord to man! he had created the universe for him, and from the first moment of his existence he filled him with new blessings. For it was for him that he planted a garden of delights, in Eden, towards the East. But here, my dear brother, if one did not interpret these words in a sense worthy of God, one would fall into the abyss of extravagance. And indeed what will those who take literally and in a human sense say all that Scripture says about God? he planted a garden of delights: what! Did he need to beautify this garden to work the land, and to employ his care and industry? To God displease! And this expression, the Lord planted, only signifies that at his command the earth produced the garden of delights that man was to inhabit. It is indeed for man that this garden was planted; and scripture expressly marks it. God, she says, planted a garden of delights in Eden, towards the east, and there he placed the man whom he had formed.

I also notice that Moses specifies the place where this garden was placed, to prevent the vain speeches of those who want to abuse our simplicity. They tell us that this garden was in heaven, and not on the earth, and we sell a thousand other similar fables. The extreme accuracy of the sacred historian could not prevent them from boasting of their eloquence and their wholly profane knowledge. So they dare to fight the Scripture, and to maintain that the earthly paradise did not exist on earth. It is thus that they adopt a sense quite contrary to that of the Scripture, and that they follow a road strewn with errors by hearing from heaven what is said of the earth. But in what abyss would they not have fallen if, by divine inspiration, Moses had not used a simple and familiar language? Doubtless the Scripture itself interprets its teachings, and gives no hold on error; but because many read it or listen to it less to seek the doctrine of salvation than the pleasure of the mind, they prefer the interpretations which flatter them to those which would instruct them. That is why I implore you to close your ear to all these seductive speeches, and to hear the Scripture only in accordance with the holy canons. So when she tells us that God planted a garden of delights on the east of Eden, give this word, my dear brother, a sense worthy of God, and believe that at the order of the Lord a garden was formed in the place that Scripture designates. For one can not, without a great danger for oneself and for his listeners, prefer his own interpretations to the true and real meaning of the divine Scriptures.

And God put there the man whom he had formed. See here how the Lord honored man from the first moment of his existence. He had created it out of paradise, but he introduced it immediately, in order to awaken in his heart the feeling of gratitude, and to make him appreciate the honor bestowed on him. He placed in heaven the man whom he had formed; This word: He put it, signifies that God commanded man to inhabit the earthly paradise, so that he might taste all the charms of this delightful abode, and show himself grateful to his benefactor. And in fact these kindnesses of the Lord were all gratuitous, since they warned in man to the slightest merit. So do not be surprised at this expression: he placed it, for the Scripture here, as always, uses a very human language, in order to make it more accessible and more useful. Thus, in speaking of the stars, she said previously that God placed them in the sky. Certainly, the sacred writer did not want us to believe that the stars are fixedly attached to the place they occupy, since they each have their rotational movement; he only proposed to teach us that the Lord commanded them to shine in the heavenly spaces, just as he commanded man to inhabit the earthly paradise. [Homilies on Genesis]

JOHN OF DAMASCUS. Now when God was about to fashion man out of the visible and invisible creation in His own image and likeness to reign as king and ruler over all the earth and all that it contains, He first made for him, so to speak, a kingdom in which he should live a life of happiness and prosperity. And this is the divine paradise, planted in Eden by the hands of God, a very storehouse of joy and gladness of heart (for “Eden” means luxuriousness). [Orth. Faith 2.11 NPNF s.2 v.9]

PSEUDO BASIL. In a former part of the narration it is said, “Let the earth bring forth the herb, and the fruitful tree; yielding seed and bearing fruit.” (Gen. 1:11) If Paradise were composed of the common trees, it is manifest that it was comprehended in the primary creation of plants; and that the trees which were now planted by the hand of God himself, could have required no subsequent, no special implantation. But that the plants which now were called into existence, the innumerous trees, so wisely designed and so elaborately formed by the God himself, were different from his primary productions, is evident from the words of Scripture. [De Paradiso, PG 30, cols. 61-72]

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. And that Paradise is earth, and is planted on the earth, the Scripture states, saying: “And the Lord God planted Paradise in Eden eastwards, and placed man there; and out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” By the expressions, therefore, “out of the ground,” and “eastwards,” the holy writing clearly teaches us that Paradise is under this heaven, under which the east and the earth are. And the Hebrew word Eden signifies “delight” … And God transferred him from the earth, out of which he had been produced, into Paradise, giving him means of advancement, in order that, maturing and becoming perfect, and being even declared a god, he might thus ascend into heaven in possession of immortality. For man had been made a middle nature, neither wholly mortal, nor altogether immortal, but capable of either; so also the place, Paradise, was made in respect of beauty intermediate between earth and heaven. [To Autolycus 2.24 ANF v.2]

2:9 And God made to spring up also out of the earth every tree beautiful to the eye and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of learning the knowledge of good and evil.

ALCUIN OF YORK. (Gen. 2:9). WHY WAS IT SAID, "THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL"? — Answer. Not because the tree itself was rational in its own nature or had knowledge of good and evil, but because man through it could experience and know the difference between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience. (Bed. in Pent., PL 91, col. 207-208. Bed. Hexm. I, PL 91, col. 44.) [Questions and Answers on Genesis, 52]

AMBROSE OF MILAN. There was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Paradise. This was so because 'God made to grow a tree pleasant to sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.' {Gen 2:9) We shall see later whether this tree, like the others, was pleasant to sight and good for food. The question will be more fittingly discussed at the point where, on tasting the fruit of this tree, we find that man was deceived. Meantime, we should no[t] reproach ourselves for not being able to know precisely the reasons behind these facts. We should not form a hasty judgment in respect to this product of creation, if it presents to our intellect what seems to us--like the creation of serpents and certain poisonous creatures-difficult and incomprehensible. In fact, we are unable, owing to human weakness, yet to know and understand the reason for the creation of each and every object. Let us, therefore, not criticise in holy Scripture something which we cannot comprehend. There are very many things which must not be subjected to the judgment of our intellect. Rather, these should be surveyed from the lofty heights of Divine Providence and from the intentions of God Himself.

Without prejudice, then, to what we shall say hereafter, set it down as a first principle that the subject of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil is to you a displeasing one. After men had tasted of this tree, they realized that they were naked. [ Gen 3:7 ] Nevertheless, I will state for your benefit that as a consummation of God's creation this tree grew in Paradise and that it was permitted by God, in order that we might be able to know the preeminence of good. How could we learn to know that there was a difference between good and evil, if there existed no knowledge of good and evil? We could not have come to realize that evil was evil, unless there was knowledge of good, and that there could not be knowledge of good, unless there was actual good. Again, we could not have known what in itself was good, unless there was knowledge of evil. Take an example from the nature of the human body. There exists as a matter of fact a certain bitter and poisonous substance which has been discovered to have a general salutary effect on the health of men. Hence, what we regard as evil frequently turns out to be not in every respect evil, but to be advantageous for general use. Just as poison exists in a part of the body but has a beneficial effect on the body as a whole, so God established the knowledge in part of what is good and evil, in order that the whole might be benefitted.

Hence it follows that the serpent in Paradise was certainly not brought into being without the will of God. In the figure of the serpent we see the Devil. That the Devil existed even in Paradise we are informed by the Prophet Ezekiel, who in discussing the Prince of Tyre says: 'Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God.' [ Ezek 28:13 ] We maintain that the Prince of Tyre stands for the Devil. Shall we, therefore, accuse God because we cannot comprehend the treasures-with the exception of those which He has deigned to reveal-of His majesty and wisdom which lie hidden and concealed in Christ? Yet He did reveal to us the fact that the wickedness of the Devil is fruitful for man's salvation. This would not be the Devil's intention, but the Lord makes the wickedness of him who stands in opposition to us contribute something to our salvation. The wickedness of the Devil has caused the virtue and patience of one holy man to shine in a clearer light. The justice of Job was so disciplined and exercised by the wickedness of his opponent that eventually he gained the crown of victory over his adversary, the Devil. No one is crowned 'unless he has competed according to the rules.' [ 2 Tim 2:5 ] Joseph's chastity, too, would never have been recorded for us, if it did not happen that a woman, the wife of his master and friend, incited and goaded by the Devil's allurements, had not played with his affections. [ Gen 39:17 ] This woman finally endeavored to bring about his death. This event added more to the fame of a man who by his continence faced death in defense of chastity. Do you desire to know God's plan? Here is an instance. Through the instrumentality of the Devil there was once an occasion when a just man prepared to perpetrate manslaughter. The situation was one that involved the murder of one's own son. Yet, for all that, the Lord tempted Abraham in this wise. He demanded that Abraham sacrifice his son to Him. By reason of this temptation he was able to prove himself faithful to the Lord, since compliance to his vow and not pity for his beloved son brought about repeal of the order. [ Gen 22:1 ] There was, therefore, in Paradise a tree of knowledge of good and evil which appeared to the eye to be beautiful and to the taste to be edible. It was not actually good to eat, for its fruit appeared to have a harmful effect on man. What is injurious to individuals may nevertheless have a beneficial effect on men as a whole. The Devil, for example, did harm to Judas, [ Luke 22:3 ] but he bestowed the wreath of victory on all the other Apostles, inasmuch as they were able to face and overcome the force of his temptation.

Accordingly, let it not be a subject of reprehension or doubt that the Devil existed in Paradise. As a matter of fact he was powerless to bar from the saints the way of their ascent. As one who had the right of possession, he did not evict the just from their habitation. It may be that he turned away from the occupancy of that high estate some who were in fact slothful and vicious. There is a recorded event that arouses to a much greater degree our regard and our admiration. This is the fact that the Devil was excluded from the prayers of the saints as the result of an event which was to take place: 'I was watching Satan fall as lightning from heaven.' [ Luke 10:18 ] Let us, therefore, not fear one who is so weak that he is destined to fall from heaven. He actually received the power to tempt us but not the competency to subvert us, except when our weak and unassisted will falters because it is powerless to summon aid. For that reason we need to know what was the nature of the deceit inflicted on the first man. We ought to know, too, the method and manner of the Devil's procedure and what in man he thought was subject to temptation, so that we, in knowing this, may proceed to take precautions.

Many people nevertheless are of the opinion that the Devil was not in Paradise, although we read that he stood with the angels in heaven. [ Zech. 3:1 ] These persons interpret the statement of Scripture according to their own fancy. In this way they put aside any objection which they may have to the words of Scripture. We stand by the conviction held by one who preceded us that sin was committed by man because of the pleasure of sense. We maintain that the figure of the serpent stands for enjoyment and the figure of the woman for the emotions of the mind and heart. The latter is called by the Greeks aisthesis. When according to this theory, the senses are aisthesis deceived, the mind, which the Greeks call nous , falls into error. Hence, not without reason the to whom I refer [Cf. Philo, De opificio mundi 59; Legum allegoriae I 29.] accepts the Greek word nous as a figure of a man and aisthesis as that of a woman. Hence, some have interpreted Adam to mean an earthly nous . In the Gospel the Lord sets forth the parable of the virgins who awaited the coming of the bridegroom with either lighted or extinguished lamps. Thus He exemplifies either the pure emotions of the wise or the impure senses of the unwise. [ Matt 25:1 ] If Eve, that is, the emotions of the first woman, had kept her lamp lighted, she would not have enfolded us in the meshes of her sin. She would not have fallen from the height of immortality which is established as the reward of virtue.

Paradise is, therefore, a land of fertility-that is to say, a soul which is fertile-planted in Eden, that is, in a certain delightful or well-tilled land in which the soul finds pleasure. Adam exists there as nous [mind] and Eve as 'sense.' Take note of what this soul of ours has in the nature of defense against natural and weak tendencies or against situations which might be unfavorable to us in our attempts to avoid danger. [On Paradise]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. So "God planted the paradise of Eden (that is, of delights) towards the East and placed there the man whom he had created.” Such is the story of Scripture and such are the facts. The Sacred Writer then resumes his thought to develop it and to show how this work was accomplished, in other words, how God planted this garden and established the man. He adds, "God made the earth produce all kinds of beautiful trees to be seen, and which gave delicious fruits.” Notice that he does not say that God created trees of a new species or the rest of the trees. In fact, the earth had already produced trees or plants of all kinds which presented a charming sight and delicious fruits; this creation took place on the third day, and that is why God said to the sixth, "I gave you all kinds of herbs bearing seed that is on the earth, every fruit tree, bearing seed, to serve you food” (Gen I, 29). Did God give them one thing and then give them another? I cannot believe it. The trees that were created in Paradise, belonging to the species of those that the earth had produced on the third day, also came out of the earth at the appointed time: in fact, the productions of the earth at the third day represented in the writing the virtual cause of these productions created within the earth, in other words, the soil had then received this principle of fertility which is still developing today in all similar productions, at the time that was assigned to them to appear in the day.

Therefore these words of God on the sixth day, "Behold, I have given you every kind of seed-bearing grass, every kind of seed-bearing fruit-tree, that they may serve you food”; neither sounds nor a succession of syllables: they have been pronounced by the creative power as it resides in the Word. But to make man understand what God said without using successive sounds, we had to resort to a series of sounds. It was at a later period that the man, made of the mud of the earth and animated by the divine breath, owed with his posterity the food that the earth would bring out of its bosom, by virtue of the principle of fertility of which it had already been enriched. Thus God, in creating the causes which in principle contained the whole future, spoke to himself as if the future had already existed, in the midst of that inner truth which the eye has not seen, that the ear He has heard and the Holy Spirit has revealed to the inspired writer.

…The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is now coming to our attention. Without a doubt, it was a real tree and visible like all the others. This is not the question: the point to be clarified is why he was so named. However, the more I examine, the more I am led to admit that this tree did not offer harmful align. He who had created only excellent works (Gen. 1, 31), did not put anything bad in Paradise: the evil data for the man of his disobedience to the command. The man being subject to the sovereign empire of God was to be subject to a law, in order to have the merit of conquering the possession of his Lord by obedience. Obedience, I can safely say, is the only virtue of every reasonable creature, acting under it. The suzerainty of God, just as the first of vices and the height of pride is to turn his freedom to his loss, which is properly disobedience. But man could not recognize or feel the sovereignty of God if he had no command to execute. Therefore, the tree had nothing in itself harmful: it was called the tree of the science of good and evil, because if the man came to eat of his fruit after the defense he had received it, he would violate, by the same, the order of God and recognize, to the punishment that would follow this transgression, all the difference between good and evil, submission and revolt. It is therefore a question of a tree and not of a symbol, its name does not come from the fruits it was to produce, but of the very consequence that would lead to the violation of the command of the man to touch. [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. What many Latin manuscripts have, Et lignum sciendi bonum et malum, ou bien lignum scientiae boni et mali, ou bien lignum sciendi boni et mali (The tree of knowledge of good and evil), or any other similar form, to which other interpreters could have attached themselves, the Greek text expresses it in this way: Et lignum ad sciendum cognoscibile boni et mali (The tree that makes known what can be known about good and evil); I cannot say whether this is a simple phrase; or if there is not rather a particular meaning that the text suggests. [Locutions]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. (Gen. 2:9) And God, continues the Scripture, brought out from the earth all kinds of beautiful trees to see, and whose fruits were sweet to eat: and in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the science of the good and bad. (Gen. II, 9) Behold, from the Lord a new blessing which is specially related to man. He destined for him the terrestrial paradise for habitation: so he brought out from the earth all kinds of trees whose appearance was pleasing to the eye, and the sweet fruit to taste. All kinds of trees, says the Scripture expressly, which were beautiful to see, that is to say, which rejoiced the eyes of men, and whose fruits were sweet to eat, that is to say which provided him with delicious food. Add further that the number and variety of these trees produced new charms for man; for you can not name a single species that is not there. But if the house of the man was so graceful, his life was no less admirable. He lived on the earth like an angel, and though clothed in a body he did not suffer the hard necessities. He was the king of creation, wearing the purple and the diadem; and among the abundance of all goods, he flowed in, the terrestrial paradise a sweet and free existence.

And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life, and the tree of the science of good and evil. After having taught us that at the Lord's command, the earth produced all kinds of beautiful trees in view and whose fruits were sweet to taste, Moses adds: that in the middle of the garden were the tree of life, and the tree of the science of good and evil. It is because the Creator, in his divine prescience, was not unaware that later on man would abuse his freedom and his (74) security. So he placed in the middle of paradise the tree of life, and the tree of the science of good and evil, because he proposed to defend its use to man. And the purpose of this defense was first to remind the man that God gave him by kindness and generosity the use of all the other trees, and then, that he was his Master, no less than that of all creatures. The mention of these two trees naturally leads to the mention of the four rivers which flowed from one and the same source, and which then divided into four branches, watered the various regions of the globe, and marked its separation.

But it is possible that here those who wish to speak only from their own wisdom maintain that these rivers were not true rivers, nor were they waters of real waters. Let them tell these reveries to listeners who listen to them too gullible; and for us, repel such men, and add no faith to their words. For we must firmly believe all that is contained in the divine Scriptures, and by attaching ourselves to their true meaning, we will print in our souls the sound and true doctrine. But we must also regulate our lives by their maxims, so that our morals bear witness to the sanctity of doctrine, and that doctrine is itself the rule of our morals. And indeed it is essential, if we want to avoid hell and win the sky, that we shine the double halo of an orthodox faith and irreproachable conduct. Hey! tell me, can we call useful the slender tree that is covered with leaves, and never crowns fruits? So are these orthodox Christians in their faith, and heretics in their conduct. [Homilies on Genesis]

JOHN OF DAMASCUS. The tree of knowledge was for trial, and proof, and exercise of man’s obedience and disobedience: and hence it was named the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or else it was because to those who partook of it was given power to know their own nature. Now this is a good thing for those who are mature, but an evil thing for the immature and those whose appetites are too strong, being like solid food to tender babes still in need of milk. For our Creator, God, did not intend us to be burdened with care and troubled about many things, nor to take thought about, or make provision for, our own life… The tree of life, on the other hand, was a tree having the energy that is the cause of life, or to be eaten only by those who deserve to live and are not subject to death. Some, indeed, have pictured Paradise as a realm of sense, and others as a realm of mind. But it seems to me, that, just as man is a creature, in whom we find both sense and mind blended together, in like manner also man’s most holy temple combines the properties of sense and mind, and has this twofold expression: for, as we said, the life in the body is spent in the most divine and lovely region, while the life in the soul is passed in a place far more sublime and of more surpassing beauty, where God makes His home, and where He wraps man about as with a glorious garment, and robes him in His grace, and delights and sustains him like an angel with the sweetest of all fruits, the contemplation of Himself. Verily it has been fitly named the tree of life. [Orth. Faith 2.11 NPNF s.2 v.9]

2:10-14 And a river proceeds out of Edem to water the garden, thence it divides itself into four heads. 11 The name of the one, Phisom, this it is which encircles the whole land of Evilat, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good, there also is carbuncle and emerald. 13 And the name of the second river is Geon, this it is which encircles the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the third river is Tigris, this is that which flows forth over against the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

AMBROSE OF MILAN. There was a fount which irrigated the land of Paradise. [ Gen 2:10 ] Is not this stream our Lord Jesus Christ, the Fount as well as the Father of eternal life? It is written: 'For with thee is the fountain of life.' [ Ps 35:10 ] Hence: 'From within him there shall flow living waters.' [ John 7:38; cf. Isa 58:11 ] We read of a fountain and a river which irrigates in Paradise the fruit-bearing tree that bears fruit for life eternal. You have read, then, that a fount was there and that 'a river rose in Eden,' [ Gen 2:10 ] ,/cite that is, in your soul there exists a fount. This is the meaning of Solomon's words: 'Drink water out of thy own cistern and the streams of thy own well.' [ Prov 5:15 ] This refers to the fount which rose out of that well-tilled soul, full of pleasant things, this fount which irrigates Paradise, that is to say, the soul's virtues that blossom because of their eminent merits.

'The river,' we are told, 'is separated into four branches. The name of one is Phison which encircles all the land of Hevila, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good, bdellium and onyx there. The name of the second river is Gihon. This river encircles all the land of Ethiopia. The name of the third river is Tigris, which river flows by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.' [ Gen 2:10.14 ] There are, therefore, four rivers. Phison-.so called by the Hebrews, but named Ganges by the Greeks-flows in the direction of India. Gihon is the river Nile, which flows around the land of Egypt or Ethiopia. The land enclosed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is called Mesopotamia because it lives between these two rivers. This name conveys its location even to far-distant peoples and, besides, expresses popular belief. But how is the fount called the Wisdom of God? That this is a fount the Gospel tells us in the words, 'If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink.' [ John 7:37 ] Wisdom is a fount according to the Prophet: 'Come and eat my bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.' [ Prov 9:15 ] As Wisdom is the fountain of life, it is also the fountain of spiritual grace. It is also the fountain of other virtues which guide us to the course of eternal life. Therefore, the stream that irrigates Paradise rises from the soul when well-tilled, not from the soul which lies uncultivated. The results therefrom are fruit trees of diverse virtues. There are four principal trees which constitute the divisions of Wisdom. These are the well-known four principal virtues: prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice. The wise men of this world have adopted this division from us and transferred it to their writings. Hence, Wisdom acts as the source from which these four rivers take their rise, producing streams that are composed of these virtues.

Phison, therefore, stands for prudence. Hence it has pure gold, brilliant rubies, and topaz stones. We often refer to wise discoveries as gold, as the Lord says, speaking through the Prophet: 'I gave to them gold and silver.' [ Hosea 2:8 ] Daniel says of the wise: 'If you sleep among the midst of the lots, you shall be as the wings of the dove covered with silver and the hinder parts of her back like to gold.' [ Ps 67:14 ] In this way one who puts his trust in the aid of the Old and New Testament can by resourceful inquiry attain the inmost secrets of the Wisdom of God. Here, therefore, is found pure gold, not the metal which is melted, which belongs to this earth, and is subject to corruption. In this land, we are told, there is found the brilliant ruby stone in which there exists the vita spark of our souls. Here, too, is the topaz stone which by the nature of its color reveals an effect of greenness and vitality. Plants which are alive give forth green sprouts, while those that are dead are sapless and dry. The earth grows green when it is in bloom. The seeds, too, sprout forth green shoots in their periods of growth. The river Phison is rightfully given first place. The Hebrews call it Pheoyson, which means 'change of mouth,' because it flows even through Lydia and not merely around one nation, for Wisdom, which is of benefit to all men, is productive and useful. Hence, if a person were to leave Paradise, this river of Wisdom would be the first object he would meet. Thus he may not become inert and arid and his return to Paradise may be facilitated. Many men resort to this river, which is considered to have marvelous beauty and fecundity. Accordingly, it is regarded as a figure of Wisdom, which confers manifold fruits in the coming of the Lord of Salvation. It flows, too, to the very ends of the earth, because, by Wisdom all men have been redeemed. Wherefore it is written: 'Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth and their words unto the end of the world.' [ Ps 18:5 ]

The second river is Gihon, by which, when they were sojourning in Egypt, was laid down the law of the Israelites that they should depart from Egypt, [ Exod 12:11 ] and having girded their loins they should as a sign of temperance partake of a lamb. It is fitting that the chaste and the sanctified should celebrate the Pasch of the Lord. For that reason, the observance of the Law was first carried out beside that river, the name of which signifies an opening of the earth. Therefore, just as an opening absorbs the earth and whatever defilements and refuse there may be in it, in like manner chastity tends to consume all the passions of the body. Appropriately, then, the observance of the established Law first took place there, because carnal sin is absorbed by the Law. And so Gihon, which is a figure of chastity, is said to surround the land of Ethiopia in order to wash away our lowly bodies and quench the fires of our vile flesh. The meaning of Ethiopia in Latin is 'holy and vile.' What is more lowly, what is more like Ethiopia, than our bodies, blackened, too, by the darkness of sin?

The third river is the Tigris, which flows by the Assyrian land. To this river the deceiver Israel was dragged as a prisoner. This river is the swiftest of all rivers. The Assyrian dwell by it, guarding its course-.for this is the meaning of its name. Hence, those who by their fortitude hold in check the guileful vices of the body and direct themselves to higher things are thought to have something in common with this river. For that same reason fortitude emanates from that source in Paradise. Fortitude in its rapid course tosses aside everything standing in its path and like this river is not hindered by any material obstacle.

The fourth river is the Euphrates, which means in Latin 'fecundity and abundance of fruits.' It presents a symbol of Justice, the nourishment of every soul. No virtue produces more abundant benefits than Equity or Justice, which is more concerned with others than with itself, neglecting its own advantages, and preferring the common good. Many derive Euphrates from the Greek apo tou euphrainesthai --that is, from a 'feeling of gladness,' because the human race rejoices in nothing more than it does in Justice and Equity. The question as to why, although the location itself of other rivers is reported, we have no description of the regions through which the river Euphrates flows calls for an answer. The waters of this river are considered to have a vital quality which fosters growth and increase. Wherefore, the wise men among the Hebrews and the Assyrians called this river Auxen [increase] in contradistinction to the water of other rivers. The opposition has been well established between wisdom and malice, fortitude and irascibility, temperance, and other vices. Justice, on the other hand, is the most important as it represents the concord of all the other virtues. Hence it is not known from the places from which it flows, that is to say, it is not known in part. Justice is not divisible into parts. It is, as it were, the mother of all virtues. In these four rivers are symbolized, therefore, the four principal virtues. It may well be said that these virtues have been the determining boundary lines for the four great ages of the world. This, in fact, is the topic of the discourse which follows.

The first age, then, is the age of Wisdom. This period extends from the beginnings of the world up to the time of the Flood. The Lord has given us the names of the just men of this age. Abel was so called, and so was Enos, a man made to the image of God, who hoped to invoke the name of the Lord God. Henoch, also, whose name in Latin means 'grace of God,' was carried up to heaven, [ Gen 5:24 ] and Noe, who was a just man [ Gen 6:9 ] and one who might be called a guide to tranquillity.[Cf. Isidore, Etym. 7.6:15]

The second age of the world is that of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, and a number of other patriarchs. This was a period in which religion flourished in its more temperate and purest form. Pure was Isaac, a son given to Abraham according to promise, not as an offering of the body, but as a gift of divine beneficence. In him there is found the figure of Him who is pure as the Apostle teaches. 'The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.' [ Gal 3:16 ] He does not say, "And to his offsprings," but as of one, "And to thy offspring," who is Christ.'16

The third age lies in the period of the Law of Moses and in the time of the other Apostles. 'For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, of Barac, of Samson, of David and of Samuel, Elias and Elisaeus, who by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered strength from weakness, became valiant in battle and captured the camps of aliens.' [ Heb 11:32-34 ] Not without reason, then, do these men stand as types of fortitude. Further on we are told: 'They were sawed asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword. They went about in goatskins, destitute, distressed, afflicted-of whom the world was not worthy-wandering in deserts, mountains, caves and holes in the earth.' [ Heb 11:37,38 ] Appropriately, therefore, do we set these men down as types of Fortitude.

The figure of Justice is, according to the Gospel, a meritorious one, because 'it is unto salvation to everyone who believes.' [ Rom 1:16 ] Hence, the Lord Himself says: 'Permit us to fulfill all justice.' [ Matt 3:15 ] She is truly the prolific parent of the other virtues. Yet, whoever possesses any of the above mentioned principal virtues has the other virtues, also, since these virtues are so connected as to form a unit. Surely, Abel, a just and courageous man, Abraham, a man of great patience, the Prophets, men of the greatest wisdom, and Moses, a man of great learning, considered that the ingloriousness of Christ brought far greater honor than the treasures of Egypt. Who was wiser than Daniel? Solomon, too, sought wisdom and merited it. [ 1 Kings 3:8 ] Enough has been said, therefore, on the subject of the four rivers of virtue whose waters are salutary. We have discussed, too, the reason why Phison is said to have not only the gold, but also the ruby and the topaz stone, of that goodly land. We propose now to develop the latter topic.

Since Enos in his wisdom yearned to know the name of God, he seems to us to stand for gold that is good. [ Gen 4:26: 5:24 ] Henoch, who was borne aloft and did not see death, can be likened to a ruby stone of pleasant odor which holy Henoch by his works offered to God, thus exhaling in his active and exemplary life something akin to sweetness. Noe, on the other hand, like the green topaz stone, suggests a color which represents life, since he alone at the time of the Flood preserved in his ark the vital seed of the formation of the world to come. Paradise, a land watered by many rivers, is then appropriately situated in the East and not in the regions facing it. This reference to the East is significant, for the rising sun may be compared to Christ [ Matt 24:27 ] who flashed forth a gleam of eternal light which exists in Eden, that is, in a land of delight. [On Paradise]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. Must I endeavor to prove that these are real rivers rather than imaginary rivers intended to serve as symbols, when their reality is indicated by their names alone, so well known in the countries they bathe and spread so to speak? in the whole world? Time: changed the primitive name of two of these rivers; just as the Tiber was first called the Albula, the Nile and the Ganges are the modern names of the Geon and the Phis; as for the other two they still bear the same name as in the old times. Now, if their existence is proved, must we not also hear literally all the stories of Scripture, and see instead of pure allegories, historical events that hid a figurative meaning? Surely a parable can borrow a historical color from circumstances that have nothing real, for example, that where the Lord tells that a man, who went from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell into the hands of thieves (Luke, X, 30). How not to see that it is there a parable and that the language is allegorical from one end to the other However the two cities which are named there are real and can still be seen today in Judea. We would explain in the same way the four rivers, if we were obliged to interpret in the figurative sense all the details that the Scriptures transmit to us on the earthly paradise; but since we have no reason not to take literally the facts at their origin, why not attach ourselves with simplicity to the authority of Scripture, when it tells of events of an eminently historical character, by passing from the knowledge of the reality in the figurative sense that it can enclose?

Must we stop at the objection that, on these four rivers, some have a known source, the others a hidden source, and that consequently it is literally impossible for them to come out of the only river of Paradise? Far from it the situation of the terrestrial paradise being an enigma for the human mind, it is necessary to believe that the river which watered the Paradise was divided in four arms, according to the incontestable testimony of the Scripture; as for the rivers whose sources, it is said, are known, they disappeared somewhere underground, and, after having traversed a long circuit, they reappeared in other countries, where they pass to take their source. What is more common than this phenomenon? But it is known only for streams that do not stay hidden for a long time underground. Thus a river came out of Eden, that is to say, from a place of loosed; this river watered Paradise, in other words, the magnificent trees, laden with fruit, which shaded all the space included in this park. [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA. Gaiōn (Geon). (Verse 13) The Nile according to the Egyptians, arising out of Paradise and encircling "all of Ethiopia."

Tigris. (Verse 14) The river going out east from Paradise, according to Scripture, “over against Assyria” after many turns flowing “into the Red Sea” as Josephus affirms. It is called by the nickname Tigris because of the violence resembling that of the like-named animal. [Onomasticon]

JEROME OF STRIDON. 2:11 THE NAME OF THE ONE IS PHISON. — It is thought that this is the Ganges, the river of India.

2:12 WHERE (THERE) IS THE CARBUNCLE AND THE PRASINE STONE. — Instead of carbuncle and prasine stone, the others have translated as bdellion and onyx. [Hebrew Questions on Genesis]

JEROME OF STRIDON. Ethiopia, the Latins give this word the meaning of night or darkness.

Geon, chest, or steep.  [Book on Hebrew Names]

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. And the Hebrew word Eden signifies “delight.” And it was signified that a river flowed out of Eden to water Paradise, and after that divides into four heads; of which the two called Pison and Gihon water the eastern parts, especially Gihon, which encompasses the whole land of Ethiopia, and which, they say, reappears in Egypt under the name of Nile. And the other two rivers are manifestly recognizable by us— those called Tigris and Euphrates— for these border on our own regions. [To Autolycus 2.24 ANF v.2]

2:15-17 And the Lord God took the man whom he had formed, and placed him in the garden of Delight, to cultivate and keep it. 16 And the Lord God gave a charge to Adam, saying, Of every tree which is in the garden you may freely eat, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—of it you shall not eat, but in whatsoever day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

ALCUIN OF YORK. (Gen. 2:15-17). WHAT IS MEANT BY "AND GOD PUT MAN INTO THE PARADISE OF PLEASURE, TO DRESS IT, AND TO KEEP IT"? [DID MAN NEED TO WORK IN PARADISE,] AND FROM WHAT DID HE HAVE TO KEEP IT? — Answer. There was no suffering in work for man in Paradise, but only the joyous fulfilment of his wishes, as the things that God had created grew the more luxuriantly and the more fruitfully with the help of human work. "And to keep it": so that he should keep that same paradise for himself, and, if he lost something, should deserve to be expelled from it. [Question 51]

WHY WERE THE TREE OF LIFE AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL CREATED IN PARADISE? — Answer. So that man might be immortal through the former, and mortal through the latter: he used the tree of life like a medicine, to be imperishable, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil like a poison, to die. (Bed. in Pent., PL 91, col. 207.) [Question 6]

WHY DID ADAM, THE MASTER OF THE WORLD, RECEIVE A LAW? — Answer. So that he might not be made proud by this great sovereignty, but that, in the observance of the commandment, he might know that he was subjected to his Creator. (Bed. in Pent., PL 91, col. 207.) [Question 7]

WHY DID GOD NOT GIVE [TO MANKIND] IN THE BEGINNING THE LAW THAT HE LATER GAVE THROUGH MOSES? — Answer. Because among the first men the law of good nature was kept for a long time, but when the natural law was forgotten and the habit of sinning came about, the law of the letter was given through Moses, so that the good things that were known might be confirmed authoritatively and those that had started being hidden might be revealed, and that the terror of punishment might amend offenders and restore faith in God. [Questions and Answers on Genesis]

AMBROSE OF MILAN. 'And God took the man whom he has created and placed him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.' [ Gen 2:15 ] Note, now, the person who was taken and the land where he was formed. The virtue of God, therefore, took man and breathed into him, so that man's virtue will advance and increase. God set him apart in Paradise that you may know that man was taken up, that is to say, was breathed upon by the power of God. Note the fact that man was created outside Paradise, whereas woman was made within it. This teaches us that each person acquires grace by reason of virtue, not because of locality or of race. Hence, although created outside Paradise, that is, in an inferior place, man is found to be superior, whereas woman, created in a better place, that is to say, in Paradise, is found to be inferior. She was first to be deceived and was responsible for deceiving the man. Wherefore the Apostle Paul has related that holy women have in olden times been subject to the stronger vessel and recommends them to obey their husbands as their masters. [ 1 Peter 3:1 ] And Paul says: 'Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and was in sin.' [ 1 Tim 2:14 ] This is a warning that no one ought to rely on himself, for she who was made for assistance needs the protection of a man. [ Gen 2:18 ] The head of the woman is man, who, while he believed that he would have the assistance of his wife, fell because of her. [ 1 Cor 11:3 ] Wherefore, no one ought to entrust himself lightly to another unless he has first put that person's virtue to the test. Neither should he claim for himself in the role of protector one whom he believes is subservient to him. Rather, a person should share his grace with another. Especially is this true of one who is in the position of greater strength and one who plays the part of protector. We have advice of the Apostle Peter, wherein he recommends that husbands pay honor to their wives: 'Husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives considerately, paying honor to the woman as to the weaker vessel and as co.heir of the grace of life that your prayers be not hindered.' [ 1 Peter 3:7 ]

Therefore man was placed in Paradise, while the woman was created in Paradise. The woman, even before she was deceived by the serpent, shared grace with a man, since she was taken from a man. Yet 'this is a great mystery,' [ Eph. 5:32 ] as the Apostle said. Wherefore he traced the source of life from it. And so Scripture refers only to man in the words: 'He placed him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.' [ Gen 2:15 ] The act of tilling and the act of keeping are one and the same thing. In tilling there is a certain exercise of man's virtue, while in keeping it is understood that the work is accomplished, for protection implies something completed. These two acts are required of man. In this way, it is generally assumed, man can seek after something new and may keep what he has acquired. Philo, on the other hand, limited in his interpretation of this Scriptural passage to its moral aspect, since, because of his Jewish tendencies, he did not understand its spiritual import. He maintained that the two aspects were those of tilling the fields and of protecting the home. Although, he said, Paradise did not require labor in the fields, the first man, even in Paradise, undertook a kind of toil so as to furnish a law for future ages by which to bind us to the performance and to the preservation of our bounden duty and to the function of supporting hereditary succession.[Cf. Philo, Quaestiones in Gen 1:14] Both these point of view, the moral and the spiritual, are exacted of you. The prophetic psalm instructs you regarding this: 'Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, they watch in vain that keepeth it.' [ Ps 126:1 ] It is obvious that the laborers are those who engage in the actual operation of building, while the watchers are those to whom the duty of protecting the perfected work is entrusted. Hence the Lord said to the Apostles, as if they were on the point of perfecting their work: 'Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.' [ Matt 26:41 ] By this He meant that the function of a nature that was perfected along with the grace of abundant virtue should be preserved and that no one, even one who has attained some perfection, ought to feel really secure of himself unless he remains vigilant.

'And the Lord God commanded the man thus: 'from every tree of the garden thou shalt eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for the day you eat of it you shall die.' [ Gen 2:16 ] Why did He use the singular 'thou shalt eat' when He bade them eat of every tree, and, again, when He bade them eat of the tree of good and evil, why did He use the plural 'You shall not eat'? This is no trifling question. This problem can, in fact, be solved by the authority of the Scriptures if you study them carefully. Scripture refers to something good and something that should be done. What is good is naturally associated with what should be done. On the other hand, what is base is separate and unrelated to what should be done. And so the Lord, aiming always at oneness, gave orders in accordance with this principle. Hence He achieves oneness who 'has made both one' [ Eph 2:14 ] -.He not only made both one, for He bade us to be 'one body and one Spirit.' [ Eph 4:4 ] 'The first.born of every creature,' [ Col 1:15 ] since He is in union with the faith, is always closely joined to the Father, because 'the Word was with God.' [ John 1:1 ] Wherefore He says: 'I and the Father are one,' [ John 10:30 ] in order to show His union with the Father in majesty and in dignity. But He bade us to be one and transfused into us by the adoption of grace the likeness of His own nature and His own oneness, saying: 'Father, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and thou in me.' [ John 17:22 ] When He prescribes a good, therefore, He does it to one person, saying, 'Thou shalt eat,' for the oneness cannot be gainsaid. Where, however, He says that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil should not be tasted, He speaks in effect to several people: 'You shall not eat.' What has been prohibited has general application to several people. But I have another opinion on this matter. I am able to discover the meaning of what we are discussing in the very words of God Himself. Adam alone was bidden to taste of every tree and it was foreseen that he would follow that injunction. In the plural sense, and not in the singular, God sees that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil should not be tasted. He knew that the woman would sin. Thus, by using the plural, God points out that they will not follow the injunction, because, where there are many, there are differences of opinion.

If we look into the sense of the words as expressed in the Septuagint [plural form, Vulgate has singular] the meaning is clear. Symmachus, however, takes both expressions in a singular sense. This is explained by the fact that in the Law, God, addressing His people, uses the singular: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord' and 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.' [ Deut 6:4,5 ] I am not influenced by the interpretation of Symmachus, who could not see the oneness of the Father and Son, although at times both he and Asylas admitted it in their discussions. The fact that God addresses in the singular number a people who will later contravene His commands should not lead us to think that I am dissenting from my former statement, inasmuch as the Jewish people, regarded as a single person, violated the injunctions imposed upon them. We have here a law of the Spirit whereby God addresses the people in divine language. [On Paradise]

AMBROSIASTER. (Gen. 2:15-17) WHY DID GOD IMPOSE UPON ADAM THAT HE HAD PLACED IN THE WORLD A COMMANDMENT, A LAW, AFTER HAVING GIVEN HIM DOMINION OVER ALL CREATURES? — God had doubtless established Adam the master of the world; but as this empire did not come from himself, but from God, he had to receive a law which was a mark of his dependence, so that the man who appeared to be the master of the world was subject to the one who had given him this empire by his obedience to this law, which gave him a profound respect for the authority of the Creator, and prevented the pride which this domination and the forgetting of his divine Creator might inspire him. [Questions on the Old and New Testament]

APHRAHAT THE PERSIAN SAGE. And there are those who even while they live are dead unto God. For He laid a commandment on Adam and said to him, In the day that you shall eat of the tree, you shall surely die. And after he had transgressed the commandment, and had eaten, he lived nine hundred and thirty years; but he was accounted dead unto God because of his sins. But that it may be made certain for you that a sinner is called dead even when he lives, I will make it clear to you. For thus it is written in Ezekiel the Prophet, As I live, says the Lord of lords, I desire not the death of the dead sinner. (Ezek. 18: 23,32; 33:11.) Moreover our Lord said to that man who said to Him:— Let me go and bury my father, and I will come to You. (Lk. 9:59-60) And our Lord said to him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go, preach the Kingdom of God. But how is this word understood by you, my beloved? Did you ever see the dead burying their dead? Or how shall a dead man arise to bury another dead man? But receive this explanation from me, that a sinner, while he is living, is dead unto God; and a righteous man, though dead, is alive unto God. [Demonstration 8 (Of the Resurrection of the Dead), NPNF s.2 v.13]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. So God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate it and to keep it. Then the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Thou shalt eat of every tree that is in the garden; As for the tree of the science of good and evil, you will not eat it: for in the day that you eat it, you will die of death (Gen. II, 16-17). The Scripture, after having briefly said a little earlier, that God had planted a garden and placed man there as his creature, had returned to these expressions to describe the formation of this park; she returns again to tell how man was introduced. He was placed there, she said, to cultivate it and to keep it. Let's examine the meaning attached to these last words. What work, what monitoring can be done? Did God want the first man to indulge in agriculture? Would it not be improbable for him to have condemned him to work before his fault? One might think so, if the experiment did not show. not that man sometimes takes such a keen pleasure to work the land, that it is. a torment for him to be torn from this occupation. Now, the attraction attached to agriculture was even more acute at a time when the earth and the sky were perpetually benign. It was not a crushing task, but a flourishing of the activity, charmed to see the divine creations take with it a livelier aspect and a new fruitfulness: it was a perpetual subject to praise the Creator himself for this gift of the activity which he had made to the soul united to a body, for that faculty which exercised itself in the measure of pleasure and not unwillingly to satisfy the lower needs of the body.

Is there a sight more sublime and more delightful for man, a more intimate interview, so to speak, of his reason with nature, than to examine his seedlings, his nurseries, his cuttings, his grafts, and of to wonder what is the secret virtue of germs and roots; where does their development or sterility come from? what is the action of the invisible force that makes them grow within, the influence of culture outside? Do not these considerations extend to the point of showing that he who plants and sprinkles is nothing, but only God who gives growth (I Corinthians 3: 7)? Does not external work come from the very being that God has created and governs according to the secret designs of his providence?

"God put the man in the garden to keep. But keep what? Could it be the garden itself? Against who? Surely there was no fear of neighborly encroachment, no quarrels about boundaries, no robbery or robbery. How then to conceive that man has really kept a true park The Scripture does not say that he must keep and cultivate Paradise; she uses the two words absolutely: "to keep and cultivate" A literal translation of the Greek would give: posui eum in Paradiso operari eum and custodire. Has man been placed in paradise to work, or, as the interpreter seems to have translated, "ut operaretur," or to work Paradise himself? The ride is equivocal. It would seem that Paradise should not be a direct complement, but a complement of place and say: "in order to work in Paradise. "

However, in the fear that the expression "work the garden" is the true one and recalls the passage: "There was no man to work the land," let us examine these words in both directions, can offer. I admit, then, that it may be said that man was introduced into Eden "in order to keep in Paradise. What was there to keep in Paradise? I'm not talking about Adam's work: the question has just been dealt with. Should he keep in his heart the principle which made the earth docile to his labors; in other words, was he to obey the divine command with the same complacency that the earth allowed itself to be cultivated by its hands, so that it produced for it the fruits of submission instead of the thorns of revolt? In reality, he did not want to imitate the docility of the garden he cultivated, and, for his pain, received an ungrateful soil like him: "He will give you," says the Scripture, thorns and thistles. "

If we adopt the second meaning, according to which Adam would have worked and kept the garden, we can explain the first expression by his works of agriculture as we have exposed them, but how to explain the second? He did not keep the garden against thieves or enemies who had not yet appeared; perhaps he was guarding the animals; but why and how were the beasts already doing to man the war which was the consequence of sin? No doubt: the animals had been brought before the man who had given them names, as we will soon see him, and on the sixth day a common food had been assigned to them by the command of the sovereign word. Besides, the animals would have inspired some fear, how could a single man have been able to protect the garden from their ravages? The park was not to be confined within narrow limits, since it was watered by such an abundant spring, and the man apparently had to build a fence around the park, by force of work, capable of enclosing the entry to the snake: but it would have taken a prodigy to drive out all the snakes before the enclosure had been completed.

This text allows another interpretation which is worth, I believe, the trouble to be exposed: it is that the very man was the object of the activity and the supervision of God. If man works the earth, not to create it, but to make it beautiful and fertile, God, all the more, works the human soul, to whom he has given being, to make it just: only the man must not give up. God by pride, commit that apostasy which is the first step of pride, according to this word of Scripture: "The beginning of pride is to depart from God." God being the immutable good, the man who in his body and in his soul has only a contingent existence, must be turned towards the absolute good and fix himself there, on pain of being unable to form himself to virtue. and happiness. Therefore God creates man, to give him the substance of his being, and at the same time shapes him and keeps him to make him good and happy; the expression according to which man cultivates the earth, already created, to beautify and fertilize it, also designates the work by which God forms man, already created, with piety and wisdom; he keeps it, because by preferring his independence to the superior power of God, and by despising the sovereignty of the Creator, man can not be safe.

THE AUTHORITY OF GOD RECALLED TO MAN (Gen. 2:15). It is not by omission, in my opinion, but to give a great lesson, that the Scripture never says from the beginning of Genesis to the verse where we have arrived the Lord God: the word Lord is absent. As soon as it arrives at the time when the man is established in this Paradise and receives the order to cultivate it as to keep it, it expresses itself thus: "And" the Lord God took the man whom he had done and put it in the garden to cultivate it and keep it. The sovereignty of God doubtless extended over the creatures who had preceded man; but these words were not addressed to the Angels or to any other creature than man: they were intended to reveal to him all the interest he had in having God for his Lord, and to live obediently under his empire, instead of abusing his own power according to his whims. Scripture therefore expects to use this expression the moment when man is placed in Paradise to develop and keep himself under the hand of God: then it does not only say God, like everything else. hour, she adds the word Lord. "The Lord God took the man whom He had made, and placed Him in paradise, to shape Him" ​​to justice, "and to keep him," to ensure his safety by exerting upon him that empire which is not useful than ourselves. God indeed can do without our submission; but we need the empire he exerts over us to cultivate our soul and keep it: as such he is alone. Lord, since our dependence, far from giving it any advantage, only serves our interests and our salvation. If he needed us, he would no longer be truly Lord: he would find in us auxiliaries in the indigence of which he would be the slave. It is therefore with justice that the Psalmist exclaims: "I said to the Lord, 'You are my God, for you have no need of the goods which I possess (Ps. XV, 2). However, in saying that we serve Him in our own interest and for our salvation, we have not pretended that we should expect from Him any other reward than himself: He alone constitutes our highest interest and our salvation. . It is this feeling which makes us love it with a disinterested love: "to attach myself to the Lord, that is my good" (Ibid, LXXII, 28). "

THE IMPOTENCE OF MAN TO DO GOOD WITHOUT THE HELP OF GOD. Man, in fact, is not a being who, once created, can accomplish good by himself without the intervention of his Creator. The goodness of his acts is to cleave to the Creator, and through him to become righteous, pious, wise, and happy. One must not stop in this work, nor leave God, as one takes leave of a doctor after having been cured; the physician operates only outside and second the nature of which God causes the springs to move inwardly, because God, as we have seen, preserves beings by the double impulse which his providence communicates to nature and to will. Man, therefore, must cleave to his Lord as his end, not to leave him when he has become righteous by his favors, but to be ceaselessly trained for justice. By this alone that he does not depart from God, he finds in this communication justice, enlightenment, happiness; he is perfected, he is safe while he obeys and God commands.

 As we have said, when the man who cultivates the earth with a view to embellishing and fertilizing it, leaves it to himself after the work of plowing, sowing and irrigation, his work subsists not less; but it is not the same with God: the work of justification which he accomplishes in man no longer subsists as soon as he abandons him. Just as the air receives a light that has nothing permanent, since it shines no longer in the absence of light; In the same way, the presence of God enlightens man, and his absence leaves him plunged into darkness. This distance is not measured by distance; it is the will detached from its principle.

That the immutably good Being perfects the man and preserves him. Our duty is to be constantly fashioned and perfected by him by attaching ourselves to him, and by remaining united to him as our end: "My happiness is to attach myself to the Lord; it is in you, Lord, that I will keep my strength (Ps. LVIII, 10). We are his work, inasmuch as he has given us being, and moreover he gives us virtue. It is the truth that the Apostle proclaimed when he made the faithful who have been awakened from impiety feel the grace that saves us: "It is grace that has saved you by faith," he says; it does not come from you; it is a pure gift of God, and not the fruit of your works, so that man can not bring himself glory. We are his work; He created us in Christ Jesus to do the good works in which He had set beforehand that we should walk (Eph 2: 8-10). Elsewhere after recommending his salvation "with fear and trembling," he adds immediately, so that one does not take credit for having made oneself just and good: "It is God who operate in you (Philip II, 12, 13). Thus, "God placed man in Paradise to work in him and to keep him."

WHY HAS THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL BEEN PROHIBITED TO MAN? And the Lord God made a commandment to Adam, saying unto him, Thou shalt eat freely of every tree of the garden. As for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will not eat of it: for from the day that you eat it you will die of death (Gen. II, 16-17). If the tree that God forbade to man had been harmful, it would naturally have contained a deadly poison. But all your trees that God had planted in Paradise were excellent (Ibid 1, 12), like all his works; besides, Paradise contained no naturally evil being, the evil existing nowhere in itself, as we will demonstrate rigorously, if it pleases God, when we have arrived at the tempting serpent. Man, therefore, is forbidden to touch a tree which was not harmful in itself, so that it would be good for him to observe this precept, the evil, to break it.

The evil attached to disobedience could not be better emphasized or more strongly accused than by weighing upon man all the consequences of iniquity, if he touched the defense of God, to a tree to which he could have touched innocently without this defense. I suppose that someone is forbidden to touch a plant because it is poisonous and gives death; disregard of this recommendation would lead to death, no doubt; but if it had been touched without being warned, it would have been necessary to die. Whether there was a defense or not, the poison would be no less fatal to health and life. In the same way, if we forbid the touching of a thing, because this prescription would be in the interest of the one who makes it and not of the one who violates it, and that we put our hand, for example, on the money. of others after having received the defense of the owner himself; the fault would be to harm the author of the command. But it is an object that could have been touched without harm, if it had not been forbidden, and without hurting anyone in any time. Why, then, was it forbidden, except to show the goodness attached to pure obedience, the evil attached to mere disobedience?

The criminal aspired here only to escape the authority of God, since he would have had to avoid the mistake of considering only the order of the sovereign. What was this submission reduced to, if not to respect God's will attentively, to love it, to put it above the human will? The motive which had guided the Lord looked only at him; the servant had only to execute his order, even if he weighed his motives when he deserved it. Without stopping too long to examine the reason of this precept, we see clearly that the interest of man is to serve God, and that therefore his orders, whatever they may be, are a benefit to us, for we do not fear to receive from such a master a useless command.

MAN HAS EXPERIENCED IT BY VIOLATING THE PRECEPT OF GOD. The will can not fail to fall like a ruin and an immense weight on man, if he raises him and puts him above the sovereign will. This is the test that Adam did when he violated the divine command: he learned at his own expense the difference between good and evil, between the advantages of obedience and the fatal results of disobedience; that is to say, pride, revolt, madness to mislead God, guilty freedom. The tree on which this test was to take place, took its name, as we have noticed, from this event itself. Indeed, we can not know evil by experience, since it would not exist if we had never done it: for evil does not exist. by himself; this is called the privation of the good. God is the immutable good; the man considered in the faculties he has received from God is also good, but not of absolute kindness. Now, the contingent good which depends on absolute good, becomes more perfect by attaching it with the love and docility of an intelligent and free being. The very faculty of attaching oneself to the supremely good Being proves in a being the excellence of its nature. Denies he? he renounces himself for good; hence the evil for him, hence the just punishment that is the consequence. Would the height of injustice not be due to well-being united to the very desertion of good? This anomaly is impossible: but it can happen that one is insensitive to the loss of the sovereign good, because one possesses the secondary good of which one is enamored. Divine justice puts order in it: whoever has lost freely what he ought to have loved, must painfully lose his favorite object; it is thus to explode the universal harmony of creation. In fact, the being who regrets the loss of a good is still good: if he had not preserved any trace of goodness, the cruel memory of the good he had lost would not enter into his punishment.

The man who would love the good before having made the test of the evil, in other words, who would decide never to detach himself from it, without even having felt the regret of his loss, would be above human nature. This privilege must be extraordinary, since it belongs only to the child who, born of the race of Israel, has received the name of Emmanuel, or of God with us (Matt I, 23), and reconciled us to God; in other words to the Mediator, between God and man (I Tim. II, 5), to the one who is the Word in the bosom of God and the man in our midst (John, I, 1-14 ), the one who interposed between us and God. It is from him that the prophet said, "Before this child knows good and evil, he will reject evil to choose good (Isaiah, VII, 16). But how can one reject or choose what one does not know yet, if there was not a double way to know, good and bad, reason and experience? The idea of ​​the good serves to make known the evil, even if we would not experience it; reciprocally the idea that one acquires evil by practice gives that of good: one knows. indeed the extent of its loss, when one suffers the sad consequences. Thus, before knowing by experience the good that he could sacrifice, or the harm that the loss of good would make him feel, the child disdained the evil to choose the good: he did not want to sacrifice his advantage, for fear of to be enlightened on its value by losing it. This is a unique example of obedience: so this Child, far from doing his will, came "to do the will of Him who sent him" (John VI, 38); While the man has preferred to follow his will than the orders of his Creator. "In the same way that by the disobedience of one all were made sinners, so by the obedience of one all become righteous (Romans V, 19). And "if all die in Adam, all will be quickened in Jesus Christ (II Cor, XV, 22)." [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. In this sentence of the Latin text. Ex omni ligno quod is in paradiso, escoe edes (You will eat the fruit which is in paradise of all trees.), do not read: in paradiso escoe (of the fruit in Paradise), but escoe edes (you shall eat of the fruit); for the expression escades (shall eat of the fruit) is in conformity with the genius of the Latin language, which, in these sorts of phrases, ordinarily replaces the Greek dative by the ablative, which the grammarians also call the seventh case. Or you have to construct the sentence in this way: Ex omni ligno escoe (from every tree of the fruit). [Locutions]

GREGORY I OF ROME. When, therefore, Adam ate of the forbidden tree, we know that he did not die in the body, seeing that after this he begot children and lived many years. If, then, he did not die in the soul, the impious conclusion follows that He himself lied who foretold that in the day that he sinned he should die. But it is to be understood that death takes place in two ways; either from ceasing to live, or with respect to the mode of living. When, then, man’s soul is said to have died in the eating of the forbidden thing, it is meant, not in the sense of ceasing to live, but with regard to the mode of living;— that he should live afterwards in pain who had been created to live happily in joy. [Book VI, Letter 14 NPNF s.2 v.12]

JEROME OF STRIDON. 2:15 AND THE LORD GOD TOOK THE MAN, AND SET HIM IN THE PARADISE OF PLEASURE. For pleasure, Hebrew says EDEN. Pleasure, the Septuagint translated EDEN by voluptuousness. Symmachus, who had formerly translated blooming paradise, put here εν τω παραδισω της ακτης, words awake the idea of pleasure and delights.

2:17 IN WHATEVER DAY YOU EAT OF IT, YOU WILL PERISH BY DEATH. — Symmachus has better interpreted by the words “you will be mortal.” [Hebrew Questions on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. But it is time to hear the instructions given to us by the sacred writer, who spoke much less of himself than by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost: And the Lord God, he said, took the man who he had formed; he joins together, from the beginning of the sentence, the words: Lord God, to indicate to us that there is here a secret and a mystery, and that these two terms signify one and the same thing. Besides, I do not make this remark without reason; so that the Apostle may say to us, There is but one God, the Father, from whom all things proceed, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom all things have been done ( I Corinthians 8: 6), you did not think that there exists any difference between these terms, and that they mark one, a character of superiority, and the other a character of inferiority. Scripture thus employs them indifferently, and thus prevents any dispute which would tend, by a false interpretation, to alter our sacred dogmas. The very examination of the text which I quote proves, indeed, that the Scripture attaches to these two words no special and distinct signification; for to which person of the Trinity does the heretic wish to relate this sentence: And the Lord God took the man? To the Father alone, be it. But listen to the Apostle who tells us: There is only one God, the Father, from whom all things proceed, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom all things have been done. Do you not see that he names the Lord Son? and why then say that the word Lord signifies something greater than the word God? it is an absurdity and a frightful blasphemy: but as soon as one departs from the rules of a sound interpretation of Scripture, and only follows one's own reasoning, one is unreasonable, and one raises against the true doctrine a thousand useless and idle disputes.

And the Lord God took the man whom He had formed, and He placed Him in the Garden of Delight, that He should cultivate it, and keep it. Admire here the care of Providence with regard to man: yesterday, the sacred writer said to us gay God had planted a garden of delights, and that he had placed the man there to remain and that he enjoys all his various amenities; but behold, to-day Moses again comes back to this ineffable goodness of the Creator, and he tells us a second time that the Lord God took the man whom He had formed, and placed him in a garden of delights. and observe that he does not say only: and God placed him in a garden, but in a garden of delights, to make us understand how pleasant this dwelling was, after having thus reported that God placed the man in a garden He adds to it that he should cultivate it, and that he should keep it, and here again is the trait of an amorous Providence, and indeed in the midst of the delights of this garden, where everything rejoiced his sight and flattered him. his senses, man could have been proud of the excess of his happiness, for idleness teaches all vices (Ecclesia, XXXIII, 29.) So the Lord commanded him to cultivate this garden. and keep it.

But, do you say, did the earthly paradise need the care of man? No doubt; and yet the Lord wanted the guard and the cultivation of this garden to offer man a gentle and moderate occupation. Suppose he was completely idle, and this great idleness would soon have made him lazy and negligent. A mild and easy occultation kept him on the contrary in a humble dependence. And indeed, this word: that he may cultivate it, is not put here without motive, and it signifies that man should not forget that God was his master, and that he had not given him enjoyment of this garden of delights only on the condition of taking care of it; for the Lord does all things for the usefulness of man, whether he gives him favors or gives him the freedom to abuse them. We did not exist yet, that already his immense goodness had prepared for us the ineffable goods of heaven. This is what these words of Jesus Christ teach us: Come, the blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you before the creation of the world. (Matthew XXV, 34.) But, all the more, this same kindness furnishes us abundantly with the goods of the present life.

Let us recall, in a few words, the benefits of the Lord to man. First he pulled him out of nothing, and he formed his body of mud. Earth; He then poured on his face a divine breath, and thus communicated to him the inestimable gift of a spiritual soul; finally, he created for him a garden of delights, and he placed it there. Still unhappy, like a good father who loves his child, God seems to fear that within one. complete rest and full freedom, the young and inexperienced man does not swell with pride and vanity; that is why he thinks of giving it a gentle and moderate occupation. The Lord therefore commanded Adam to cultivate and keep the earthly paradise, so that in the midst of the delights of this stay and the security of a peaceful rest, this double care would keep him within the limits of humble dependence. These are the first benefits that the Lord gives to man immediately after his creation; and those who will follow will not less prove his extreme kindness and sovereign benevolence.

Now what does the Scripture say? And the Lord God made a recommendation to Adam. Here again the sacred writer, according to his custom, joins these two words: Lord and God, in order to better inculcate the true doctrine and to confound those who, daring to establish between them any distinction, attribute one of these names to the Father, and the other to the Son. And the Lord God made a recommendation to Adam. What a trait of goodness in this one word: God made a recommendation! Who would not admire him! and what word could worthily express it! For see how, from the beginning, God respects the dignity of man: he does not give him either an absolute order or an express command; but he makes a simple recommendation. As a friend deals with his friend about an important matter, so the Lord deals with Adam. It seems that he wants to engage him, by a feeling of honor, to be submissive and obedient.

(Gen. 2:16-17) And the Lord God made a recommendation to Adam, and said to him, Eat all the fruit of the trees of paradise; but do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for the very day that you eat it, you will certainly die. (Gen. II, 17.) The observation of this precept was very easy. But, understand, my dear brother, how laziness is a great evil: it makes difficult the most affluent things; and on the contrary, ardor and activity make easy the most difficult things. Hey! tell me, could God make a simpler and easier recommendation to the man, and could he give him more honor! It allowed him to inhabit the earthly paradise and to recreate his looks by the beauty of the objects he contained. How sweet and agreeable was this view, and how exquisite were the fruits on which he fed! And indeed, what a pleasure to see the fertility of the fruit trees, the variety of the flowers, the diversity of the plants, the foliage which protects the trees as d a beautiful hair, and those thousand other beauties that presumably contained a garden that God himself had planted. This is what Scripture has previously insinuated when she told us that God brought out of the earth all kinds of beautiful trees to see, and whose fruits were sweet to eat. So we can understand how guilty was the negligence and intemperance of the man who, in such abundance, transgressed the command of the Lord.

Represent the honor and dignity with which the Lord surrounded the first man. He placed him in the earthly paradise and drew up a separate and particular table for him so that he could not even suspect that the Creator had given him the same food as the animals. But he was like the king of nature, and he enjoyed in the earthly paradise a thousand delights; he also had, in his capacity as master of the animals, a separate dwelling and a better dwelling. And the Lord God made a recommendation to Adam, and said to him, Eat all the fruit of the trees of Paradise; but do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for the very day that you eat it, you will certainly die. It's as if he had told her: do I impose on you a serious and difficult obligation? no doubt, since I leave you the fruits of all trees except one; and if I sanction my defense by the threat of the most terrible punishments, it is so that at least fear restrains you in obedience. The Lord, therefore, used it to the first man, as a generous and magnificent master who would yield us a superb. palace, on condition that we recognize his right of suzerainty for a modest fee; and so the Lord, always good and merciful, allowed Adam the use of the fruits of all the trees, and excepted only one, to remind him that he depended on God and that he had to obey to all his commandments.

But who could worthily express, how great was then the goodness of the Lord Adam could not present any merit, and what favors nevertheless did not receive! Because it is neither. half of the fruits that the Lord gives him, nor a large number of trees that he reserves, allowing him the use of others; he wants on the contrary that he eat all the fruits of the trees of paradise, and if he except one, it is only for the man to recognize him as the author and the principle of all these goods. Consider again here what was the woman's. goodness of the Lord, and with what honors he showered her. It did not yet exist, and already it understood it in this commandment: Do not eat this fruit, because in the day when you will eat it you will certainly die. So from the beginning God declares that man and woman are one, and that man, according to the word of the Apostle, is the head of the woman. (Ephesians V, 23.) He therefore addresses both, so that later, when the woman has been formed of the man, she receives from him the knowledge of this defense.

I am not ignorant of the questions which are usually proposed concerning this tree, nor the objections of certain heretics who speak with bold audacity, and who endeavor to reject the sin of man on God. Why, they say, did the Lord make this defense, knowing that the man would not respect it? Why has he planted this tree in paradise? The answer to these questions and to many others would lead me to speak before the time of the original fault, and it is better to wait for the story of Moses to lead us there. When we have arrived at this place of Genesis, I will see more clearly what the divine grave will inspire in order to develop the true meaning of Scripture. In this way you will acquire the true knowledge of things, and give back to God the glory he deserves without imputing to him a fault of which the only man is guilty. That is why, if you will, let us approach the explanation of the verses that immediately follow. [Homilies on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Since Adam also died on the day that he ate of the tree; for so ran the decree, “In the day that you eat of the tree, you shall die”; yet he lived. How then “died” he? By the decree; by the very nature of the thing; for he who has rendered himself liable to punishment, is under its penalty, and if for a while not actually so, yet he is by the sentence. [Homily 28 on the Gospel of John NPNF s.1 v.14]

TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE. For (the title) God, indeed, which always belonged to Him, it names at the very first: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" Genesis 1:1 and as long as He continued making, one after the other, those things of which He was to be the Lord, it merely mentions God. "And God said," "and God made," "and God saw;" but nowhere do we yet find the Lord. But when He completed the whole creation, and especially man himself, who was destined to understand His sovereignty in a way of special propriety, He then is designated Lord. Then also the Scripture added the name Lord: "And the Lord God, Deus Dominus, took the man, whom He had formed;" Genesis 2:15 "And the Lord God commanded Adam." Genesis 2:16 Thenceforth He, who was previously God only, is the Lord, from the time of His having something of which He might be the Lord. For to Himself He was always God, but to all things was He only then God, when He became also Lord. [Against Hermogenes 3]

(Gen. 2:16-17) For in the beginning of the world He gave to Adam himself and Eve a law, that they were not to eat of the fruit of the tree planted in the midst of paradise; but that, if they did contrariwise, by death they were to die. Which law had continued enough for them, had it been kept. For in this law given to Adam we recognise in embryo all the precepts which afterwards sprouted forth when given through Moses; that is, You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and out of your whole soul; You shall love your neighbour as yourself; You shall not kill; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; False witness you shall not utter; Honour your father and mother; and, That which is another's, shall you not covet. For the primordial law was given to Adam and Eve in paradise, as the womb of all the precepts of God. In short, if they had loved the Lord their God, they would not have contravened His precept; if they had habitually loved their neighbour—that is, themselves—they would not have believed the persuasion of the serpent, and thus would not have committed murder upon themselves, by falling from immortality, by contravening God's precept; from theft also they would have abstained, if they had not stealthily tasted of the fruit of the tree, nor had been anxious to skulk beneath a tree to escape the view of the Lord their God; nor would they have been made partners with the falsehood-asseverating devil, by believing him that they would be "like God;" and thus they would not have offended God either, as their Father, who had fashioned them from clay of the earth, as out of the womb of a mother; if they had not coveted another's, they would not have tasted of the unlawful fruit. Therefore, in this general and primordial law of God, the observance of which, in the case of the tree's fruit, He had sanctioned, we recognise enclosed all the precepts specially of the posterior Law, which germinated when disclosed at their proper times. For the subsequent superinduction of a law is the work of the same Being who had before premised a precept; since it is His province withal subsequently to train, who had before resolved to form, righteous creatures. [Answer to the Jews 2]

(Gen. 2:16) Adam had received from God the law of not tasting "of the tree of recognition of good and evil," with the doom of death to ensue upon tasting. However, even (Adam) himself at that time, reverting to the condition of a Psychic after the spiritual ecstasy in which he had prophetically interpreted that "great sacrament" with reference to Christ and the Church, and no longer being "capable of the things which were the Spirit's," yielded more readily to his belly than to God, heeded the meat rather than the mandate, and sold salvation for his gullet! He ate, in short, and perished; saved (as he would) else (have been), if he had preferred to fast from one little tree: so that, even from this early date, animal faith may recognise its own seed, deducing from thence onward its appetite for carnalities and rejection of spiritualities. I hold, therefore, that from the very beginning the murderous gullet was to be punished with the torments and penalties of hunger. Even if God had enjoined no preceptive fasts, still, by pointing out the source whence Adam was slain, He who had demonstrated the offence had left to my intelligence the remedies for the offence. [On Fasting 3]

(Gen. 2:17) For it was a most benignant act of His thus to point out the issues of transgression, lest ignorance of the danger should encourage a neglect of obedience. Now, since it was given as a reason previous to the imposition of the law, it also amounted to a motive for subsequently observing it, that a penalty was annexed to its transgression; a penalty, indeed, which He who proposed it was still unwilling that it should be incurred. Learn then the goodness of our God amidst these things and up to this point; learn it from His excellent works, from His kindly blessings, from His indulgent bounties, from His gracious providences, from His laws and warnings, so good and merciful. [Against Marcion 2.4]

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. The tree of knowledge itself was good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, but the disobedience, which had death in it. For there was nothing else in the fruit than only knowledge; but knowledge is good when one uses it discreetly. But Adam, being yet an infant in age, was on this account as yet unable to receive knowledge worthily. For now, also, when a child is born it is not at once able to eat bread, but is nourished first with milk, and then, with the increment of years, it advances to solid food. Thus, too, would it have been with Adam; for not as one who grudged him, as some suppose, did God command him not to eat of knowledge. But He wished also to make proof of him, whether he was submissive to His commandment. And at the same time He wished man, infant as he was, to remain for some time longer simple and sincere. For this is holy, not only with God, but also with men, that in simplicity and guilelessness subjection be yielded to parents. But if it is right that children be subject to parents, how much more to the God and Father of all things? Besides, it is unseemly that children in infancy be wise beyond their years; for as in stature one increases in an orderly progress, so also in wisdom. But as when a law has commanded abstinence from anything, and someone has not obeyed, it is obviously not the law which causes punishment, but the disobedience and transgression;— for a father sometimes enjoins on his own child abstinence from certain things, and when he does not obey the paternal order, he is flogged and punished on account of the disobedience; and in this case the actions themselves are not the cause of stripes, but the disobedience procures punishment for him who disobeys—so also for the first man, disobedience procured his expulsion from Paradise. Not, therefore, as if there were any evil in the tree of knowledge; but from his disobedience did man draw, as from a fountain, labor, pain, grief, and at last fall a prey to death. [To Autolycus 2.25 ANF v.2]

2:18-20 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone, let us make for him a help suitable to him. 19 And God formed yet farther out of the earth all the wild beasts of the field, and all the birds of the sky, and he brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called any living creature, that was the name of it. 20 And Adam gave names to all the cattle and to all the birds of the sky, and to all the wild beasts of the field, but for Adam there was not found a help like to himself.

ALCUIN OF YORK. (Gen. 2:18-20). WHY IS IT SAID, "HE BROUGHT THEM TO ADAM TO SEE WHAT HE WOULD CALL THEM"? — Answer. He did not bring them by going about locally, but, by the secret will of his might, he wanted them to come. (Bed. in Pent., PL 91, col. 209. Bed. Hexm. I, PL 91, col. 48.) [Question 54]

WHY DID GOD WANT MAN TO GIVE NAMES TO ALL LIVING BEINGS? — Answer. So that man might understand himself and how much better he was than all living beings on account of the discernment of reason, and might love his Maker the more when realizing that he, man, was better than other living things. (Bed. in Pent., PL 91, col. 209. Bed. Hexm. I, PL 91, col. 54.) [Question 55]

WHY IS IT SAID, " BUT FOR ADAM THERE WAS NOT FOUND A HELPER LIKE HIMSELF"? — Answer. Because among all living beings on earth there was found no rational one except him alone. [Questions and Answers on Genesis, 56]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. HOW DOES GOD PRONOUNT THE WORDS "IS NOT GOOD THAT MAN IS ALONE?"  Let us now examine how the words were pronounced: "It is not good that man be alone.” Has God made a series of syllables and words heard? Does the Scripture only explain the reason that the formation of the woman was decided in principle in the Word, reason that the Scripture already expressed by these words: "God says that this or that work is done," when everything was originally created? Is it in the very spirit of man that God uttered these words, as when he speaks to the heart of his servants? Such was the Psalmist who said, "I will hear what the Lord says to me within me (Ps. LXXXIII, 9). Would man have received inwardly the revelation of this fact through the medium of an Angel, who would have represented the words with sensible images, although the Scripture does not say whether it was in a dream or in a dream? moment of ecstasy, as it usually happens? Would not this be a revelation similar to that described by the Prophet: "And the angel who spoke in me said to me (Zech II, 3)? Finally, would these words have sounded through the organ of a creature, like those which resounded in the clouds: "This is my beloved Son (Matt III, 17)? What was the means God used? This is impossible to determine. But we must remain convinced that God has spoken and that, if he has used a succession of sounds or a sequence of sensible images, far from speaking directly and by himself, he has employed some creature subject to his orders have demonstrated in the previous book.

God no doubt showed himself to the saints later on, sometimes with hair as white as wool, sometimes with feet like fine brass (Rev. I, 14, 16), in short, in different forms; but that he has used, to appear to men, creatures subject to his orders and not his essence, that he has signified his will by means of images or sounds, it is an incontestable truth for the spirits who believe or even have the strength to understand that the essence of the Trinity is eternal, apart from all change, and that, without falling into the extent of duration, it moves all beings in space and time . Without further searching by what secret these words have been heard, let us try to discover their meaning. It was therefore necessary to give man a help of his kind; this is what the creative truth itself declares; and to hear his word, it suffices to understand the reason which presided over the creation of each being.

ANIMALS BEFORE ADAM. We have sufficiently examined, I thought, for what end the woman had been created and associated with the man; let us see now why the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky were brought in the presence of Adam, that he might give them a name, and that it seemed in a certain sense the necessity of drawing the woman from one of his own, since there was no one among them who could assist him. This event seems to me to contain a prophetic meaning: it is real without doubt, but one can, after having confirmed its fulfillment, interpret it in freedom and see it as an allegory. Now, why did Adam not give names to fish, to birds and to terrestrial animals? If gold consults ordinary language, all these beings have received names which the human speech has given them. Not only the beings who inhabit the waters and the earth, but also the earth, the water, the sky, the celestial phenomena; real or supposed, what am I saying? the very conceptions of the mind, have received a name which differs according to the idioms. It has been revealed to us that there was originally a uniform tongue, before the erection of the proud tower after the flood had divided the human race, and attached to the same signs different sounds. What was this primitive language? It's a pretty indifferent problem. What is certain is that Adam spoke it and that the last vestiges of this language, if they still exist, are found in the articulated sounds by means of which the first man pointed out the terrestrial animals and the birds. But is it likely that the fish were not named by man from the roots of that language, and that the words that represent them were created from God who taught them to man? If it were so, one could explain this fact only by seeing a mystical sense in these words. It is probable that the fish were named little by little as their species were recognized; but if the animals, the animals, the birds were brought before the man; if they were collected and sorted by species so that he could give them a name, when he could have named them little by little and much faster than the fish, supposing that their names had not already been found, Is there not in this fact a hidden reason and a prophetic allegory? This is what the rest of the sacred narrative clearly tends to make us understand.

In the second place, could God ignore that he had not created any animal capable of helping man? Was it necessary that the man should be instructed and had an idea all the higher of his wife that on all the animals which like him had been created under the sky and breathed the same air, none had been his similar? But it would be strange that, to give him this idea, it would have been necessary to bring him and show him the animals. If he had faith in God, he could learn it from him, just as he was instructed in his defense, questioned after his fault, and condemned. If he did not believe in him, it was impossible for him to discover whether this God, in whom he had no confidence, had shown him all the animals, or whether he had hidden others like him. in some distant country. Therefore I can not help thinking that this event, whatever happened, hides some prophetic allegory.

But the plan of this work does not consist in clarifying the mysterious prophecies: I aim to expose the events with their historical character, so that, if some fact seems impossible to the frivolous and incredulous minds, or opposed to the authority of Scripture, by offering, so to speak, a contradictory testimony, its possibility and concordance is demonstrated, as far as I can do it with the help of God. As for events whose possibility is obvious and which, without offering any contradiction with the rest of Scripture, appear to some people useless or even unreasonable, I should endeavor to show that everything outside the The ordinary course of nature is intended to teach us to prefer the infallible testimony of Scripture to our imaginations, and that instead of seeing it as an extravagance, it must be taken for an allegory. But these explanations and comments already make or will later be the subject of other works.

HOW ANIMALS HAVE BEEN PRESENTED TO ADAM. Let us examine then, attaching ourselves, according to the plan of this work, to the facts themselves rather than to the events which they announced, to the letter rather than to the symbol, this passage: "God brought before Adam all the animals, so that he saw how he would call them. Do not talk about the passage. "God formed all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air on the earth:" we have devoted enough to him. What was God doing to bring the animals before Adam? In this respect we must banish a crude idea, referring to the theory we have set out in the preceding book, on the dual mode according to which Providence is exercised. Let us not believe that animals are gathered together as the hunter or fowler does, when he throws his prey into his traps or his nets; or that an order, from the bosom of the naked, made the animals heard words that the intelligent creature alone can listen and follow. This commandment could not have been understood either of animals or birds. However, the brute himself receives the orders of God in his own way; without following the impulse of a free and intelligent will, she follows the movements that God, the immovable motor, communicates to her through the angels, who see in her Word the acts to be performed and the determined moment when they must This is how God remains outside the movements of time, and that angels move in time, to transmit his orders to the beings who are under their control.

Every living being, intelligent as man, or deprived of reason like the animal, the fish, the bird, is struck by what he sees. The man, being reasonable and free, obeys or does not obey the sensation; the animal does not know how to deliberate, but the image strikes him and makes him act according to the laws of his nature. It is not in the power of any being to determine which objects will come to him to the senses or even to the spirit, and therefore will bring his activity into play. From which it follows that once presented from above by the docile mediation of the Angels, these objects fall under the senses and send the orders of God not only to men, but also to birds and animals, for example to the monster that engulfs Jonah (Jon II, 1.). His will is communicated even to the smallest beings, as to the worm which received the order to gnaw the shrub in the shadow of which the same prophet had rested (Ibid., 6, 7). If God has given to man, in spite of the flesh of sin which envelops him, the faculty of making animals and beasts of burden serve him; if he has made it capable of taking not only the domestic birds, but also those flying in the air, however wild their instinct and taming them by finding the marvelous secret of dominating them in reason rather than in strength, since it succeeds in observing what causes pleasure or pain in them, by a wise mixture of caresses and rigor, to make them strip their wild instincts in order to take on milder manners; what is not the power of the angels who, after having discovered the will of God in the immutable Truth that they, unceasingly contemplate, unfold a marvelous activity to move in time, to shake. in the course of time and in space, the subaltern beings, to present to the animals the images capable of striking them and flattering their instincts! Do not they have a hundred times more resources to bring, even without their knowledge, any being who breathes for a specific purpose? [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Despite the ministering role creatures play and the assistance they give human beings in their labors, are nonetheless irrational and in great measure inferior to them just in case we might think it was about them God said, “Let us make a help mate for him.” You see, although they are helpful and make a very useful contribution to the service of human beings, they are nonetheless irrational. The fact that they are helpful, after all, emerges from experience. I mean, some are suited to bearing loads for us, while others to working the soil: an ox draws the plough, cuts furrows, and provides for us much other assistance in farming; likewise an ass makes itself very useful in bearing loads; and many other of the irrational animals service our bodily needs. Sheep, after all, meet our needs from their wool for making clothes, and again in similar fashion goats provide a service for us from their coat, their milk and other things related to our living. So in case you think it was in reference to them it was said above, “Let us make him a helpmate,” it now begins its statement with the words, “For Adam, however, there proved to be no helpmate of his kind,” as if blessed Moses were teaching us in saying these words that, while all these animals were created and received from Adam the assignment of names, nevertheless none of them proved to be adequate for helping him. Accordingly, he wants to teach us about the formation of the being about to be brought forth and the fact that this being due for creation is the one he was speaking about. “Let us make him a helpmate like himself,” meaning of his kind, with the same properties as himself, of equal esteem, in no way inferior to him. Hence his words, “For Adam, however, there proved to be no helpmate of his kind,” by which this blessed author shows us that whatever usefulness these irrational animals bring to our service, the help provided for Adam by woman is different and immeasurably superior…

So that Adam may learn that the being in process of being formed is meant to enjoy equality of esteem with him, accordingly just as he said in the man’s case, “‘Let us make,'” so he now says also, “‘Let us make him a helpmate like himself.'” Both expressions, helpmate and like himself have much significance. I do not want him to be alone, Scripture is saying, but to have some support from company, and not this only but a helpmate suited to him should be produced, hinting at woman. Hence he said, “‘Let us make him a helpmate,'” and added, “‘like himself,'” so that when shortly you saw wild beasts produced and all the birds of heaven, you would not think reference was made to them. I mean, even if many of the brute beasts helped him in his labors, there was still nothing equivalent to a woman possessed as she was of reason. [Homilies on Genesis]

2:21 And God brought a trance upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and filled up the flesh instead thereof.

AMBROSE OF MILAN. What does the phrase ‘deep sleep’ signify? Does it not mean that when we contemplate a conjugal union we seem to be turning our eyes gradually in the direction of God’s kingdom? Do we not seem, as we enter into a vision of this world, to partake a little of things divine, while we find our repose in the midst of what is secular and mundane? [On Paradise]

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. THE ECSTASY OF ADAM. The ecstasy into which God brings Adam in order to plunge him into sleep, can therefore be understood as a rapture which put him in communication with the society of angels and the thread to penetrate into the sanctuary of God, so that He learned there the mystery which was not to be fulfilled until the end of time (Ps. LXXII, 17). And when he saw the woman pulled from one of his ribs near him, he let out, as in a prophetic transport, those words in which the Apostle sees so august a mystery (Eph. -32): "This is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh: it will be called woman, because it was taken from man. The man will therefore leave his father and mother to cling to his wife, and they will be two in one flesh. Although Scripture attributes these words to the first man, the Lord in the Gospel cites them as having come out of the mouth of God himself: "Have you not read," he says, "that he who created the man in the beginning, created them male and female, and said: Because of this, the man will leave his father and his mother and will attach himself to his wife, and they will be two in one flesh (Matt. , 4)? ". It is to make us understand that Adam pronounced these words by a prophetic inspiration, leaving his rapture. But let us end this book and try to renew by the attraction of a new question the attention of the reader. [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

JEROME OF STRIDON. 2:21 AND THE LORD GOD SENT AN ECSTASY OVER ADAM. — Ecstasy, that is, ‘out of the mind,’ the Hebrew has THARDEMA, which Aquila renders by kataphoron, and Symachus as karon, that is to say heavy numbness and deep sleep. And then we read: "And he slept. The same word applied to the sleep of Jonah (1:5), deeply asleep. [Hebrew Questions on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. And the Lord God, she said, sent a deep sleep to Adam, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and put flesh instead. And the Lord God produced the woman from the rib that he was taking away from Adam and brought it to Adam. (Gen. 21, 22.) The energy of these words is great, and they surpass the understanding of man. That is why we can understand them only by deepening them with the eye of faith.

God, said Moses, sent a deep sleep to Adam while he slept. What exactness of doctrine and what sublimity of language! The sacred writer, or rather the Holy Spirit, by his pen, here teaches us two things, the deep sleep of Adam, and the consequences of this sleep. But this sleep did not resemble ordinary sleep. For the Creator God, wise and powerful, wanted to prevent Adam from feeling the slightest pain lest this painful memory would sour him against the woman who was to be formed of one of his ribs. That is why he sent him a deep sleep, or rather a deep slumber which deprived him of the use of his senses. Then the Lord, like a clever worker, took Adam off one of his ribs, put flesh in his place, and from the removed side formed in his goodness the body of the first woman. So he sent Adam a deep sleep, and while he slept, he took off one of his ribs, and took flesh instead. It was so that when he woke up Adam would not notice what had happened. For he was to be informed of it later, although at the very moment he had no knowledge of it. So the Lord arranged all things to take away all feelings of pain and sadness. So he took off one of his ribs without suffering any pain, and put flesh in his place so that he would not notice anything. It is from this coast that God formed the woman. An admirable account, and far surpasses the intelligence of man. Moreover, such is the character of all the works of God; and it is no less a miracle here than to have formed Adam with a little dust and mud.

But watch as Scripture adjusts to our weakness. And God, she said; took one side of Adam, Let us be careful not to interpret these words in a very human manner, and see in their humble simplicity only a pure condescension towards our infirmity. For if Scripture had not been so expressed, how could we have understood these profound mysteries? Let us stop, therefore, far less in the literal sense than in thoughts worthy of God. So this word: And God took and all like are only to be proportioned to our weakness. For the rest, Scripture uses here the same expressions which it had used when speaking of Adam. She had said previously: The Lord God took the man; the Lord God made this command to Adam; and again The Lord God says: why do you give him help that is similar to him? So here she says: The Lord God formed the woman of the ribs he had taken from Adam; and a little before she said, And the Lord God sent to Adam a deep sleep. Thus these expressions indicate no difference between the Father and the Son, and Scripture employs them indifferently, because these two divine persons have only one and the same nature. So we find the same way of expressing ourselves when it comes to the formation of the woman: And the Lord God formed the woman of the rib which he had taken from Adam.

What will the heretics say here, who want to examine everything curiously, and who flatter themselves to know even the generation of the Creator? But what word would explain this mystery! and what intelligence could understand it: The Lord, says the Scripture, took one of Adam's ribs, and from that one rib he formed the whole woman. Hey! why speak only of this second miracle? For tell me first how God removed this rib, and how Adam felt no pain? These are so many mysteries that you can not explain, and that the Creator alone who has operated them can understand. But since we can not conceive of things that are before our eyes, nor understand the creation of the woman who has been formed of the substance of man, it belongs only to delirium and madness to search curiously for the essence of the Creator, and to boast of having intelligence. The celestial spirits can not themselves probe this abyss, and they content themselves with glorifying the Lord with fear and trembling.

And the Lord God produced the woman from the rib which he had taken from Adam. Admire the accuracy of Scripture! It does not say, God formed, but produced, because he took a portion of flesh already formed, and he only increased it, so God produced the woman, not by the act of a new creation, but taking away from Adam a portion of flesh, and producing from this weak portion a complete being in all its parts. How great is the power of the Creator who, with so little matter, has formed the supple and elegant limbs of the woman, and has produced that being so perfect, endowed with exquisite sensibility, and which gives to the man a sweet society and great consolation! For it is for the consolation of man, that the woman is formed, and the Apostle says that man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man. (1 Cor. 2:9)

See how all things are made for man! The universe was created, as well as the animals that were to be used for its food, or to help it in its works; but he lacked a companion who could converse with him, and who, being of the same nature, could embellish his existence. That is why God took one of his ribs, and by an act of his supreme wisdom formed a being endowed with reason, in all likeness to the man, and capable of assisting him in the needs, as in the sweets of life. Now it is God Himself who in His infinite wisdom has thus arranged and arranged all these things, and though our minds are too weak to understand them; we do not fail to believe them because everything is subject to His will and command. [Homilies on Genesis]

TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE. It is certain that, from the very beginning of his nature, man was impressed with these instincts (of sleep). Genesis 2:21 If you receive your instruction from God, (you will find) that the fountain of the human race, Adam, had a taste of drowsiness before having a draught of repose; slept before he laboured, or even before he ate, nay, even before he spoke; in order that men may see that sleep is a natural feature and function, and one which has actually precedence over all the natural faculties. From this primary instance also we are led to trace even then the image of death in sleep. For as Adam was a figure of Christ, Adam's sleep shadowed out the death of Christ, who was to sleep a mortal slumber, that from the wound inflicted on His side might, in like manner (as Eve was formed), be typified the church, the true mother of the living. This is why sleep is so salutary, so rational, and is actually formed into the model of that death which is general and common to the race of man. God, indeed, has willed (and it may be said in passing that He has, generally, in His dispensations brought nothing to pass without such types and shadows) to set before us, [Treatise on the Soul 43]

2:22 And God formed the rib which he took from Adam into a woman, and brought her to Adam.

ALCUIN OF YORK. (Gen. 2:22). WHY DO WE READ THAT THE WOMAN WAS BUILT FROM THE SIDE OF THE MAN SLEEPING, AND NOT FORMED FROM THE EARTH LIKE THE MAN? — Answer. It certainly means, for the mystery, that Christ slept on the cross for the Church, and the spring of our salvation flowed out of his side. (Bed. in Pent., PL 91, col. 210. Bed. Hexm. I, PL 91, col. 54.) [Question and Answers on Genesis, 56]

AMBROSE OF MILAN. Not without significance, too, is the fact that woman was made out of the rib of Adam. She was not made of the same earth with which he was formed, in order that we might realize that the physical nature of both man and woman is identical and that there was one source for the propagation of the human race. For that reason, neither was man created together with a woman, nor were two men and two women created at the beginning, but first a man and after that a woman. God willed it that human nature be established as one. Thus, from the very inception of the human stock He eliminated the possibility that many disparate natures should arise. [On Paradise 48]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. And the Lord God made the woman from the ribs he had taken from Adam, and brought him to Adam. As the woman was only formed for Adam, the Lord brings her to him, and seems to say to him: The whole creation could not offer you any help that was similar to you, so I promised you a companion worthy of you. I am fulfilling my promise today by presenting you this new perfect and accomplished being. [Homilies on Genesis]

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. God had formed into a wife for Adam out of his rib. And this He did, not as if He were unable to make his wife separately, but God foreknew that man would call upon a number of gods. And having this prescience, and knowing that through the serpent error would introduce a number of gods which had no existence—for there being but one God, even then error was striving to disseminate a multitude of gods, saying, “You shall be as gods;”— lest, then, it should be supposed that one God made the man and another the woman, therefore He made them both; and God made the woman together with the man, not only that thus the mystery of God’s sole government might be exhibited, but also that their mutual affection might be greater.  [To Autolycus 2.25 ANF v.2]

2:23 And Adam said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her husband.

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. THE SOUL OF THE WOMAN IS FORMED OF THAT OF THE MAN. If we followed the historical order, we would now have to deal with the fault of the first man. But as the Scripture exposes the formation of the body of the woman without speaking of her soul, this silence must strike us and make us examine with attention whether there are, yes or no, decisive reasoning against those who claim that the soul it comes out of another soul, like the body of another body, by a kind of transfusion, which makes the first principles of each substance pass from parents to children. First of all they maintain that God, by blowing on the face of the man whom he had drawn from the dust, created the soul from which all others were to emerge, just as the body of the first man contained those of his descendants. In fact, Adam had been formed first, Eve was after him; we are taught where Adam's body and soul come from; one of the earth, the other of the breath of God; as for the woman, after having recounted how she was drawn from a rib of man, it is not said that she was also animated by the divine breath; it is suggested that she has come out of the soul and body of the one who was first formed. Now, they say, or the Scripture was to remain silent on the soul of man, to let us guess or conclude for ourselves that his soul had been a gift of God; or, if his object was to prevent the earth from being attributed to the soul and the body, it should not remain silent on the soul of the woman, lest one should He lives there by a very natural error, if, however, it is an error, a transmitted substance. So, they add, if God did not blow on the face of the woman, it is only because his soul was formed of that of the man.

This is only a presumption, and it is easy to fight it. The soul of the woman, it is said, was formed of that of the man, because the Scripture does not say that God has blown on his face why admit then that the soul of the woman comes from the man, since the Scripture says nothing about it? Far from it: if God, as men are born, creates their souls as He created the first, Scripture naturally kept silent, since it only takes a simple induction to apply to all that it said one. Let us admit, moreover, that the Scripture wanted here to arouse our attention: if the formation of the woman had differed from that of the man in this point, that the soul, in the woman, had produced by propagation, while that the soul and the body of man had each had their origin; the Scripture should have insisted precisely on this difference, to prevent reasoning by analogy. But as she did not say that the soul of woman was formed of that of man, it is more likely to believe that she wanted to prevent any hypothesis outside the ideas she had just us to give on the origin of the soul in man; in other words, to tell us that these two souls were also a gift of God himself. Moreover, the Scripture would have found a very natural opportunity to formulate this thought, if not at the moment when the woman was formed, at least when it was made and Adam exclaimed: Here is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh. Was not it indeed the moment to add in an outpouring of love and tenderness: And the soul of my soul? But this simple reasoning is not enough to solve such an important problem: we have not yet established any indisputable proposition. [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

JEROME OF STRIDON. 2:23 THIS IS THE BONE OF MY BONES, AND THE FLESH OF MY FLESH; SHE WILL BE CALLED WOMAN, BECAUSE SHE WAS DRAWN FROM THE MAN. The meaning, in the presence of the Greek and Latin text, does not indicate why she is called woman, because it has been drawn from man; but the etymology is kept in the Hebrew language. The man is called IS, and the woman lSSA. It is therefore right that IS the name of the SSA was given to the woman. Symmachus has praisefully tried to preserve the etymology in Greek: It will be, he says, called ανδρις, οτι απο ανδρος, that we can render in Latin by: 'This one shall be called virago, because she was taken from vir.'  Theodotion ventures another etymology: "It will be," he says, "called assumption, rapture,” because she has been taken, sumpta, from man. ISSA, with a change of emphasis, can also be interpreted as abduction. [Hebrew Questions on Genesis]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. And the Lord brought the woman before Adam, and Adam said, Behold now the bone of my bones, and the flesh of my flesh. This word shows us that Adam then received from God the spirit of prophecy, just as he had received the admirable gift of knowledge. It was indeed because of this gift that he imposed on each of the many species of animals their proper and true name. But here the sacred writer was very careful to warn us that Adam had been plunged into a deep slumber, so that he had had no sensation of what had happened in him. So when, at the sight of the woman, he is instructed in everything, we can not doubt that he did not receive the prophetic spirit, and that he did not speak by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

Adam did not know humanly the creation of the woman, and yet as soon as God brings it to him, he says: Here now is the bone of my bones, and the flesh of my flesh. Another interpreter, instead of the word, now, write once; as if Adam had declared that for this time only the woman was formed in this way, and that this mode of generation would not be renewed any more. It is as if he had said: now the woman has been formed of man, but henceforth the man will be born of the woman, or rather of the union of the two sexes. For, says the Apostle, the man was not taken from the woman, but the woman was taken from the man; and the man was not created for the woman, but the woman was created for the man. (I Corinthians II, 8, 9.) Eh! you say, interrupting me, these words show that the woman is made of man. Wait a little, and admire how accurately the Apostle speaks. However, he continues, neither is man without woman, nor woman without man (Ibid., 2), meaning that since the formation of the first woman, and the man and the woman are born in the same way, by. the union of the sexes. Such is the meaning of this word which Adam says of woman: Here now is the bone of my bones, and the flesh of my flesh. [Homilies on Genesis]

TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE. When this kind of second human being was made by God for man's assistance, that female was forthwith named woman; still happy, still worthy of paradise, still virgin. [On Veiling of Virgins 5]

He experienced the influence of the Spirit. For there fell upon him that ecstasy, which is the Holy Ghost's operative virtue of prophecy. But this (gift of prophecy) only came on him afterwards, when God infused into him the ecstasy, or spiritual quality, in which prophecy consists. [Treatise on the Soul 11;21]

Adam had already recognised the flesh which was in the woman as the propagation of his own substance ("This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh" Genesis 2:23 ), and the very taking of the woman out of the man was supplemented with flesh; but it ought, I should suppose, to have been made good with clay, if Adam was still clay. The clay, therefore, was obliterated and absorbed into flesh. When did this happen? At the time that man became a living soul by the inbreathing of God—by the breath indeed which was capable of hardening clay into another substance, as into some earthenware, so now into flesh. In the same way the potter, too, has it in his power, by tempering the blast of his fire, to modify his clayey material into a stiffer one, and to mould one form after another more beautiful than the original substance, and now possessing both a kind and name of its own. [On the Resurrection of the Flesh]

God gave to Eve, when she had not yet known a man, the surname "woman" and "female"— ("female," whereby the sex generally; "woman," hereby a class of the sex, is marked). So, since at that time the as yet unwedded Eve was called by the word "woman," that word has been made common even to a virgin. Nor is it wonderful that the apostle—guided, of course, by the same Spirit by whom, as all the divine Scripture, so that book Genesis, was drawn up—has used the selfsame word in writing "women," which, by the example of Eve unwedded, is applicable too to a "virgin." [On Prayer 22]

Gen. 2:24-25 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 25And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO. So "both were naked. This is a historical fact: the first human couple lived absolutely naked in paradise. They did not blush; eh! What shame could they feel when they had not yet felt in their limbs the law which raises the flesh against the law of the spirit? This is the punishment of sin, and they did not suffer the effects until they were prevaricators, when their disobedience had broken the command, and justice had punished their crime. Previously they were naked, and safe from confusion; there was no movement in their bodies which required the precautions of modesty; they had nothing to hide, having nothing to repress. We have seen above how they could have created a posterity; it would have been in a manner different from that which was the consequence of their fault, when the divine vengeance was realized; by a just effect of their disobedience, they felt before death, to slip into their limbs and spread disorder and revolt. But they did not know this fight, just when they were naked and did not blush. [Literal Commentary on Genesis]

EPHREM THE SYRIAN. It was because of the glory in which they were wrapped that they were not ashamed. Once this had been taken away from them, after the transgression of the commandment, they were ashamed because they had been stripped of it, and the two of them rushed to the leaves in order to cover not so much their bodies as their shameful members. [Commentary on Genesis, Sec. 3.14]

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. But do you want to know even better the certainty of this prophecy, and its brilliant fulfillment that will last until the end of the world? Listen to these other words of Adam: This will be called by a name taken from the name of man, because it was taken from man. That is why the man will leave his father and his mother, and will attach himself to his wife, and they will be two in the same flesh. Do you see how carefully Adam himself explains his thought, and how he penetrates the future of his prophetic gaze? This one, he says, will be called by a name taken from the name of the man, because it has been drawn from the man. This first word reminds us that God took one of Adam's ribs to train the woman, and the next reveals the future. That is why the man will leave his father and his mother, and will attach himself to his wife; and they will be two in the same flesh. But who had taught him all these things? from where could he know the future, and the mode of the propagation of the human race? What idea could be formed above all of the union of the two sexes, since this union did not exist until the fall of our first parents? until that moment they lived in the earthly paradise of a life entirely angelic, and knew neither the fires of concupiscence, nor the revolt of the passions. They also ignored the diseases, and the various needs of the body, because they had been created incorruptible, and immortal.

As for the use of clothing, Scripture tells us that they were naked and that they did not blush. That before sin and disobedience, divine grace was like their garment; so they did not blush with their nakedness. But as soon as they broke the Lord's precept, they knew they were naked, and they blushed. Who suggested? So to Adam the words he uttered then? and is it not evident that he received the gift of prophecy, and that he discovered the future of the eyes of the mind? It is not without reason that I press these details, for they show us the Lord's immense goodness toward the first man. He led in principle the life of angels, was enriched with a thousand benefits, and possessed even the prophetic spirit. So when you see him, after so many graces and favors, become a misguarder, beware of blaming God, and only blame the man. It is he alone, as I will say later, who has deprived himself. so many goods by his disobedience, and who has been legitimately condemned for his sin.

Let us recall, then, the state of innocence in which the Lord had established him, and the innumerable benefits with which he had filled him. And first of all, even before man existed, he had produced for himself the universe and all creatures; he created it himself, that he might fully enjoy it, and gave him the abode of earthly paradise. Moreover, he raised him above all the animals he submitted to his power, and desired him to name each of them as a master named his slaves. Finally, because the man was alone, and he needed a help that was similar to him, the Lord did not fail to give him this satisfaction; and having created the woman according to the type of his divine wisdom, he put it into his hands. Finally, the Lord crowned these immense benefits by the honor of the gift of prophecy and the privilege of reigning as sovereign over the entire universe. He even wanted Adam to be frightened of all anxiety and worry about the needs of the body and the use of clothing: so that on earth he led the lives of angels. Yes, by the mere memory of these ineffable benefits, I know only how to admire the goodness of the Lord, and I am astonished to see the man so ungrateful, and the devil so filled with a black jealousy. For this evil spirit could only endure in a mortal body the man was the equal of the angels.

And they were both naked, Adam and the woman, and they did not blush. (Gen. II, 25.) Consider, I invite you, the eminent happiness of our first parents. How high they were above all sensible and gross creatures! they dwelt less on the earth than the sky; and although clothed with a body, they did not feel the infirmities, since they did not need a roof, nor clothes, nor any other external help. Now it is not without reason and without motive that Holy Scripture enters into this detail, and teaches us that their life was exempt from. sorrow and sadness, and that their condition was almost that of angels. She wishes that, seeing them then stripped of all these privileges, and fallen from a high opulence into a deep misery, we attribute their fall only to their own negligence. For the rest, it is important to pay attention to this entire passage of Genesis. For Moses first said that Adam and Eve were naked, and that they did not blush. Hey! how could they have known their nakedness, since heavenly glory seems like a superb garment! Then he adds that the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that (88) the Lord God had created on the earth, and the serpent said to the woman: Why did God tell you: do not eat fruit of all the trees that are in paradise?

Do you see the black jealousy of the devil, and his pitfalls multiplied! he could not bear to see that the man was placed in a rank of honor which almost equaled him to the angels. And indeed, the Psalmist says of man: Lord, you have lowered him a little below the angels (Ps. VIII, 6); and again, this expression, a little lowered, relates to the state which followed the sin of disobedience, since David spoke after the fall of man. The demon, therefore, saw that man was an angel on earth, and the sight of his happiness made the author of all evil dry out of envy. For he himself had been part of the heavenly choruses, but his evil will and great mischief had precipitated him from the highest heaven. This is why he tried to make the man disobedient, so that by making him lose the divine grace, he could deprive him of the goods of which the Lord had enriched him. How did he do it? He used the snake, which was the wisest of all animals, as we learn it: Moses: Now the snake was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had created on earth. It was the instrument he used to deceive the woman, and to seduce her by an insidious familiarity, as being weaker and simpler than man. And the snake told the woman. This interview shows us that, in principle, neither man nor woman feared animals, and that they all recognized their empire and their authority. Wild and ferocious beasts were as submissive as pets are today. [Homilies on Genesis]

METHODIUS OF OLYMPUS. Paul (in Eph. 5), would not vainly refer to Christ and the Church the union of the first man and woman, if the Scripture meant nothing higher than what is conveyed by the mere words and the history; for if we are to take the Scripture as a bare representation wholly referring to the union of man and woman, for what reason should the apostle, calling these things to remembrance, and guiding us, as I preach, into the way of the Spirit, allegorize the history of Adam and Eve as having a reference to Christ and the Church? For the passage in Genesis reads thus: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Gen. 2:23-24) But the apostle considering this passage, by no means intends to take it according to its mere natural sense, as referring to the union of man and woman, explaining the passage in too natural a sense, laid down that the Spirit is speaking only of conception and births; that the bone taken from the bones was made another man, and that living creatures coming together swell like trees at the time of conception. But he, more spiritually referring the passage to Christ, thus teaches: “He that loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the Church: for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” (Eph. 5:29) [Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse 3.1 ANF v.6]

TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE. For the laying down of the law of once marrying, the very origin of the human race is our authority; witnessing as it emphatically does what God constituted in the beginning for a type to be examined with care by posterity. For when He had molded man, and had foreseen that a peer was necessary for him, He borrowed from his ribs one, and fashioned for him one woman; whereas, of course, neither the Artificer nor the material would have been insufficient (for the creation of more). There were more ribs in Adam, and hands that knew no weariness in God; but not more wives in the eye of God. And accordingly, the man of God, Adam, and the woman of God, Eve, discharging mutually (the duties of) one marriage, sanctioned for mankind a type by (the considerations of) the authoritative precedent of their origin and the primal will of God. Finally, “there shall be,” said He, “two in one flesh,” not three nor four. On any other hypothesis, there would no longer be “one flesh,” nor “two (joined) into one flesh.” These will be so, if the conjunction and the growing together in unity take place once for all. If, however, (it take place) a second time, or oftener, immediately (the flesh) ceases to be “one,” and there will not be “two (joined) into one flesh,” but plainly one rib (divided) into more. But when the apostle interprets, “The two shall be (joined) into one flesh” of the Church and Christ, according to the spiritual nuptials of the Church and Christ (for Christ is one, and one is His Church), we are bound to recognize a duplication and additional enforcement for us of the law of unity of marriage, not only in accordance with the foundation of our race, but in accordance with the sacrament of Christ. From one marriage do we derive our origin in each case; carnally in Adam, spiritually in Christ. The two births combine in laying down one prescriptive rule of monogamy. In regard of each of the two, is he degenerate who transgresses the limit of monogamy. Plurality of marriage began with an accursed man. Lamech was the first who, by marrying himself to two women, caused three to be (joined) “into one flesh.” [On Exhortation to Chastity 5, ANF v.4]

THEODORET OF CYRUS. Soon after being created, Adam and his partner, like newborn babes and innocent of sin, were not ashamed to go about without clothing, but after experiencing sin, they covered some parts of their bodies with leaves. [Question 28 on Genesis]