Literal Commentary on Genesis 6.5–6.16

Finally, what shall we answer about the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, which God brought to Adam to see what he would call them? For it is written thus: “And the Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make for him a help according to himself. And God formed further from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever Adam called each living soul, that is its name. And Adam called names for all cattle and all the birds of the sky and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. And God cast an ecstasy upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs and filled up flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman.” If, then, consequently, when no help like the man was found among the cattle and the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, God made a help like him from the rib of his side, and this happened when he had further formed those same beasts of the field and birds of the sky from the earth and brought them to him: how can this be understood to have happened on the sixth day, since on that day the earth brought forth the living soul at the word of God, while the waters brought forth the birds on the fifth day, likewise at the word of God? So it would not be said here, “And God formed further from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky,” unless the earth had already brought forth all the beasts of the field on the sixth day and the water all the birds of the sky on the fifth day. So it was in one way then, that is, potentially and causally, as befitted that work by which he created all things at once, from which he rested on the seventh day; but in another way now, as we see the things which he creates through spans of time, as he is working until now. And so Eve was made from the side of her husband already in these well-known days of bodily light, which come about by the circuit of the sun. For then God further formed from the earth the beasts and birds, among which, when no help like Adam was found, she was formed. In such days, then, God formed him too from the clay.

For it must not be said that the male was made on the sixth day and the female on later days, since on that sixth day itself it is said most plainly, “Male and female he made them, and blessed them,” and the other things that are said of both and to both. So both were made in one way then and both in another way now: then, namely, according to the power placed in the world by the Word of God, as it were seminally, when he created all things at once, from which he rested on the seventh day, from which all things would come to be, each in its own time, through the order of the ages; but now according to the working that is to be supplied to times, by which he is working until now; and it was fitting that Adam should now be made in his own time from the clay of the earth and his wife from the man's side.

In this distribution of the works of God, partly belonging to those invisible days in which he created all things at once, partly to these days in which he works daily whatever unfolds in time from those things, as from primordial wrappings, if we have not followed the words of Scripture, which led us to make these distinctions, inappropriately or absurdly, we must take care lest, because of the somewhat difficult perception of the things themselves, which slower minds are not able to attain, we be thought to hold and say something which we know we neither hold nor say. For although in the preceding books I have prepared the reader as much as I could, I think many are still in the dark in these places, and suppose that man was first in that work of God in which all things were created at once in such a way that he led some kind of life, so that he could discern, believe, and understand the speech of God directed to him when God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing food.” Let him who thinks this know, then, that I have neither held nor said it.

But again, if I say that man was not in that first establishing of things, in which God created all things at once, in the way that a man of full age is, nor even an infant, and not only not an infant but not even an embryo in the mother's womb, and not only that but not even the visible seed of a man, he will think that he did not exist at all. Let him return, then, to Scripture: he will find that man was made on the sixth day to the image of God, and made male and female. Let him likewise ask when the woman was made: he will find it outside those six days; for she was made then, when God further formed from the earth the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, not when the waters brought forth the birds and the earth brought forth the living soul, among which are also the beasts. But man, both male and female, was made then: so both then and afterward. For it is not then and not afterward, or afterward and not then; nor were others made afterward, but the very same ones in one way then and in another way afterward. He will ask me: How afterward? I will answer: visibly, in the form of the human constitution known to us, yet not by parents begetting, but he from the clay, she from his rib. He will ask: How then? I will answer: invisibly, potentially, causally, as things to come are made, not yet made.

Here perhaps he will not understand. For everything he knows is taken away from him, even down to the bodily substance of seeds. For man was not even anything like that when he had been made in that first establishing of the six days. Some likeness to this matter is indeed given from seeds, because of the future things bound up in them; but those causes are prior to all visible seeds. But he does not understand. What, then, shall I do, except, as far as I can, warn him for his good to believe the Scripture of God: that man was made both then, when God, when the day was made, made heaven and earth (of which Scripture says elsewhere, “He who lives forever created all things at once”), and then, when, no longer creating at once but each thing in its own time, he formed him from the clay of the earth and the woman from his bone? For Scripture does not allow us to understand either that they were made in this way on that sixth day, or yet that they were not made on that sixth day.

Were their souls, then, perhaps made on that sixth day, in which the image of God itself is rightly understood to be in the spirit of their mind, so that their bodies were formed afterward? But the same Scripture does not allow us to believe this either. First, because of that completion of the works (and I do not see how it can be understood if something was then lacking that was not established causally, to be established afterward visibly); second, because the sex itself of male and female cannot exist except in bodies. And if anyone thinks that both sexes, as it were, are to be understood in one soul, according to understanding and action, what will he do with the food that God gave on that same day from the fruits of the trees, which is certainly fitting only for a man who has a body? For if anyone wishes to take this food too figuratively, he will depart from the proper sense of the events, which in narratives of this kind must first of all be established with all care.

“How, then,” he says, “did he speak to those who did not yet hear or understand, since there was no one yet to receive the words?” I could answer that God addressed them in the way Christ addressed us, not yet born and to come so long afterward, and not only us but also all those who will come after us. For he said to all whom he saw would be his, “Behold, I am with you to the end of the age”; as the prophet was known to God, to whom he said, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”; as Levi paid tithes when he was in the loins of Abraham. Why, then, not Abraham himself likewise in Adam, and Adam himself in the first works of the world, which God created all at once? But the words of the Lord through the mouth of his flesh, and the words of God through the mouths of the prophets, are uttered by the temporal voice of a body and take up and use up delays of time fitting to all their syllables. But when God said, “Let us make man to our image and likeness, and let him have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth,” and, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it, and have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth,” and, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing food seeding seed which is upon all the earth, and every fruit-bearing tree which has in itself the fruit of seed that will be, for food for you”: his speech itself, before any sound of air, before any voice of flesh or cloud, in that supreme Wisdom of his through which all things were made, did not resound as if to human ears; rather, it inserted in things made the causes of things to be made, and by almighty power made future things, and established man, to be formed in his own time, as in the seed or the root of times, when he established that from which the ages would begin, established by him who is before the ages. For some creatures precede others, some in time, some in causes; but he precedes all that he made not only by excellence, by which he is also the maker of causes, but also by eternity. But perhaps this should be discussed more fully later at more suitable places in the Scriptures.

Now let us finish what we began about man, keeping this moderation: that in the deep sense of Scripture we show the diligence of inquiring rather than the rashness of affirming. That God knew Jeremiah before he formed him in the womb, it is not right to doubt; for he says most plainly, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” But where he knew him before he formed him thus, even if it is difficult or impossible for our weakness to attain (whether in some nearer causes, as Levi paid tithes in the loins of Abraham; or in Adam himself, in whom the human race was established as at its root; and in Adam himself, whether when he had already been formed from clay, or when he was made causally in those works which God created all at once; or rather before all creation, as he chose and predestined his saints before the foundation of the world; or rather in all the preceding causes, whether those I have mentioned or those I have not, before he was formed in the womb): I do not think we need inquire more scrupulously, provided it is established that Jeremiah, from the time he was brought forth by his parents into this light, led his own life, by which, growing with the increase of age, he could live either badly or well; but before that in no way, not only before he was formed in the womb, but not even when already formed there, before he was born. For that apostolic statement about the twins in Rebecca's womb, not yet doing anything good or evil, admits no hesitation.

Yet it is not written in vain that not even an infant whose life on earth is of one day is clean from sin, and that in the psalm, “I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother nourished me in the womb,” and that in Adam all die, in whom all sinned. But now let us hold clearly that, whatever merits of parents are passed on to offspring, whatever grace of God sanctifies anyone before he is born, there is no iniquity with God, and no one does good or evil, as regards his own person, before he is born; and that the view by which some think that souls sinned more or less elsewhere and were thrust into different bodies according to the merits of their different sins does not agree with the apostle's statement, since it is said most plainly that those not yet born had done nothing, either good or evil.

And therefore it is another question, to be treated again in its place, what the whole lump of the human race contracted from the sin of the first parents, who were only two; but there is no question that man could have had no merits of this kind before he was formed from the dust of the earth, before he lived in his own time. For just as we could not say that Esau and Jacob, whom the apostle said had done nothing good or evil before they were born, contracted any merit from their parents if the parents themselves had done nothing good or evil, nor that the human race sinned in Adam if Adam himself had not sinned (and Adam would not have sinned unless he were already living in his own time, in which he could live either well or badly): so it is vain to look for his sin or his right action when, still established causally among the things created at once, he was neither yet living a life of his own nor was in parents so living. For in that first establishing of the world, when God created all things at once, man was made who was to be: the reason for creating man, not the action of a man created.

But these things are in one way in the Word of God, where they are not made but eternal; in another way in the elements of the world, where all things that are to be were made at once; in another way in the things which, according to the causes created at once, are created no longer at once but each in its own time, among which is Adam, already formed from clay and animated by the breath of God, like the grass that has sprung up; and in another way in seeds, in which there are again, as it were, primordial causes, drawn from the things that came into being according to the causes which he first established, as the herb from the earth, the seed from the herb. In all these, things already made have received the modes and actions of their own time, which have come forth into manifest forms and natures from the hidden and invisible reasons that lie causally in creation, like the herb that has sprung up upon the earth and man made into a living soul, and other things of this kind, whether plants or animals, belonging to that working of God by which he is working until now. But these too carry with them, as it were, themselves again, invisibly, in a certain hidden power of generating, which they drew from those primordial beginnings of their causes, in which they were inserted into the created world, when the day was made, before they arose into the manifest form of their kind.

For if those first works of God, when he created all things at once, were not perfect in their own way, then without doubt whatever was lacking for their perfection would have been added afterward, so that a certain perfection of the universe would consist of the two, each as it were a half, as if they were parts of some whole, by whose joining the whole of which they were parts would be completed. Again, if they had been perfect in the way things are perfected when each is brought forth in its own time into manifest forms and actions, then surely either nothing would be made from them after those times, or only what God does not cease to work from these things that now arise, each in its own time. But as it is, the very things which God first created all at once, when he made the world, to be unfolded in following times, are in one way completed and in one way begun: completed, because they have nothing in their own natures, by which they run the courses of their times, that was not made causally in those first works; begun, because they were as it were seeds of future things, to be brought forth through the course of the age from hidden to manifest in fitting places. And the words of Scripture itself are strikingly forceful in reminding us of this, if anyone will wake up to them. For it says both that they were completed and that they were begun. For if they had not been completed, it would not have been written, “And heaven and earth were completed, and all their arrangement. And on the sixth day God completed his works which he made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it”; and again, if they had not been begun, there would not follow, “because on that day he rested from all his works which God began to make.”

If anyone asks here how he completed and how he began (for he did not complete some things and begin others, but certainly the same things from which he rested on the seventh day), it is clear from what we said above. For we understand that God completed these things when he created all things at once so perfectly that there was nothing further for him to create in the order of times that had not already been created by him here in the order of causes; and that he began them, so that what he had here fixed beforehand in causes he would afterward fulfill in effects. Accordingly, God formed man, dust of the earth, or clay of the earth (that is, from the dust or clay of the earth), and breathed or blew into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul: not then predestined (for this was before the age, in the foreknowledge of the Creator), nor then begun causally, either completely begun or incompletely completed (for this was from the age, in the primordial reasons, when all things were created at once), but created in his own time, visibly in the body, invisibly in the soul, consisting of soul and body.

Now, then, let us see how God made him: first his body from the earth; afterward we shall see about the soul too, if we are able. For to think that God formed man from clay with bodily hands is an excessively childish thought; so much so that, if Scripture had said this, we ought rather to believe that the writer used a figurative word than that God is bounded by such outlines of limbs as we see in our bodies. For it is said, “Your hand destroyed the nations,” and, “You led out your people with a strong hand and an uplifted arm.” But who is so foolish as not to understand that the name of this member is put for the power and might of God?

Nor should we heed what some think, that man is God's chief work because he spoke the other things and they were made, but made this one himself; rather it is because he made him to his own image. For of the things he spoke and they were made, it is written thus because they were made through his Word, as it could be said by a man to men in words that are thought in time and uttered by the voice. But God does not speak thus except when he speaks through a bodily creature, as to Abraham, as to Moses, as through the cloud about his Son. Before all creation, however, so that creation itself might exist, it was spoken by that Word who in the beginning was God with God; and since all things were made through him and without him nothing was made, certainly man too was made through him. Certainly he made heaven by the Word, since he spoke and it was made; yet it is written, “And the heavens are the works of your hands.” And of this lowest part, the floor as it were, of the world it is written, “For the sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.” So let it not be counted to man's honor as if God spoke the other things and they were made but made this one himself, or made the others by word but this one by hands. Rather, man excels in this, that God made man to his own image, because he gave him an intellectual mind, by which he surpasses the cattle, as we have already discussed in an earlier place. Placed in this honor, if he does not understand so as to act well, he will be compared to those very cattle over which he was set. For so it is written: “Man, placed in honor, did not understand; he was compared to senseless cattle and became like them.” For God made the cattle too, but not to his own image.

Nor should it be said, “He made man himself, but commanded the cattle, and they were made”; for he made both this one and those through his Word, through whom all things were made. But since that same Word is also his Wisdom and Power, it is also called his hand, not a visible member but the power of effecting. For this same Scripture, which says that God formed man from the clay of the earth, says also that he formed the beasts of the field from the earth, when he brought them with the birds of the sky to Adam to see what he would call them. For it is written thus: “And God formed further from the earth all the beasts.” If, then, he formed both man from the earth and the beasts from the earth, what does man have more excellent in this matter except that he was created to the image of God? Yet this is not according to the body but according to the understanding of the mind, of which we shall speak later. Although even in the body itself he has a certain property that indicates this, in that he was made with upright stature, so that by this very fact he might be reminded not to pursue earthly things like the cattle, whose whole pleasure is from the earth, which is why they are all bent and prone toward the belly. His body too, then, befits a rational soul, not according to the outlines and shapes of its limbs but rather in that it is raised toward heaven to look upon the things that are on high in the body of the world itself; just as the rational soul ought to be raised toward the things that most excel in nature among spiritual things, so as to set its mind on the things above, not on the things on earth.

But how did God make him from the clay of the earth? Suddenly, at full age, that is, as a grown young man, or as he now forms men in their mothers' wombs? For no other made these than he who said, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”; so that Adam's only peculiarity would be that he was not born of parents but made from the earth, yet in such a way that, in perfecting him and increasing him through the ages of life, those numbers of times were fulfilled which we see assigned to the nature of the human race. Or rather, should this not be asked? For whichever he did, he did what it befitted God, both almighty and wise, to be able to do and to do. For he assigned fixed laws of time to the kinds and qualities of things to be brought forth from hiding into the open in such a way that his will is above all. By his power he gave numbers to creation; he did not bind his power itself to those numbers. For his Spirit was borne above the world in making it in such a way that he is also borne above it when made, not in bodily places but by the excellence of his power.

For who does not know that water mixed with earth, when it comes to the roots of a vine, is drawn into the nourishment of that wood and takes on in it the quality by which it goes into the grape that gradually bursts forth, and, as the grape grows, becomes wine and grows sweet as it ripens; which, when pressed, still ferments, and, made firm by some aging, comes to be more useful and pleasant for drinking? Did the Lord, then, look for wood or earth or these delays of time when by a wonderful shortcut he turned water into wine, and such wine that even a drunken guest would praise it? Did the Founder of time need the help of time? Does not every kind of serpent grow together, take form, be born, and gain strength in fixed numbers of days suited to its kind? Were these days waited for, so that the rod from the hand of Moses and Aaron might be turned into a serpent? Nor, when these things happen, do they happen against nature, except for us, to whom the course of nature has become known otherwise, but not for God, for whom nature is what he has made.

But it may rightly be asked how those causal reasons which he placed in the world when he first created all things at once were set up: whether so that, as we see all things that are born, whether plants or animals, they would pass through different spans of time in their forming and growth according to the diversity of their kinds; or so that, as Adam is believed to have been made, they would be formed at once at full age without any progress of growth. But why do we not believe that they had both, so that from them would come whatever pleased him who was to make it? For if we say it was the former way, not only that wine from water but all the miracles that happen against the usual course of nature begin to seem to have been done against them; but if the latter way, it will be much more absurd that these daily forms and kinds of nature pass through the spans of their times against those primary causal reasons of all things that are born. It remains, then, that they were created fit for both ways, whether for this one, by which temporal things most usually run their course, or for that one, by which rare and wonderful things happen, as it pleases God to do what befits the time.

Nevertheless, man was made in the way those first causes held, so that the first man would be made, who had to be formed not by being born of parents, since none had preceded, but from clay, according to the causal reason in which he had first been made. For if he was made otherwise, God had not made him in the works of those six days. When he is said to have been made in them, God certainly made the very cause by which man was to be in his own time and according to which he was to be made by him who at once both completed things begun, because of the perfection of the causal reasons, and began things to be completed, because of the order of times. If, then, in those first causes of things which the Creator first inserted in the world, he placed not only that he would form man from clay but also how he would form him, whether as in a mother's womb or in youthful form, without doubt he made him as he had fixed beforehand there; for he would not act against his own arrangement. But if he placed there only the power of possibility, that man should be made, in whatever way he should be made, so that he could be made either way, that is, so that this too was there, that he could be made either way, while he kept the one way in which he would make him in his own will and did not weave it into the constitution of the world, it is plain that even so man was not made contrary to what was in that first establishing of causes, since it was there that he could also be made thus, although it was not there that he must necessarily be made thus. For this was not in the establishing of creation but in the good pleasure of the Creator, whose will is the necessity of things.

For we too, according to the capacity of human weakness, can know, in things that have already arisen in time, what is in the nature of each, which we have perceived by experience; but whether it will also come about, we do not know. For it is in the nature of this young man, for example, that he will grow old; but whether this is also in God's will, we do not know. But it would not be in his nature either unless it had first been in the will of God, who established all things. And certainly there is a hidden reason of old age in a youthful body, or of youth in a boy's body; for it is not seen with the eyes, as boyhood itself is in a boy and youth in a young man, but by some other knowledge it is gathered that there is something latent in nature by which the hidden numbers, of youth from boyhood or of old age from youth, are brought out into the open. This reason, then, by which it comes about that this can be, is hidden, but from the eyes; it is not hidden from the mind. But whether this is also necessary, we do not know at all. And the reason by which it comes about that it can be, we know to be in the nature of the body itself; but the reason by which it comes about that it must be is plainly not there.