Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.21–9.8

Therefore whoever tries to understand how the eternal God, truly eternal and truly immortal and unchangeable, himself moved neither through place nor through time, moves his creation in time and place, cannot, I think, attain it unless he first understands how the soul, that is, a created spirit moved not through place but only through time, moves the body through time and place. For if it cannot yet grasp what goes on in itself, how much less what is above it! For the soul, affected by the habit of the fleshly senses, thinks that it too is moved through place with the body, while it moves the body through place. But if it could carefully inspect, as it were, the hinges of the limbs of its body, how they are arranged joint by joint, and from which the beginnings of movements take their support, it would find that the things moved through spaces of place are not moved except from those which are fixed in place. For a finger alone is not moved unless the hand is fixed, from whose joint, as from an unmoved hinge, it is moved. So the whole hand is moved from the joint of the elbow, so the forearm from the joint of the shoulder, and the upper arm from the shoulder blade: when it is moved, the hinges on which the movement relies standing still, what is moved goes through a space of place. So the foot has its joint in the ankle, by whose standing still it is moved; so the leg has its joint in the knee, and the whole leg in the hip. And there is no movement at all of a limb which the will moves, except from some hinge of a joint which the signal of the same will first fixes, so that what is moved can be moved from what is not moved in space of place. Finally, in walking too a foot is not raised unless the other, fixed, bears the whole body, until the one that was moved, carried from the place where it is to the place where it is going, rests on the unmoved joint of its hinge. Further, if in the body the will moves no limb through place except from the joint of the limb which it does not move, although both the part of the body that is moved and the part fixed so that it may be moved have their bodily quantities by which they occupy the spaces of their places, how much more is the very signal of the soul, which the limbs serve so that what it pleases is fixed and what is to be moved relies on it (since the soul is not a bodily nature, nor does it fill the body by local space, as water fills a skin or a sponge, but is mingled in wonderful ways with the body by giving it life, by that very bodiless signal by which it also commands the body by a kind of intention, not by bulk): how much more, I say, is the very signal of its will not moved through place in order to move the body through place, since it moves the whole by parts, and moves no parts in place except through those which it does not move in place!

But if this is hard to understand, let both be believed: that the spiritual creation, not moved through place, moves the body through place, and that God, not moved through time, moves the spiritual creation through time. But if anyone does not want to believe this of the soul (which he would doubtless not only believe but also understand, if he could think of it as bodiless, as it is; for to whom would it not readily occur that what is not extended through spaces of place is not moved through place? Whatever is extended through spaces of place is a body; and therefore it follows that the soul is not to be thought to be moved through place, if it is believed not to be a body): but, as I had begun to say, if anyone does not want to believe this of the soul, he need not be pressed too hard; but unless he believes that the substance of God is moved neither through time nor through place, he does not yet believe it to be perfectly unchangeable.

But because that nature of the Trinity is altogether unchangeable, and therefore so eternal that nothing can be coeternal with it, itself with itself and in itself without any time or place, it nevertheless moves through time and place the creation subject to it, creating natures by its goodness and ordering wills by its power, so that among natures there is none that is not from him, and among wills none good that he does not help, none evil that he cannot use well. But because he did not give choice of will to all natures, and those to which he gave it are more powerful and higher, the natures which do not have will must be subject to those which have it, and this by the ordering of the Creator, who never punishes an evil will in such a way as to destroy the dignity of its nature. Since, then, every body and every irrational soul lacks choice of will, these are subject to the natures endowed with choice of will; not all to all, but as the justice of the Creator distributes. So the providence of God, ruling and governing the whole creation, both natures and wills (natures so that they exist, wills so that the good are not fruitless nor the evil unpunished), first subjects all things to himself, then the bodily creation to the spiritual, the irrational to the rational, the earthly to the heavenly, the female to the male, the less strong to the stronger, the needier to the richer; and among wills, the good to himself, and the rest to those who serve him, so that the evil will suffers what the good will has done at God's command, whether by itself or through an evil will, in those things at least which are by nature subject even to evil wills, that is, in bodies. For in themselves evil wills have their inner punishment, which is their very wickedness itself.

And therefore to the exalted angels, who enjoy God in subjection and serve God in happiness, is subject every bodily nature, every irrational life, every will either weak or depraved, so that they do with or concerning their subjects what the order of nature requires in all things, at the command of him to whom all things are subject. So they see in him the unchangeable truth and direct their wills according to it. They become, then, partakers of his eternity, truth, and will, always, without time and place; but by his command they are moved also in time, he not being moved in time; and not so as to spring back or flow away from contemplating him, but they both contemplate him without place and time and carry out his commands among lower things, moving themselves through time and bodies through time and place, as far as befits their action. And therefore God presides over his whole creation by the twofold work of his providence: over natures, so that they come to be; over wills, so that they do nothing without his command or permission.

The nature of the bodily universe, then, is not helped bodily from outside. For there is no body outside it; otherwise it is not the universe. But it is helped from within in a bodiless way, God bringing it about that it is a nature at all, since from him and through him and in him are all things. But the parts of that universe are both helped from within in a bodiless way, or rather made, so that they are natures, and helped from outside bodily, so that they may be in better condition, as by food, farming, medicine, and whatever is done also for adornment, so that they may be not only sound and more fruitful but also more beautiful. But created spiritual nature, if it is perfect and happy, like that of the holy angels, is helped, as far as concerns itself, so that it exists and is wise, only from within in a bodiless way. For God speaks to it inwardly in a wonderful and ineffable manner, not through writing fixed on bodily materials, nor through voices sounding in bodily ears, nor through likenesses of bodies such as are formed in the spirit in images, as in dreams or in some going out of the spirit (which in Greek is called ecstasis, and we now use that word for the Latin). For this kind of vision too, although it takes place more inwardly than the things reported to the mind through the bodily senses, is nevertheless, because it is like them, so that when it happens it either cannot be distinguished from them at all or certainly only with difficulty and very rarely, and because it is more outward than what the rational and intellectual mind beholds in the unchangeable truth itself and by whose light it judges all these things, to be counted, I think, among the things which happen from outside. So the perfect and happy spiritual and intellectual creation, such as the angels' is, as I said, is helped, as far as concerns itself, so that it exists and is wise and happy, only from within, by the eternity, truth, and love of the Creator; and if it is to be said to be helped from outside, it is perhaps helped only by this, that they see one another and rejoice in their fellowship in God, and that, beholding all creatures, themselves included, it gives thanks on every side and praises the Creator. But as for the action of the angelic creation, by which God's providence watches over the kinds of all things and above all the human kind, it helps from outside both through those visions which are like bodily things and through bodies themselves, which are subject to angelic power.

Since this is so, since God almighty and all-holding, always the same in unchangeable eternity, truth, and will, not moved through time or through place, moves the spiritual creation through time and moves also the bodily creation through time and place, so that by that movement he governs also from outside the natures which he established from within, both through wills subject to him, which he moves through time, and through bodies subject to him and to those wills, which he moves through time and place, at that time and place whose reason is life in God himself without time and place: when, then, God does something of this kind, we ought not to suppose that his substance, by which he is God, is changeable in times and places or movable through times and places, but to recognize these things in the work of divine providence; not in that work by which he creates natures, but in that by which he governs from outside also the natures created from within; since he himself, by no interval or space of places, by his unchangeable and surpassing power, is both more inward than every thing, because in him are all things, and more outward than every thing, because he himself is above all things. Likewise, by no interval or space of times, by his unchangeable eternity, he is both older than all things, because he is before all things, and newer than all things, because the same he is after all things.

Therefore, when we hear Scripture saying, “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: From every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat of it. On the day you eat of it, you shall die by death,” if we ask the manner in which God spoke these things, the manner itself cannot properly be grasped by us. Yet we ought to hold most certainly that God speaks either through his own substance or through a creature subject to him; but that he does not speak through his substance except to create all natures, and, for spiritual and intellectual natures, not only to create but also to enlighten them, when they can already grasp his speech as it is in his Word, which in the beginning was with God, and the Word was God, through whom all things were made. But to those who cannot grasp it, when God speaks, he speaks only through a creature: either only a spiritual one, whether in dreams or in ecstasy, in the likeness of bodily things, or else through the bodily creation itself, when some form appears to the bodily senses or voices sound. If, then, Adam was such that he could grasp that speech of God which he offers to angelic minds through his substance, there is no doubt that God moved his mind through time in a wonderful and ineffable way, not himself moved through time, and impressed on him the useful and wholesome command of truth, and by that same ineffable truth showed him what punishment was owed to the transgressor; just as all good commands are heard or seen in the unchangeable Wisdom itself, which passes into holy souls from a certain time, though there is no movement of it in time. But if Adam was just in such a way that he still needed the authority of another, holier and wiser creature, through which he might know God's will and command, as we need prophets and they need angels, why should we doubt that God spoke to him through some such creature with signs of voices that he could understand? For what is written afterwards, that when they had sinned they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise, was done not through the very substance of God but through a creature subject to him; no one who understands the catholic faith doubts this. For I wished to discuss this matter somewhat more at length for this reason, that some heretics think that the substance of the Son of God, without taking on any body, is visible in itself, and so suppose that before he received a body from the virgin he himself was seen by the fathers, as though it were said of God the Father alone, “whom no man has seen or can see,” because the Son was seen even through his own substance before he took the form of a servant: an ungodliness to be driven far from catholic minds. But of this we will speak more fully elsewhere, if it pleases the Lord; now, with this volume ended, what follows, how the woman was created from her husband's side, is to be looked for in the next.

“And the Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make for him a helper corresponding to him. And God formed besides 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 the cattle and for all the birds of the sky and for all the beasts of the field. But for Adam himself no helper like him was found. And God sent 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, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken from her husband. And for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be glued to his wife; and the two will be in one flesh.” If what was considered and written in the previous books helps the reader at all, we ought not to dwell longer on this, that God formed besides from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky; for why “besides” was said, namely because of the first founding of creatures completed in six days, in which all things were causally completed and begun together, so that afterwards the causes might be brought to their effects, we have already shown in the preceding books as far as we could. And if anyone thinks this should be untied otherwise, let him only attend carefully to all those things which we attended to so as to hold this view; and if from them he can draw out a more probable view, we ought not only not to resist but even to rejoice. But if anyone is disturbed because it did not say, “God formed besides from the earth all the beasts of the field and from the waters all the birds of the sky,” but says, as though he formed both kinds from the earth, “And God formed besides from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky,” let him see that it can be understood in two ways: either that it was silent here about what he formed the birds of the sky from, because this could occur to the reader even unsaid, so that it is not taken that God formed both from the earth, but only the beasts of the field, and we understand, even with Scripture silent, from what he formed the birds of the sky, as people who know that in the first founding of the causal reasons they were produced from the waters; or that “earth” is used universally together with the waters, as it is used in that psalm where, the praises of the heavenly things ended, the speech turns to the earth and it is said, “Praise the Lord from the earth, dragons and all deeps,” and so on, and it is not afterwards said, “Praise the Lord from the waters.” For where are all the deeps, which nevertheless praise the Lord from the earth? Where too are the creeping things and the winged birds, which nonetheless praise the Lord from the earth? According to this universal use of “earth,” in which it is also said of the whole world, “God who made heaven and earth,” whatever was created, whether from the earth or from the waters, is truly understood as created from the earth.

Now let us see how we are to take what God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make for him a helper corresponding to him”: whether God said this in time, with voices and syllables uttered, or whether the reason itself is recalled which was in the Word of God as in its source, that the woman should be made so; a reason which Scripture was also taking up when it said, “And God said: Let there be” this or that, when all things were first being founded. Or perhaps God said this in the mind of the man himself, as he speaks to some of his servants within those very servants? Of this kind of his servants was also the one who said in the psalm, “I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me.” Or was some revelation about this made to the man himself within himself through an angel, in likenesses of bodily voices, though Scripture is silent as to whether it was in dreams or in ecstasy? For this is how such things usually happen. Or in some other way, as revelation is made to the prophets? Hence the saying, “And the angel who spoke in me said to me.” Or did the voice itself sound through a bodily creature, as from the cloud: “This is my Son”? Which of all these happened, we cannot grasp clearly; yet let us hold most certainly both that God said this, and that, if he said it with a bodily voice or with a likeness of a body expressed in time, he said it not through his own substance but through some creature subject to his command, as we treated in the previous book. For God was seen later too by holy men, sometimes with a head white as wool, sometimes with the lower part of the body like brass, sometimes in one way and sometimes in another; yet it is most certain, to those who either faithfully believe or even excellently understand that the substance of the Trinity, unchangeably eternal, is moved neither through time nor through place and moves things through time and place, that he did not present those visions to men through the substance by which he is, but through things subject to him which he created, and showed and said what he willed through likenesses of bodily forms and voices. Let us not then ask further how God said this, but rather understand what he said. That a helper corresponding to man had to be made, the eternal Truth itself contains, through which all things were created; and he hears this in it who can recognize in it what was created and why.

But if it is asked for what purpose this helper had to be made, nothing else occurs as probable than the procreation of children, just as the earth is a helper to the seed, so that a plant may be born from both; for this had also been said in the first founding of things: “Male and female he made them, and God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it.” This reason for the founding and joining of male and female, and this blessing, did not fail even after man's sin and punishment. For it is that by which the earth is now full of men having dominion over it. For although they are recorded as having come together and had children only after they had been sent out of paradise, I still do not see what could have prevented their having, even in paradise, honorable marriage and an undefiled bed, God granting this to them as they lived faithfully and justly and served him obediently and holily, so that without any restless heat of lust, without any labor and pain of childbirth, offspring would be born from their seed; not so that children would succeed parents who died, but so that, those who had begotten remaining in some state of form and taking bodily vigor from the tree of life which was planted there, those who were begotten would also be brought to the same state, until, a certain number having been filled up, if all lived justly and obediently, then that change would take place, so that without death animal bodies would be turned into another quality, because they would obey at every signal the spirit ruling them and, living by the life-giving spirit alone, without any bodily supports of food, would be called spiritual. This could have happened, if the transgression of the command had not deserved the punishment of death. Those who do not believe this could have happened pay attention to nothing but the customary course of nature, which now runs so after sin and human punishment; but we ought not to be among those who believe nothing except what they are used to seeing. For who would doubt that what we have said could have been granted to man living obediently and piously, if he does not doubt that the clothes of the Israelites were given a certain state of their own kind, so that for forty years they suffered no damage from age?

Why then did they not come together until they had left paradise? It can be answered quickly: because soon after the woman was created, before they came together, that transgression took place, by whose desert, destined for death, they also went out of the place of that happiness. For Scripture did not state the time, how long there was between their being made and Cain's being born of them. It can also be said that God had not yet commanded them to come together. For why should divine authority not be awaited for this, where no concupiscence, as the goad of disobedient flesh, was pressing? And God had not commanded this because he was arranging all things according to his foreknowledge, in which he without doubt also foreknew their fall, from which the human race, now mortal, was to be propagated.

Or if the woman was not made for the man as a helper for begetting children, for what help then was she made? If it was to work the earth together with him, there was not yet toil, so as to need help; and if there were need, a male would be a better helper. The same can be said of companionship, if perhaps he grew weary of solitude. For how much more fittingly would two friends live together, on equal terms, for living and talking together, than a man and a woman? And if it was necessary for one to command and the other to obey as they lived together, so that opposed wills would not disturb the peace of those living together, an order to keep this would not have been lacking, by which one would be first and the other second, especially if the second were created from the first, as the woman was created. Or will anyone say that from the man's rib God could have made only a woman, and not a man too, if he wished? Therefore I do not find for what help the woman was made for the man, if the reason of childbearing is taken away.

For if parents had to give way to their children from this life, so that the whole human race would be filled up to a certain number by departures and successions, human beings could also, having begotten children and completed the justice of human duty, be transferred from here to better things, not by death but by some change: either that highest change by which, their bodies received back, the saints will become like the angels in heaven, or, if that is not to be given except to all together at the end of the age, some lower one than that; which would nevertheless have a better state than either this body has, or even those bodies have which were first made, the man's from the mud of the earth, the woman's from the man's flesh. For we are not to think that Elijah is either already as the saints will be when, the day of work done, they will receive the denarius together, or as men are who have not yet departed from this life, from which he departed nevertheless not by death but by being taken away. So he already has something better than he could in this life, although he does not yet have what he will have at the end because of a life well lived; for they foresaw better things for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us. Or if anyone thinks that Elijah could not have deserved this if he had taken a wife and had children (for he is believed not to have had them, because Scripture did not say so, although it said nothing about his celibacy either), what will he answer about Enoch, who, having begotten children and pleasing God, did not die but was taken away? Why then could not Adam and Eve too, if, living justly, they had chastely procreated children, give way to them as successors by being taken away, not by death? For if Enoch and Elijah, dead in Adam and bearing in their flesh the offspring of death (to pay which debt they are believed also to be going to return to this life and to die, what has been so long put off), are nevertheless now in another life, where, before the resurrection of the flesh, before the animal body is changed into a spiritual one, they do not fail by disease or old age: how much more justly and probably would it have been granted to those first human beings, living without any sin of their own or of their parents, that, having begotten children, they should give way into some better state, from which, at the end of the age, with all the posterity of the saints, they would be changed into angelic form, not through the death of the flesh but through the power of God, much more happily!

So I do not see for what other help the woman was made for the man, if the reason of begetting is taken away; nor do I know why it should be taken away. For why does faithful and devout virginity have a great merit, and one of great honor, with God, except that in this present time of abstaining from embrace, when from all nations a most abundant supply is at hand for filling up the number of the saints, the desire for enjoying sordid pleasure does not claim for itself what the need of providing offspring no longer demands? Finally, the weakness of both sexes, inclining toward the ruin of shamefulness, is rightly caught by the honorableness of marriage, so that what could be a duty for the healthy is a remedy for the sick. For it is not because incontinence is an evil that marriage, even that by which the incontinent are joined, is not a good; on the contrary, this good is not blameworthy because of that evil, but that evil is pardonable because of this good, since that which is good in marriage, and by which marriage is good, can never be sin. And this is threefold: fidelity, offspring, sacrament. In fidelity, care is taken that there be no lying with another man or woman outside the marriage bond; in offspring, that it be lovingly received, kindly nourished, and religiously brought up; in the sacrament, that the marriage not be separated, and that a man or woman sent away not be joined to another, not even for the sake of offspring. This is, as it were, the rule of marriage, by which either the fruitfulness of nature is adorned or the depravity of incontinence is governed. And since we have discussed this sufficiently in the book we recently published on the good of marriage, where we also distinguished the continence of widows and the excellence of virgins according to the dignity of their ranks, our pen need not be occupied with it longer here.

For we are now asking for what help the woman was made for the man, if they were not allowed to unite with each other in paradise to beget children. For those who hold this perhaps think that all intercourse is sin. For it is difficult for men, while perversely avoiding vices, not to run headlong into their opposites. For just as one who shudders at avarice becomes prodigal, or one who shudders at luxury becomes avaricious, or one whose laziness you rebuke becomes restless, or one whose restlessness you rebuke becomes lazy, or one who, rebuked, has begun to hate his rashness flees to timidity, or one who tries not to be timid becomes reckless as if a chain were broken, while they measure faults not by reason but by opinion: so, while men do not know what is condemned by divine law in adulteries and acts of sexual immorality, they detest even marital intercourse for the sake of procreation.