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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Four — the creation of the first human beings

QUESTION I. Why God willed Eve to be formed from the sleeping Adam

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QUESTION I. Why God willed Eve to be formed from the sleeping Adam.1

QVAESTIO I. Cur voluit Deus ex Adam dormiente formari Euam.

MAGISTER sententiarum, in secundo libro distinctione decimaoctaua, & ibidem Scholastici respondent, tres ob causas id esse factum. Primo quidem, vt intelligeretur quàm sine vllo doloris sensu fuisset Adae costa detracta, quippe cùm ea detractione à somno quidem eum non excitasset. Deinde vt ostenderetur admirabilis Dei potentia, qui id tam facilè & suauiter facere potuerit. Denique, vt insinuaretur magnum quoddam mysterium quod in ea re latebat: quemadmodum enim ex Adami dormientis latere formata est Eua, ita ex latere Christi dormientis, id est, in cruce mortui, profluxit sanguis & aqua, vnde condita est Ecclesia. Mortem enim suam ipsemet Dominus appellat somnum, apud Dauidem psalmo tertio. Ego, inquit, dormiui & soporatus sum, & exurrexi.
The Master of the Sentences, in the second book, distinction eighteen, and the Scholastics there, answer that this was done for three causes. First, indeed, that it might be understood how, without any sense of pain, Adam's rib was removed — since by that removal it did not even rouse him from sleep. Next, that the admirable power of God might be shown, who could do it so easily and so gently. Finally, that a certain great mystery might be insinuated which lay hidden in the matter: for just as from the side of the sleeping Adam Eve was formed, so from the side of the sleeping Christ — that is, of Him dead on the cross — flowed blood and water, whence the Church was founded. For the Lord Himself calls His own death a sleep, in David, Psalm three: “I,” He says, “slept and took my rest, and I rose.”2
Verùm hanc postremam Theologorum rationem Tostatus improbat, in quaestione trecentesima quinquagesima secunda super decimumtertium caput Geneseos, eo potissimùm argumento quòd Ecclesia potius dicenda est ex Christo viuente, quàm ex mortuo esse formata: siquidem redemptio nostra omnino fundatur ac nititur merito passionis Christi, vnde vim & efficacitatem suam omnem traxere Sacramenta. Quare sanguis qui effluxit ex latere Christi iam mortui, nihil contulit ad redemptionem humani generis, nec per eum Christus quicquam nobis meruit, cùm iam esset mortuus, atque ob eam causam extra statum merendi constitutus. Sed haec Tostatus nimis ad viuum resecans, non est assecutus Theologorum sententiam: quos equidem puto non aliud significare voluisse, nisi ex latere Christi mortui fluxisse aquam & sanguinem: quibus duabus rebus signi-[ficabantur...]
But Tostatus rejects this last reason of the Theologians, in question three hundred fifty-two on the thirteenth chapter of Genesis, by this argument chiefly — that the Church ought rather to be said to be formed from the living Christ than from the dead: since indeed our redemption is wholly founded and rests upon the merit of Christ's passion, whence the Sacraments drew all their force and efficacy. Wherefore the blood which flowed from the side of Christ already dead contributed nothing to the redemption of the human race, nor did Christ merit anything for us through it, since He was already dead, and for that cause established outside the state of meriting. But Tostatus, cutting these things too close to the quick, did not attain the meaning of the Theologians: who, I indeed think, wished to signify nothing else than that from the side of the dead Christ flowed water and blood — by which two things were sig-[nified...] [continues]3
[...quibus duabus rebus signi]ficabantur duo praecipuè legis Euangelicae Sacramenta, Baptismus à quo per aquam regeneramur ad vitam spiritualem, & Eucharistia qua spiritualiter iam regenerati alimur ad aeternitatem. His autem duobus sacramentis maximè continetur & sustentatur Ecclesia. Chrysostomus homilia decimaquinta in Genesim, & Epiphanius disputans contra haeresim quadragesimamoctauam, propterea censent tam grauem & profundum somnum Adamo esse à Deo impressum, quia voluit Deus ne Adam ex detractione costae vllum sentiret dolorem.
[...by which two things were sig]nified the two chief Sacraments of the evangelical law: Baptism, by which through water we are regenerated to the spiritual life, and the Eucharist, by which, now spiritually regenerated, we are nourished unto eternity. And by these two sacraments the Church is most of all contained and sustained. Chrysostom, in the fifteenth homily on Genesis, and Epiphanius, disputing against the forty-eighth heresy, therefore think that so heavy and deep a sleep was impressed on Adam by God because God willed that Adam should feel no pain from the removal of the rib.4
VERVM praeter has rationes, licet quasdam alias ad id vel probandum vel illustrandum afferre. Et prima quidem sit haec ratio: vt quod fieri debebat in Adamo, id fieret sine vllo eius horrore & perturbatione. Nam si costa fuisset detracta vigilanti, aut id accidisset ei sine dolore, aut cum dolore: si absque dolore, visum fuisset velut quoddam phantasma aut tanquam visio quaedam prophetica; si cum dolore, nimis profecto id Adamo durum & molestum fuisset, & valdè alienum statu innocentiae & diuino pacto, vt videlicet nihil poenae contingeret Adamo ante ipsius culpam: atque haec ipsa est argumentatio Theodoreti super hoc loco. ALTERA ratio est: vt Adam quod in ipso agebatur oculis corporeis minimè cernens, sed interiori mentis acie diuinitus illustrata intelligens, declararet magnum hoc fuisse Dei opus, magnóque nobilitatum mysterio; & vt appareret quod posteà somno excitatus Adam dixit de muliere, Hoc nunc os ex ossibus meis, &c. id non humana ratio-[ne...]
But besides these reasons, it is permitted to bring forward certain others, either to prove or to illustrate the matter. And let this be the first reason: that what had to be done in Adam should be done without any horror or disturbance of his. For if the rib had been removed while he was awake, it would have befallen him either without pain or with pain: if without pain, it would have seemed like a certain phantasm, or like some prophetic vision; if with pain, it would assuredly have been too hard and troublesome for Adam, and very alien to the state of innocence and to the divine covenant — namely, that no penalty should touch Adam before his own fault. And this very thing is the argumentation of Theodoret upon this place. The second reason is: that Adam, in no way perceiving with bodily eyes what was being done in him, but understanding with the interior edge of the mind divinely illumined, might declare this to have been a great work of God, and ennobled by a great mystery; and that it might appear that what Adam, afterward awakened from sleep, said about the woman — “This now is bone of my bones,” etc. — he knew it not by human reaso[n...] [continues]5
[...id non humana ratio]ne eum cognouisse, sed reuelatione Dei didicisse, ob idque illam eius sententiam non hominis dictam, sed oraculum Dei summa fide ac veneratione acciperetur. SI quis autem me roget, qui potuerit fieri vt sine doloris sensu Adae detracta sit costa: duobus id modis fieri potuisse intelligat. Primò quidem propter profundissimam vim illius soporis hebetantis & obstupefacientis sensum: videmus enim quosdam lethargo veheménter oppressos, vsque eo carere omni sensu, vt nec verbera, nec vulnera, nec vstiones sentiant. Narrat Tostatus super caput decimumtertium Geneseos quaestione trecentesima quinquagesimaquarta, fuisse suo tempore in Hispania mulieres quasdam maleficas, quas appellant stryges, quae genere quodam vnctionis linientes corpus suum, in tantùm ab omni sensu alienabantur, vt viderentur sibi in longinquas terras per aëra deferri, & in amoenissimis locis versari, & summis voluptatibus ac deliciis perfrui: cum tamen facta illa vnctione, [caderent...]
[...he knew it not by human reaso]n, but learned it by the revelation of God; and on that account that sentence of his might be received, not as spoken by a man, but as an oracle of God, with the highest faith and veneration. But if anyone should ask me how it could come about that the rib was removed from Adam without a sense of pain, let him understand that this could happen in two ways. First, indeed, on account of the most profound force of that sleep, dulling and stupefying the sense: for we see some men so vehemently oppressed by lethargy that they lack all sense, so as to feel neither blows, nor wounds, nor burnings. Tostatus relates, on the thirteenth chapter of Genesis, question three hundred fifty-four, that there were in his own time in Spain certain malefic women, whom they call “stryges” (witches), who, anointing their bodies with a certain kind of unguent, were so far alienated from all sense that they seemed to themselves to be carried into far lands through the air, and to dwell in most pleasant places, and to enjoy the highest pleasures and delights — when yet, that anointing being done, [they would fall...] [continues]6

[...when yet, that anointing being done, they would fall] to the earth like lifeless things, so that by those who were present there they could neither be roused by blows, nor were they pricked by needles vehemently, nor burned by fires. Similar things we read that blessed Catherine of Siena was wont to suffer in ecstasy. St. Paul, in that admirable rapture of his, was so far abstracted from all sense that afterward he himself did not know whether at that time he had been in the body or out of the body. Worthy of wonder, and not to be hidden from the reader, is what Augustine writes in the fourteenth book On the City of God, chapter twenty-four, in these words: “There was a certain presbyter named Restitutus, in the parish of the Calamensian church, who, whenever it plea[sed him...] [continues]7

[...cum tamen facta illa vnctione, caderent] in terram velut exanimes, ita vt ab his qui aderant inibi, nec verberibus excitari possent, nec acubus veheménter punctae, nec ignibus adustae. Similia legimus in ecstasi B. Catharinam Senensem pati solitam. S. Paulus in illo suo admirabili raptu adeò fuit ab omni sensu abstractus, vt posteà nesciret ipse vtrum id temporis fuisset in corpore an extra corpus. Dignum admiratione est nec celandum lectori, quod scribit Augustinus in libro decimoquarto de Ciuitate Dei, capite vigesimoquarto, his verbis: Presbyter fuit quidam nomine Restitutus, in parœcia Calamensis ecclesiae, qui quando ei pla-[cebat...]

[...who, whenever it plea]sed him — and he was asked to do this by those who desired to know the wonderful thing about them — at the sound, as it were, of any man's lamenting voices, would so withdraw himself from his senses, and lie most like a dead man, that he not only felt not in the least those plucking and pricking him, but sometimes was even burned by fire brought near, without any sense of pain, except afterward from the wound; and that he did not move his body, not by struggling against it but by not feeling, was proved by this — that, as in a dead man, no breath was found; yet the voices of men, if they spoke more clearly, he afterward reported that he had heard, as though from afar.” Thus Augustine there.8

[...qui quando ei pla]cebat, rogabatur autem vt hoc faceret ab eis qui rem mirabilem eorum scire cupiebant, ad imitatum quasi lamentantis cuiuslibet hominis voces ita se auferebat à sensibus, & iacebat simillimus mortuo, vt non solùm velicantes atque pungentes minimè sentiret, sed aliquando etiam igne vreretur admoto sine vllo doloris sensu, nisi postmodum ex vulnere; non autem obnitendo, sed non sentiendo non mouere corpus eo probabatur, quòd tanquam in defuncto nullus inueniebatur anhelitus; hominum tamen voces, si clarius loquerentur, tanquam de longinquo se audisse posteà referebat. Sic ibi Augustinus.

ALTERO modo potuit fieri, vt detractio costae nihil doloris inferret Adamo, Deo scilicet vim sentiendi Adae, eam dico vim quae est in sensu tactus, suspendente, quantum ad actum secundum. Suspendit autem Deus actum causae secundae non alia ratione, quàm quia ipse non concurrit generali suo concursu cum causa secunda ad producendum actum suum: nulla enim causa, quantumuis potens agendi, sine Dei concursu quicquam potest agere. Non igitur illum somnum Deus immisit Adamo, quia non potuisset ei vigilanti sine doloris sensu costam detrahere; sed quòd ea ratione quod agendum erat in eo, commodiùs, decentiùs, & ad significationem mysterij accommodatiùs ageretur.
In a second way it could come about that the removal of the rib should bring no pain to Adam — namely, with God suspending Adam's power of feeling (I mean that power which is in the sense of touch) as to its second act. And God suspends the act of a second cause by no other reason than because He Himself does not concur, by His general concurrence, with the second cause to produce its act: for no cause, however powerful in acting, can do anything without the concurrence of God. Therefore God did not send that sleep upon Adam because He could not have removed the rib from him, awake, without a sense of pain; but rather that, by this means, what had to be done in him might be done more conveniently, more becomingly, and more aptly for the signification of the mystery.9

Translator’s notes

  1. First question of the new disputation. ↩
  2. Decorated initial 'M.' Peter Lombard (Sentences II, dist. 18) and the Scholastics give three reasons for Eve being made from sleeping Adam: (1) the rib's painless removal; (2) display of God's gentle power; (3) the great mystery — as Eve from sleeping Adam's side, so the Church from the side of the 'sleeping' (dead) Christ (blood and water, John 19:34); Christ calls His death 'sleep' (Ps 3:6). Marginal glosses: 'Magister sent. 2. d. 18.'; 'Psalm. 3.' ↩
  3. Tostatus (Abulensis, quaest. 352 on Gen 13) objects: the Church is from the living, not dead, Christ, since redemption rests on the merit of the passion, and the dead Christ was 'outside the state of meriting.' Pererius: Tostatus cuts too close — the Theologians meant only that water and blood flowed from the dead Christ's side, signifying [the sacraments]. Page breaks at catchword 'signi[ficabantur]' (signature NN 3). RESUME POINT for next batch: PDF 511, '...quibus duabus rebus signi[ficabantur]...'. ↩
  4. The water and blood from Christ's side (concluding from p.510) signify the two chief sacraments — Baptism and Eucharist — by which the Church is sustained. Chrysostom (hom. 15 in Gen.) and Epiphanius (Panarion, haer. 48) say the deep sleep was sent so Adam felt no pain. Marginal glosses: 'Chrysost. hom. 15.'; 'Epiphan. haeres. 48.' ↩
  5. Two further reasons for the sleep: (1) what was done in Adam should be without horror — a waking removal would have been either a mere phantasm (if painless) or a penalty before his fault (if painful) — Theodoret's argument (Quaest. 30 in Gen.); (2) so Adam, perceiving the work only with the illumined inner mind, would know his words 'bone of my bones' came by revelation, not human reason. Marginal gloss: 'Theodoretus quaest. 30. in Genesim.' ↩
  6. How the rib could be removed painlessly — first way: the sleep's force deadening sense (as in deep lethargy: no feeling of blows, wounds, burns). Tostatus (on Gen 13, quaest. 354) tells of Spanish witches ('stryges') who by an unguent fell so insensible they imagined being borne through the air to pleasant places. Marginal gloss: 'Quomodo potuerit sine dolore detrahi costa Adamo. De strygibus quiddam memorabile.' ↩
  7. The witches fell insensible to blows, needles, fire; likewise Catherine of Siena in ecstasy; St Paul in his rapture knew not whether in or out of the body (2 Cor 12:2-3). Then begins the block-quote from Augustine (de Civ. Dei 14.24) on the presbyter Restitutus, who could withdraw from his senses at will — continues on p.471. Marginal gloss: '2. Cor. 12.' ↩
  8. End of the Augustine block-quote (de Civ. Dei 14.24): Restitutus could at will lie as dead — unmoved by pricking or even fire, no breath detectable — yet faintly heard loud voices 'as from afar.' ↩
  9. Second way: God simply suspended the act of Adam's sense of touch by withholding His general concurrence (no second cause acts without God's concurrence). So the sleep was not from necessity (God could have done it painlessly to a waking Adam) but for fitness and for signifying the mystery. ↩