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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Four — the creation of the first human beings

QUESTION III. What is the genuine and proper meaning and interpretation of those words: “He took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it.”

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QUESTION III. What is the genuine and proper meaning and interpretation of those words: “He took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it.”1

QVAESTIO III. Quae sit germana & propria sententia & interpretatio illorum verborum. Tulit vnam de costis eius, & repleuit carnem pro ea.

VOx Hebraea צלע Selah, quam hic vertit Latinus Interpres Costam, vt ex Hebraeorum obseruationibus hoc loco tradit Oleaster, quatuor habet significationes. Plerumque enim significat latus; hac enim voce significantur in Scriptura latera arcae, tabernaculi, templi, & montis. Significat etiam costam, quia costae sunt in lateribus humani corporis. Significat item trabem, propter quandam proportionem quam habent trabes in aedificio cum costis humani corporis. Denique, significat etiam claudicationem, quòd claudus ad latus declinet cùm incedit. An verò hîc latus significet an costam, non multum refert. Si enim pro latere sumas, sensus erit, Tulit vnum latus, id est vnam costá de latere eius. Et quia non poterat vna costa ab vtroque latere accipi, & ne plures costas in vno latere quàm in altero haberet Adá, putat Oleaster duas aut etiam plures costas ex duobus lateribus esse sumptas.
The Hebrew word צלע (Selah), which here the Latin Interpreter renders “Costa” (rib), as Oleaster relates in this place from the observations of the Hebrews, has four significations. For mostly it signifies “side”; by this word are signified in Scripture the sides of the ark, of the tabernacle, of the temple, and of a mountain. It signifies also “rib,” because the ribs are in the sides of the human body. It signifies likewise “beam,” because of a certain proportion which beams in a building have with the ribs of the human body. Finally, it signifies also “limping,” because the lame man leans to the side when he walks. But whether here it signify “side” or “rib” matters little. For if you take it for “side,” the sense will be: “He took one side,” that is, one rib from his side. And because one rib could not be taken from both sides, and lest Adam should have more ribs on one side than on the other, Oleaster thinks that two, or even more, ribs were taken from the two sides.2
Locum autem vnde costae illae sunt detractae, existimat fuisse propè aluum, & vulgò appellatum vacuum quia est sine costis. Sicut autem vox Hebraea, vt diximus, ita & vox Graeca πλευρά, qua vsi sunt Septuaginta, ambiguae significationis est ad significandam costam & latus: nam & Medici πλευρῖτιδα vocant morbum seu dolorem laterum, & Mathematici triangulum quod aequis constet lateribus, ἰσόπλευρον nominarunt.
But the place whence those ribs were removed, he thinks was near the belly, and commonly called the “void,” because it is without ribs. And just as the Hebrew word, as we said, so also the Greek word πλευρά (pleura), which the Seventy used, is of ambiguous signification, signifying both rib and side: for physicians too call a disease or pain of the sides πλευρῖτιδα (pleuritis), and the mathematicians named the triangle which consists of equal sides ἰσόπλευρον (isopleuron, “equilateral”).3
FABVLANTVR nonnulli Hebraei, quorum tamen fabulis vt oraculis assensus est Eugubinus, Deum simul formasse Adamum & Euam, sed alternis sibi lateribus cohaerentes, posteà verò fuisse separatos. Quod videtur simile eius figmenti, quod in Symposio narrat Plato, & refert Eusebius libro 12. de Praeparatione Euangelica, capite 7. ad hunc ferè modum: Quod Moses dixit, Deum ex latere & costa dormientis Adae fabricasse mulierem, cùm non intellexisset Plato quo sensu id dictum esset, quia tamen Mosaica omnia admirabatur, noluit id omnino preterire. Itaque Aristophani comico, etiam rebus honestis illudere solito, orationem hanc tribuit in Symposio: Prisca nostra natura alia erat quàm nunc est; non enim duo genera hominú vt nunc, sed tria fuerunt: ad masculú enim atque foeminam tertium aderat vtrisque commune, cuius nomen duntaxat relictum est, res verò penitus periit; nam Androgynum tunc reipsa & nomine, ex vtrisque, mare scilicet & foemina, constabat. Haec Iupiter dixit, & incidebat homines medios, & Apollini iussit partes incisorum ita coniungere, vt facies ad casuram verteretur. Atque haec quidem ex Platone: verùm hanc fabulam [euidenter...]
Some of the Hebrews fable — to whose fables, however, as to oracles, Eugubinus assented — that God formed Adam and Eve at the same time, but cleaving to each other by their alternate sides, and that afterward they were separated. Which seems similar to that fiction which Plato narrates in the Symposium, and which Eusebius reports in the twelfth book On the Evangelical Preparation, chapter seven, in about this manner: Since Plato had not understood in what sense it was said that Moses had stated God to have fashioned the woman from the side and rib of the sleeping Adam, yet because he admired all things Mosaic, he was unwilling to pass it over entirely. And so to Aristophanes the comic poet — wont to make sport even of honorable things — he attributed this speech in the Symposium: “Our ancient nature was other than it now is; for there were not two kinds of men as now, but three: for besides male and female there was a third, common to both, of which only the name remains, the thing having utterly perished; for the Androgyne then, in fact and in name, was composed of both, namely male and female. This Jupiter said, and he cut men in the middle, and ordered Apollo so to join the parts of those cut, that the face should be turned toward the cut.” And these things indeed from Plato: but this fable [Scripture evidently...] [continues]4
[...verùm hanc fabulam euidenter] refellit diuina Scriptura, quae docet primò creatú esse Adamum, & posteà ex eius latere detracta costa factam esse Euam, de qua dixit Adam, Hoc nunc os ex ossibus meis, & caro ex carne mea: quae verba ad illam fabulam nullo modo quadrare & accommodari possunt. PRO illo verbo, Repleuit, Hebraeum verbum סגר Saghar propriè significat clausit. Sed obscuram habent sententiam illa verba: Repleuit, seu clausit, carnem pro ea. Plerique sic interpretantur, Repleuit Deus locum costae detractae carne, vt ea impleret locum eius. Verùm obstat huic interpretationi, Scripturam non dicere, Deum repleuisse carne pro ea, sed carnem. Quare melius est sic interpretari: carnem Adae ob detractionem costae interruptam & hiantem clausit, repleuit, seu continuauit: ita vt illud Pro ea significet vel propter detractionem costae, vel loco costae detractae.
[...but this fable Scripture evidently] refutes, which teaches that Adam was created first, and afterward, a rib having been removed from his side, that Eve was made, of whom Adam said, “This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” — which words can in no way square or be accommodated to that fable. For that word “He filled up” (Replevit), the Hebrew verb סגר (Saghar) properly signifies “he closed.” But those words have an obscure meaning: “He filled up,” or “closed,” “flesh for it.” Most interpret thus: God filled the place of the removed rib with flesh, that He might fill its place. But it stands in the way of this interpretation that Scripture does not say God filled “with flesh for it,” but “flesh.” Wherefore it is better to interpret thus: the flesh of Adam, broken and gaping because of the removal of the rib, He closed, filled up, or made continuous — so that the phrase “for it” signifies either “on account of the removal of the rib,” or “in place of the removed rib.”5

Translator’s notes

  1. Third question, with its sub-lemma (Gen 2:21b). ↩
  2. Decorated initial 'V.' Word-study of Heb. צלע (Selah; properly tsela), rendered 'Costa' — four senses per Oleaster (Jerónimo de Azambuja): (1) 'side' (of ark, tabernacle, temple, mountain); (2) 'rib'; (3) 'beam/rafter'; (4) 'limping' (the lame lean sideways). Whether 'side' or 'rib' matters little; Oleaster thinks two or more ribs taken from both sides (to keep Adam symmetrical). GLYPH verified by magnification: צלע (in text and in margin gloss). Marginal gloss: 'Quatuor significationes vocis Hebraeae צלע Selah.' Page ends at catchword 'Locum' (signature OO). ↩
  3. The rib taken from near the flank (the 'void,' rib-less region). The Greek πλευρά (like the Hebrew) means both 'rib' and 'side' — hence πλευρῖτις (pleurisy, a 'pain of the sides') and ἰσόπλευρον (the 'equilateral' triangle). GLYPHS verified by magnification: πλευρά, πλευρῖτιδα, ἰσόπλευρον (the last printed with prothetic εἰ-, εἰσόπλευρον). Continues the discussion of Heb. צלע from p.473. ↩
  4. The Jewish fable (which Eugubinus = Agostino Steuco of Gubbio, in his Cosmopoeia, credited) that Adam and Eve were created joined side-to-side, then split. Pererius likens it to Plato's Androgyne myth in the Symposium (the speech given to Aristophanes), reported by Eusebius (Praep. Ev. 12.7) — Plato adapting Moses without understanding him. Marginal glosses: 'Pigmentum Hebraeorum.'; 'Eugubinus in Cosmopaeia.'; 'Figmentum Platonis.' ↩
  5. Scripture refutes the fable (Adam first, then Eve from the rib; 'bone of my bones'). Word-study of 'Replevit': Heb. סגר (Saghar; properly sagar) = 'he closed.' Against reading 'filled the place with flesh' (Scripture says 'flesh,' not 'with flesh'); better: God closed up Adam's gaping flesh, so 'for it' = 'because of'/'in place of' the rib. GLYPH verified: סגר. Marginal gloss: 'Hebraeum verbum סגר Saghar.' ↩