Genesis 2:23

Of whom in the beginning was Eve begotten? What mother conceived her, the motherless? But the Scripture says that she was born out of Adam's side. Is Eve then born out of man's side without a mother, and is a child not to be born without a father, of a virgin's womb? This debt of gratitude was due to men from womankind: for Eve was begotten of Adam and not conceived of a mother, but as it were brought forth of man alone.

"He led her to Adam," the text says, remember. "Now there is someone, bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." [ Gen 2:23 ] Notice here, I ask you, dearly beloved, how along with this ineffable intelligence bestowed on him by God, which he demonstrated to us by the imposition of names he gave to all those species of brute beasts, he was endowed also with the prophetic grace. I mean, the reason why this blessed author taught us in the preceding passages that Adam was overcome by drowsiness and sleep so as to have no sense at all of what happened was that when you come to know that on seeing the woman he describes her creation precisely, you may have no doubt that he is saying this under the influence of the prophetic grace and the inspiration of instruction by the Holy Spirit. You see, when God led her to him, he said, without knowledge of anything that had happened, "Now there is someone bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." Yet some other translator renders it "This once" instead of "Now", to indicate that this happened only on this occasion, and there will be no repetition of the formation of woman. Now, it is saying, woman has been made from man whereas later it will not be like this; instead, man will come from woman or rather, not from woman but from the cooperation of the two, as Paul also says, "Man is not from woman, but woman from man; and man was not created for woman, but woman for man." [ I Cor 11:8-9 ] True, he is saying, but these words indicate that woman was made from man. Still, wait a while and you will see his precise teaching in what follows. He goes on, in fact: "Yet man is not independent of woman nor woman of man," teaching us that in the course of things the human being's composition will derive from both man and woman through their intercourse.

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.

The apostle Paul testifies that this passage has both a plain and an allegorical meaning. Discussing it in his letter to the Ephesians, he asserts, "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church."

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.

To these men who spent their lives in the practice of holiness, there is to be added a great multitude of the elect, who, having through envy endured many indignities and tortures, furnished us with a most excellent example. Through envy, those women, the Danaids and Dircae, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments, finished the course of their faith with stedfastness, and though weak in body, received a noble reward. Envy has alienated wives from their husbands, and changed that saying of our father Adam, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." [Genesis 2:23] Envy and strife have overthrown great cities and rooted up mighty nations.

Hence we are justified in concluding that the ecstasy in which Adam was caught up when God cast him into a sleep was given to him so that his mind in that state might participate with the host of angels and, entering into the sanctuary of God, understand what was finally to come. When he awoke, he was like one filled with the spirit of prophecy, and seeing his wife brought before him, he immediately opened his mouth and proclaimed the great mystery that St. Paul teaches: "This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she has been taken out of man. And for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be the two in one flesh." These were the words of the first man according to the testimony of Scripture, but in the Gospel our Lord declared that God spoke them. For he says, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh' "? From this we should understand, therefore, that because of the ecstasy that Adam had just experienced he was able to say this as a prophet under divine guidance.

"This, he said, will be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. And as the Latin etymology agrees in these names, since Woman is named from Man, so it also agrees in Hebrew, in which language man is called 'ish', and from this …

Adam said that she was "woman, because she was taken from man. This," he said, "is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." And why, while he slept, did He take one of his ribs?

Conjugal chastity accords with the law of nature by reason of the revelation shown from above. For Adam prophetically said after his deep sleep: This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

(2.) The commencement of the kingdom of grace, in the sanctification of the sabbath day, ver. 3. He rested on that day, and took a complacency in his creatures, and then sanctified it, and appointed us on that day to rest and take a complacency in the Creator; and his rest is in the fourth commandment made a reason for ours after six days labour.

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And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,....

Probably it was revealed to Adam in a vision, when he was asleep, that this lovely creature, now presented to him, was a piece of himself, and was to be his companion and the wife of his covenant.

Whether the primeval man was conscious of the change in himself, and of the work of the Supreme Being while it was going on, or received supernatural information of the event when he awoke, does not appear. But he is perfectly aware of the nature of her who now for the first time appears before his eyes.

Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, etc. - There is a very delicate and expressive meaning in the original which does not appear in our version. When the different genera of creatures were brought to Adam, that he might assign them their proper names, it is probable that they passed in pairs before him, and as they passed received their names. To this circumstance the words in this place seem to refer. Instead of this now is זאת הפאם zoth happaam, we should render more literally this turn, this creature, which now passes or appears before me, is flesh of my flesh, etc. The creatures that had passed already before him were not suitable to him, and therefore it was said, For Adam there was not a help meet found, Gen 2:20; but when the woman came, formed out of himself, he felt all that attraction which consanguinity could produce, and at the same time saw that she was in her person and in her mind every way suitable to be his companion. See Parkhurst, sub voce. She shall be called Woman - A literal version of the Hebrew would appear strange, and yet a literal version is the only proper one. איש ish signifies man, and the word used to express what we term woman is the same with a feminine termination, אשה ishshah, and literally means she-man. Most of the ancient versions have felt the force of the term, and have endeavored to express it as literally as possible. The intelligent reader will not regret to see some of them here. The Vulgate Latin renders the Hebrew virago, which is a feminine form of vir, a man. Symmachus uses ανδρις, andris, a female form of ανηρ, aner, a man. Our own term is equally proper when understood.