Genesis — Chapter 2

ALL THE FURNITURE THEREOF. — Hebrew tsaba, meaning army, array, force, and adornment; for nothing is more splendid than an ordered army. Thus God is called \"Lord of hosts,\" that is, of angels and stars, which like soldiers serve God in fixed order, move, rise, and set, and often fight for God against the impious (cf. Judg. 5:20).

AND GOD COMPLETED ON THE SEVENTH DAY HIS WORK. — \"On the seventh day\" exclusively; inclusively God completed His work on the sixth day. He began on Sunday (the Lord's Day) and completed on Friday, so that on the seventh day following He rested, which day from this rest of God is called Sabbath. The symbolic and arithmetical reason why the world was perfected in six days: six is the first perfect number, composed of its primary parts — 1, 2, and 3, which together make 6 (Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. IV, 1; Bede; Philo, De Opificio mundi). Symbolically, six days signify six thousand years during which this structure of the world shall last (\"a thousand years before God are as one day,\" Ps. 89:4), after which shall come Antichrist, Judgment Day, and the Sabbath, i.e., the rest of the Saints in heaven (Jerome in Expos. Ps. 89; Irenaeus, V; Justin, Quaest. 71; Augustine). HE RESTED — not from weariness, but from work; hence Hebrew shabat = ceased. Aristobulus (ap. Eusebius, XIII): \"He rested\" means He gave to the things He created rest, i.e., stability, permanence, perpetual order — thus \"rested\" tacitly implies the conservation of created things with continuous divine cooperation. Augustine: \"The omnipotence of the omnipotent Creator is the cause of subsisting for every creature; if this power should ever cease to govern what He founded, all the species and nature of things would simultaneously collapse.\" Symbolically (Junilius, Bede, Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. IV, 12): God's rest in the Sabbath was a figure of Christ's rest in the tomb on the Sabbath, after completing the work of our redemption on the sixth day through His passion and death. Anagogically: this was a type of the rest of the Saints in heaven, where they will keep perpetual Sabbath.

AND HE BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY AND SANCTIFIED IT. — \"Blessed\" = praised, commended, approved (Philo). Better: \"blessed\" means, as follows, \"sanctified\" — He decreed the seventh day holy and festive, a day to be celebrated with sacred rest and worship of God, especially in remembrance of the benefit of creation. Philo, Catharinus, and Ribera argue that God from the very origin of the world blessed and sanctified this first Sabbath, establishing it as a divine precept — not first at the time of Moses (Exod. 20:8), but from the very beginning. This was a divine, not natural, precept — positive law — therefore Christ and the Apostles transferred the feast from Sabbath to Sunday.

THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. — \"Generations\" = creations. \"In the day\" = during the whole time of the six days described in chapter 1 (Bede). Moses here recapitulates: what was described serially in chapter 1 is now explained in fuller detail, as chapter 2 throughout recapitulates rather than narrates new events.

AND EVERY SHRUB OF THE FIELD BEFORE IT APPEARED ON THE EARTH. — Moses means only that the first production of shrubs and Paradise was to be attributed not to nature, not to the earth, not to seed, but to God's power and operation — proved by the fact that neither man (to sow and till) nor rain (to water what was sown) yet existed. From the Hebrew, verse 5 may be more plainly rendered: \"In the day when God made heaven and earth, no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, and no herb of the field had yet germinated, but a spring — that is, the primordial abyss of waters — covered the whole earth.\"

BUT A SPRING AROSE FROM THE EARTH. — Four opinions on what this spring is. First (Aquila, Chaldaeus, Molina, Pererius, Delrio): Hebrew \"ed\" = vapor drawn up by the sun, which condensed by night into dew and moisture, irrigating the earth until God shortly after provided rain. Second (Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. V, 9-10): one proper spring which at stated times, like the Nile, flooded and watered the earth. Third (Augustine; Philo): \"spring\" = springs, streams, and rivers — all the waters gathered into one place (ch. 1:9) as into one common matrix. Fourth and most genuine: \"ed\" = inundation, i.e., the primordial abyss of waters (ch. 1:2), which covered and watered the whole earth; this is what Moses briefly recapitulates here: God alone created heaven, earth, and the abyss; He alone separated the waters from the land, revealed the dry land, and produced plants, Paradise, man, and all things — which He thereafter conserved through rain and dew.

AND THE LORD GOD FORMED MAN OF THE SLIME OF THE EARTH, AND BREATHED INTO HIS FACE THE BREATH OF LIFE. — Note five causes of man. Efficient: God alone — not through angels (Basil, Ambrose, Cyril: \"the Jewish error\" is to attribute it to angels). Material: slime of the earth, i.e., earth mixed with water — hence the corpse dissolves back into earth and water. Formal: the breath of life. Exemplar: God Himself, whose image man is. Final: that he should be a living soul, a sensing, self-moving, knowing being, governing all the rest. Hebrew \"yitsar\" (he formed) properly belongs to pottery — God shaped man like a potter shapes clay, first forming the body like a statue, then infusing all the heterogeneous forms of the body's parts, and finally simultaneously infusing and creating the rational soul (Chrysostom, Hom. 12; Gennadius in Catena). Note: \"breath of life\" (spiraculum vitae) is not the Holy Spirit (Philastrius; refuted by Augustine, De Civit. XIII, 24) but the rational soul, which in man is simultaneously vegetative and sensitive. Hebrew \"chaijim\" = lives (plural): the rational soul gives man a triple life — of plants, of brutes, and of angels. \"Breathed into his face\": first, to show how easy it is for God to create a soul; second, to show the soul is not derived from matter nor from the parent's soul (Traducianism), but is created by God from without — this is the sense of the Church (Jerome, and all other Fathers). Third, to show the divine dignity of the soul — not a part broken off from divinity (Epictetus, Seneca, Cicero), but the highest participation in divinity as a spiritual nature. Seven definitions of the soul: (1) \"A deiform breath of life\" (Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, Eucherius, Lyranus); (2) \"An incorporeal substance, partaking of reason, suited to govern the body\" (Cassiodorus); (3) \"A spiritual substance, created by God, vivifier of its body\"; (4) \"An intellectual spirit, always living, always in motion, capable of good and evil will\" (Damascene); etc. Clement of Rome (VIII Recognit.) and Ambrose (VI Hexam. 9) marvel at the artistry of the human body: bones as columns, flesh as covering; left-right symmetry; eyes as the sun and moon of the microcosm; heart as the source of heat; nerves as strings from the brain — the human body is a compendium of the universe.

NOW THE LORD GOD HAD PLANTED A PARADISE OF PLEASURE FROM THE BEGINNING. — \"Had planted\" = had adorned and furnished with trees and all delights. \"Paradise\" is not a Greek word derived from \"I irrigate\" (Suidas), but a Hebrew-Persian word from \"pardes\" (place of pleasure), from \"para\" (to bear fruit) and \"hadas\" (myrtle). The Septuagint retain the Hebrew \"Eden,\" which is the proper name of the place where Paradise was. \"Eden\" as a common noun signifies pleasure (Lapide's preferred interpretation, following our Vulgate and Symmachus). \"From the beginning\" = on the third day of the world (cf. Gen. 1:11). Where was Paradise? Lapide gives six opinions and concludes: (1) Not in the third heaven (Origen, Philo), which Epiphanius, Augustine, and Jerome condemn as heresy. (2) Not the whole world. (3) Not elevated to the moon (Rabanus, Rupert, Strabus). (4) Not in another world beyond the ocean (Ephrem). (5) Not in Palestine or Taprobane (Cirvelo, others). (6) Lapide concludes: Paradise was probably in Mesopotamia and Armenia, near where the Euphrates and Tigris flow — these regions are called \"Eastern\" in Scripture, were first inhabited by men expelled from Paradise, and Eden is identified with a place near Haran (Ezek. 27:23; Is. 37:12), which is in Mesopotamia. Paradise was a real physical place (against Origen and Eugubinus), most beautiful and temperate, inhabited by man and animals. Symbolically, Paradise = the soul adorned with every virtue. Allegorically (Augustine; Ambrose, De Paradiso): Paradise = the Church; the four rivers = the four Gospels; the fruitful trees = the Saints; the Tree of Life = Christ; the Tree of Knowledge = free will. Anagogically: Paradise = heaven and the life of the Blessed.

EVERY TREE FAIR TO BEHOLD AND PLEASANT TO EAT OF; THE TREE OF LIFE ALSO IN THE MIDST OF PARADISE. — In Paradise were both non-fruit-bearing trees of beauty (cedars, cypresses, pines) and fruit-bearing trees for food. THE TREE OF LIFE: Lapide establishes three points. First, as a matter of faith: this was a real tree, not merely symbolic (against Origen, Eugubinus). Second: it is called \"tree of life\" not as a sign of life promised to Adam, but as a real cause and preserver of life — it conserved the eater's life from sickness and aging, extending it indefinitely. Third: this virtue was natural, not supernatural (Thomas Aquinas, Hugo, Pererius; against Bonaventure and Gabriel) — hence it remained in the tree after the Fall, which is why Adam was excluded from it (Gen. 3:22). By this tree, man in innocence would have been defended: against the consumption of vital moisture, by the tree restoring it; against demons, by angelic custody; against wild beasts, by perfect dominion; against men, by Paradise itself. The tree would have prolonged life for many thousands of years — not absolutely for eternity (Scotus, Durandus, Cajetan, Pererius; against Molina), since all mixed bodies are corruptible by nature. At the proper time God would have translated man from this prolonged life to the eternal life of heaven. Hence the poets' myths of nectar, ambrosia, and moly — fictions derived from this tree. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL: Most probable opinion (Basil, Tostat, Pererius): this tree was so named by anticipation from what the serpent promised (\"you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil\"), and from the event God foresaw — for by its prohibition, man, if obedient, would confirm his knowledge of what is good (obedience); if disobedient, he would learn by experience what is evil (disobedience). By the transgression, man learned what before he knew only theoretically (Augustine, De Civit. XIV, 17). Tropologically: this tree was a hieroglyph of free will.

AND A RIVER WENT OUT FROM THE PLACE OF PLEASURE TO WATER PARADISE, WHICH FROM THENCE IS DIVIDED INTO FOUR HEADS. — \"From Eden\" (Heb.): Eden was the region, Paradise was within it. Four rivers flowed out of this one river of Paradise. Lapide concludes (third opinion, most probable): Phison and Geon are rivers that arise from where the Tigris and Euphrates join before entering the Persian Gulf — Phison being the Phasitiger (Phasis) and Geon the river that flows toward Arabia (not Ethiopia of the Abyssinians, but the Ethiopia of Arabia). Hence Paradise was probably at or near the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia. Whatever the uncertainty about Phison and Geon, it is certain that Paradise was a real place on our earth, toward the East, most beautiful and temperate.

HAVILAH. — Many say India; but more probably a region between Susiana, Bactria, and Persia, lying between Assyria and Palestine, facing Sur (cf. Gen. 15:7; 25:18; named from Havilah, son of Jectan, Gen. 10:28).

BDELLIUM. — A type of gum or pellucid tear that drips from a black tree the size of an olive, with leaves like an oak and the nature of a wild fig (Pliny, XII, 9; Dioscorides, V, 69). The best bdellium is Bactrian. Hebrew \"bedolach\" — Vatablus and Eugubinus render \"pearl\"; Septuagint \"carbuncle\"; but \"bdellium\" best fits the Hebrew letters.

GEON. — Derived from Hebrew \"goeach\" (belly, breast), as if a belly full of mud — many think it is the Nile, which as with its \"breast\" incubates Egypt and makes it fertile. The Abyssinians still call the Nile \"Guijon\" (Francisco Alvarez, Hist. Aethiop. 122). But see note at verse 8 for Lapide's own conclusion.

TIGRIS. — Named from the tiger, the swiftest animal (Rupert, Isidore); or more probably from the swiftness of an arrow, which its current imitates — the Medes called an arrow \"Tigris.\" Hebrew \"chiddekel\" (already corrupted to \"Tigel\") = swift and light, on account of its very rapid course. EUPHRATES. — From Hebrew \"Euphrat\" (fertile one); still called \"Para\" (from \"para\" = to bear fruit), because like the Nile it floods and fertilizes the land.

AND THE LORD GOD TOOK MAN AND PUT HIM INTO THE PARADISE OF PLEASURE TO DRESS IT AND TO KEEP IT. — Adam was not created in Paradise but outside it (in Hebron, according to many), and was led there by God through an angel on the same day, so that he would know himself to be not a son of Paradise but a tenant, placed there by divine generosity, not by natural right — hence he could be expelled for sin (Ambrose, Rupert, Abulensis). Eve appears to have been created in Paradise. \"TO DRESS IT\" — not to earn his food, but for honest exercise, pleasure, and experience, so that he would neither be fatigued nor languish in idleness (Chrysostom). Note the antiquity of agriculture: it began with man and the world. Note its dignity: instituted by God and commanded to Adam; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Abel, Seth, Noah — all the great men of old were farmers. Note its innocence, commended to innocent man in Paradise, harmful to none, beneficial to all (Augustine: \"Agriculture, most innocent of all arts\").

THOU SHALT NOT EAT. — Septuagint: \"you shall not eat\" (plural) — for both Adam and Eve received this first precept of the world (Gregory, XXXV Moral., 10). Chrysostom (or whoever is the author), Hom. De Interdictione arboris: \"God gives the command to test obedience; He imposes a law to probe man's will. The tree stood in the midst, testing man's will. Man stood between the Lord and the enemy, between life and death, between destruction and salvation. God threatens to save; the serpent persuades to torment. God's severity is life; the devil's flattery is death.\" THOU SHALT DIE THE DEATH — i.e., you shall incur the certain sentence and necessity of death. Note: God threatens Adam with not only bodily and temporal death, but also spiritual and eternal death of the soul in hell — and this death is certain and infallible, which the doubling \"thou shalt die the death\" signifies. Adam sinning incurred: (1) the necessity of bodily death; (2) actual spiritual death of the soul. Hence it is clear that death for man in the state in which God created him was not natural (against Cicero and the philosophers; add the Pelagians) but a punishment for sin (Mileve Council, cap. 1; Augustine, De Peccat. mer. I, 2). The Master of the Sentences (II, dist. 19): in Paradise man had \"the power not to die\" (posse non mori); in heaven he will have \"the impossibility of dying\" (non posse mori); in this life after the Fall he has \"the power to die and the impossibility of not dying.\"

IT IS NOT GOOD FOR MAN TO BE ALONE. — Because if Adam had been alone, the human species would have perished in him; and because man is a social animal. Woman is necessary for the propagation of offspring. After this was accomplished and the world filled with men, it became good \"for a man not to touch a woman\" (1 Cor. 7); then spiritual eunuchs were praised (Matt. 19:12). Note \"alone\": hence those who say God created man and woman simultaneously but joined at the sides, and later merely separated them, are refuted — for Scripture says Adam was alone, and that Eve was wholly produced from Adam's rib (Gen. 2:22). LET US MAKE HIM A HELP LIKE UNTO HIMSELF. — Hebrew \"kenegdo\" = (1) \"as before him\" — the woman is to be present and companionable to the man; (2) \"over against him\" — corresponding and complementary to him. Four purposes of marriage: (1) propagation and education of children; (2) governance of the household; (3) relief of cares, sorrows, and labors; (4) supply of the other necessities of life. Sin has turned this help for many into grief, quarrels, and strife — hence Cato: \"Woman is a necessary evil.\"

AND GOD FORMING OUT OF THE GROUND ALL THE BEASTS OF THE EARTH AND ALL THE FOWLS OF THE AIR, BROUGHT THEM TO ADAM TO SEE WHAT HE WOULD CALL THEM. — \"Brought them\" — not in an intellectual vision (Cajetan) but really, by impelling the instinct and imagination of the individual animals (Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. IX, 14). \"Whatever Adam called any living creature, that is its name\" — Adam gave names suited to the nature of each. These names were in Hebrew: this language was given to Adam as his native tongue (evident from v. 23 and Gen. 4:1). Note the wisdom of Adam in grasping the natures of all animals and imposing apt names; note also his dominion — as a lord he names his subjects. Fish were not brought to Adam because fish cannot live outside water.

AND ADAM CALLED ALL BEASTS BY THEIR NAMES. BUT FOR ADAM THERE WAS NOT FOUND A HELPER LIKE HIMSELF. — Adam was alone with the animals; Eve had not yet been made, nor was there another man with whom he could share life. Hence it seems Adam named the animals before Eve's creation.

THE LORD GOD CAST A DEEP SLEEP UPON ADAM. — Hebrew \"tardema\" = a heavy and profound sleep. Symmachus: \"ecstasy.\" The Septuagint better renders it \"ecstasy\" (ekstasis). Hence not merely was Adam put to sleep so that he would not feel the rib being taken and be horrified and pained — but simultaneously with sleep he was caught up in ecstasy of mind (Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. IX, 19; Bernard, Serm. De Septuagesima), by which his mind was divinely elevated so that: (1) he saw with the eyes of his mind the rib being drawn out and Eve formed from it; and (2) by prophetic spirit he understood the mystery signified — namely, the institution of his own natural marriage with Eve, and the mystical marriage of Christ with the Church (which is why Paul says in Eph. 5:32: \"This is a great sacrament\"). Adam was therefore a prophet. What did Adam know by infused science? All natural knowledge — evident from his naming the animals. Infused faith and knowledge of supernatural things: the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation (but not his own future fall). Practical wisdom in all things to be done and avoided. And the highest degree of contemplation of God and angels (Augustine, Gregory; Pererius). Allegorically (Augustine, Sent. 328): \"Adam sleeps that Eve may be made; Christ dies that the Church may be made. While Adam sleeps Eve is formed from his side; while Christ hangs dead on the cross His side is pierced with a lance, whence flow the Sacraments by which the Church is formed.\"

AND THE LORD GOD BUILT THE RIB WHICH HE TOOK FROM ADAM INTO A WOMAN. — Note first: against Cajetan, this is said properly, not parabolically (all the Fathers and interpreters). Did Adam lack a rib or become deformed? Thomas Aquinas and others reply: this rib was, with respect to Adam as a private person, superfluous — like seed, which is superfluous to the individual but necessary for the generation of offspring. Adam, as the head and seedbed of the whole human race, needed this rib for the production of Eve. God took the rib with its attached flesh (Adam says: \"bone of my bones AND flesh of my flesh\"). From this fleshly rib as foundation, God, adding other matter, wondrously formed the woman, just as He had formed Adam from clay. Thomas Aquinas (I, Q. 92): Woman was fittingly formed from man: (1) for Adam's dignity, that like God he be the principle of his whole species; (2) so the man would love the woman more and cleave to her more inseparably, knowing she was produced from him (hence: \"Wherefore a man shall leave his father and mother...\"); (3) because husband and wife dwell together for the whole of life, unlike other animals; (4) sacramentally, figuring that the Church takes its origin from Christ (Eph. 5:32). She was formed from the rib, not from the head (lest she dominate), not from the feet (lest she be despised as a slave), but from the side — suggesting social union between man and woman. Secondly: as from the side of Christ sleeping on the cross flowed the Sacraments — blood and water — by which the Church is constituted. Eve was formed in Paradise (Basil, Ambrose, Thomas Aquinas, Pererius).

THIS NOW IS BONE OF MY BONES AND FLESH OF MY FLESH. — Adam, seeing in his rapture the rib taken from him and Eve formed from it, exclaims: \"This woman is made from one of my bones — let her be for me as my most dear and closest spouse.\" The reason why Eve was made from Adam's side: to teach us how great must be the love of spouses, and how holy, close, and indissoluble marriage must be — for spouses, being as it were one bone and one body, should have as it were one soul and one will. SHE SHALL BE CALLED WOMAN (Virago) BECAUSE SHE WAS TAKEN OUT OF MAN. — The Vulgate \"virago\" (heroic woman) does not match the force of the Hebrew. Hebrew \"isscha\" (woman) is derived from \"isch\" (man) with a feminine suffix — meaning \"man-ess,\" i.e., female man. Symmachus in Greek: \"from the male she was made female.\" R. Abraham ben Ezra notes that in the word \"isscha\" is contained the contracted name of God (Yah), suggesting that God is the author of marriage; and as long as spouses fear God and love one another, God is present and blesses. If they forget God and hate each other, the divine name is removed, and all that remains from \"isch\" and \"isscha\" is \"esch esch\" = fire and fire, i.e., the fire of strife and misery in this life, and eternal fire in the next.

WHEREFORE A MAN SHALL LEAVE FATHER AND MOTHER, AND SHALL CLEAVE TO HIS WIFE: AND THEY SHALL BE TWO IN ONE FLESH. — These are the words not of Moses (Calvin) but of Adam, or rather of God, who confirms Adam's words and from them draws out the law of marriage and ratifies it by His decree (Christ attributes them to God, Matt. 19:5). This is the conjugal law: if circumstances require, a spouse is bound to leave father and mother for the sake of the spouse. This is to be understood of cohabitation and partnership of life; in cases of equal necessity (famine, etc.), one must relieve parents before spouse (Thomas Aquinas, IIII, Q. 26). The law establishes: (1) unity of marriage — one man, one wife; (2) indissolubility — they cleave together; (3) they become \"one flesh\" — spiritually, socially, and physically one. Christ cites this verse to condemn both polygamy and divorce (Matt. 19:5-6).

AND THEY WERE BOTH NAKED, TO WIT, ADAM AND HIS WIFE: AND WERE NOT ASHAMED. — Before sin, there was no disordered concupiscence, no rebellion of the lower powers against reason; the body was perfectly subjected to the soul. Nakedness caused no shame because there was nothing shameful — neither disordered desire on the one hand, nor disorder in the members on the other. Original justice included this gift of integrity, by which concupiscence was subordinate to reason and the body to the soul. After sin, the rebellion of concupiscence began, and man became ashamed of his nakedness (Gen. 3:7).