would have been no sexual relations between Adam and Eve, in the extract from the Revisions,
58 On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees
Authority over all animals given to humanity while still in its sinless state
18, 29. Sometimes they are also likely to say: "How did man receive authority over the fishes of the sea and the flying things of heaven and all cattle and wild beasts, when we see human beings getting killed by many wild beasts, and harm being done to us by many flying things which we would like either to avoid or to catch, and frequently aren't able to? So then, how can we be said to have received authority and power over these?"
Here the first thing to be said to them is that they go quite wrong in consid ering the man after sin, when he was condemned to the mortality of life as we know it, and lost that perfection which he had when made to God's image. But if his condemnation is of such a kind that he has so many animals under his command—l mean, although he can be killed by many wild beasts because his body is so fragile, he still cannot be tamed by any of them, while so many animals, indeed practically all of them, can be tamed by him—so then if this condemnation of man leaves him like that, what must we think about his final reign and dominion, which the divine voice promises him when he has been renewed and set free?
A spiritual interpretation of the blessing: lncrease and multiply andfill the earth
19, 30. As for the text, though, Male andfemale he made them; and God blessed them, saying: lncrease and multiply and reproduce, andfill the earth (Gn 1:27-28), the question is indeed very properly asked how this coupling of male and female before sin is to be taken, and this blessing with the words, "lncrease and multiply and reproduce and fill the earth." ls it to be taken according to the flesh or according to the spirit? lt is quite legitimate, you see, for us to take it in a spiritual sense as well, and to believe that it was turned into a blessing of fertility in the flesh after sin.25 Before that, you see, there was a chaste coupling ofmale and female, accommodated to his directing and her complying; and a spiritual brood of intellectual and immortal joys filling the earth; that is to say, giving life to the body and dominating it, that is, holding it in such subjec tion that the spirit suffered no opposition from it, no vexation.
A good reason for believing this is that they were not yet children of this age before they had sinned. For the children of this age beget and are begotten (Lk 20:34), as the Lord says, when he is pointing out that in comparison with the future life that is promised us this business of sexual reproduction is to be held in low esteem.
25. See his repudiation of this suggestion, or at least of its clear implication that without sin there would have been no sexual relations between Adam and Eve, in the extract from the Revisions, section 2, at the beginning of this volume.