hidden sight of it is signified, in my opinion, by the slumber which God sent
82 On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees
It was to provide an example of this that the woman was made, whom the natural order of things makes subject to the man. ln this way what can be seen more clearly in two human beings, that is, in male and female, may be consid ered in a single person; that the interior mind, like the manly reason, should have as its subject the soul's appetite or desire, through which we put the limbs and parts of the body to work, and by a just law should keep its help within bounds—just as a man ought to govern his wife, and not let her lord it over her husband, because where this happens the result is a topsy turvy and miserable household indeed.
The stages by which God provided a helpfor Adam
1 6. So first of all, then, God demonstrated to the man how much better he was than cattle, and all brute animals; and this is the meaning ofwhat it says next, that all the animals were brought to him, for him to see what to call them, and to label them with their names. This, you see, shows that man is better, in virtue of his rationality, than the beasts, because to distinguish them and differentiate between them by naming them is something only reason can do by making a judgment about them. This, however, is an easy step for reason to take; human beings soon realize, after all, that they are better than animals. The difficult step for reason is for us to realize that in ourselves the rational power which should govern is one thing, the "animal" power (appetite or desire) which should be governed by it, another.
The slumber ofAdamfrom which Eve was made
12. And since it is by a more hidden kind of wisdom that we see this, the hidden sight of it is signified, in my opinion, by the slumber which God sent upon Adam, when the woman was made for him.
To see this, after all, we do not need these bodily eyes; but the more we with draw our attention from these visible things to the inner world of the intelligence (and that is a kind of falling asleep), the better and more authentic is our sight of this. The very realization, you see, by which we come to understand that in us what exercises a rational mastery is one thing, what yields compliance to reason another, so this very realization then is a kind of producing of the woman from the man's rib, to signify their being joined together.
Next, so that each of us may exercise a proper lordship or mastery over this part of ourselves, and become a kind of wedded couple in the very self, with the flesh not warring against the spirit with its desires25 but submitting to it, that is, the desire of the flesh not opposing reason but rather complying with it and thus
25. See Gal 5:17.