31. See 9,12 above.
84 On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees belong to the lower part of the spirit, which is governed by the prudence of reason. As for what it goes on to say: this shall be called woman, since she was takenfrom her man (Gn 2:23), this explanation of the origin of the name is not evident in the Latin language; no similarity, after all, is to be noted between the word mulier and the word vir. But in Hebrew it is said to sound as if we were to say in Latin, "This shall be called virago, because she was taken from her vir."30 Virago, after all, or rather virgo, does have some resemblance to the word vir which mulier doesn't. But this, as l remarked, is the effect of diversity of language.
19. As for what it goes on to add: A man shall leavefather and mother and stick to his wife, and they shall be two in oneflesh (Gn 2:24), l can find no way of referring this to history, except that this is what usually happens with the human race. But in fact the whole thing is a prophecy, as the apostle reminds us, when he says: For this reason a man shall leavefather and mother and stick to his wife, and they shall be two in oneflesh. This is a great sacrament; but lmean in Christ and in the Church (Eph 5:31-32). If the Manichees, who use the apostle's letters to take many people in, were not blind when they read this, they would under stand in what way the scriptures of the Old Testament are to be taken, and not have the effrontery to bring charges with their sacrilegious cries against some thing they know nothing about at all.
But that Adam and his wife were naked and not embarrassed signifies simplicity of soul and chastity. This you see is what the apostle too has to say: / attached you to one man, to present you to Christ as a chaste virgin; but l am afraid thatjust as the serpent deceived Eve with his slyness, so your minds may be corruptedfrom the simplicity and chastity which is in ChristilCor 1 1:2-3).
The devil represented by the serpent
14. 20. Coming now to the serpent, it represents the devil, who certainly wasn't simple. That he was said, you see, to be wiser than all beasts is a figura tive way of stating his slyness. It does not, however, say that the serpent was in paradise, but that the serpent was among the beasts which God had made. Para dise, after all, as I said above,31 stands for the blessed life of bliss in which there was no longer a serpent, because it was already the devil; and he had fallen from his blessed state, because he did not stand in the truth (Jn 8:44). Nor is there anything strange about the way he could talk to the woman, though she was in
30. "She shall be called ishshah, because she was taken from her ish"; which we get very conveniently in English with "woman" and "man." Augustine cannot at the time of writing have been familiar with Jerome's Vulgate translation; but there it is in fact rendered, haec vocabitur virago, quoniam de viro sumpta est. 31. See 9,12 above.