riddles, but to emphasize the proper or historical sense as a trustworthy account
388 The Literal Meaning of Genesis
And then, was God really unaware that he had not created anything among the animal species ofa sort that could be a help for the man by being like him? Or perhaps there was a need for the man himself also to realize this, and for him to value his wife all the more, because in all flesh created under heaven and breathing the same air as himself nothing could be found that was like him; is that it? It would be very surprising, though, if he could only have known this after the animals had all been brought to be reviewed by him. l mean, if he believed and trusted God, God could have told him this in the same way as he gave him the commandment, in the same way as he questioned and passedjudg ment on him when he sinned; while if he did not believe or trust him, then it follows he could not have known whether the one he did not trust had in fact brought all of them to him, or whether perhaps he had hidden away in some of the remoter parts of the earth a few that were like him, which he had not shown him. And so I reckon there can be no doubt at all that this was done for the sake of signifying something prophetically—but that it was done all the same.
22. ln this work I have not undertaken to investigate the meaning of prophetic riddles, but to emphasize the proper or historical sense as a trustworthy account of what actually happened. This means that to the best of my ability and as far as God gives me help, I must try to demonstrate by my arguments that what seems to shallow and unbelieving minds to be impossible is not in fact impossible; and what seems on the evidence of a contrary text to go against the very authority of holy scripture is not in fact contrary to it.
Where, however, something is apparently possible and carries no hint or suggestion ofany contradiction, but can still, nonetheless, strike some people as what you could call superfluous, or even plain silly, here I would demonstrate in my discussion of it that the reason it was not done according to what might be considered the natural or usual course of events was so that it might be entrusted to our hearts, given the supremely trustworthy authority of the holy scriptures, as something mystical (because plain silly it cannot be)—though as a matter of fact, I have either already presented this kind of interpretation or inquiry else where, or else must put it off to some other time.21
21. 1n his youthful work. On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees 11,16, he has a very brief comment on why the animals were brought to Adam to be named, before the story goes on to the making of the woman. He says it was to show Adam his superiority over the animals, in virtue of his possessing reason; not, surely, a very obviously allegorical interpretation of the text. As for any further "mystical" or "prophetic" interpretation, 1 doubt if he ever bothered later on to attempt it. So the field remains wide open to the imaginative skills of modern typological exegetes.
Book IX 389
The account of the making of the woman also clearly callsfor a mystical or prophetic interpretation
13, 23. So what then is the meaning of a wife being made for the man from his side? Granted it is true we should believe that it was fitting for this to be done in that way in order to emphasize the force of the union effected by wedlock; does the same reason or necessity also demand that it should be done to him while he was fast asleep, and by the extraction of a bone, the place it left being filled up with flesh? After all, could not flesh itself have been extracted, for a wife to be more suitably formed from that, being of the weaker, or inferior sex? Or perhaps with so many things to be added to it God was able to build a rib into a woman, but could not manage it with flesh and fat, though he had made the man himself from dust—is that it? Or if it had to be a rib that was extracted, why was it not replaced with another rib? Why too did it not say "fashioned" or "made," as in all the previous works, but The Lord God built, it says, the rib (Gn 2:22), as if it was a question of a house, not a human body?
So accordingly there cannot be any doubt, since these things were done and cannot be plain silly, that they were done to signify something, with God in his foreknowledge already mercifully foretelling in his actual works the fruit to be derived in the age to come from the very origins of the human race, so that in due course they would be revealed to his servants, whether by tradition through successive generations, or by his Spirit or by the ministry of angels, and then written down to provide evidence both ofpromises for the future being made and of their fulfillment being acknowledged. This will all become more and more apparent in the events that follow.22
Back to the "literal" explanation ofAdam's encounter with the beasts and the birds
14, 24. So let us see then—what we have undertaken in this work—how all this can be taken, not as prefiguring things to come, but according to the proper or historical sense, not the allegorical one, of things that actually happened. And God stillfashioned, it says,from the earth all the beasts ofthefield and all the flying things ofheaven (I have already sufficiently stated my ideas on that) and he brought them all to Adam to see what he would call them (Gn 2: 1 9). To save us from being crassly literal-minded about how God brought them to Adam, we
22. 1n consequentibus; in God's unfolding revelation, through the events of the sacred history recorded in scripture, reflected on and successively interpreted by the prophets, reinterpreted and partly fulfilled, partly projected once more into the future by Christ and the Church in the New Testament. 1n consequentibus could also mean in what follows in this work on the literal meaning ofGenesis; but 1 rather think that the disproofofthat pudding will be in the eating! We can but wait and see.