printed at the beginning ofBook 1 in this work. He refers there to the first occasion on which he
Book IX 393 except that it is either from these basic material elements—water and earth, that is—or from shrubs or the fruits of trees, or even from the flesh of animals like innumerable kinds of worms or reptiles, and of course from the mating of parents; we certainly have no knowledge of any flesh being born of the flesh of any kind ofanimate being, which would be so like it as to be only distinguishable by its sex. We look for something to compare in the things of this creation with the wife being made from the side of her man, and we cannot find anything. And the only reason for this is that while we know how human beings work the land on this earth, we certainly have no knowledge ofhow angels do their farm work, so to say, in this world.
I mean it is clear that if the intervention of human skills were set aside and it was only the course of nature that was at work in shrubs, all we would know is that trees and herbs are born from the earth and from their seeds—and from these, what is more, simply as falling from them to the ground. Would anything come to our knowledge about the efficacy of grafting, so that a tree of one species can support from its own roots the apples or plums of another, which as the union is sealed have already become its own? We have learned this from the works of farmers, though they themselves are in no way at all the creators of the trees, but lend their services as a kind of favor to God who is indeed the creator of the course of nature. Nothing at all, surely, would come from their labors, unless nature as a result of God's work were inherently sympathetic to them. So why be surprised if we do not know how a human being was made from the bone of a human being, when we are ignorant of how the angels serve God in his act of creation—we who could not know about a tree being made from the shoot of a tree in the trunk of another one, if we were likewise ignorant of how farmers serve God in his act of creating these things?
30. But for all that, we have not the slightest doubt that the only creator both of human beings and of trees is God, and we faithfully believe that the woman was made from the man independently of any sexual intercourse, even if the man's rib may have been served up for the creator's work by angels:31 in the same way we faithfully believe that a man was also made from a woman inde pendently of any sexual intercourse, when the seed ofAbraham was disposed by angels in the hand of the mediator (Gal 3:19).32 Both things are incredible to unbelievers; but why should believers find what happened in the case of Christ quite credible when taken in the literal, historical sense, and what is written about Eve only acceptable in its figurative signification?
3 1 . A splendid picture this conjures up, of angels, suitably clad in aprons, and with napkins over their arms, serving Adam's rib up lo God on a dish, for him to carve it into being Eve! 32. See his correction of what he says here in his Revisions, 11,24, in the extract from that work printed at the beginning ofBook 1 in this work. He refers there to the first occasion on which he misapplied this text, in Book V, 19,38. See note 25 in that book for further comment.