54. See 1 Tm 2:12.
Book XI 459 another." And so married couples can indeed serve each other through love; but the apostle does not allow a wife to lord it over her husband.54 lt was God's sentence, you see, that gave this position to the man, and it was by her own fault that the woman deserved to have her husband as her lord, not by nature. Unless this is accepted and observed, however, nature will become even more distorted, and the fault will be aggravated.
The man 's punishment
38. 5 1 . So then he also said to her husband: Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree about which l commandedyoufrom it alone not to eat, accursed is the earth in your works. ln griefshallyou eat it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bringforthforyou, andyou shall eat the hay ofthefield. ln the sweat ofyourface shall you eat your bread, until you are turned into the earthfrom which you were taken, because earth you are and into earth shall you go (Gn 3:17-19). Who does not know that these are the toils and troubles of the human race on earth? And that they would not have been so had the felicity to be found in Paradise been held onto is certainly beyond question; thus there should be no reluctance to take these words first and fore most in their proper historical sense. All the same a prophetic signification is to be looked for and expected, and it is this that the divine speaker here has chiefly in mind.
Nor was it for nothing, after all, that Adam himself was also wonderfully inspired at that point to give his wife the name of "Life," even adding, since she it is who is the mother of all the living (Gn 3 :20), because these are not the words of the writer telling the story and making this statement, but are rather to be under stood as the words of the first man himself, saying since she it is who is the mother of all the living in order to explain why he called her Life.
The tunics ofskin; God's anxiety
39. 52. And the Lord God made Adam and his wife tunics ofskin and clothed them (Gn 3:21). This too was done in order to signify something, but still it was done, like those things that were said in order to signify something, but were still said. What is required of the story teller giving an account of actual events, as I have said often enough and will not grow tired of saying more often yet, is that he should tell us that what was actually done was done, and what was actually said was said. Butjust as about things done one inquires both what it is that was done and what it may signify, so one does about words, both what it is that was said,
54. See 1 Tm 2:12.