The Literal Meaning of Genesis
by the power of reason and not just by physical force. Gaining control over them, therefore, through their appetites and sense of pain, and gradually alluring them, restraining them, and giving them some freedom, he rules them, and ridding them of their fierce ways, he develops in them habits that are almost human. How much more readily, then, can this be done by the angels, who by the command of God, which they see in His immutable Truth, which they never cease to behold, move through time and with marvelous ease move bodies subject to them through time and space,®? producing in all living souls objects of vision to move them and appetites for bodily needs, so that unwittingly they are drawn where they should go.
CHAPTER 15
The making of the first woman. How the angels can minister to God in creation, although they cannot create.
26. Now let us see how the woman was formed, or how she was "'built,"'* to use the mysterious language of Scripture. The substance®> of the woman was created not by any activity of substances already existing, although it was created from the substance of the man, which was already in existence. Angels cannot create any substances whatsoever.°® The one and only Creator of every substance, whether great or small, is God, that is, the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is one thing to ask how Adam was put to sleep and a rib taken from his body without his feeling any pain. We perhaps might say that angels could have done this. But to form or build a rib into a woman, this could not have been done except by God, on whom every substance depends. Indeed, even the supplying of the flesh in the body of Adam to fill the place of the rib could not have been done, in my opinion, by the angels any more than the creation of man himself from the dust of the earth. I am not saying that the angels have no place in assisting God in creation, but they are not creators any more than farmers are creators of the crops