The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK NINE 91 nothing about grafting, by which a tree of a given kind with its own roots could bear two kinds of fruits, the one proper to its own nature and the other proper to the branch that has been grafted on, both nourished from the same trunk. We have learnt this from the work of farmers. They are not, of course, the creators of trees, but to God, the Creator of the processes of nature, they offer their aid and service. For nothing would come about by their labors unless a hidden causal reason contained the product in God's work of creation.
Why is it strange, therefore, if we do not know of a human being, a woman, made from the bone of a man, since we are ignorant of the ways in which angels minister to God the Creator? We should have been unable to know that a branch from one tree could have been grafted on to another tree so as to become part of it if we were ignorant of the way farmers minister to God who creates these wonders.
30. We have no doubt, however, that God alone is the Creator of men and trees, and we firmly believe that the woman was made from the man without the aid of human procreation, even though the rib of the man may have been obtained by angels for the work of the Creator. In a similar manner, we firmly believe that a Man was also made from a woman without any nuptial embrace when the offspring of Abraham was placed through the angels in the hands of a Mediator."? Unbelievers consider both of these events beyond belief. But for believers, why should the account of the conception of Christ be accepted in the literal sense and the account of the creation of Eve be accepted only in a figurative sense? Are we to say that without any sexual embrace a man could have been made from a woman but not a woman from a man? Did the womb of the Virgin have the power to produce a Man, whereas the side of the man had no power to produce the woman, although in the former case the Lord would be born of His handmaid, and in the latter a handmaid would be born of a servant?
The Lord would have been able to create His flesh from a rib or from any member of the Virgin; but He who could have demonstrated that He had done again in the case of His own body what had been done before, deemed it more salutary to show