The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK NINE 95 there is no other who creates or restores creatures anywhere than He who alone gives the increase no matter who plants or waters.°!
CHAPTER 19
The prophetic vision seen by Adam in his ecstasy.
36. Hence, we are justified in concluding that the ecstasy?? in which Adam was caught up when God cast him into a sleep was given to him so that his mind in that state might participate with the host of angels and, entering into the sanctuary of God, understand what was finally to come.?? When he awoke, he was like one filled with the spirit of prophecy, and seeing his wife brought before him,°* he immediately opened his mouth and proclaimed the great mystery which St. Paul teaches: This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she has been taken out of man. And for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be two in one flesh.?°
These were the words of the first man according to the testimony of Scripture, but in the Gospel our Lord declared that God spoke them. For He says, Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female and said,
"For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh"?°® From this we should understand, therefore, that because?' of the esctasy which Adam had just experienced he was able to say this as a prophet under divine guidance.
But it seems advisable to bring this book to an end at this point, so that in what follows we may revive the attention of the reader with a fresh start.