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Speaking with modesty and reserve, Father Kennedy concludes: "As
far as the main purpose of this work is concerned, the determining of
the time when the Saints were placed in the Canon, any subsequent in­
formation will probably not influence the general conclusions. . . .”
What is, to my mind, more important than the precise dating of the
inclusion of this name or that in the lists, is the fresh light thrown
by this dissertation on the general rôle of Pope Gelasius in reforming
and fixing the Roman Rite. It here becomes clear, from the bare as­
sembling and collating of many items of information lying scattered up
and down the whole path of modern literature, that Gelasius will eventually
be known as having exerted a very large and important influence over the
Roman Rite, and in particular, over the practically unchangeable and
sacrosanct Canon of the Mass. "In all probability,” Kennedy writes, and.
we think, with reason, "the so-called Gregorian Canon is essentially the
Canon of the time of Pope Gelasius; if we except the changes made by
this latter in the prayers of intercession, it is essentially the Canon of the
De Sacramentis (p. 190), which modern scholarship has again ascribed
to St. Ambrose (|397).
Gerald Ellard, S.J.
'Published in Miscellanea di Storia Italiana di Torino, Series ΠΙ, Π (1906).
- Journal of Theological Studies, XV (1914), 226-255.
’Berlin u. Leipzig 2, 1927.
4Das Communicantes und Seine Heiligenliste, Jahrhuch für Liturgiewissenschaft. I. Mun­
ster, 1921, I.

Just Price. A new textbook for Catholic Colleges, "Economics, Principles
and Problems,” by Frank O’Hara, Joseph M. O’Leary, and Edwin BHayes, has appeared in 1939 (Van Nostrand, New York, x-672). The
authors are conscious of the element of morality with which their science
is related, and therefore, for general purposes, it is serviceable for moral
theologians. Attention is here called to a long section (133-156) concerned
with Price, in which it is clear that the old norms of determining a J»ri
Price are not of much weight in fact in our modern mercantile system.
The book portrays how the liberal economy, which holds in principle that
price-fixing is mechanical and in no sense a moral question, prevails. For
an essay which discusses the work for the moralists to do in rephrasing
the rules of the past to meet modern conditions, no article yet surpasses
that of Oswald Nell-Breuning, S.J., "Fortschritte in der Lehre von der
Preisgerechtigkeit. [Miscellanea Vermeersch (I, 93-110)]. He complains
that moralists are still talking in medieval terms, which fitted the simple
economic structure of the times.
He discusses what place Comm urns
Aestimatio can have in a capitalistic system, now that the "free” market
envisaged tn former times » controlled. Again, the Government is in
business now, and its prices are not just merely because of it5 legitimacy.

VOLUME I

·

MAY 1940

NUMBER 2

Theological Studies
THE CREATION OF EVE IN CATHOLIC
TRADITION
THOMAS J. MOTHERWAY, S.J.
St. Mary

of the Lake Seminary
Mundelein, III.

MONG the questions answered by the Biblical Commis­
sion on June 30, 1909, relating to the interpretation of
Genesis, was one concerning the manner in which the first
woman, Eve, was produced by God. The reply said very clearly
that the literal historical meaning of the first three chapters of
Genesis cannot be considered doubtful where the narrative is
concerned with facts that touch the fundamental truths of the
Christian religion. Among these facts it specifies several in
particular. One of these is the origin of Eve from Adam. The
exact statement of the Commission was: "the formation of the
first woman from the first man cannot be called into question.”1
For several years after this reply, Catholic writers, theo­
logians and others, seemed to be well agreed that, whatever
might be said about the origin of Adam’s body, there could be
no question among Catholics regarding the fact that Eve s body
was produced by a special operation of Almighty God using as
material a part of the body of Adam. And yet, in the last few

A

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years, more than one Catholic writer has given expression to
doubts about the literal historical sense of the account of the
making of Eve, as set forth in Genesis, 2, 21-22: "Then the
Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam ; and when he was fast
asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And
the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a
woman; and brought her to Adam.”
An example of these doubts may be found in LAmi du
Clergé of March 5, 1936. In an unsigned article on human
origins, the following statement occurs: "In admitting that,
parallel with the the creation of the first man (whether by
way of evolution, directed by God and terminating in a brusque
and successful mutation, or by way of direct and immediate
creation) the creation of the first woman took place exactly in
similar conditions, would there not be a physical dependence of
the woman on Adam, sufficient to justify the expression for·
matio ex primo homine?'
Another example is had in the recent book of the Abbé
P. M. Périer, Le Transformisme, in which the author leaves
the question open as to how far the inspired writer of Genesis
2, 21-22 has had recourse to allegory or symbol, merely insisting
that the passage contains moral and social teaching of a high
order.’
Î27, note I: *'Il y » deux manières de la (the origin of woes»»’»
Les uns, déclarant, e r*iora, cette formation miraculeuse. en vrsfast

The Creation

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To these writers we might, perhaps, add those Catholic scien­
tists who suggest that the theologians should reconsider and
perhaps reinterpret the dogmas of original sin and the unity
of the human race so as to leave room for the scientific theory
of polygenism? The natural evolution of Eve or rather of
many Eves would be a corollary of such an hypothesis.
It is clear that these authors are not averse to a purely
metaphorical or symbolic interpretation of the words of Gen­
esis concerning the making of Eve. For the author of the
article in L’Ami du Clergé, '’the idea which the Bible wishes
especially to inculcate in the formation of Eve ... is that Eve
was to be for the first man a companion similar to him, of the
same physical nature as he.”™ In such an interpretation the
words of the sacred text are a symbolic expression of an im­
portant physical and moral truth, but they do not signify the
literal historical fact which prima facie they seem to do.
In contrast to these statements, stands the hitherto unani­
mous teaching of Catholic theologians against the metaphorical
exegesis of Cajetan, which the writers cited above seem to
favor. That teaching may be presented in the words of a
recent author who, while favoring the evolution of Adam’s
body, rejects the symbolic interpretation of the words of Gen­
esis concerning Eve: ”It is our considered and definite belief
that Eve was really formed from Adam. In other words the
formatio primae mulieris ex primo homine is literally and his­
torically true, as affirmed by the Biblical Commission. Indeed
d'orthodoxie, les Pères Schmidt er A. Lemonnyer, ont formulé cette opinion: 'Le trait
d'Adam. formé de la poussière de la terre, fournit l’occasion de rappeler combien fragile
λ périssable est la vie qu’il possède.
Celui d’Eve, formé d’une côte d’Adam, doit traduire
» relation d’égalité et d’étroite solidarité qui existe entre l’homme et sa compagne’ (Lm
^rniithe, p. 12J). Est-ce suffisant pour obéir à la commission biblique? Je
a'e· déciderai pas.—Ceux qui veulent une interprétation plus littérale attendent, du progrès
des
des indications plus précises sur les dépendances possibles d’un organisme par
rapport à on autre.”
♦Cf. article Mygéiwsase by A. and J. Bouyssonie in Diet. Tbinl. Cttb. vol. 12, col. 2S56.

*Ler. rrf-

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that is so certain and so clearly taught both in the Scripture
and tradition that it may well be de fide. In the first place,
Scripture teaches this very clearly. Thus St. Paul bases im­
portant truths, both dogmatic and moral, on the origin of Eve
from Adam. Secondly, we have the evidence of the constant
teaching of Catholic tradition, which has always regarded the
origin of Eve as historically true, and has seen in it the prophetic
image of the Church originating from Christ dying on the
cross.
The purpose of the present article is to gather together the
principal elements of this '’constant teaching of Catholic tra­
dition.” It is, perhaps, because theologians from Suarez to
our day have readily affirmed that tradition but failed to
demonstrate it, that this point of Catholic doctrine should still
be called in question by some. If it can be shown that, as a
matter of fact, the Church has always taken the special man­
ner of the production of Eve’s body as described in Genesis to
be literally true and has always considered it to be divinely
prophetic of the relation of the Church to Jesus Christ, then
indeed is the manner of the special creation of Eve a fact which
touches one of the fundamentals of the Faith, and all attempts
at giving the words of Genesis a metaphorical meaning are out
of accord with Catholic truth.
hirst of all, let it be remembered that the declaration of the
Biblical Commission is not the first ecclesiastical document to
treat of the making of Eve. In the year 1201, Pope Innocent III.
in a letter to the Bishop of Tiberias, declared that the practice
°f polygamy was ’inimical to the Christian faith because in
the beginning one rib was changed into one woman and the
divine Scriptures testify that 'because of this a man shall leave
his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall
•t C

£» ·/■/«■ «W Tiwhjy, Nrw York. 1»W. F

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be two in one flesh’.”8 From these words it is clear that the
Pontiff wished to prove the divine institution of monogamy
from the literal meaning of Genesis 2, 21 and 24. Needless to
remark, the unity of marriage is also one of the fundamentals
of Christian moral teaching.
More impressive still, and more to our present purpose are
the words of the Council of Vienne, which solemnly defined
that Saint John the Evangelist correctly narrated the order of
events when he wrote that it was after Christ had died that one
of the soldiers opened His side with a lance. In the chapter
containing this definition the Council asserts that the side of the
Tord of God was perforated "in order that from the water
and blood which flowed out of it might be formed the one,
mmaculate, and holy virgin Mother Church, the spouse of
Christ, just as from the side of the first man, while he slept,
Eve was formed to be his wife, that thus the truth in Christ,
ur newest Adam, might correspond to the certain type of the
first and old Adam, who, according to the Apostle, 'is the figure
of the one who was to come’.”* Even though it be admitted
that this parallel between Adam and Eve on the one hand and
Christ and the Church on the other was not the object of the
conciliar definition, nevertheless it is impossible to deny that the
Council found a type in what it considered to be a real fact,
namely, the formation of Eve’s body from the body of Adam.
It placed such solemn emphasis on the real opening of the side
of the dead Christ because of the mystery which was contained
therein, a mystery which, the Council says, was prefigured in
the forming of the first woman out of the side of the first man,
while the latter slept.
That a very clear and definite doctrine on the mystery con­
tained in the special manner of Eve’s formation existed in the

*

*Dcaziager, Enchiridion Symbolorum, ed. 18a, n. 408.
Enchiridion Symbolorum, ed. 18 a, n. 480. On the history of this definition
.j* «ill unsettled question as to whether the condemned doctrine was really taught
John Peter Olivi. cf. Ewald Muller O.F.M., D« Konzil ton Vienne, Münster in W.,
pF

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second decade of the fourteenth century is sufficiently evident
from the Council of Vienne. It was expressly taught by the
great theologians of the preceding century.
For Peter Lombard, the creation of Eve was a figure of the
sacraments flowing out of the side of Christ: "For as the woman
was formed from the side of the man in his sleep, so the Church
from the sacraments which poured out of the side of Christ
dying on the Cross, namely, from the blood and water by which
we are redeemed from punishments and washed from sins.” '
Saint Bonaventure in his commentary on this passage of the
Lombard gives two reasons why it was congruous that Eve
should be produced in the way Genesis indicates. The first is
that the manner of production corresponds to the properties
of that mutual union which in reality exists between the man
and the woman; secondly, it is consonant with the things that
are signified by the man and the woman. These are three: God
and the soul, Christ and the Church, the superior reason and
the inferior. As to the second of these, he writes: "For the
Church is formed from Christ, when from the side of Christ
asleep on the Cross blood and water flowed out, from which
comes the efficacy of the sacraments of the Church. Through
these sacraments the Church is founded and thus the man cor­
responds to Christ, the sleep to death, the removing of the rib
to the opening of the side.” ’
A slight variation of the same teaching is contained in the
Summa of Alexander of Hales. Speaking of the mysterious
significance of the fact that all men, including Eve, come from
Adam, he says: ’’The second mystery is that of spiritual union,
for as Adam and Eve were as it were one carnal body, seeing
that the woman was formed from the man, so Christ and the
Church are as it were one spiritual body, for the Church was
formed from Him. as it said in Ephesians 5, 50
are memwn *·S#..
i I·.
Hl. Qwtccà».
H Sr»/. 4- l·. a. I, * I. cs
*el.

mI_ IS1
*.
naa. U p. J1».
*
Ojr»
Omb, Owtraccfc, Nbrma. Ma Π. p.

The Creation

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Eve

103

ixnof His body and of His flesh and of His bone’.”1' Again
he writes in the same vein: "The manner of forming Eve was
ordained for our instruction. For as the woman had to be
nude, that by her conjunction with man she might signify the
conjunction of Christ with the Church, so also she had to be
formed (in such a way) that by her formation might be sig­
nified the formation of the Church from Christ. Hence the
words of Ephesians 5, 31-32 ’They shall be two in one flesh;
this is a great sacrament in Christ and the Church’.”'1
Saint Albert the Great, in reply to the question why did
God make the woman from the side of the man, gives five
reasons, the third of which is drawn ’’from the signification:
for as Eve from the side of Adam, so the Church was to be
formed from the side of Christ.” And he cites the same words
of Sc Paul to the Ephesians, "This is a great sacrament, but 1
peak in Christ and in the Church.”14
The Angelic Doctor enumerates four reasons why Eve should
nave been made from Adam: his superior dignity as origin of
the whole race; the special love he should have for his wife; the
exigencies of family life in which the husband is the head; and
hnally "the sacramental reason, because by this is prefigured
the fact that the Church has its origin in Christ, whence the
\posde says 'This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ
ind the Church’.” Saint Thomas argues for the fitness of
forming Eve from the rib of Adam. His second reason for it
s the sacramental signification, because from the side of Christ
deeping on the Cross the sacraments flowed out, that is, blood
and water, by which the Church was established.”1’
SernaJae, De Corpore H amena, sectio II, q. I, tit- I, raembt. I, cap. I, Quaracchi
HrriT. tara. Π. p- SÎ4. For an account of the divergent opinions concerning the
of the treatise De Corporr Hamann, cf. Ernest J. Primeau, Doctrina Snmmee
TUo^'ae Ainaniri Hdensit it Sprrihu Sancti epnj fmtot Inhabitatione, MaaJeiein,
*%. pp. ll-ll.
•iOp eat, tit. II. membr. II. q- Π, cap. IL, p. 417ThetL· pars 2, tract. 19, q. SO, membr. Hl, Opera Omnia, Borgnet edition,
», p U».
15S»»·. Theol. I, q. 92, a. 2 and J.

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THEOLOGICAL· STUDIES

No one who reads the articles in which these princes of the
School treat of the production of Eve can doubt that they
considered the literal sense of Genesis as necessary for the under­
standing of the way in which the Church comes into being with
dependence on the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. That this depend­
ence was prefigured by a real formation of the first woman
from the first man, in the literal and factual sense and not
merely metaphorically, is clear from their plain unvarnished
statements as well as from their insistence on the miraculous
nature of the operation of Almighty God in producing Eve.1*
That this doctrine of the Council of Vienne and of the
theologians of that age was founded on a universal and constant
tradition, is not difficult to show. It is especially in the com­
mentaries of the Fathers on Genesis and on the letter of Saint
Paul to the Ephesians that we have searched for it. But not
there alone is it found. The very frequency with which the
Fathers in speaking and writing on the Church, the Incarna­
tion, the Passion of Our Lord, and even other dogmatic and
moral topics, invoke or refer to the prophecy and mystery con­
tained in the peculiar mode of Eve’s production, is an indication
of the importance they attached to the obvious meaning of the
narrative of Genesis.
Among the Greek Fathers the first explicit witness to this
tradition we have found in a sermon On fhc Passion and Cross
of tbt Lord, attributed to St. Athanasius, though not certainly
authentic. In this sermon two reasons are given why the body
of Christ was pierced in the side, from which blood and water
flowed out, rather than in another part. It was ’'in order that,
as first through the woman formed from the side deception had
Ont
I*
they
five -*vv" we
fe ll Sew
*.,
drie Π. tneœhr

LiMiBiAerrri the
in which Eve w» formed mwacviom κ clear * the
have qtacced: Peter Lombard, Π- Srwf. d, I·, cap. IV, VI; Sc. Bonavesrurc,
It, ·> 1. 4·
Tom. Π. p 4M ·«-; Alexander of Halo, dp. rti..
Π.
Π. cap HI. p 41» «ΟΦ.
Aîî*
«
Gr«'· fat. rt
.,
*
p J If; Ju

Thcmau I. q- 92. *- 4. wp. ad 2, ad >.

The Creation of Eve

105

come, so through the side of the second Adam the redemption
and cleansing of the first might be brought about.”1
Saint Epiphanius in a spirited letter to John the Bishop of
Jerusalem concerning the doctrines of Origen argues against the
latter’s metaphorical interpretation of the tunics of skins with
which Adam and Eve were clothed after their sin. St. Epiphinius insists that the skins do not mean human bodies, because
"if that is so, how is it that before the garments of skins and
before the disobedience and ejection from paradise we read the
words of Adam who said not allegorically but truly ’This now
is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’? Or whence is that
which the divine text testifies ’And God cast sleep upon Adam
and he slept, and He took one of his ribs, and He filled in flesh
in its place, and out of the rib which He had taken from him
He built up for him a wife’?* ’18
In his treatise on heresies, entitled Panarion, Epiphanius
bserves the accuracy of Holy Scripture in saying not that Eve
was formed but that she was built up, "that thereby we might
-r.dentand the fact that the Lord shaped for Himself a body
:rom Mary, and that He built for Himself the Church from
His side, when that side was wounded by a spear and the
mysteries of blood and water flowed out of it for our purifica­
tion.” ’ That St. Epiphanius took the account of Eve’s forma­
tion quite literally and that he saw in it a forecasting of the
mystery of Christ and the Church, is beyond question.
Saint John Chrysostom in a beautiful discourse entitled In
praise of Maximus and concerning the Kind of Wives Men
Jx/uld Marry dwells at some length upon the prophetic signifi­
cance of the account of the making of Eve. The whole pas­
sage is worth quoting. "For just as Eve was born of the side
of Adam, so we ourselves from the side of Christ. That is the
meaning of ’of his flesh and of his bones’. But we all know
rMG 2i. 22J H·

l#MG 4}’ 5,î **
·

I9MG 42· 729-7Î2.

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Theological Studies

that Eve was born of the side of Adam and the Scripture says
plainly that God threw Adam into an ecstasy and took one of
his ribs and built it up into a woman. But how can we show
that the Church was put together from the side of Christ? Well
now, the Scripture brings that out. For after Christ was
brought up to the Cross and fastened to it and died, One of
the soldiers came up and pierced His side, and blood and water
came out.’ And from this blood and water the whole Church
arose. And He testifies (to this) when He says ‘Unless a man be
born again of water and spirit he can not enter into the king­
dom of heaven.’ Now the blood is called spirit. And we are
born through the water of baptism and nourished through the
blood. You see how we are of His flesh and of His bones,
because by this blood and water we are brought forth and
nourished. And so, just as while Adam slept the woman was
built, so when Christ had died the Church was fashioned from
his side.”20
Practically the same teaching is presented in Chrysostom’s
twentieth homily on the letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians.
It is in baptism that we are born and share in Christ’s life,
become His body and are said to be ‘of His flesh and of His
bones.’ There are heretics who deny this, but let us remember
that ’’Adam was formed, Christ was born; from the side of
Adam came out corruption, from the side of Christ life
arose.””
One of the opponents of St. John Chrysostom in the court
of Constantinople, Severian, Bishop of Gabala in Syria, in his
fifth oration On tbe Creation of tbe World finds the picture
of Christ in the whole account of Eve's formation. “But see the
image of Christ everywhere. God did not take the rib from
Adam before casting him into a deep sleep. Why? Sin was
destined to originate from the rib, in as much as it entered
(the world) through the woman. The Saviour came bringing

'

*MG n. 22»

m.

The Creation

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107

from His side water and blood, water to wash away our sins,
blood to furnish us the mystery. Behold the figure. Adam
sleeps, the rib is taken. Sleep comes over the body of Christ;
His side is opened, that He might unravel the old tragedy with
a new solution. I speak of His sleep on the Cross.”'
Theodoret of Cyrus, noted for his share in the Nestorian
controversy and one of the most prolific of the Greek writers,
gives expression to the same idea in his commentary on the
letter to the Ephesians: "Just as Eve was formed from Adam,
so we from the Lord Christ. For we are joined together with
Him in baptism, we rise with Him and we eat His body and
drink His blood.”23 In his treatise Ow the Incarnation of the
Lord, speaking of the causes of the Passion, he says: "His side
was opened like Adam’s, but no woman came forth from it
* ho by her deceit was to give birth to death ; on the contrary
it was a fountain of life which by a double stream was to
• ivify the whole world. One of these streams in the baptistery
makes us new and puts around us the stole of immortality, the
t other nourishes us, when born, at the divine table as milk
nourishes infants.”’’
Saint John Damascene commenting on Ephesians echoes the
deas of the earlier Greek Fathers. On the words "This is a
great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and the Church,” he
writes: "He joined the spiritual to the carnal that He might
'how forth the latter as a figure of the former. In this way
there comes into being a mystery of the truth hidden in the
type; namely the taking of the woman from the man and her
union with him typify Christ and the Church. For it is from
Christ that we have our holiness and through holiness we are
pined to Him.”14
®MG 14, 4»2
«MG ta, 1*7.
*MG 71, 1+41. Wrongly attributed to St. Cyril of Alexandria and found among his
μ the Migne edition. Cf. B. Altaner. Ptirologie, Freiburg im B., *
31 8. p. 213.
I

«MG 91, tfl.

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Before passing to the Latin Fathers we may remark that
while various reasons are given by some of the Greeks for the
opening of Adam’s side, and various figures are found in the
blood which flowed from the side of Christ on the Cross, still
one thing is clear among all those who treat at all of the
prophecy of Adam (Gen. 2, 23) and the words of St. Paul to
the Ephesians (5, 32), namely that as Eve came out of the side
of Adam so the Church from the side of the Saviour. Besides
Origen/'’ whom many of the Fathers, both Greek and Latin,
reprehend severely for his allegorizing in this matter, we have
found only two writers of the Eastern Church, who give
reasons for the forming of Eve from Adam but make no
mention of this parallel. These are St. Theophilus of Antioch
*
and St. Ephrem the Syrian.28 Both treat the subject with
references to Genesis only. For both the main reason seems to
be the safeguarding of the truth of the oneness of God as the
maker of both man and woman. Suffice it to say that in these
two Fathers the relation to Christ and the Church is in no way
denied. It is simply passed over in silence. Perhaps St. Ephrem
was influenced in his treatment by St. Theophilus.1* The
latter, writing at the end of the second century, belonged to a
period in which the Catholic doctrine on the primitive state
of man was not yet well organized,2* and the doctrine on the
origin of woman was treated in the most fragmentary manner,
if at all.
Among the Latins, the traditional parallel appears as early
’’Origen'» denial of the literal »eme at Genet, 2, 21-22 may be fooad in Ce»fri
Cefrn IV, J·, MG II. Ι··Ι-Ι··9. Foe a Im of the Fathen who took him to raaà
*
for he ratlines·. set L Mechineao. L’Hitfonciié in troit fmoim cbojiirn it U Grwir
Rome. 191·. p. «4 sq.
•To ABArfym Π. 2·. MG 4. 1991.
•Excerpe from fn/rrjreioimnrt «■ Sec raw Srrfp/em, Rouft-Journal EucierWw.
Fa/reAmaa. u. 721•For the pUcr of 5<- Ephrem tn the Syrian tradition cf. G Ikoocu, SmT £/-ra» fex
Rohm. 1921. pp 1)7-1^·
*Cf A *
.Slmnhewth

Sate# A«f
a«w.
*

Fom.

it l'hôte it
* t U lrȎifne it HfHer mtu
F w W

V·

The Creation

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as Tertullian. In his treatise De Anima, speaking of sleep in
general and that of Adam in particular, he considers the sleep
)f Adam to be an image of death. "For as Adam was a figure
of Christ, Adam’s sleep foreshadowed the death of Christ, who
was to sleep a mortal slumber, that from the wound inflicted
on His side might in like manner (as Eve was formed) be
ty pified the Church the true mother of the living.”31
Saint Zeno of Verona speaking of spiritual circumcision,
our ruin through Eve and Adam, and our vivification through
Christ our Lord, says that the first man was restored to his
pristine state by the sacrifice consummated on the Cross. "And
while He slept a happy sleep, by the thrust of the lance not a
nb was torn from His side, but a spiritual body of a spiritual
woman was poured out through the water and blood, that is
Diptism and martyrdom. In this way Adam was made new
by Christ, Eve by the Church.”32 In this text we have an
•îstance of the variation which sometimes occurs in the exanation of the meaning of the blood which poured out of
jr Lord’s open side, but the essential elements of the parallel
are maintained, as is evident.
The correlation of Adam and Christ, Eve and the Church,
• beautifully developed in a long passage of St. Ambrose’s
Exfositio Eiangelii secundum Lucam. We shall quote but a
‘nr of the most striking phrases. "The new Adam is Christ,
the nb of Christ is the life of the Church ... it is not a bodily
rib but spiritual . . . this is Eve the mother of all the living . . .
the mother of the living is the Church which God built up on
the cornerstone of Christ Jesus. . . ,”33 In one of his letters,
with direct reference to Ephesians 5, 32, he writes: "If there­
fore the marital union of Adam and Eve is a great sacrament
.,1 Christ and the Church, it is certain that as Eve was bone
•ML. 2, 725.
■jwrf. tik 1, tt. 11, n. 10. ML It, 552.

^ML IJ, 1534.

110

Theological Studies

The Creation of Eve

of her husband’s bones and flesh of his flesh, so we are members
of the body of Christ, bone of His bones and flesh of His
flesh.”34
The Ambrosiaster has this terse comment on St. Paul’s
exhortation to Christian wives in the fifth chapter of Ephe­
sians: '’From Christ the Church took its origin, therefore it
is subject to Him; so the woman from the man that she might
be submissive.”33
Saint Leo the Great also understands Ephesians 5, 30-52 in
the traditional sense. In one of his letters while proving that
Christ had a true body he adduces that text with this observa­
tion: "From the very beginning of the human race Christ
was announced to all men as coming in the flesh. In the flesh,
just as it is said 'they shall be two in one flesh,’ there are indeed
two, God and man, Christ and the Church which came forth
from the flesh of her spouse when from the side of the cruci­
fied, as blood and water poured out, she received the sacrament
of redemption and regeneration." ”
Saint Jerome in interpreting the prophetic words of Adam,
as cited by St. Paul in Ephesians, clearly links up the creation
of Eve from the side of Adam with the consummated matri­
mony of the two and finds in both a figure of the relation
which exists between Christ and the Church. He denies that
the whole history of Adam and Eve can be referred to Christ
and the Church, but holds that the words cited by St. Paul can
indeed. In them Adam really prophesied "that Our Lord and
Saviour should leave His Father, God, and His mother, the
heavenly Jerusalem and should come to earth for the sake of
His body the Church and from His own side should make her,
and because of her the Word should become flesh." St. Jerome
refers in this connection to a conversation he had with St74» 5-4. ML 14. 114«.
4. IK ML 14. >«?K
’’Mt if. m.

Of. *
ho

In F
*

.
I*

tu 57, ML 14. 4»4 and f· Λ- 4·.

wEpru »·, ♦.

ml

»4.

111

Gregory of Nazianzen concerning these words of the Apostle.
For St. Gregory they were full of "ineffable mysteries.’3
But no writer of the Christian centuries has come back so
often to the prophecy contained in Genesis 2, 23 as St. Augus­
tine. In his commentaries on Genesis, in the De Civitate Dei,
in his sermons, in the Ennarationes in Psalmos and the Tractatus
in Joannis Evangelium, there is frequent reference to the mak­
ing of Eve and its significance.
First of all, the literalness of the narrative of Genesis and its
reality are taken for granted as plainly evident. Thus, for
example, in Tractatus IX in Joannis Evangelium, St. Augustine
nsists on the mystical meaning of the process of Eve’s produc­
tion and clearly supposes the historical reality of the facts
which have that meaning. So he says that God might just as
well have taken out Adam’s rib painlessly, while Adam was
awake, but He did not do so. Adam was asleep when the rib
was removed, because that detail had a mystical significance.
It corresponded to the death of Our Lord on the Cross. ’8 Again
m the De Civitate Dei he accuses of infidelity those who deny
the truth of the account of the making of Adam and Eve and
consider it to be a fable.39
It is in the De Genesi ad litteram that the reality of the man­
ner in which Eve was made is brought out most clearly and
u miraculous character indicated. St Augustine compares
’he production of Eve to the conception of Christ without
urnal intercourse. "Both are incredible to the infidels, but
for the faithful, why should the fact of Christ’s conception
be taken literally while that which is written of Eve is given
a figurative meaning?”16
’ml 24, 555-536. Ci. also Contre Joonnem Hiersol·, n. 22, ML 25, 572; In Pbdem.,
4124.6·».
»N. 10. ML 55, 1465 sq.
“Lib. 12, cap. 23, ML 41, 375.
•Uh », cap. 15, n. 30, ML 54, 405. For an excellent discussion o£ St. Augustin’s
ei Ac miracle, cf. P. de Vooght, Le notion philosofrhique Ju miracle chez saint
Herbert bet Je Thiol. Ane. et VUi; t. 10, 193S, pp. 517-545. Even though
K Mjacune admitted that Eve’* body may have been contained in the rationes seminales
a Umi rib, that did not prevent him from looking on its production as a special

112

Theological Studies

That the words of Adam on first seeing his wife contained
a great mystery, St. Augustine, as so many others before him
proved from St. Paul to the Ephesians T 31-32. That Adam’s
words were truly prophetic he shows from the fact Our Lord
Himself (Mt. 19, 4) attributed them to the God who made
Adam.11
Now the exact bearing of the prophecy and the mystery it
contains was clearly understood by St. Augustine from the
very beginning of his literary career. Furthermore, his ex­
planation hardly varies throughout his life. And so from the
time of the completion of the De Genesi contra Manichaeos in
389 or 390, all the way through to the writing of the last book
of the De Civitate Dei, in 426, the essentials of the parallel
between Christ and the Church on the one hand and Adam and
Eve on the other are brought out in striking relief. The sleep
of Adam is the death of Christ, the taking out of the rib is the
opening of the side with the lance, the building up of Eve out
of the rib is the construction of the body of the bride of Christ,
the Church, from the blood and water, i.e., the sacraments of
the Church. Thus it is that the Church is the mother of all
those who live in Christ, just as Eve is the mother of all living
men.
Out of the numerous passages in St. Augustine a few of the
most typical may be cited. One of the earliest occurs in the
De Genesi contra Manichaeos
'
*
It does not materially differ
from the later treatment, but it may be omitted lest the ex­
cessive use of allegory, of which the Saint accuses himself, re­
ferring to this work in the De Genesi ad litteram,
*
3 render it
suspect in the question of Eve.
Writing against Faustus the Manichaean, some time between
397 and 400, St. Augustine says apropos of Genesis 2, 22: "For
the sleeping man a wife was made out of his side; for the dyins
°Dr Gen ni lit., bb 9. op (9. e. 14. ML Μ» «I
**ML >4. 211.214.
I.

J, ». f. Ml M. )7)

The Creation

of

Eve

113

Christ the Church was made by the sacrament of the blood
which flowed out of His side after His death. Eve is called
the mother of the living, for she was made from the side of her
husband; and the Lord said in the Gospel, Tf a man does not
eat my flesh and drink my blood, he shall not have life in him­
self.’ So all the minute details of this part of Genesis foretell of
Christ and the Church, whether in good Christians or in bad.
For it was not in vain that the Apostle said 'Adam who is the
figure of the one who is to come,’ and also 'A man shall leave
his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be
two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament, but I speak in
Christ and the Church.’ For who does not acknowledge that
Christ left His Father in such a way 'that being in the form of
God, He did not think it rapine to be equal to God, but
emptied Himself taking the form of a slave’ ; that He left His
mother, the Synagogue of the Jews, which clung in a carnal
manner to the Old Testament, and adhered to His wife the
holy Church, so that in the peace of the New Testament they
might be two in one flesh? For being God before His Father,
through whom we were made, He became one of us by the
fiesh, in order that we might be able to be the body of Him
who is our head.’”*
The same interpretation of Genesis appears in the twentyecond book of the De Civitate Dei. In his argument for the
resurrection of woman in the form of her own sex, he insists
that the wisdom and goodness of God will be praised for having
made woman. "For at the beginning of the human race the
woman was made of a rib taken from the side of the man while
e slept, for it seemed fit that even then Christ and His Church
hould be foreshadowed in this event. For that sleep of the
man was the death of Christ, whose side, as He hung lifeless
upon the Cross, was pierced with a spear, and there flowed from
blood and water, and these we know to be the sacraments
zy which the Church is 'built up.’ For Scripture used this
«Ub. 12, op », ML 42, 25«.

114

Theological Studies

very word not saying 'He formed’ or ‘framed’ but 'built her
up into a woman’; whence also the Apostle speaks of the edifi­
cation of the body of Christ which is the Church. The woman
therefore is a creature of God even as the man ; but by her
creation from man unity is commended; and the manner of
her creation prefigured, as has been said, Christ and the Church.
He then who created both sexes will restore both.”4'
It is true that St. Augustine sometimes finds significance in
details in a way that savors of a refined allegorical exegesis, but
in the few salient features of the parallel he is always consistent,
and perfectly in accord with his predecessors among the Greek
and Latin writers of the Church. Moreover he constantly
harks back to the mystery contained in the way in which Eve’s
body was made.
The last mentioned feature of Augustine’s exposition is all
the more telling in view of the fact that, contrary to many of
the Fathers, he denied that there was any special reference to
the dignity of man in the way in which Adam’s body was pro­
duced out of the slime of the earth.4<
Through the centuries down to the days of St. Thomas, the
Latin writers echoed these thoughts of St. Augustine, some­
times almost in his very words. The relation of Adam and
Eve to Christ, in its chief elements, is invariably set forth. A
mere enumeration of these authors will suffice: St. Prosper of
Aquitaine/ Blessed Quodvultdeu$,“ St. Maximus of Turin,4’
*Cap. I/, ML 41» 771
cf. al»o Dr Gr· ad lit..
·. tip- », η. I·; lib.
». 23; lib. 9, cap. I·, n. >3
ML 34, »74. 492. 494 »q.; Dr Gr. Dr·, Hb.
and hb 14. cap. 22. ML 41, »74. 4$·; La /·., tr. IS. n. 4; tr. 12·. n.
1313. 1313; I· Λ. 4·. a. I·; /■ h. 34, «- II, ML 34» 441, 44«; la 7i. 1
5.
*
η. ί;
Tr. 124. n. 7; la 7·. |27. a. ||; /· ft 13«, ■
* 2. ML 37, 13«I, 1472,
«4.; Srra·· J. a. 3; Srra»· 21«, n. 14, ML 34, 33, 1447.
*Dr Gr· ad lit., lib. 4, CJf. R, On. 24-22, ML 34. 347 aq. ci. E. C.
·>. cit. ρρ. 143-I44.
«7-ib. Sr·/ A·
.
*
ML II. 47«.
dr ftvaMu. ft 7retJft»e>iui Dr·. cap. 1, ·»- 3» ML JI, 731.
acthonbip erf da
*
work cf. 1 ARmmt ·>. r
*
P- 244.
S3, Srr»· 14 dr ftwbair. ML 17. 991, 194.

9, cap. 13.
12, cap. 27
2. ML 31.
Srrata 4.
1444, 1714
Mc»en«rr.

The Creation

of

Eve

St. Avitus of Vienne,30 St. Fulgentius,51 Eugyppius,52 St. Cesarius
of Arles,M St. Gregory of Tours,54 St. Isidore of Seville,85 St.
Hildefonsus of Toledo,59 St. Bede the Venerable,57 Rabanus
Maurus,30 Hugh of St. Victor,59 Hervé of Bourgdiou." No
doubt a more extensive research would unearth other instances
of this tradition of the Latin Church. Nor have we found any
contradiction of it in any of the Fathers or writers, whom we
were able to consult, up to the thirteenth century.
It is well known that Cajetan in his commentary on Genesis
Jenied the literal historical sense of the texts referring to the
production of Eve, but it is worthy of note that in his com­
mentary on the Summa of St. Thomas, he gives no hint of
wishing to depart from a strictly literal interpretation.
Of the post-Tridentine commentators on Genesis or the
Epistle to the Ephesians we were able to read Estius,61 Tirinus,92
Cornelius a Lapide,93 Bernardine a Piconio,94 Menochius,95
Naulis Alexander.’6 Of these Estius alone passes over in silence
the prophetical significance of the formation of Eve. He finds
-he "great mystery” in this that Christ left His Father and His
mother (the Synagogue or the heavenly Jerusalem) and by
taking flesh is united with the Church, which is composed of
^UMk it spiritalis historiae gestis, lib. I, De initio mundi, ML 59, 327.

*l'pett. ΠΙ. J, 8. ML 65, 327.
'^Thrmorm n S. Aug. operibus, cap. 57, ML 62, 668.
'Sermo 91, 2, ML 39, 1920.
4Hnt. Francorum, lib. 1, n. 1, ML 71, 163.
"Quartimes m Vet. Test., cap. 3, nn. 8-11, ML 83, 217-218.

*De cognitione baptismi, VI and VII, ML 96, 114.
Hnaem. I, ML 91, 38 and 51 sq. cf. also Comment, in Pentateuchum, ibid., col. 210.
af· Epistolam ad Ephesios, ML 112, 406.
•*Dr Sacramentis, lib. 1, pars 6, cap. 36, ML 176, 284.
βΙ» ewan D. P«Ji epist., edition of Mayence, IS59, vol- IL p. 404 sq.

Univ. S- Scriptorem, edition of Turin, 1883, vol. IV, p. 674.
f*OBan
*
erir,
edition of Milan, 1870, tom. 17, p. 727 sq.
♦*Tri^rx
Expositio, edition of Paris 1872, vol. II, p. 545.
«"Ceewmtmi totius S. Scripturae, Venice 1758, tom. 1, p. 3; tom. Π, p. 371.
i*Cemmcuf. m Omnes Epôt. S. Pauli, Paris 1768, p. 318.

116

Theological Studies

men, and thereby is bound to her with an indissoluble love. In
this interpretation Estius adopts without argument only one
of the secondary items of St. Augustine’s exegesis. The other
authors named are in line with the tradition of the Fathers
and of the theologians of the Middle Ages.
In conclusion it may be worth while to point out that not
all of the Fathers insist on Eve’s being made from Adam’s rib,
in the strict sense, as did St. Augustine6, and many of the
scholastic theologians. Perhaps this fact would justify those
who are satisfied with maintaining that Eve was made from
matter taken from Adam’s side, but not necessarily from his
rib in the literal anatomic sense of that word. Such an inter­
pretation would not as a matter of fact be out of conformity
with the original Hebrew text. The point is secondary. What
is of importance in the question is to exclude an exegesis which
would reduce the words describing the creation of the first
woman to a merely symbolic expression of the physical and
moral relation existing between her and her husband, the first
man. Such an exegesis can not be squared with the consensus
of the Fathers of the Church and the great number of Catholic
writers who have followed in their footsteps. We must hold
as unquestionable that Eve’s body was produced by a special
operation of God’s power from matter taken from the side
of Adam.

«Cf. Dr Grw. W tar. lib. ♦, op. |j,
M. Ifl>.

b.

», ML J4. 492·. I» Jo. Cf. If, a. .

yL

A FUNDAMENTAL NOTION IN THE PROBLEM
OF SEX MORALITY1
GERALD KELLY, S.J.
St. Mary’s College
St. Mary’s, Kansas

CERTAIN footnote in Father Cappello’s excellent treatise
on Marriage is of special interest and importance to the
moral theologian. I refer to the author’s discussion of the defi­
nition of venereal pleasure.2 Theologians, he asserts, are not of
one mind in their concept of this pleasure. The author himself,
if one may judge from his references and his definitions of
sensual and venereal pleasures, apparently sponsors, at least
partially, the theory of a two-fold genital pleasure, proposed
almost thirty years ago by Alberti, and since taken over in toto
by Antonelli. This theory, as explained by Alberti, divides the
genital processes into two distinct phases: the erectile processes,
and the glandular processes. The appetitive motion proper
to the first phase is called sensual; while only in the second

A

*An article such as this entails references to many authors.

To conserve space, I am

references in the following manner: Older and somewhat unusual works consulted
art Cited in full the first time they are mentioned. In subsequent references to them
aad in all references to standard theological works, only such details are given as will
be necessary foe the reader to verify the statement.
’Vmrrrs (delectatio) etiam carnalis vel libidinosa dicta, ea est quae oritur ex comeerxsne organorum et humorum generationi inservientium, et conjungitur cum pollutione
aat dctii latione nec non cum actibus utrique proxime praeviis.
Non omnes theologi
dem sentiunt.”

'Deiectatio sensualis (quam alii vocant sensibilem carnalem) ea est, quae oritur ex
Ejecto, quod ex se aptum est ad excitandum sensum venereum, et percipitur in verendis
•i tonas comasexsane seu erectione. Licet venerea non sit, cum ex se proxime praevia
MB sit pollutioni vel distillationi, tamen commotionem carnalem facile excitat; et ideo
ovaes maxime periculosa est, merito a theologis ut radicaliter mala habetur.”
These definitions are taken from Cappello, De Matrimonio (1959), η. 140, footnote.
Tms footnote, especially in the definitions quoted here, contains a strange mixture of the
A.aerti theory referred to in this essay and the teaching of theologians who strongly
•{ye this theory. For this reason, I say in my text that Father Cappello sponsors
άκ Alberti theory "at lea* partially.”