Bede

And a river went out of the place of delight to water the paradise. That is, those beautiful and fruitful trees that shaded the whole land of that region, where it is believed to have been made as in this land we inhabit, the Nile waters the plains of Egypt, wherefore, as we also mentioned above, it was said of the land of Sodom, which was wholly watered like the paradise of the Lord, and like Egypt (Genesis XIII, 10). And surely with provident arrangement, the Lord and Creator of things wished to have some likeness in our world to that homeland which we were created to possess in the first parent, so that he might warn us by a nearby example to merit a return thereto, and especially by that river which is known to emanate from paradise. For the Nile, which waters Egypt, is itself the Gihon, which is remembered to proceed from paradise in what follows. Just as also, when the same cities of Sodom were overturned, which were once watered like the paradise of the Lord, he provided an example of those who act impiously, so that we might flee the most certain paths of the perdition of the wicked, by shunning their eternal torments through vigilance.

Which then is divided into four heads: the name of the first is Pishon. It is established, according to the most certain authorities, that the sources of all these rivers, which are said to go out from paradise, are known in our land. The source of the Pishon, which is now called the Ganges, is indeed in the places of the Caucasus mountains; but the Nile, which the Scripture, as we have said, names Gihon, now far from Mount Atlas, which is the furthest end of Africa to the west. Furthermore, the Tigris and Euphrates from Armenia, from where it is believed that the place of paradise itself is most distant from human knowledge, and from there the four parts of the waters are divided; but those rivers, whose sources are said to be known, are somewhere beneath the earth and after passing through extended regions erupt in other places, where they are reputed to be known in their sources. For who is unaware that some waters are accustomed to do this? But it is known there where they do not run under the earth for long. Finally, historians report that the same rivers Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile are taken up in many places of the earth, and after some interval reemerging, continue their usual course; which is also believed to be done by the Lord as a sign of that course by which they come to us from paradise through the more hidden channels and longer veins of the earth. Now Phison is interpreted as change of mouth, and rightly, because indeed it shows another appearance for our benefit, that is, much more humble than it has in paradise.

In that place are found bdellium and onyx stone. Bdellium is, as Pliny the Elder writes, an aromatic tree, black in color, of the size of an olive, with oak-like leaves, fruit like the fig, and its nature is such that it exudes gum. Its tear is bright, somewhat white, light, sticky, uniformly waxy, and easily softened, with a bitter taste, a pleasant smell, and more fragrant when soaked in wine. The book of Numbers also mentions it, saying, "Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color was like bdellium" (Num. XI, 7), that is, bright and somewhat white. Onyx, on the other hand, is a precious stone, so called because it has a whiteness mixed within it like a human fingernail. The Greeks call a fingernail "onyx." Arabia produces it, but Indian onyx has sparks with white bands surrounding them; Arabian onyx, however, is black with white bands. The ancient translation has for these a carbuncle and a prasinus stone. The carbuncle, as its name suggests, is a stone of fiery color, which is said to illuminate the darkness of night. The prasinus stone has a greenish appearance and derives its name from the Greek word for leek, which they call "prason."

And the name of the second river is Geon. It is the one which goes around all the land of Ethiopia. The name of the third river is Tigris. It goes towards the Assyrians. The fourth river is Euphrates. Therefore, concerning the Euphrates, where it goes or what lands it circles, it does not say, because, flowing nearby the land of promise, it was very easily known to the people of Israel, who were placed there and were to read this. But since a return to heavenly places is open to us through the waters of regeneration, it is sufficiently fitting to the dispensation of divine piety that this very element, through which we are led back to the upper homeland, is common to us with paradise, where the first man was placed, and just as grace invisibly recreates us in preparation for the entrance to the heavenly kingdom: so also invisibly from paradise through the veins of the earth the very water through which we are recreated flows forth to the Lord's world. Just as the Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but do not know where it comes from or where it goes (John 3:8); thus it was fitting that the water which the Holy Spirit sanctifies those whom He wills, should come to us by unknown ways from paradise, and return to unknown places to us, because it is known to have its origin from the paradise of pleasure.

The Lord God took the man whom He had formed and placed him in the paradise of pleasure, to work and keep it. What He said, to work and keep it, seems to refer to the place where it was said, And there was no man to till the ground. Truly we also, in exposing this word, let us place the words of the holy Father Augustine. "What was he to work or keep?" he said. "Did the Lord perhaps want the first man to do agriculture? Or is it not believable that He condemned him to labor before sinning? Indeed, we would think so, unless we saw some people work the land with so much delight of mind, that it would be a great punishment for them to be called away from it. Whatever delights agriculture had, then of course it was far greater, when nothing adverse happened to the land or the sky. For it was not the affliction of labor, but the exhilaration of the will, when those things which God created would thrive more joyfully and fruitfully with the help of human work, from which the Creator Himself would be more abundantly praised, who had given the reasoning and skill of working to the soul set in an animal body, as much as would suffice for a willing soul, not as much as the necessity of the body would force the unwilling." To work and keep it, he said, to keep the same paradise for himself, lest he permit anything for which he would deserve to be expelled from there. Finally, he also receives the command, so that he keeps the paradise for himself, that is, by observing it, he would not be thrown out from there. For rightly is anyone said not to have kept his property, who acted in such a way that he lost it, even if it is safe for another who either found it or deserved to receive it. There is another sense in these words, which I think should not undeservedly be put first, that God was working and keeping the man himself; just as a man works the ground, not to make it the ground, but to make it cultivated and fruitful, so God works the man whom He created as a man, so that he may be just, if the man does not depart from Him through pride. Therefore God placed the man in the paradise of pleasure, to work and keep it. He was to work, that is, to be good and blessed: and to keep it, that is, to be whole, by humbly submitting himself to His domination and protection.

And He commanded him, saying: Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. It is not to be believed that there was anything naturally evil in that tree, as we have also taught above, but man was forbidden from that which was not evil, so that the very observance of the command itself would be good for him and its transgression evil. Indeed, the sinner desired nothing but to not be under the dominion of God when that was committed concerning which only the command of the ruler should have been regarded, which, if it alone were regarded, what else but the will of God would have been loved? What else but the will of God would have been preferred to the human will? Nor can it happen that one’s own will does not fall upon man with the weight of a great ruin, if he exalts it by preferring it to the superior will. This man experienced, who scorned the precept of God; and by this experience he learned what difference there is between good and evil, namely, the good of obedience, but the evil of disobedience, that is, of pride, defiance, perverse imitation of God, and harmful freedom. However, the name was given to this in which it could happen from the very matter, as said above.

On whichever day you eat from it, you shall surely die. He did not say, if you eat, you shall be mortal, but on whichever day, he said, you eat from it, you shall surely die. For man died in the soul when he sinned, because God, who is the life of the soul, departed from him, through whose desert the death of the body followed, with the soul departing from it, which is its life, and which death first happened to the same man when he reached the end of the present life not long after he ate the forbidden. It can also be understood that that day in which they sinned brought death upon them, as the Apostle laments saying: For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death (Romans 7:22)? For it is not enough for him to say: Who will deliver me from this mortal body, but from this body of death, he says. As indeed also this: The body is dead because of sin (Romans 8:10); nor did he say there, mortal, but dead, although indeed it is mortal because it is to die, it is not to be believed that those bodies were such, but though they were animal, not yet spiritual, yet not dead, that is, which it must needs be that they should die, which happened on that day when they touched the forbidden tree.

The Lord God also said: It is not good for man to be alone, let us make a helper suitable for him. And this speech of God is to be believed to have been made not by a corporeal voice emitted externally into the air, but on earth by the intention of the divine will, through which all things were created, ineffably, according to what we also taught above, where it is written: Let us make man in our image and likeness. But if someone asks for what purpose this helper needed to be made, let him hear the response of Saint Augustine, whose words we have very often included above, with his name silent. He said that nothing else likely occurs except for the sake of begetting children, just as help is for the seed in the earth, so that offspring may arise from both. For it was also said in the first condition of things: He made them male and female, and blessed them, saying: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. This rationale for the condition and union of male and female and the blessing did not fail even after man's sin and punishment. For it is the same according to which the earth is now filled with men who dominate it. Although it is mentioned that they came together and begot after being expelled from paradise; nonetheless, I do not see what could have prevented them from having honorable marriages and an undefiled bed even in paradise, with God providing this to those living faithfully and justly and serving Him obediently and zealously, so that offspring would be begotten from their seed without any disturbing ardor of lust, without any labor and pain of giving birth, not that sons succeeded to dying parents, but so that, with those who begot remaining in some form of condition, and taking bodily vigor from the tree of life which was planted there, those who were begotten would be brought to the same condition, until the definite number was completed, if all lived justly and obediently, then that transformation would take place, so that without any death, the animal bodies converted to another quality, because they would serve the spirit ruling them at every nod, and living only by the spirit giving life without any sustenance of bodily food, they would be called spiritual. For if Enoch and Elijah, in Adam, did not die, carrying the progeny of death in the flesh, and are believed to return to this life to pay their due and to die, and now only live in another life where, before the resurrection of the flesh, before the animal body is transformed into a spiritual one, they do not decline by disease or old age, how much more justly and likely it would be granted to those first humans living without any sin of theirs or their parents, that having begotten children, they would yield to a better state from which, at the end of the age, with all the descendants of the saints, they would be transformed much more happily into the angelic form, not through the death of the flesh, but by the power of God.

For whatever Adam called every living soul, that was its name; and Adam gave names to all the animals of the earth, to all the birds of the sky, and to all the beasts of the earth. It is evident that Adam in that language, in which all of mankind spoke until the construction of the tower when languages were divided, named the animals of the earth and the birds of the sky. However, at the destruction of the tower, when God assigned to each nation its own distinct language, it is then to be believed that He also distinguished the names of the animals and other things according to each one's language: although it is also known that later men gave various names to many newfound things per their individual nations as they pleased, and still continue to do so. Finally, about the fish brought to Adam to name, Scripture says nothing, but it is credible that as they were gradually known, they were given different names by men according to the diversity of nations. However, it seems that the first language for the human race was Hebrew, since all the names we read about in Genesis up to the division of languages belong to that language. The reason for bringing all the animals of the earth and the birds of the sky to Adam, for him to see and name them, was to thus show God how much better man was than all irrational animals. For it appears that man, by his very reasoning, is better than beasts, as only reason can distinguish and name them individually, and reason itself is superior.

Therefore the Lord God formed out of the ground all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the sky and brought them to Adam. If anyone is concerned because it does not say "formed out of the ground all the animals of the earth and out of the waters all the birds of the sky," but as if He formed both kinds from the ground, then it is said, "The Lord God formed out of the ground all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the sky"; it should be understood in two ways: either that it is now silent about where He formed the birds of the sky from, because it could also be implied that it is possible He did not form both from the ground; but let us understand that He only formed the animals of the earth and the birds of the sky, even if Scripture is silent about where He formed them from; or that He calls the ground universally, along with the waters, just as it is called in that Psalm where, after the praises of the heavens were finished, the speech turns to the earth and says, "Praise the Lord from the earth, sea monsters, and all deeps" (Ps. 148:7), etc. It is not said afterward: "Praise the Lord from the waters." For where all depths which praise the Lord from the earth are, there also are reptiles and winged birds which likewise praise God from the earth according to this universal appellation of the earth, according to which it is said of the whole world: "God who made heaven and earth," whether from dry land or from the waters, whatever is created is truly understood to be created from the earth.

But for Adam there was not found a helper like him. Therefore, the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam; and while he was sleeping, he took one of his ribs and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord God built the rib which he had taken from Adam into a woman. Since the woman was made from the man's side, it is to be believed that this happened to commend the power of that conjunction. But that it was done to him while he was sleeping, with the bone removed and flesh filling its place, was done for the sake of a higher mystery. For it signified that from Christ's side, asleep in death on the cross, the sacraments of salvation would issue forth, namely, blood and water, from which the Church, his bride, would be built. For if such a great sacrament were not prefigured in the creation of the woman, what need was there for Adam to sleep for God to take a rib from him to make the woman, when He could have done the same thing while he was awake and without pain? Why was it necessary that when the bone, taken from the man's side from which the woman was built, was removed, not bone but flesh was supplied in its place, unless it was to signify that Christ would be weak for the Church, but the Church would be made strong through Him? Therefore, for the sake of the same mystery, Scripture also used a typical word, not saying: made, or formed, or created, as in all the works above; but it says, the Lord God built the rib which he had taken from Adam into a woman, not as a human body, but as a house, which house we are, if we hold firm the confidence and the pride of hope till the end. For it was fitting that the origin of the human race, with God working, should proceed in such a way that it would bear witness with corresponding figures to its redemption, which was to come through the same creator at the end of the age.

"This, he said, will be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. And as the Latin etymology agrees in these names, since Woman is named from Man, so it also agrees in Hebrew, in which language man is called 'ish', and from this name the derived term for woman is 'ishah'. Hence, that man is called 'ish' in Hebrew is also testified by the name Israel, which is interpreted as 'man seeing God'. But also in the sacraments of Christ and the Church it most fittingly agrees that Adam wanted the woman created from his flesh to share in his own name, because our Lord Jesus Christ equally gave to the Church, which He redeemed with the price of His body and blood and adopted as His bride, the participation of His name, so that from Christ she would be called Christian, and from Jesus, that is, Saviour, she would seek eternal salvation. Nor should it be overlooked that the sleep, or ecstasy, that is, the mental departure, as the ancient Translation has it, which God imposed on Adam, is rightly understood, as St. Augustine says, 'to be induced so that the mind would first participate in an ecstasy like that of the angelic court, and entering into the sanctuary of God would understand the end. Finally, waking up as if full of prophecy, when he saw the woman brought to him, he immediately uttered what the Apostle commended as a great sacrament: This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She will be called Woman because she was taken out of Man; and what follows.'"

Wherefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. Though the Scripture itself testifies that these words were first said by man, yet the Lord in the Gospel declared that God said them. For He said: Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh (Matt. XIX, 4), that we might understand from this that, on account of the ecstasy which preceded in Adam, he could have said this divinely as a prophet. Therefore, if Christ adhered to the Church so they would be two in one flesh, how did He leave the Father, how the mother? He left the Father because, being in the form of God, He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. II, 6). This means He left the Father, not because He deserted and departed from the Father, but because He did not appear to men in that form in which He is equal to the Father; just as He left the mother by leaving the Synagogue of the Jews, from whom He was born according to the flesh, and adhering to the Church, which He gathered from all nations, so that in the peace of the New Testament they might be two in one flesh: because, being God with the Father through whom we were made, He became a partaker with us through the flesh, so that we could be the body of that head.

But the serpent was more cunning than all the animals of the earth that the Lord God had made. This serpent can be said to be more cunning than all the animals, not by its own irrational soul, but by an external spirit, that is, a diabolic one. For although the transgressing angels were cast down from the heavenly seats due to their perversions and pride, they are still in nature superior to all the animals of the earth due to their excellence of reason. Therefore, it is not surprising that the devil, filling the serpent by his own impulse and mixing his spirit with it, as the soothsayers of demons are often filled, made it the most cunning of all the animals of the earth. Or, as another version has it, the wisest of the beasts according to the irrational living soul. "Therefore, if it is asked why God allowed man to be tempted, knowing that he would consent to the tempter; the true reason occurs, that man would not have been of great praise, if he could live well because no one would persuade him to live badly, since in nature he had the power to do, and in his power to will not to consent to the one persuading, with the help, however, of Him who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Nor is it to be thought that this tempter would have overthrown man unless there had been some pride in the soul of man to be suppressed, so that through the humiliation of sin, which he had falsely presumed about himself, he might learn truly: for it is said: Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall (Prov. XVI, 18). Thus, however, some are moved by the temptation of the first man, as if God allowed it to happen, now they do not see the entire human race being continually vexed by the devil's snares; why did God allow this as well? Is it because virtue is tested and proven, and it is more glorious to have been tempted and not consented than not to have been able to be tempted? If it is asked why the devil was permitted to tempt especially through the serpent, this was already done for the sake of signifying, not that the devil wished to signify anything for our instruction, but because he could not approach to tempt unless permitted, nor could he do so except through what was permitted. Therefore, whatever that serpent may have signified, it must be attributed to that providence under which even the devil has his desire to harm but his ability is only what is given, whether for subverting and destroying vessels of wrath or for humbling or testing vessels of mercy. The serpent did not understand the sounds of words which were made to the woman from him: for it is not to be believed that his soul was transformed into a rational nature, since not even the men, whose nature is rational, when a demon speaks in them with that passion which is required by the exorcist, know what they say: how much less would that serpent understand the sounds of words which the devil made through him and from him in that manner, as would not a man free from diabolic passion understand if he heard him speaking?"