Augustine of Hippo

In his own words on Genesis

• Genesis 1:1

  Scripture called heaven and earth that formless matter of the universe, which was changed into formed and beautiful natures by God's ineffable command.… This heaven and earth, which were confused and mixed up, were suited to receive forms from God their maker.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 3.10

• Genesis 1:2

  The matter is first called by the name of the universe, that is, of heaven and earth, for the sake of which it was made from absolutely nothing. Second, its formlessness is conveyed by the mention of the unformed earth and the abyss, because among all the elements earth is more formless and less bright than the rest. Third, by the name water, there is signified matter that is subject to the work of the Maker, for water can be moved more easily than earth. And thus on account of the easiness by which it can be worked and moved, the matter subject to the Maker should be called water rather than earth.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 4.13

• Genesis 1:2

  "And darkness was over the abyss." The Manichaeans find fault with this and say, "Was God then in darkness, before he made the light?" They themselves are truly in the darkness of ignorance, and for that reason they do not understand the light in which God was before he made this light. For they know only the light they see with the eyes of the flesh. And therefore they worship this sun that every creature sees. But let us understand that there is a different light in which God dwells.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.3.6

• Genesis 1:2

  The earth was invisible and unorganized, and darkness was over the abyss. Formlessness is suggested by these words, so that we might grasp the meaning by degrees, for we are unable to think cognitively about an absolute privation of form that still does not go as far as nothing. From this, another visible and organized heaven and earth were to be made.

  Confessions 12.15

• Genesis 1:2

  One who diligently considers what darkness is really finds only the absence of light. Thus it said, "darkness was over the abyss," as if to say, "There was no light over the abyss." Hence, this matter that is ordered and distinguished by the next work of God is called the invisible and unformed earth and the deep that is lacking light. This is what was above called heaven and earth, like the seed of heaven and earth.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 4.12

• Genesis 1:3

  We ought to understand that God did not say "Let there be light" by a sound brought forth from the lungs or by the tongue and teeth. Such thoughts are those of persons physically preoccupied. To be wise in accord with the flesh is death. "Let there be light" was spoken ineffably.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 5.19

• Genesis 1:3

  As the words themselves make sufficiently clear, we are told that this light was made. The light born from God is one thing; the light that God made is another. The light born from God is the very Wisdom of God, but the light made by God is something mutable, whether corporeal or incorporeal.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 5.20

• Genesis 1:4

  "God saw that the light was good," and these words do not mean that God found before him a good that he had not known but that he was pleased by one that was finished.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.8.13

• Genesis 1:4

  We should understand that this sentence does not signify joy as if over an unexpected good but an approval of the work. For what is said more fittingly of God—insofar as it can be humanly said—than when Scripture puts it this way: "he spoke," and "it was made," "it pleased him." Thus we understand in "he spoke" his sovereignty, in "it was made" his power and in "it pleased him" his goodness. These ineffable things had to be said in this way by a man to men so that they might profit all.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 5.22

• Genesis 1:5

  "And God divided the light and the darkness, and God called the light day and he called the darkness night." It did not say here "God made the darkness," because darkness is merely the absence of light. Yet God made a division between light and darkness. So too we make a sound by crying out, and we make a silence by not making a sound, because silence is the cessation of sound. Still in some sense we distinguish between sound and silence and call the one sound and the other silence.… "He called the light day, and he called the darkness night" was said in the sense that he made them to be called, because he separated and ordered all things so that they could be distinguished and receive names.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.9.15

• Genesis 1:7

  The waters were divided so that some were above the firmament and others below the firmament. Since we said that matter was called water, I believe that the firmament of heaven separated the corporeal matter of visible things from the incorporeal matter of invisible things.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.11.17

• Genesis 1:7

  The matter was separated by the interposition of the firmament so that the lower matter is that of bodies and the higher matter that of souls.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 8.29

• Genesis 1:8

  Since Scripture called heaven the firmament, we can without absurdity hold that anything below the ethereal heaven, in which everything is peaceful and stable, is more mutable and perishable and is a kind of corporeal matter prior to the reception of beauty and the distinction of forms.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 8.29

• Genesis 1:9

  Now when Scripture says, "Let the water which is below the heavens be gathered into one gathering," these words mean that this corporeal matter is to be formed into the beauty that these visible waters have. This gathering into one place is the formation of these waters that we see and touch. For every form is reduced to a rule of unity. What else should we understand is meant by the words "let the dry land appear" than this matter receives the visible form that this earth that we see and touch now has? Hence the previous expression "the earth was invisible and without form" signified the confusion and obscurity of matter, and the expression "the water over which the spirit of God was borne" signified that same matter. But now this water and earth are formed from that matter that was called by their names before it had received the forms that we now see.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.12.18

• Genesis 1:9

  Hence, at the words "Let the waters be gathered together, and let dry land appear," these two things [earth and water] received their proper forms familiar to us and perceived by our senses, water being made fluid and earth solid. Of water, therefore, it is said, "Let it be gathered"; of earth, "Let it appear." For water tends to ebb and flow, but earth remains immobile.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 2.11.24

• Genesis 1:11

  Here we must note the plan of the Ruler of the world. Since the crops and trees created are different in species from earth and water and so cannot be counted among the elements, the decree by which they are to proceed from the earth is given separately, and the customary phrases describing their creation are put down separately. Thus Scripture says, "And so it was done," and then there is a repetition of what was done. There is separate mention also of the fact that God saw that it was good. But since these creatures cling fast to the earth and are joined to it by their roots, God wished them also to belong to the same day [of creation].

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 2.12.25

• Genesis 1:12

  The Manichaeans are accustomed to say, "If God commanded that the edible plants and the fruit trees come forth from the earth, who commanded that there come forth so many thorny or poisonous plants that are useless for food and so many trees that bear no fruit?" … We should say then that the earth was cursed by reason of the sin of man so that it bears thorns, not that it should suffer punishment since it is without sensation but that it should always set before the eyes of man the judgment upon human sin. Thus men might be admonished by it to turn away from sins and to turn to God's commandments. Poisonous plants were created as a punishment or as a trial for mortals. All this is the result of sin.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.13.19

• Genesis 1:14

  But who can fail to perceive how great is the difference between useful observations of the heavenly bodies in connection with the weather, such as farmers or sailors make; or in order to mark the part of the world in which they are, and the course which they should follow, such as are made by pilots of ships or men going through the trackless sandy deserts of southern Africa; or in order to present some useful doctrine under a figure borrowed from some facts concerning heavenly bodies;—and the vain hallucinations of men who observe the heavens not to know the weather, or their course, or to make scientific calculations, or to find illustrations of spiritual things, but merely to pry into the future and learn now what fate has decreed?

  Letters 55

• Genesis 1:14

  We should not interpret the signs as something other than times. For Scripture is now speaking of these times that by their distinct intervals convey to us that eternity remains immutable above them so that time might appear as a sign, that is, as a vestige of eternity. Likewise, when it adds, "and for days and for years," it shows of what times it is speaking. These days come about by the revolution of the fixed stars, and from this it becomes obvious when the sun completes its starry course in a particular year.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 13.38

• Genesis 1:16

  The Manichaeans ask how it could be that the heavenly bodies, that is, the sun and the moon and the stars, were made on the fourth day. How could the three previous days have passed without the sun? For we now see that a day passes with the rising and setting of the sun, while night comes to us in the sun's absence when it returns to east from the other side of the world. We answer them that the previous three days could each have been calculated by as great a period of time as that through which the sun passes, from when it rises in the east until it returns again to the east.… This would be our answer if we were not held back by the words "and evening came and morning came," for we see that this cannot now take place without the movement of the sun. Hence we are left with the interpretation that in that period of time the divisions between the works were called evening because of the completion of the work that was done and morning because of the beginning of the work to come. Scripture says this after the likeness of human works, since they generally begin in the morning and end at evening.… [Then Scripture says, "And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness."] Again they ask, "How did God previously divide the light and the darkness if he made the heavenly bodies on this the fourth day?" Therefore these words, "to divide the light from the darkness," mean "to divide among themselves the light and the darkness, so that the day is given to the sun and the night to the moon and the other stars." The day and the night had already been distinguished but not yet in relation to the heavenly bodies.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.14.20-23

• Genesis 1:20

  [The Manichaeans] usually find fault, questioning and often misrepresenting Scripture for saying that not merely those animals that live in the water but also those that fly in the air and all winged creatures were born from the waters. Let them know that learned men who carefully investigate these matters usually include with the water this cloudy and moist air in which the birds fly. For it comes together and becomes dense with the exhalations and what I might call vapors of the sea so that it can support the flight of birds. Thus on calm nights it produces dew, and drops of this dew are found on the grass in the morning.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.15.24

• Genesis 1:22

  God wanted the blessing to have the power of fecundity, which is revealed in the succession of offspring. Thus, though the animals were made weak and mortal, they might by that blessing preserve their kind by giving birth.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 15.50

• Genesis 1:24

  We might infer that because the writer says three times "according to their kinds," our attention is called to three classes. First quadrupeds and creeping things according to their kinds, and here I believe he has indicated what quadrupeds he means, namely, those that belong to the class of creeping things, such as lizards, amphibians, and the like. Thus, in repeating the enumeration of animals, the author did not repeat the name quadrupeds apparently because he included them in the term "creeping things." With this in view, he did not say simply "creeping things" but rather "all creeping things of earth." "Of earth" is added because there are also creeping things in the waters, and "all" is added to include those also that move on four feet, the class specifically intended above by the term quadruped. Next, the beasts are another class, indicated also by the expression "according to their kinds," and they are all those animals, excluding reptiles, that prowl about with fearsome mouths and claws. Finally, the herds make up a third class designated by the phrase "according to their kinds." These have no such fierce and violent ways as wild beasts, although some may attack with their horns.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 3.11.17

• Genesis 1:26

  For God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;" and a little after it is said, "So God created man in the image of God." Certainly, in that it is of the plural number, the word "our" would not be rightly used if man were made in the image of one person, whether of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit; but because he was made in the image of the Trinity, on that account it is said, "After our image." But again, lest we should think that three Gods were to be believed in the Trinity, whereas the same Trinity is one God, it is said, "So God created man in the image of God," instead of saying, "In His own image."

  On the Trinity 12.6.6

• Genesis 1:26

  Sometimes the meaning is altogether latent, as in Genesis: "Let us make man after our image and likeness." Both let us make and our is said in the plural, and ought not to be received except as of relatives. For it was not that gods might make, or make after the image and likeness of gods; but that the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit might make after the image of the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, that man might subsist as the image of God. And God is the Trinity. But because that image of God was not made altogether equal to Him, as being not born of Him, but created by Him; in order to signify this, he is in such way the image as that he is "after the image," that is, he is not made equal by parity, but approaches to Him by a sort of likeness. For approach to God is not by intervals of place, but by likeness, and withdrawal from Him is by unlikeness. ... For how our, when the Son is the image of the Father alone? But man is said to be "after the image," on account, as we have said, of the inequality of the likeness; and therefore after our image, that man might be the image of the Trinity; not equal to the Trinity as the Son is equal to the Father, but approaching to it, as has been said, by a certain likeness; just as nearness may in a sense be signified in things distant from each other, not in respect of place, but of a sort of imitation.

  On the Trinity 7.6.12

• Genesis 1:26

  No doubt every thing in the creatures which is in any way like God, is not also to be called His image; but that alone than which He Himself alone is higher. For that only is in all points copied from Him, between which and Himself no nature is interposed.

  On the Trinity 11.5.8

• Genesis 1:28

  At times the Manichaeans also ask, "In what sense did man receive power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all the cattle and wild animals? For we see that men are killed by many wild animals and that many birds harm us when we want to avoid them or to capture them, though we often cannot. In what sense then did we receive power over these?" On this point they should first be told that they make a big mistake when they consider man after sin, when he has been condemned to the mortality of this life and has lost that perfection by which he was made in the image of the God. But even man's state of condemnation involves such power that he rules many animals. For though he can be killed by many wild animals on account of the fragility of his body, he can be tamed by none, although he tames very many and nearly all of them.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.18.29

• Genesis 1:28

  If one should ask why it was necessary that a helper be made for man, the answer that seems most probable is that it was for the procreation of children, just as the earth is a helper for the seed in the production of a plant from the union of the two. This purpose was declared in the original creation of the world: "Male and female he made them. And God blessed them and said, 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.' " This reason for creation and union of male and female, as well as this blessing, was not abrogated after the sin and punishment of man. It is by virtue of this blessing that the earth is now filled with human beings who subdue it. Although it was after the expulsion of the man and woman from paradise that they came together in sexual intercourse and begot children, according to Scripture, nevertheless I do not see what could have prohibited them from honorable nuptial union and "the bed undefiled" even in paradise. God could have granted them this if they had lived in a faithful and just manner in obedient and holy service to him, so that without the tumultuous ardor of passion and without any labor and pain of childbirth, offspring would be born from their seed. In this case, the purpose would not be to have children succeeding parents who die. Rather those who had begotten children would remain in the prime of life and would maintain their physical strength from the tree of life that had been planted in paradise. Those who would be born would develop to the same state and eventually, when the determined number would be complete, if all live just and obedient lives, there would be a transformation. Thus without any death their natural bodies would receive a new quality since they obeyed every command of the spirit that ruled them. With the spirit alone vivifying them, without any help from corporeal nourishment, they would be called spiritual bodies. This could have been if the transgression of God's command had not merited the punishment of death.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 9.3.5-6

• Genesis 1:28

  One is completely right to ask in what sense we should understand the union of male and female before sin, as well as the blessing that said "Increase and multiply, and generate and fill the earth." Should we understand it in a physical manner or spiritually? For we are permitted to understand it spiritually and to believe that it was changed into sexual fecundity after sin. For there was first the chaste union of male and female, of the former to rule, of the latter to obey, and there was the spiritual offspring of intelligible and immortal joys filling the earth, that is, giving life to the body and ruling it. That is, man so held [the body] subject that he experienced from it no opposition or trouble. We should believe that it was this way, since they were not yet children of this world before they sinned. For the children of this world generate and are generated, as the Lord says, when he shows that we should relatively disregard this carnal generation in comparison with the future life that is promised to us.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.19.30

• Genesis 1:28

  Far be it then from us to believe that the couple that were placed in paradise would have fulfilled through this lust, which shamed them into covering those organs, the words pronounced by God in his blessing: "Increase and multiply and fill the earth." For it was only after man sinned that his lust arose; it was after man sinned that his natural being, retaining the sense of shame but losing that dominance to which the body was subject in every part, felt and noticed, then blushed at and concealed that lust. The nuptial blessing, however, whereby the pair, joined in marriage, were to increase and multiply and fill the earth, remained in force even when they sinned. Yet it was given before they sinned, for its purpose was to make it clear that the procreation of children is a part of the glory of marriage and not of the punishment of sin.

  City of God 14.21

• Genesis 1:29

  I myself hold with those who, considering the words, "Male and female he created them, saying, 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth,' " interpret them as referring to visible and bodily sex. This is clear, in view of what follows: "And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.' " Note that both male and female used the food for the body that the other animals used. They received fitting sustenance from it. This was necessary for the animal body lest it suffer from hunger. But it was received in a certain immortal way and from the tree of life, lest they die of old age. I would never believe that, in a place of such great happiness, either the flesh lusted against the spirit or the spirit against the flesh, and there was no internal peace.… We conclude, therefore, that there was no carnal concupiscence in that place. Such was the manner of life that all necessities were taken care of by the proper functions of the members, without arousing lust.

  AGAINST JULIAN 4.4.69

• Genesis 1:31

  And this number is on that account called perfect, because it is completed in its own parts: for it has these three, sixth, third, and half; nor is there any other part found in it, which we can call an aliquot part. The sixth part of it, then, is one; the third part, two; the half, three. But one and two and three complete the same six. And Holy Scripture commends to us the perfection of this number, especially in this, that God finished His works in six days, and on the sixth day man was made in the image of God. And the Son of God came and was made the Son of man, that He might re-create us after the image of God, in the sixth age of the human race. For that is now the present age, whether a thousand years apiece are assigned to each age, or whether we trace out memorable and remarkable epochs or turning-points of time in the divine Scriptures, so that the first age is to be found from Adam until Noah, and the second thence onwards to Abraham, and then next, after the division of Matthew the evangelist, from Abraham to David, from David to the carrying away to Babylon, and from thence to the travail of the Virgin, which three ages joined to those other two make five. Accordingly, the nativity of the Lord began the sixth, which is now going onwards until the hidden end of time.

  ON THE TRINITY 4.4.7

• Genesis 1:31

  Certainly we should not carelessly pass over the words of Scripture that say, "And God saw that all the things that he had made were very good." For when dealing with individual things, it only says, "God saw that it is good," but in speaking of all things, it was not enough to say "good" without adding "very" as well. For if prudent observers consider the single works of God, they find that individually in their own species, they have praiseworthy measures, numbers and orders. How much more then will this be true of all of them together, that is, of the universe that is filled with these individual things gathered into unity? For every beauty that is composed of parts is much more praiseworthy in the whole than in a part.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 1.21.32

• Genesis 1:31

  No one doubts that God himself is the primal good. Indeed things can be said to be similar to God in many ways. Some, created in accordance with power and wisdom, are similar to God because uncreated power and wisdom are in him. Other created things are similar to God in the simple fact that they are alive, and God is incomparably alive and the source of life. Other created things are similar to God in that they have being, for God is the highest being and the source of being. And even those things that merely exist and yet do not live or know are in his likeness, not completely but in a slight degree, because even they are good in their own order, while God is incomparably good in a way transcending all other goods and from whom everything good proceeds.

  EIGHTY-THREE QUESTIONS 51.2

• Genesis 2:3

  Heaven, too, will be the fulfillment of that sabbath rest foretold in the command: "Be still and see that I am God." This, indeed, will be that ultimate sabbath that has no evening and that the Lord foreshadowed in the account of his creation: "And God rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. And he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work that God created and made." And we ourselves will be a "seventh day" when we shall be filled with his blessing and remade by his sanctification. In the stillness of that rest we shall see that he is the God whose divinity we desired for ourselves when we listened to the seducer's words, "You shall be as gods," and so fell away from him, the true God who would have given us a divinity by participation that could never be gained by desertion. For where did the doing without God end but in the undoing of man through the anger of God? Only when we are remade by God and perfected by a greater grace shall we have the eternal stillness of that rest in which we shall see that he is God.

  City of God 22.30

• Genesis 2:5

  Why after mentioning heaven and earth does this passage add "vegetation of the field and food" while remaining silent about so many other things that are in heaven and earth or even the sea, unless it wants "vegetation of the field" to be understood as an invisible created thing such as the soul? For "field" is often used figuratively in Scripture to represent the world.… Further on it adds "before they were upon the earth," which means "before the soul sinned." For once the soul was soiled with earthly desires, it was as if the soul was born on the earth, or its essence derived from the earth.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.3.4-2.4.5

• Genesis 2:5

  Now God also makes the vegetation of the field, but by raining upon the earth; that is, he makes souls become green again by his word. But he waters them from the clouds, that is, from the writings of the prophets and apostles.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.4.5

• Genesis 2:6

  The gentle face of the earth, that is, the dignity of the earth, may be correctly viewed as the mother of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, who was watered by the Holy Spirit, who is signified in the Gospel by the term water.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.24.37

• Genesis 2:7

  We ought to understand this passage so that we do not take the words "he breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul" to mean that a part, as it were, of the nature of God was turned into the soul of man.… The nature of God is not mutable, does not err and is not corrupted by the stains of vices and sins.… Scripture clearly says that the soul was made by the almighty God and that it is therefore not a part of God or the nature of God.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.8.11

• Genesis 2:7

  Scripture says, "And he breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul." If up to this point there was only the body, we should understand that the soul was at this point joined to the body. Perhaps the soul had been already made but was still as if in the mouth of God, that is, in his truth and wisdom. But it did not depart from there as if separated by places, when it was breathed forth. For God is not contained by place but is present everywhere.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.8.10

• Genesis 2:7

  First of all, the fact that God formed man from the mud of the earth usually raises a question about the sort of mud it was or the kind of material the term mud signifies. Those enemies of the Old Book [the Manichaeans], looking at everything in a carnal manner and therefore always being in error, bitingly find fault with this point as well, namely, that God formed man from the mud of the earth. For they say, "Why did God make man from mud? Did he lack a better and heavenly material from which he could make man, that he formed him fragile and mortal from this earthly corruption?" To begin with, they do not understand how many meanings either earth or water has in the Scriptures, for mud is a mixture of earth and water. Also we say that the human body began to waste away and to be fragile and mortal after sin. But the Manicheans abhor in our body only the mortality that we merited as punishment. But even if God made man from the mud of this earth, still what is there that is strange or difficult for God in making the human body such that it would not be subject to corruption if, in obedience to God's commandment, he had not willed to sin? For we say that the beauty of heaven was made from nothing or from formless matter, because we believe that the Maker is almighty. Why is it strange that the almighty Maker could make the body from some sort of mud of the earth so that before sin it afflicted man with no trouble or need and wasted away from no corruption?

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.7.8

• Genesis 2:7

  After his resurrection, when he first appeared to his disciples, he said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." About this giving, then, it was said, "The Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified." "And he breathed upon their face." The One who first gave life to man by breathing and raised him up from the mire and by breathing gave a soul to his members is the same One who breathed upon their face that they might rise up from the slime and renounce filthy works.

  TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 32.6.3

• Genesis 2:8

  In the Scriptures some things are related in such a way that they seem to be following the order of time or occurring in chronological succession, when actually the narrative, without mentioning it, refers to previous events that had been left unmentioned. Unless we understand this distinction, we shall fall into error. For example, we find in Genesis: "And the Lord God planted a paradise of pleasure in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." This last mentioned event would seem to have occurred after God had made man and placed him in paradise. After both of these facts have been mentioned briefly (that is, that God planted a paradise and there "placed man whom he had formed"), the narrative turns back by means of recapitulation and relates what had been planted and that "God brought forth out of the ground all manner of trees fair to behold and pleasant to eat of."

  CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION 2.36.52

• Genesis 2:15

  Although man was placed in paradise so as to work and guard it, that praiseworthy work was not toilsome. For the work in paradise is quite different from the work on the earth to which he was condemned after the sin. The addition "and to guard it" indicated the sort of work it was. For in the tranquility of the happy life, where there is no death, the only work is to guard what you possess.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.11.15

• Genesis 2:17

  God, referring to the forbidden fruit, said to the first man whom he had established in paradise: "In the day that you shall eat of it, you shall die the death." His threat included not only the first part of the first death, that is, the soul's deprivation of God; not only the second part of the first death, that is, the body's deprivation of the soul; not only the whole of the first death in which the soul, separated from both God and the body, is punished; but whatever of death is up to and including that absolutely final and so-called second death … in which the soul, deprived of God but united to the body, suffers eternal punishment.

  City of God 13.12

• Genesis 2:17

  Without good reason certain writers are deeply puzzled when they seek to discover how the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could have been so called before man broke God's commandment by touching it and from experience discerning the difference between the good that he lost and the evil that he committed. Now, this tree was given this name so that our first parents might observe the prohibition and not touch it, taking care to avoid suffering the consequences of touching it against the prohibition. It was not because they subsequently went against the commandment and ate the fruit that the tree became the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Even if they had remained obedient and had taken nothing against that commandment, it would be correctly called by what would happen to them there if they had taken the fruit.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 8.15.33

• Genesis 2:19

  Now we should not imagine God bringing the animals to Adam in a crudely material way. What I have said in the preceding book about the twofold working of divine Providence should be a help here. We must not suppose that the animals were brought to Adam as when hunters and fowlers seek them out and drive them into their nets when they engage in the chase. Nor was there a command spoken by a voice from a cloud in words that rational creatures on hearing would understand and obey. Beasts and birds have not received such power. But according to their nature they obey God, not by a rational free choice of the will but according to the plan by which God moves all creatures at the appropriate times. Although he is himself unmoved in time, the angels who minister to him understand in his Word what things are to be done at appointed times. And hence, without any temporal motion in God, the angels are moved in time to accomplish his will in the creatures that are subject to them.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 9.14.24

• Genesis 2:19

  God first showed man how much better he was than cattle and all irrational animals. This is signified by the statement that all the animals were brought to him that he might see what he would call them and give them names. This shows that man is better equipped than the animals in virtue of reason, since only reason that judges concerning them is able to distinguish and know them by name. The one idea is an easy one to grasp, for man quickly understands that he is better equipped than cattle. The other idea is a difficult one to grasp, namely, that by which he understands that the rational part in him that rules is distinct from the animal part, which is ruled.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.11.16

• Genesis 2:22

  Scripture says that the woman was made as man's helper so that by spiritual union she might bring forth spiritual offspring, that is, the good works of divine praise, while he rules and she obeys. He is ruled by wisdom; she, by the man. For Christ is the head of the man, and the man is the head of the woman.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.11.15

• Genesis 2:22

  Now suppose the woman was not made for the man to be his helper in begetting children, then how would she be able to help him? It would hardly be the case that she would be made to till the earth with him, for there was not yet any labor required to make her help necessary. In any case, if there were any such need, a male helper would be better, and the same could be said of the comfort of another's presence if Adam were perhaps weary of solitude. How much more agreeably could two male friends, rather than a man and a woman, enjoy companionship and conversation in a life shared together. And if they had to make an arrangement in their common life for one to command and the other to obey in order to make sure that opposing wills would not disrupt the peace of the household, there would have been proper rank to assure this, since one would be created first and the other second, and this would be further reinforced if the second were made from the first, as was the case with the woman. Surely no one will say that God was able to make from the rib of the man only a woman and not also a man if he had wished to do so. Consequently, I do not see in what sense the woman was made as a helper for the man if not for the sake of bearing children.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 9.5.9

• Genesis 2:22

  Even in the beginning, when woman was made from a rib in the side of the sleeping man, that had no less a purpose than to symbolize prophetically the union of Christ and his church. Adam's sleep was a mystical foreshadowing of Christ's death, and when his dead body hanging from the cross was pierced by the lance, it was from his side that there issued forth that blood and water that, as we know, signifies the sacraments by which the church is built up. "Built" is the very word the Scripture uses in connection with Eve: "He built the rib into a woman." … So too St. Paul speaks of "building up the body of Christ," which is his church. Therefore woman is as much the creation of God as man is. If she was made from the man, this was to show her oneness with him; and if she was made in the way she was, this was to prefigure the oneness of Christ and the church.

  City of God 22.17

• Genesis 2:23

  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 that 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 the 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 ecstasy that Adam had just experienced he was able to say this as a prophet under divine guidance.

  ON THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 9.19.36

• Genesis 2:24

  Scripture said, "A man will leave father and mother, and he will cling to his wife, and they will be two in one flesh." This is what generally happens in the human race. There is no other way to view its plain, historical sense. But more so, this is all prophecy, and the apostle reminds us of this when he says, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and he will cling to his wife, and they will be two in one flesh. This is a great mystery; I mean in Christ and in the church."

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.13.19

• Genesis 2:25

  [Man and woman] were aware, of course, of their nakedness, but they felt no shame, because no desire stirred their organs in defiance of their deliberate decision. The time had not yet come when the rebellion of the flesh was a witness and reproach to the rebellion of man against his Maker.

  City of God 14.17

• Genesis 3:1

  The serpent signifies the devil, who was certainly not simple. His cleverness is indicated by the fact that he is said to be wiser than all the beasts. The serpent was not said to be in paradise, though the serpent was among the beasts that God made. For paradise signifies the happy life, from which the serpent was absent, because it was already the devil. He had fallen from his beatitude because he did not stay in the truth. And we must not be confused as to how the serpent could speak to the woman, when she was in paradise and it was not. The serpent entered the paradise spiritually and not bodily, as the apostle suggests: "You were living by the principles of this world, obeying the ruler who dominates the air, the spirit who is at work in those who rebel."

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.14.20

• Genesis 3:5

  The conclusion is that the devil would not have begun by an open and obvious sin to tempt man into doing something that God had forbidden, had not man already begun to seek satisfaction in himself and consequently to take pleasure in the words "you shall be as gods." The promise of these words, however, would much more truly have to pass if, by obedience, Adam and Eve had kept close to the ultimate and true source of their being and had not, by pride, imagined that they were themselves the source of their being.… Whoever seeks to be more than he is becomes less. Whenever he aspires to be self-sufficing, he retreats from the One who is truly sufficient for him.

  City of God 14.13

• Genesis 3:5

  And indeed pride, although it be in itself a great sin, is of such sort in itself alone apart from others, that it for the most part follows after and steals with more rapid foot, not so much upon sins as upon things which are actually well done. However, that which he has understood in another sense, is after all most truly said: "Pride is the commencement of all sin;" because it was this which overthrew the devil, from whom arose the origin of sin; and afterwards, when his malice and envy pursued man, who was yet standing in his uprightness, it subverted him in the same way in which he himself fell. For the serpent, in fact, only sought for the door of pride whereby to enter when he said, "Ye shall be as gods." Truly then is it said, "Pride is the commencement of all sin;" and, "The beginning of pride is when a man departeth from God."

  On Nature and Grace

• Genesis 3:6

  In paradise, rebellion certainly began in the soul. There began the process of giving consent to breaking the commandment. This is why the serpent said, "You shall be as gods." But the whole man committed the sin. It was then that the flesh was made sinful flesh, whose faults could be healed only by the One who came in the likeness of sinful flesh.

  AGAINST JULIAN 5.4.17

• Genesis 3:6

  Through [Christ] a pattern of life has been given us, that is to say, a sure path by which we may come to God. For we who have fallen through pride could only return to God through humility. Thus was it said to the first creature of our race: "Taste, and you shall be as God." As I was saying, our Savior has himself condescended to exemplify in his own person that humility which is the path over which we have to travel on our return to God. For "he did not think it robbery to be equal to God but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave." Hence, the Word through whom all things in the beginning were made was created man.

  On Faith and the Creed 4.6

• Genesis 3:7

  Then they saw that they were naked by perverted eyes. Their original simplicity, signified by the term nakedness, now seemed to be something to be ashamed of. And so that they might no longer be simple, they made aprons for themselves from the leaves of the fig tree, as if to cover their private parts, that is, to cover their simplicity, of which that cunning pride was ashamed. The leaves of the fig tree signify a certain itching, if this is correctly said in the case of incorporeal things, which the mind suffers in wondrous ways from the desire and pleasure of lying. As a result those who love to joke are even called "salty" in Latin. For in jokes pretense plays a primary role.

  TWO BOOKS ON GENESIS AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS 2.15.23