Creation of Adam and Eve

“ And they were afraid.
9 Then Adam said to Eve, "See this fire of which we have a portion in us: which formerly yielded to us, but no longer does so, now that we have transgressed the limit of creation, and changed our condition, and our nature is altered. ”

“ But originally, before the sin of the fall, the difference was far greater and far more illustrious; while as yet Adam and Eve fully knew God and all his creatures, and were wholly absorbed in the goodness, righteousness and worship of God. Hence also there was between Adam and Eve themselves a singular unity of minds and of wills. Nor was there in the whole world an object sweeter to Adam or more beautiful in his eyes than his Eve! Nor is a wife, as the heathen say, a necessary evil. And why call they a wife an evil? The reason is manifest. They know nothing of the cause of evil. ”

“ We cannot believe that Adam and Eve went through the many processes necessary for the production of the needles and thread, with which to sew their leaves together. Then the conversation between god, as he took his stroll in the garden in the cool of the evening, and Adam and Eve, is just what we should expect from the crude imaginations of our early ancestors; as also is the manner in which the man placed the blame on the woman, and she in her turn upon the serpent. ”

“ And therefore, as certain as it can be, that man was made perfect and happy, and that God is wise and good; so certain is it, that, when Adam and Eve were formed, they were immediately enabled by God to converse and communicate their thoughts, in all the perfection of language necessary to all the ends of their creation. And as this was the conduct most becoming the goodness of God, so we are assured from Moses, that it was that to which his infinite wisdom determined him; for we find that Adam gave names to all the creatures before Eve was formed ”

“ So that by this name Eve consoled herself against the evils she had brought upon herself, and set against them the acquisition of eternal life and salvation, which she should obtain by her Seed, against that loss of life and salvation which she had incurred by sin and Satan. It was as if she had said to her Adam, "I remember with sorrow what we have lost by our sin; but now, let us speak of and hope for nothing but recovery and acquisition. I have gotten a man of God, who will acquire and recover for us that glory which we have lost." ”

“ There is indeed in this life a certain knowledge of God in the saints, derived from the Word and the Holy Spirit. But that knowledge of all nature, that understanding of the qualities of all trees and the properties of all herbs, that clear discernment of the natures of all beasts, these are endowments of our nature now utterly lost and irreparable.
If therefore we would talk about a philosopher, let us talk about Adam! Let us speak of our first parents, while they were as yet pure and unfallen through sin! For Adam and Eve had the most perfect knowledge of God. ”

“ God made the woman for the man; he was not made for her, but she was made for him, and derived, under God, her being from him. The apostle says, “Neither was the man created for the woman: but the woman for the man,” to be a suitable helper and comfort to him. And thus God has shown us, that every son of Adam should be united to a daughter of Eve to the end of the world. 3. God made the woman out of the man: as Adam was immediately from God, so Eve was immediately from Adam ”

“ God established it, and man, except by special permission, has no right to annul it. There can be no doubt that the creation of Eve perfected the happiness of Adam; hence, our all-wise and merciful Father made her as he made Adam, in his own image after his likeness, crowned her with glory and honor, and placed in her hand, as well as in his, the sceptre of dominion over the whole lower creation. Where there was perfect equality, and the same ability to receive and comprehend divine truth, and to obey divine injunctions, there could be no superiority. ”

“ Then God commanded Gabriel to create Eve from under the left shoulder of Adam., Now it came to pass, after the creation of Eve and of all the animals, that Adam and Eve quarreled over the question whether the human race should be descended from him or her, for each wished to be the sole begetter of the race. ”

“ As it must have required a woman to write the parable, so perhaps it requires a woman to expound it.
I pass over the initial fact that the representation of Eve as the last in an ascending order of creation, plainly signifies that she is to be considered the most nearly, if not the absolutely, perfect, of created things. The first thing of real importance in the narrative is the purpose of Eve’s creation, to fill a need, Adam’s. “It was not good that the man should be alone.” The whole universe was not enough for Adam without Eve. ”

“ Herein it is seen that the maternal egg never brought forth Adam. Eve was All nativity in thought. formed from Adam's rib, not from a fœtal ovum. Whatever theory may be adopted by general mortal thought, to account for human origin, that thought is sure to become the signal for the appearance of that method in finite forms and operations. If consentaneous human belief agrees upon an ovum as the point of emergence for the human race, this potent belief will immediately supersede the more ancient superstition about the creation from dust, or from the rib of our primeval father. ”

“ When all these endowments are put together they do not compose a man in whom you can at once behold the image of God shining forth, and more especially so when to all these endowments you add "dominion" over the whole creation. For as Adam and Eve acknowledged God to be Lord, so afterwards they themselves held dominion over all creatures in the air, on the earth and in the sea. Who can express in words the excellency and majesty of this "dominion?" For my belief is that Adam could by one word command the lion as we command a favorite dog. ”

“ In short, when Adam and Eve came forth from the hand of their potter, they were morally in a similar condition to a new-born babe; excepting that a babe is born under the constitution of sin, and involuntarily subjected to "vanity" (Rom 3:20) ; while they first beheld the light in a state of things where evil had as yet no place. They were created in the stature of a perfect man and woman; but with their sexual feelings undeveloped; in ignorance, and without experience.
The interval between their formation and the transgression was the period of their novitiate. The Spirit of God had made them ”

“ The very ascription of speech to God, gives offence.—Again, some raw conceit of the advanced state of the human intellect rejects with scorn the notion of Adam oracularly bestowing names on God's creatures. Finally, the creation of Eve, moulded by God from the side of the Protoplast, is declared to savour so plainly of the mythical, allegorical, or figurative; that the narrative must be allowed to be altogether unworthy of such wits as ours. ”

“ The devil takes on the form of a beguiling light.
Chapter XXVIII - The Devil pretends to lead Adam and Eve to the water to bathe.
Chapter XXIX - God tells Adam of the Devil's purpose. (v. 4) .
Chapter XXX - Adam receives the first worldly goods.
Chapter XXXI - They make themselves more comfortable in the Cave of Treasures on the third day.
Chapter XXXII - Adam and Eve go into the water to pray.
Chapter XXXIII - Satan falsely promises the "bright light."
Chapter XXXIV - Adam recalls the creation of Eve. He eloquently appeals for food and drink. ”

“ Chapter VIII - The "Bright Nature" of man is taken away.
1 Then Adam cried and said, "O God, when we lived in the garden, and our hearts were lifted up, we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven, but now we can't see like we used to; no, when we entered the cave, all creation became hidden from us." ”

“ I have already observed that Eve was created, as well as Adam, by a peculiar counsel of God, in order that it might be manifest that she was a partaker with him of a better and an immortal life; a hope not possessed by any of the other living creatures, who live a natural life only without any hope of an eternal life. ”

“ Eve therefore did not hear these things from Adam only, but she was by nature so pure from sin and so full of the knowledge of God that she saw and understood the Word of God for herself. As to us in our present state we still possess indeed some certain dull and as it were dead remnants of this knowledge. But all animals besides are altogether void of such understanding. They know not their Creator nor their origin nor their end; nor whence nor why they were created. No other animals therefore possess anything whatever of this similitude of God. ”

“ On the 93rd day of the creation, the 2nd day of the 46th week, at the summer solstice, the sun and moon being in Cancer, on the 25th of the month of June and 1st of Epiphi, Eve the helpmeet of Adam was brought by God into Paradise, on the 80th day of her creation, and Adam took her and named her Eve, which is interpreted Life. ”

“ When the Creator joined Adam and Eve together, as the progenitors of the human race, we do not learn that he set any limit to the continuance of their marriage relations. We have no reason to doubt that the gift of Eve, to Adam, was designed to be as eternal as himself.
Man, in his fulness, is a twofold organization—male and female. Either being incapable of filling the measure of their creation alone, it requires the union of the two to complete man in the image of God, for in Gen. ”

“ Hence it was absolutely necessary that the Son of God should become a victim or sacrifice for us, that by the offering of himself he might accomplish all these things for us; that he might take away sin, swallow up death and restore unto us the obedience which we had lost. All these treasures therefore we do possess in Christ, but in hope. Thus Adam, and thus Eve, lived and conquered by this hope. And in the same manner all believers live and conquer, by the same hope, and will so live and conquer until the last day. ”

“ For Adam and Eve long for those very things which God had prohibited, and they so long for them as to become disobedient to God and obedient to Satan. Nor can we entertain any doubt of the corruption of the understanding also, when we see the counsel of covering themselves which Adam and Eve adopted, and by which they thought they were safe. ”

“ The subtlety which we are contemplating is seen also from the stratagem of Satan in attacking the weak part of human nature; namely Eve, the woman; and not Adam, the man. For although both of them were created equally righteous, yet Adam excelled Eve. For as in all the endowments of nature, the male strength exceeds that of the female sex, so in the state of the innocency and perfection of human nature, the male in some degree excelled the female. Hence Satan, seeing that Adam was the more excellent creature, dared not attack him ”

“ He wills that every man should live content with his own wife. And although, alas! even that union of married people itself is very far from being pure, as it would have been had man continued in his state of innocency; nevertheless even in the midst of the vices of lust and of all the other calamities of the fall of Adam, the "blessing" of God on marriage still stands unaltered. For the fact of Adam knowing Eve his wife, which Moses records, was not written for Adam and Eve's sake. When Moses penned these words, Adam and Eve had long been reduced to their original dust. ”

“ To have permitted Adam and Eve to become deathless and to remain so, in a state of good and evil such as the world experience, would have been a disproportionate and unmerciful punishment. It would have been to populate the earth with deathless sinners; and to convert it into the abode of deathless giants in crime; in other words, the earth would have become, what creed theologists describe "hell" to be in their imagination. ”

“ Wherefore leaving all such questions as these, we will abide simply by the history of the facts, as they are recorded by Moses; that Eve was formed out of the rib of Adam, and that the aperture made in that part of his body was closed up with flesh. Thus Adam was made out of the dust of the ground. I was made out of a drop of my father's blood. But how my mother conceived me, how I was formed in the womb, how my bones grew there, Eccles. 11:5, all this I leave to the glory of my Creator. It is indeed incredible that a man should be born from a drop of blood ”

“ When, therefore, Elohim said "let us make man in our image;" and it is added, "male and female created he them;" it would seem that both the man and the woman were created in the image and likeness of Elohim. In this case, some of the Elohim are represented by Adam's form, and some by Eve's. I see no reason why it should not be so. When mankind arises from the dead, they will doubtless rise as immortal men and women; and then, says Jesus, "they are equal to the angels;" on an equality with them in every respect. Adam only was in the image of Him that created him ”

“ And they attempt to render this interpretation likely and probable by saying, that the serpent reverenced the male as his lord, but that he attacked the female, whom, although she was holy as the man, yet as being the weaker creature, he considered to be the better adapted to yield to his persuasion, and that therefore Eve was deceived by the serpent, and not Adam. ”