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| Of the Word Woman, Especially in Connection with Its Application to Eve.
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Chapter V.—Of the Word
Woman, Especially in Connection with Its Application to Eve.
But since they use the name of woman in
such a way as to think it inapplicable save to her alone who has known
a man, the pertinence of the propriety of this word to the sex itself,
not to a grade of the sex, must be proved by us; that virgins as
well (as others) may be commonly comprised in it.
When this kind of second human being was made by
God for man’s assistance, that female was forthwith named
woman; still happy, still worthy of paradise, still
virgin. “She shall be called,” said (Adam),
“Woman.” And accordingly you have the name,—I
say, not already common to a virgin,
but—proper (to her; a name) which from the beginning was
allotted to a virgin. But some ingeniously will have it
that it was said of the future, “She shall be
called woman,” as if she were destined to be so when she
had resigned her virginity; since he added withal: “For
this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and be conglutinated to
his own woman; and the two shall be one flesh.” Let
them therefore among whom that subtlety obtains show us first, if she
were surnamed woman with a future reference, what name she
meantime received. For without a name expressive of her
present quality she cannot have been. But what kind of
(hypothesis) is it that one who, with an eye to the future, was called
by a definite name, at the present time should have nothing for a
surname? On all animals Adam imposed names; and on none on the
ground of future condition, but on the ground of the present purpose
which each particular nature served;292
called (as each
nature was) by that to which from the beginning it showed a
propensity. What, then, was she at that time called? Why,
as often as she is named in the Scripture, she has the appellation
woman before she was wedded, and never virgin
while she was a virgin.
This name was at that time the only one she had,
and (that) when nothing was (as yet) said prophetically. For when
the Scripture records that “the two were naked, Adam and his
woman,” neither does this savour of the future, as if it
said “his woman” as a presage of
“wife;” but because his woman293
was withal unwedded, as being (formed) from
his own substance. “This bone,” he says, “out
of my bones, and flesh out of my flesh, shall be called
woman.” Hence, then, it is from the tacit
consciousness of nature that the actual divinity of the soul has educed
into the ordinary usage of common speech, unawares to men, (just as
it has thus educed many other things too which we shall
elsewhere be able to show to derive from the Scriptures the origin of
their doing and saying,) our fashion of calling our wives our
women, however improperly withal we may in some instances
speak. For the Greeks, too, who use the name of woman more
(than we do) in the sense of wife, have other names appropriate
to wife. But I prefer to assign this usage as a testimony
to Scripture. For when two are made into one flesh through the
marriage-tie, the “flesh of flesh and bone of bones” is
called the woman of him of whose substance she begins to be
accounted by being made his wife. Thus woman is not
by nature a name of wife, but wife by condition is a name
of woman. In fine, womanhood is predicable apart
from wifehood; but wifehood apart from womanhood
is not, because it cannot even exist. Having therefore settled
the name of the newly-made female—which (name) is
woman—and having explained what she formerly was, that is,
having sealed the name to her, he immediately turned to the prophetic
reason, so as to say, “On this account shall a man leave father
and mother.” The name is so truly separate from the
prophecy, as far as (the prophecy) from the individual person herself,
that of course it is not with reference to Eve herself that (Adam) has
uttered (the prophecy), but with a view to those future females whom he
has named in the maternal fount of the feminine race. Besides,
Adam was not to leave “father and mother”—whom he had
not—for the sake of Eve. Therefore that which was
prophetically said does not apply to Eve, because it does not to Adam
either. For it was predicted with regard to the condition of
husbands, who were destined to leave their parents for a
woman’s sake; which could not chance to Eve, because it
could not to Adam either.
If the case is so, it is apparent that she was not
surnamed woman on account of a future (circumstance), to whom (that) future
(circumstance) did not apply.
To this is added, that (Adam) himself published
the reason of the name. For, after saying, “She shall be
called woman,” he said, “inasmuch as she hath been
taken out of man”—the man himself withal being still a
virgin. But we will speak, too, about the name of
man294
in its own
place. Accordingly, let none interpret with a prophetic reference
a name which was deduced from another signification; especially since
it is apparent when she did receive a name founded upon a future
(circumstance)—there, namely, where she is surnamed
“Eve,” with a personal name now, because the
natural one had gone before.295
For if
“Eve” means “the mother of the living,” behold,
she is surnamed from a future (circumstance)! behold, she is
pre-announced to be a wife, and not a virgin! This
will be the name of one who is about to wed; for of the bride (comes)
the mother.
Thus in this case too it is shown, that it was not
from a future (circumstance) that she was at that time named
woman, who was shortly after to receive the name which would be
proper to her future condition.
Sufficient answer has been made to this part (of the
question).E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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