From: Genesis 2:7ab, 15b, 18-24
The Creation of Adam
The Creation of Eve
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Commentary:
2:7. As far as his body is concerned, man belongs to the earth. To affirm this,
the sacred writer must have been always conscious of the fact that when a per-
son dies, his/her body will turn into dust, as Genesis 3:19 will in due course tell
us. Or it may be that this sort of account (a special one like the literary genre of
all these chapters) is based on the similarity between the word “adam”, which
means man in general, and “adamah”, which means “reddish soil”; and given
that the words look alike, the sacred writer may have drawn the conclusion that
there is in fact a connection between the two very things (unsophisticated etymo-
logy goes in for this sort of thing). But the fact that man belongs to the earth is
not his most characteristic feature: as the author sees it, animals too are made
up of the stuff of the earth. What makes man different is the fact that he receives
his life from God. Life is depicted here in terms of breathing, because only living
animals: breathe. The fact that God infuses life into man in this way means that
although man on account of his corporeal nature is material, his existence as a
living being comes directly from God, that is, it is animated by a vital principle —
the soul or the spirit—which does not derive from the earth. This principle of life
received from God also endows man’s body with its own dignity and puts it on
a higher level than that of animals.
God is portrayed as a potter who models man’s body in clay; this means that
man is supposed to live in accordance with a source of life that is higher than
that deriving from matter The image of God as a potter shows that man (all of
him) is in God’s hands just like clay in a potter’s hands; he should not resist or
oppose God’s will (cf Is 29:16; Jer 18:6; Rom 9:20-21).
2:18-24. God continues to take care of man, his creature. The sacred writer con-
veys this by means of a human metaphor, depicting God as a potter who realizes
his creation is not yet perfect. The creation of the human being is not yet over: he
needs to be able to live in a full and deep union with another of his kind. The ani-
mals were also created by God, but they cannot provide complete companion-
ship. So God creates woman, giving her the same body as man. From now on it
is possible for the human being to communicate. The creation of woman, there-
fore, marks the climax of God’s love for the human being he created.
This passage also shows us man’s interiority: he is aware of his own aloneness.
Although here loneliness is more a possibility and a fear rather than a real situa-
tion, we are being told that it is through awareness of being alone that man can
appreciate the benefit of communion with others.
2:19-20. Like man, animals are created out of matter, but they are not said to
have received from God the breath of life. Only man is given the breath of life,
and this is what makes him essentially different from animals: man has a form
of life given him directly by God; that is to say, he is animated by a spiritual prin-
ciple which enables him to converse with God and to have real communion with
other human beings. We call this “soul” or “spirit”. It makes man more akin to
God than to animals, even though the human body is made from the earth and
belongs to the earth just as an animal’s body does (cf. the notes on 1:26 and
2:7).
“The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to
be the ‘form’ of the body (cf. Council of Vienne, “Fidei Catholicae”): that is, it is
because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, hu-
man body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their
union forms a single nature” (”Catechism of the Catholic Church”, 365).
2:21-22. This sleep is a kind of death; it is as if God suspended the life he gave
man, in order to re-shape him so that he can begin to live again in another way —
by being two, man and woman, and no longer alone. By describing the creation
of woman as coming from one of Adam’s ribs, the sacred writer is saying that,
contrary to people’s thinking at the time, man and woman have the same nature
and the same dignity, for both have come from the same piece of clay that God
shaped and made into a living being. The Bible is also explaining the mutual at-
traction man and woman have for one another.
2.23 When man—now in the sense of the male human being—recognizes woman
as a person who is his equal, someone who has the same nature as himself, he
discovers in her the fit “helper” God wanted him to have. Now indeed the creation
of the human being is complete, having become “man becomes the image of
God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion”
(Bl. John Paul II, General Audience, 4 November 1979).
The first man’s acclaim for the first woman shows the capacity both have to as-
sociate intimately in marriage. Man’s attitude to woman as it comes across here
is that of husband to wife. “In his wife he sees the fulfillment of God’s intention:
‘It not good that the man should he alone; will make him a helper fit for him,’ and
he makes his own the cry of Adam, the first husband: ‘This at last is bone of my
bones and flesh of my flesh.’ Authentic conjugal love presupposes and requires
that a man have a profound respect for the equal dignity of his wife: ‘You are not
her master,’ writes St Ambrose (”Hexaemeron”, 5, 7, 19) ‘but her husband; she
was not given to you to be your slave, but your wife [...]. Reciprocate her atten-
tiveness to you and be grateful to her for her love”’ (Bl. John Paul II, “Familiaris
Consortio”, 25).
2:24. These words are a comment by the sacred writer in which, having told the
story of the creation of woman, he depicts the institution of marriage as some-
thing established by God at the time when human life began. As Bl. John Paul
II explains, “this conjugal communion sinks its roots in the natural complemen-
tarity that exists between man and woman, and is nurtured through the personal
willingness of the spouses to share their entire life-project, what they have and
what they are: for this reason such communion is the fruit and the sign of a pro-
foundly human need” (”Farniliaris Consortio”, 19).
By joining in marriage, man and woman form a family. Even the earliest trans-
lations of the Bible (Greek and Aramaic), interpreted this passage as meaning
“the two will become one flesh”, thereby indicating that marriage as willed by
God was monogamous. Jesus also referred to this passage about the origin of
man to teach the indissolubility of marriage, drawing the conclusion that “what
God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mt 19:5 and par.) The Church
teaches the same: “The intimate partnership of life and the love which constitutes
the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with
its own proper laws: it is rooted in the contract of its partners, that is, in their ir-
revocable personal consent. It is an institution confirmed by the divine law and re-
ceiving its stability, even in the eyes of society, from the human act by which the
partners mutually surrender themselves to each other; for the good of the part-
ners, of the children, and of society this sacred bond no longer depends on hu-
man decision alone. For God himself is the author of marriage and has endowed
it with various benefits and with various ends in view” (Vatican II, “Gaudium Et
Spes”, 48,).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Hebrews 2:9-11
Jesus, Man’s Brother, was Crowned with Glory and Honor Above the Angel
[10] For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing
many sons to glory should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through
suffering. [11] For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have all one
origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
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Commentary:
9. The words “who for a little while was made lower than the angels” refer to Je-
sus in the crisis of his Passion and Death, when he freely humbled himself and
lowered himself to suffer punishment and death — sufferings to which angels are
not subject.
“For a little while” is a translation of the Greek word which the New Vulgate ren-
ders as “paulo minus” (a little less than), and which also occurs in Hebrews 2:7
in the quotation from Psalm 8. The RSV translation in both instances is “for a
little while”.
Every human creature, including Christ as man, can be seen in some sense as
lower than the angels. This inferiority basically has to do with the fact that human
knowledge is inferior to that of angels because it is dependent on sense experi-
ence, and also because angels cannot experience suffering and death. “The an-
gels cannot suffer and are immortal by nature, so that when Christ deigned to
submit to his passion and death he made himself lower than them, not because
he lost his sublimity or in any way was diminished, but because he took on our
weakness. He made himself lower than the angels, not as far as his divinity or
his soul were concerned but only in respect of his body” (”Commentary on Heb.”,
2, 2).
Christ’s self-abasement is a permanent example to us to strive to respond to his
love. St John Chrysostom suggests that we draw from it this practical lesson: “If
he whom the angels worship consented, out of love for us, to become for a time
lower than them, you for your part should endure everything out of love for him”
(”Hom. on Heb.”, 4).
One result of Christ’s passion was his exaltation and glorification. Because Christ
attained victory on the Cross, to the benefit of all mankind, the Cross is the only
route to heaven: “The holy cross is shining upon us”, the Church says. “In the
cross is victory, in the cross is power. By the cross every sin is overcome” (”Li-
turgy of the Hours”, Exaltation of the Cross, Morning Prayer, Ant. 3). But virtue
of Christ’s passion, the Cross is no longer an ignominious scaffold; it is a glorious
throne. Tradition attributes to St Andrew the Apostle these words in praise of the
cross on which he was going to die: “O goodly Cross, glorified by the limbs of our
Lord, O Cross so long desired, so ardently loved, so tirelessly sought and now of-
fered to me: take me to my Master so that he who redeemed me through thee,
may welcome me through thee” (”Ex Passione S. Andreae”, Reading).
Through his death, Christ has been crowned with glory and honor; moreover he
has died on our behalf. His death and glorification are the cause and model of
our salvation and glorification. Sacrifice, atonement and merit are indissolubly
linked to the redemptive work of Christ and constitute a “grace of God”, that is, a
gratuitous gift from God. St Thomas Aquinas explains that “the passion of Christ
is here alluded to in three ways. Firstly, its cause is referred to, for the text says
‘by the grace of God’; then, its usefulness, when it says ‘for every one’; thirdly, its
outcome, when it says ‘might taste”’ (”Commentary on Heb.”, 2, 3): Jesus did in-
deed, by the will of the Father, experience or “taste” death. His death is de-
scribed as being like a bitter drink which he chose to take in sips, as if savoring
it. The “cup” or chalice of the agony in the garden comes immediately to mind
(cf. Mt 26:39; Mk 14:26; Lk 22:42; In 18:11; cf. also Mt 20:22f and Mk 10:38f).
Christian tradition has seen these words about “tasting death” as underlining that
Christ underwent a most severe passion voluntarily, accepting it to atone for all
the sins of mankind. These words also show that he accepted death without cea-
sing to be Lord of life: “This expression”, St John Chrysostom states, “is very pre-
cise. It does not say ‘that by the grace of God he might die’, for the Lord once he
tasted death delayed there only for a moment and immediately rose [...]. All men
fear death; therefore, to enable us to take death in our stride, he tasted death
even though it was not necessary for him to do so” (”Hom. on Heb.”, 4).
10. After pointing to the results of Christ’s death, the text stresses how appropri-
ate it was that he should be abased in this way: he had to make himself in every
way like his brethren in order to help them.
God the Father, who is the beginning and end of all things, desired to bring men
to glory by means of his Son. Christ was to be the author of their salvation and
therefore it was fitting that he should be made perfect through suffering. The Fa-
ther made his Son “perfect” in the sense that by becoming man and therefore
being able to suffer and die, he was fully equipped to be mankind’s representa-
tive. “God has acted in a manner in keeping with his kindness towards us: he
has clothed his first-born in a glory greater than that of all mankind and made him
outstanding as a champion. Suffering is, therefore, a way to attain perfection and
a source of salvation” (”Hom. on Heb.”, 4). By perfectly obeying his Father, offer-
ing his life and especially his passion and death, Christ offers a perfect and su-
perabundant sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of mankind and makes full
atonement to the Father. As a reward for his obedience, Christ, as man, is made
Head of the Church and King of the universe. It is in that sense that he is made
“perfect” by the Father.
Ever since the Redemption, human suffering has become a way to perfection: it
acts as expiation for personal sins, it spurs man to assert his spiritual and trans-
cendental dimension, it makes for solidarity with others and links man to Christ’s
sacrifice. “Suffering must serve for conversion, that is, for the rebuilding of good-
ness in the subject, who can recognize the divine mercy in this call to repen-
tance [...] . But in order to perceive the true answer to the ‘why’ of suffering, we
must look to the revelation of divine love, the ultimate source of the meaning of
everything that exists [...]. Christ causes us to enter into the mystery and to dis-
cover the ‘why’ of suffering, as far as we are capable of grasping the sublimity of
divine love” (Bl. John Paul II, “Salvifici Doloris”, 12-13).
11. To accomplish the salvation of men Christ needed to be one of them — to
share, with them, a human nature. This is why Christ is the only “true sanctifier”,
that is, the priest who performs rites and sacrifices, taking things stained by sin
and making them pure and pleasing to God, that is, holy. Our Lord said some-
thing similar in the Gospel: “For their sake I consecrate myself, that they also
may be consecrated in truth” (In 17:19).
“Have all one origin”. Various interpretations have been given to these words.
Most have to do with the parallelism between the first man and Christ (cf. Acts
17:26; Rom 5:15-19), seeing this “origin” as Adam — in which case the text
would mean that Christ and other men are children of Adam. A more usual in-
terpretation sees the “one” origin as being God, thus stressing that Christ’s holy
humanity and the humanity of men both stem from the one Creator and derive
from the first man. In either case, Christ and the rest of men can rightly be called
“brethren”. “As to his divine generation he has no brethren or co-heirs, the only-
begotten Son of the Father, while we mortals are the work of his hands. But if
we consider his birth as man, he not only calls many by the name of brethren,
but treats them as such, since he admits them to share with him the glory of
his paternal inheritance” (”St Pius V Catechism”, I, 3, 10).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.